Did anyone notice the carpenter, his weathered hands holding two birds, or the young wife beside him, gently carrying her child through the Temple Mount crowd? Only forty days had passed (Lev. 12:2, 4) since that momentous night when the Ancient of Days entered time and the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God from His face illuminated this dark planet.
Joseph and Mary had come “to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord” (v. 22). The One who would be known to His own as the Kurios was to be presented to the Kurios. And at the other end of His days on earth, when He would ascend up in glorious triumph beyond the heavens, we read, ‘The Lord (Kurios) said to my Lord (Kurios), “Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool” (Mt. 22:44). And He will!
The Epitome of Devotedness
Jesus was not only a lord in the sense that many teachers, sages, and masters were given the title “lord” (“as there are…many lords,” 1 Cor. 8:8). No, concerning the Child presented that day, His Father—at the crescendo of human history—with joy “will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Tim. 6:15).
The Lord taught us a crucial principle regarding true devotedness. He evidenced by everything He did that He was a Servant to men but, always and in every way, a Servant of God. Only in this way could He say after three short years, “I have finished the work” because He was not doing what everyone wanted Him to do, adding, “which You have given Me to do” (Jn. 17:4).
Believers are warned not to act as lords over their brothers (1 Pet. 5:2-3) because “One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren” (Mt. 23:8). Instead we are to act like our Lord who “did not come to be served, but to serve” (Mk. 10:45), and did His service only for God’s glory (Jn. 17:4).
Devotedness in the Church
This is so clear in the life of the early church. Notice how everything they did was carefully attributed to their Kurios:
1. Salvation was described as turning to the Lord (Acts 9:35; 11:21, 24) or as being added to the Lord (5:14; 11:24). How important to rediscover this way of communicating the gospel; not that sinners merely acknowledge a series of Bible ideas but that they turn and embrace the Lord Himself!
2. Stewardship was described as giving to the Lord. The Macedonian believers, stellar examples of the grace of giving, “first gave themselves to the Lord” (2 Cor. 8:5) and in this they followed their Lord (v. 9) who, in giving Himself for us (Gal. 2:20), gave Himself to God (Eph. 5:2; Heb. 9:14). Paul never thanks the saints for their gifts; rather he thanks the Lord for them (1 Cor. 1:4; Phil. 1:3), the giver of everything good.
3. Service is described as follows: “Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men” (Eph. 6:6-7). In fact, such service will be reimbursed by the Lord since it was done for Him (v. 8).
4. Submission is always linked to the Lord, as in “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord” (5:22) and “Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord” (Col 3:20). The Lord never asks us to do what He did not do Himself; He veiled Himself; He submitted Himself; He obeyed His imperfect parents, the only perfect Child in history.
5. Sanctification is clearly associated with our devotedness to the Lord. “He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord… He who eats, eats to the Lord… For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s” (Rom. 14:6, 8). Decision-making is simple, if not always easy. It is only a question of “finding what is acceptable to the Lord” (Eph. 5:10).
In Conclusion
Therefore the faithfulness of the first century believers in all that they did—evangelism, good works, prayer, worship, fellowship, and their obedience to the Word—was not devotion to these activities per se, but devotion to the Lord Himself, manifested in so many eloquent ways. May all we do also be faithfully “ministered to the Lord” (Acts 13:2).