Finding Jesus

Amen. Thank you. Choir, if you have your Bibles, would you turn with me to Luke, Chapter 2? The first two chapters of Luke are Luke's conversation that he had with Mary. And so Mary has given us viewpoints of how things went when Jesus was a child.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

And this is the last of the stories of Jesus's childhood when he went to the temple when he was 12 years old. And it's an important story because he becomes aware that he is the Messiah and that God has a special plan for him. And the plan is that whatever it goes and wherever it takes him, he is in the middle of that plan. And the first recorded words of Jesus are in these verses that we have. And Mary and Joseph, her his mother and father, his earthly mother and father quite understand that.

And they kind of misunderstood that. But Jesus makes his statement about his mission and what he is going to happen and how God is going to lead him somewhere as he steps out into his future as a 12 year old boy. And it's amazing how God gave him that insight in the temple because it's in the place of worship sometimes that we have our greatest insights about God's direction for our lives and where God has taken us. So in honor of God's word, would you stand as I read for us just a segment of this story of Jesus last event that we have recorded of his of the 12 year old verse 46. And it came to pass.

That's a good scripture in it. And it came to pass. We could just preach on that for a long time, but I'm not. So some of you are kind of itchy. When I said that and it came to pass, I lost my place.

And when. Well, let's start at 44. All right, you with me? You still with me? Raise your hand if you're with me.

That encourages me. Okay. But they supposing him to have been in the company went a day's journey and they sought him among their kinsfolks and acquaintances. And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem seeking him. And it came to pass that after three days you hear that word three days.

That's a foretaste of what's going to happen 21 years later. After three days.

After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both hearing them and asking them questions. So he's listening to them and he's asking them questions. And all that heard him were amazed at his understanding and answers. Jesus understands and he gives the right answers. And when they saw him, they were astonished.

And his mother said unto him, son, now have you ever seen a mother that exploded?

Have you ever been the object of a mother's explosion? Here's a mother that exploded. You're in good company. If you've ever been a mother who exploded, then you're in good company with Mary. So.

And when she saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said unto him, son, why have you done this unto us? Behold, your father and I have sought you. Sorrow in the word, there is anxiety, a deep anxiety. And here are Jesus words.

And he said unto him, first recorded words of the boy, Jesus, how is it that you sought me? Didn't you know that I must be about my father's business? Or didn't you know that I must be my father's house. May God bless the reading of his word. You may be seated now.

Charles Shultz is one of my favorite writers. I look at his cartoons to decide what subject I'm going to preach on every week. And even though Charles Shultz has passed away, he still has a great writer and great sense of humor. Charlie Brown is trying to Charles suits. So when he writes Charlie Brown, he's writing about himself.

And so he was on a cruise. And so he was asked by Lucy, I suppose, Charlie Brown, do you sit in the back of the boat so that you can see where we had been, or do you sit in the front of the boat so you can see where we're going? And Charlie Brown said, I can't ever get my deck chair unfolded.

And I fall in that company. Now look at the person next to you. Do they look like they have their deck chair folded or unfolded? Maybe you brought somebody with you today that doesn't have their deck chair unfolded. But as we go out into the new year, will we look at what's ahead of us?

Oh, will we look at what's gone behind us? And sometimes the past has a hold on us, so much so that we fail to see the things that are ahead of us, and it will hold us back. So I don't know what kind of future you're looking back in the next year and what kind of plans that you have made. Maybe you've examined your life. Sometimes in New year is a time to do that, but what is the things that you would like to see happen in the coming year.

And that's an important thing. And I think we need to start praying about those things and praying about them even now. In the meantime, how has my relationship with the Lord? Has it drifted in the past year, or has it gotten closer? How's my relationship to my work?

Am I in the place that I want to be? Or is there still a place ahead of me that I would like to be? Maybe in relationships? Maybe I would like to have things a little bit closer in my relationship than they've been in the past. Psychologists call that a place where I am and a place where I want to be.

They call that that gap in between. And one of the things we can do as Christians is we talk to a God who listens to us and is careful with what we say and has a purpose and plan for our life in the coming year. And I don't know about you, but I want to be in the middle of that plan. I want to know that he's watching me and I'm watching him. And I want to stay close to that and not drift away from it.

But it's so easy in the world in which we live in to get kind of deflected and take one direction. And so all of a sudden, we are off over here when we ought to be right here. Now, when I was in Vietnam, one of the jobs that I had was that of an MP officer. And as an MP officer, what we did was we covered convoy escorts when they went from a place called NHA Trang up to Pleiku. And our gun trucks would be one in the front, one in the middle, one in the back.

And they had.50 caliber machine guns on them. And we would guard the trucks as they went up to play coup and guard them as they came back. And there was a place called Mingyang Pass where the VC would hit us on a regular basis. And so we continued to make it through that. And those are memories that I still have.

But my brigade commander in Camron Bay called me to come see him. He had a job for me. So I went to see him and reported to him, sir. And he said, lieutenant, have a seat. And I said, yes, sir.

And he said, I have a new job for you. And I said, okay, what is the job? And he said, we would like for your unit to guard the Miss America team.

Now, you gotta fight Communism one way or another. So.

So I said, sir, let me get this straight. You want me to get off the road where I continue to be shot at and to guard the Miss America team? And he said, you're right about that, Lieutenant. And I said, well, let me pray about that. No, I didn't even have to pray about that.

I said, sir, I think we can do it. I Mean anything for my country and anything for my country. And so we guarded Miss America team for about two weeks as they were in our area. And it's the first time we had seen American girls in, like, four months. And these were knockouts.

I mean, they weren't just ordinary women. They were Miss America type girls. So we watched them closely.

I mean, it was hard for us to keep our eyes off of them, as a matter of fact, but we watched him, guarded them closely. But they also watched us because we were in a war zone. And anytime we had incoming or whatever, we got probes during tonight or whatever it was, they listened and watched us as to what we want we needed for them to do. And we watch them. Now I want to transition from that.

I'm having a hard time transitioning, so you transition with me. We have a God who watches us. Amen. Can you transition over to that? Now throw out the Miss America girls out of your head and transition into a God that watches us.

But we're to watch him and he guides us, and we go to him when we have needs and direction. And we're told that anytime that you have some needs in your life, anytime you need wisdom to ask. But when we ask, we also need to be ready for the answers that he gives us. And so often we say, that's not the answer I want. I want another answer.

But he has a direction for your life and for my life in the coming year. And I want to be right in the center of that direction. But it means a continual being there. First, continue to watch. Because our tendency is to drift.

And there are so many distractions along the way that that causes us to drift. And it can be so quick. It's like the rip currents down to beach. They're continually warning us about those rip currents. You can all of a sudden find yourself over here when you didn't mean to be.

You thought you were here. And so I want to encourage you this morning as we begin and through this message. I think that Luke has given us an example that he has given us about Christ and his parents to get that drift away and continually monitor ourselves, to bring us back to the place where God wants us to be in the center of his will. Now, if you have your Bibles, look back at Luke 2. We've already seen how Jesus was in the nativity scene and how she brought forth her firstborn son.

She wrapped him in swaddling clothes. The shepherds came to see him. And the shepherds were the ones who saw magnificent glory. Let me Tell you, the nativity scene we had at our church is about as close as you can get to being close to the Lord. How many of you were here for the nativity scene we had on Christmas Eve.

That was good. The only problem we had, the shepherds kept hitting each other with their crooks. So we decided to take a chance on that. Gina used to be a school teacher, so she helped that situation out. But a nativity scene is given to us by Luke and he's the only one that gives us that because he interviewed Mary about that.

They took Jesus to Jerusalem where he went through circumcision and dedication. His mother was dedicated, what they did. And in Jerusalem they ran into a man named Simeon who sang for us what's called the Nunc Diminish, which is this, I can now depart. And the picture is this old late old man holding this little baby. And he's seeing hope, the hope of the Messiah.

Anna had been there some 80 years and she rejoiced when they saw this is happening in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the center of their worship center. The temple was a center of their worship with the Lord. And so it's time for Pentecost and at Pentecost and excuse me, it's time for Passover. And Passover was a central celebration of the Jewish religion.

It's a time when they came out of Egypt and they took the lamb and they killed the lamb and took its blood and put it on the doorpost and the death angel passed over. But they were never to forget where they were and how God blessed them and brought them out of where they were. So it was a Jewish Passover, the central celebration of the Jewish religion. So Jesus is 12 years old. If you have your Bibles, let's look at this and see how it unfolds.

Verse 41. Now his parents went to Jerusalem and it's idea they went every year because it was Passover time and they didn't neglect now Jerusalem, where they were in Nazareth. And Jerusalem was some 90 miles from Jerusalem. Nazareth was some 90 miles from Jerusalem. So it's about a three or four day journey.

And they went in caravans because there were all kinds of robbers along the way. And so they would have safety in a caravan. And so the caravan this year they go. If you have your bibles in verse 42 it tells us that Jesus is 12 years old. And it says they went up to Jerusalem because all the geographic position of Israel goes up to Jerusalem.

And when they had fulfilled the days as they returned, the child Jesus remained Behind, so he stayed behind. He was so caught up. And we see later on that he was in the middle of these teachers and he's in the middle of those teachers and he's listening to what they're saying. Not only is he listening to what they're saying, but he understands what they're saying. Now, when I had plane geometry under Ms. Seymour, and I'm questioning whether Ms. Seymour was ever saved or not, I don't know.

But anyway, I hope so. She would send me to the board and I had no idea what the answer was. And nobody around me seemed to know what the answer was. But she would not only let you give the correct answer, but she wanted you to know how it got there. And so you'd have to work it on the board to say not only did you have the answer, right answer, but work it out and say how you got to that answer.

So he's listening and understanding. Not only does he have the right answer, but he understands how it got there. And this is a very emotional kind of story because the parents have gone one day's journey and they get to the end of the journey and they find out that Jesus is missing. And they had left Jesus behind. Let's stop and think about that for just a moment.

They had left Jesus behind and the nation of Israel had left God behind. And Jesus came to bring them back to God.

But they assumed this and assumed that and busy in this. And the festival took place about six or seven or eight days maybe. And so they left and they all of a sudden realized they had left Jesus behind. Now it's amazing how you can go and keep going and not know that you have left Jesus behind. The nation of Israel had their legal system and they had kind of left Jesus behind.

Maybe they had a religious idea and in the middle of that religious idea and they feel loved God. It wasn't that they didn't love God. They just kind of left, left Jesus behind.

And they went for a while and didn't even know that they had left him behind a day's journey.

But after a while they missed him. And I pray that God will cause us to miss him.

The energy's not there. The spiritual energy is not there.

The prayers are kind of routine. And bless me and bless those around me. And my Bible readings are just something I check off a list. And I can do the religious things and not know that I left him behind.

And everybody else would say, oh, you're doing good and you're doing fine, but deep down inside your soul you begin to realize something's missing.

The joy I used to have when I first met Christ comes to be something that somehow it used to be.

But there's not enjoying it. It's just kind of routine.

And we can get to the point where we can cover that and cover it and look good on the outside, but yet we know, we know, we know something is missing on the inside. And you can't fake the power of the Holy Spirit.

It's either real or it's not real.

And we can keep on going where we're going, or we can stop and say, there's a gap and there's a big gap.

And I don't want to go forward in this year without recovering from what I used to have.

And the church at Ephesus had lost their loving feeling, but they still had a church. They still met, they still carried out, but they had become so legalistic that it looked good on the outside, but it was missing deeply on the inside.

I've seen marriages go in those directions. It gets to be so routine that what used to be isn't like it is anymore.

An activity can be a replacement for having a real walk and having a real connection.

And the important part of this verse is recognition.

I recognize that I'm just going through the motions.

And I need to get that right.

And there's a big decision here. Do I just keep going through the same thing or do I decide God, I wanted to be closer.

So he's in the midst of the teachers. And these are Jewish great teachers. And 21 years later, he's gonna be in Jerusalem at the Passover, and they're gonna put him on the cross and he's gonna die. A sin is death. And in three days he's going to rise again.

But it's an anxiety moment for the parents. And you can imagine they thought he was among the crowd or thought he was a group. So they decided to come back. And when they come back, they come back to Jerusalem. So they've gone one day, they come back to Jerusalem and they found him the third day.

Boy, that's got so much significance in it that you can unpack that later on to say, you find him the third day. Because we have the only Savior that has been resurrected from the grave who has a three day moment of death. That's all he had.

So they find him. But they didn't understand. And Jesus, at the risk of being misunderstood by his parents, tells them that, didn't you know that I must be about my Father's Business. Mary has been the benefit of the shepherds who came in. She was the benefit of the angel who came in, told her all about Jesus.

She has seen Simeon and Anna and all these things coming together, and yet she still struggles with putting all this together. And I have a PhD in New Testament, and I'm still struggling trying to put everything together. Because the lot of God is just a mystery and we'll understand it better now. There's a lot of things we do understand and we ought to understand those things, but some things in some directions that God gives us, he'll say, you'll understand it later on. You only understand it later on.

You won't understand that now. It's bigger than our ability to comprehend. So Mary unloads on Jesus. And as she unloads on him after he has said what he has said, he becomes he. He.

He doesn't pursue a public ministry, but he comes under their authority until his age. And his time came for him to pursue his public ministry when he was 30 years old. Now he's the oldest son and there are six siblings. And this is the last mention of Joseph. Joseph is not mentioned again.

So scholars think that Joseph passed away soon after this. So Jesus at the age of what he was as a teenager, had to assume the responsibility of his family. And so he took care of his family in the carpenter business, maybe the carpenter business of his father, until it was time for all his siblings and they had found their places and now it was time for his public ministry. So he's in God's hands. Sometimes we think we're ready to go, Ready to go.

But there are some. God has to teach us some things. In kind of a summary statement, they said in verse 51, if you have your Bibles, and he went down with them to Nazareth and was subject unto them. But his mother kept all these things and tried to put them together. The picture there is like a search mode in our computer.

She's in search mode trying to understand all this, put it together.

Verse 52 is kind of a summary of Jesus boyhood years. And he increased in wisdom and in stature and word stature, has the idea of every segment that came his way during those teenage years. And there are a lot of things that come our way during those teenage years. Amen.

When Paul was talking about his thorn in the flesh, I knew what it was. His face broken out because my face was broken out those teenage years. But every segment of those teenage years he had God's approval and in favor with God and man losing Jesus Leaving him behind, finding him where you left him and missing him.

I miss those moments with him.

When I was in Marion, Alabama, Ferris City in the USA in Marion, Alabama, my son played basketball and we played school, East Perry. And I don't even think East Perry is still there today. But East Perry had a basketball player named Paul Mays, one of the greatest basketball players. The guy was about 6, 5, a black kid who just had all the moves as far as basketball is concerned. That's all I think East Pierre played was basketball.

But as a 10th grader, he took him to the state and they almost won the state. They came in second place and he made all state because he had moves on the inside as well as on the outside. And they'd put two and three people on him and he'd still score.

And in the 11th grade, they won the state because of Paul Mays. And he was given the most valuable player of the state tournament. And in his senior year, they won again because of him.

Wimp Sanderson, who was the coach at University of Alabama, signed him to a scholarship. He went to Alabama and stayed for about two months and quit.

And he was known. And when I was in Marion, he was on the corner and that's where he was. And you could go down to the corner and hire him for $50, $20, whatever. And he would unload your. Whatever it is, whatever you need to have unload, cut your bushes or whatever it is.

And you would pay him. He'd go down to the stop and shop and he would buy him some wine and he'd go back in a corner somewhere and he would drink that wine till he couldn't see anymore.

And sometimes I would be there and I would see him and I'd think, man, what potential he had. How good he could have been. He could have been another Michael Jordan.

He settled for too low when he should have been. He had the potential of going too high.

I think the problem with you and me as Christians is that we settle for so low when God has gifted us to go the high place he asked for.

Now, I want you to bow your heads for just a moment.

And I want you to just think with the Lord. Would you open your heart to the Lord?

Search me, O God, and know.

Help me to know where. There are places that I need to come to you.

Help me to be real, not to keep moving in the wrong direction, but to turn it around in this coming year.

And help me to watch you and know that you're watching me, to unfold my deck chair so I can be in the right direction of your will.

And would you dare to pray that prayer and ask God for his wisdom?

Maybe you need to find the Lord in the place that you've left him.

In jesus name I pray. Amen.