Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.
John 4:34

From the moment Jesus was born, He began living a life of absolute sinless perfection (1 Peter 2:22), always doing His Father’s will perfectly (John 6:38), always suffering as the servant sent to save (Isaiah 52:13–53:12). Think about it:

He was born without dignity to an unwed mother. In a stable. Laid in a feed trough. Attended by barnyard animals. Visited first by shepherds (near the lowest in the socio-economic food chain). Visited by Gentiles from afar (while nearby His own people were disinterested). The Roman ruler, Herod, wanted Him killed while He was still a baby. His family fled to hide in Egypt to save His life. He returned to Nazareth, a place so lowly that people commonly said, “Can any good thing come from Nazareth?”

Then obscurity—obscurity for 30 years working as a tradesman in Joseph’s carpentry shop. Every day of those thirty years, even in mundane obscurity, Jesus lived righteously. To what end? To earn God’s reward reserved for the righteous. No one else had ever earned it. No one else ever will. Why? Because no one can. Why? Because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). All but Jesus, that is. He labored to earn the reward of righteousness—so He could give it to the people He came to save.

Then, at age 30, again, at just the right time, Jesus ventured out of the carpentry shop to begin a three-year public ministry unlike that of any other. Many people who lived previously were types of Christ in small isolated ways—but none of them was truly like Him. He only always did the Father’s will. Perfectly. In everything. All the time. Without complaining. Why? He was earning the reward of righteousness with which He would one day robe His Bride: the people He came to save.