That was your strongest point? Seriously? Perhaps it is a matter of semantics. When you use the term "perfected" - as the passage in Luke 13 that you cited when Jesus was talking about his goals and purpose for the actions he took - you seem to take this to mean MORE than Jesus' finishing his work and apply it to his "perfection" or "sinlessness". You said that he had to "work out his own salvation" in order to rejoin the Father in Heaven. This view comes from that basic LDS premise that Jesus was only a man who had to work his way to Divinity - just like Mormonism believes men within the LDS system can also attain their own godhood. Those are the LDS-colored glasses I spoke of. You start out on the wrong footing so it's no wonder that anything after that will also be incorrect.
However, if you start with - like I said - the Scriptural understanding that there is NO OTHER GOD but Jehovah (the I AM) and that He always was and always will be, that Jesus is Almighty God in the flesh (incarnate), that Almighty God is the only Savior, that Jesus took on human flesh so that he could be the sinless sacrifice for our sins, then you can understand that the Son of God, Jesus, was both Divine and human. The Eternal Father has an Eternal Son. There is a hierarchy within the Godhead - not one of superiority but of purpose. That is how Jesus could say that he came to do his Father's will and also how the Holy Spirit, also God, was sent by the Father and the Son to be the Comforter and to lead us into all truth.
The verse from Luke 2 was speaking of the Son of God (Jesus) who came into this world as a little baby. He learned obedience from the things he suffered (Hebrews 5:8). He, being found in appearance as a man, humbled himself by becoming obedient to death -- even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:8). Jesus became OUR high priest, and, as a partaker of our nature (while continuing to be God), he could become our Kinsman Redeemer, and make propitiation for our sins by His death, burial and resurrection. The Gill's Exposition of the Bible has this to say about that passage in Hebrews 5:8-
I agree with this and hope this helps to answer your questions. Jesus was always obedient to the Father's will and he learned through experience as he grew and matured how to be human, yet always retaining his Divine nature. He had to humble himself to become a man, but he did it so that we could be saved through him. I have no fear of the truth, do you?
How about the strongest points of my argument for starters. Luke 2:52 52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man. If Jesus was perfected from the beginning, how could he increase in favour[sic] with God and Wisdom?
To hear-tell Stormie's view of this passage, he woulda thought that the diapered Jesus should have grabbed the nearest pulpit and proceeded to give his parents lectures on parenting.
Have you not read Phillippians 2?
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, e humbled himself
The Son of God "made Himself" nothing; he took on a servant's posture -- being made in human likeness; he humbled Himself.
And when Jesus prayed to His Father in John 17, He wasn't simply uttering words that any person could utter because of some so-called notion of Mormon pre-existence: 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
Glory in the Bible means weighty...a similar thing we accord to say a Supreme Court whose made a weighty judgment. It conveys loftiness; majesty. Jesus was referencing a unique glory that only He, the Father, and the Holy Spirit shared.
And Mormons reduce it by attempting to say that "Oh, that's just something we all had in the pre-existence." (Much in the same way Mormon theology reduces Heavenly Father's sovereign Almighty uniqueness when it claims man is just as eternal past as Heavenly Father is)