Yesterday on Things Unseen, we were talking about how the gospel writer Luke emphasizes

that Jesus grew in favor with God.

Some Christians, I think, have found that a very startling statement.

But in fact, it's a very important statement about our Lord's true humanity.

He was truly man as well as truly God.

His humanity had exactly the same properties as ours, sin apart. And we'd started to think about this because of this question,

what is Jesus really like? So important to ask that question. Otherwise, Jesus is little more than a

figment of our imagination. Our own personal Jesus invented in our own minds.

It doesn't actually have much relationship to the person who's described in the pages of the

New Testament.

That's where we need to go, where we need to soak our minds and affections, if we're going

to know the real Jesus.

So where do we begin?

Of course, we can begin, as it were, at the beginning.

And we got close to that yesterday

when we were thinking about what Luke tells us about Jesus

when he was 12 years old.

But here's another place to begin.

It's what Jesus said about himself. And of all the things he said

about himself, perhaps Matthew chapter 11 verses 25 to 30 is the most obvious passage to look at.

There Jesus identifies himself as the Son of God, the only one who knows God fully, the only one who

can reveal the Father to us. No one knows the Father, he says, except the Son, and those to whom

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