Discover Jesus Series Pt. 4 - Pastor Greg Addison - January 5, 2025

Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.

You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you, Jacob, and choir for a wonderful time of worship.

It's been credible to sing so in so pointed and focused a fashion this morning on the person of Jesus and how he saved us.

And of course, as we're doing this Discover Jesus series, that's really the import of who Jesus is, what he came to do, what he did for us, saved us.

But you know, it's interesting.

We have the birth of Jesus, and we have a lot of scripture about that.

We've spent a lot of time on that.

And then it seems like Scripture fast forwards and jumps into his life as an adult person.

But you know, when you meet someone new, you always have this question: how did you become who you are?

Like, where did you come from?

What was your story?

What's your family like?

How did your story unfold?

How did you decide you liked that?

How did you discover that that was a thing?

How did you get interested in that?

Where did you go to school?

What did you study?

Did you go to school?

Are you doing something else?

Did you take over the family business?

Why'd you do that?

Did you want to get into that?

It's just a fascinating thing to learn how somebody became who they are, right?

And it's one of the greatest things in the world.

I especially enjoy here.

Our city is something of a melting pot.

There's a great heritage and a lot of multi-generational families, but there are a lot of folks like Jan and I.

We've moved here.

And the more the base cranks back up and all those things happen, the more and more people are moving here.

And I love to meet someone and find out where they came from, how they got here, what's going on in their life.

Well, it's interesting with Jesus, what you get to is right to the good part when you jump, and most of that scripture is about him preaching and healing people and all of that.

But just tucked into one little section, do you get just an inkling of Jesus' life and how he became who he was, who we know as Jesus, the man who accomplished that salvation.

So I want you to, we're going to look at that little story today, just kind of tucked in here.

And here's the thought I want to give you the importance of spiritual preparation.

The importance of spiritual preparation.

So read with me in Luke chapter 2, beginning in verse 41.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

So what the Bible tells us is after his birth, he just went home with his family and he just began to grow up.

And we don't know a lot about what that looked like, but the Bible tells us that his family was raising him in church, basically, to follow the Lord, and that he grew up, Jesus did, and grew up well.

He grew up to be strong, he grew up to love the Lord, he grew up with favor, and God's grace was on him.

So that's all we know about his childhood.

And now we find him here at verse 41.

He jumps forward from his birth and those growing years to when he was 12 years old.

Now it's important for you to understand in this story the context of it.

In Jewish life, 13 is when you began the journey into manhood.

So when you turn 13 in their understanding and the way they trained their children and all of that, that was the point where they felt like you became spiritually responsible for your own spiritual life.

Up to that point, you're learning, you're being trained, you're being taught, you're going to awanas, you're going to Sunday school, you're doing all those things.

And then when you turn 13, there's a ceremony, you're beginning the steps into manhood, and now you become really, they're teaching them the idea of adult responsibility and that you are responsible for your own spiritual life.

And so here's where we find Jesus at 12 years old, just on the cusp of moving into that time of adulthood, the beginning stages of adulthood in Jewish culture.

So the Bible tells us in verse 41, every year his parents traveled to Jerusalem.

Now, they live in Galilee in the town of Nazareth, which is in the northern part of Israel.

So this is a journey, a trek for them to come all the way down to Jerusalem.

Every year his parents traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover festival.

When he was twelve years old, they went up according to the custom of the festival.

After those days were over, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it.

Assuming he was in the traveling party, they went a day's journey.

Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends, and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him.

After three days, so generally what this looks like is a day out, because it's a three-day journey at least, going from Jerusalem back to Nazareth.

So it gets a day out, and they're thinking, you know, we hadn't seen Jesus.

He didn't show up for lunch.

Well, he must be with the cousins.

What's going on?

All that.

They figure out he's not there.

They ask everybody.

A day back to Jerusalem.

And then on this third day, they're looking for Jesus there in Jerusalem.

And it says in verse 45, when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him.

After three days, they found Jesus in the temple complex, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.

And all those who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers.

When his parents saw him, they were astonished.

And his mother said to him, Son, why have you treated us like this?

Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.

And then these are the first recorded words of Jesus in Scripture.

So it's interesting that this is our introduction as he begins his journey into manhood, and now Jesus speaks.

Why were you searching for me?

He asked them.

Didn't you know that I had to be in my father's house?

But they did not understand what he said to them.

Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them.

His mother kept all these things in her heart.

And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and with people.

Now here's the big idea I want you to get today, the theme of this, the importance of spiritual preparation.

We must realize that spiritual preparation is necessary.

That word is important.

It is necessary for us to grow and for us to fulfill our God-designed purpose.

And I believe one of the reasons that God puts this story in Scripture right here is to show us that Jesus is involved personally in spiritual preparation for his journey and who he is and learning what God is going to have him do.

He stops of any of the things he could have shown us in this time in life.

Now let me ask you this question.

If Jesus had to be invested in spiritual preparation as the Son of God, how can we go through life following him without being deeply invested in spiritually preparing ourselves, in spiritual training and learning?

If Jesus, the Son of God, the Messiah, had to be this invested in learning his identity and who he was, learning God's word, learning how to prepare himself to walk this journey, if Jesus had to spiritually prepare himself, then how do we think that we can go through life without the same type of investment in our spiritual preparation?

Now I want you to see as you think through the life of Jesus and some of just the famous episodes, if you know anything about him or any stories of Scripture, you will recognize that this preparation is a vital and it is connected directly into Jesus' life.

For example, just let me give you a couple examples.

In Matthew, I have my notes here, so I give you the scripture references.

In Matthew chapter 4, Jesus faces temptation.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

We meet him as an adult, and he is preparing to go out into his ministry, and the Bible says he goes off and he fasts and prays for 40 days.

At the end of that time, Satan shows up.

Now it's interesting, Satan always shows up in our lives to tempt us and try to wreak havoc in these strategic moments.

And so Jesus is tired, he's hungry, he's been working hard, praying for 40 days, he's been fasting, he is physically diminished because of the journey.

He is spiritually tired because he has been investing in so much in prayer, praying for his ministry as he goes forward.

And Satan shows up in this moment of potential weakness and he tempts him.

And when he tempts him, Jesus immediately responds with scripture.

He responds from memory.

Now remember, Jesus did not have a cell phone, and he couldn't whip out his phone and look up his UVersion app, or he couldn't Google a verse that he needed in the moment, right?

Now we're all there.

We all kind of do that, right?

In fact, it's kind of fun.

Let me tell you, preacher trick, right?

Here's what a preacher trick is.

When you can't remember the reference of a scripture, but you're the pastor and you don't want to be embarrassed, and somebody asks you that, asks you a question, biblical question, well, you ask two or three more questions till you figure out what it is they're talking about, and then you say stuff like this.

Well, as the Apostle Paul said, that basically means you knew it was in the New Testament somewhere.

Or you might have an inkling and you say, well, like Paul wrote in his letter to the churches, well, see, now I sound really spiritual and I've cut the New Testament down to about like, you know, 40% of it.

Or as Paul wrote in Philippians, I remember as in Philippians, I can't remember what chapter, but I remember that.

See, we're all kind of, we got this kind of thing, right?

But here's what Jesus is modeling for us.

His whole life was spent in preparation for what he was going to do.

And he knew that he would be attacked.

Jesus had spent time in the Word of God, and he understood that first prophecy, and he had unpacked that.

He understood that first prophecy in Genesis chapter 3, where God curses the serpent, who is Satan in that moment.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

He's taken on the form of a serpent, and God curses him for his action in stepping into Adam and Eve's life and tempting them.

He also curses him for his heart and life of evil.

And then he says, I'm going to send a child through the woman's seed or line.

We talked about what all that means in December.

And he is going to bruise your head and you will bruise his heel.

And that's that first prophecy of Jesus would take on our sins.

And as the Bible says, by his stripes we are healed.

1 Peter chapter 2, just in case you're wondering, I'm playing the pastor trick.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

Some of y'all got that joke.

And so Jesus understands that.

He understands Satan is going to attack him.

He understands Satan is going to oppose him.

And when Satan shows up with that temptation, Jesus immediately responds is to quote Scripture back to him.

And not just whip out some verse, but he goes directly to a verse that is directly at the heart of Satan's temptation and attack.

And he skewers that attack with the Word of God.

And he does it three times: perseverance and strength.

And he can stand against those temptations and he sends Satan away, defeated.

Matthew chapter 4.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

Then the Bible tells us when he goes out and he starts preaching and he starts teaching.

And remember, in the Old Testament, in Jesus' time, the Old Testament was the Bible.

And again, he didn't have this cool, leather-bound, neat scripture that has it all translated right there in my modern language, just like I'd talk today, so I don't have to work really hard to make my brain stretch, you know, in any kind of way, made it easy as I possibly can.

Jesus is working from memory or working from just one scroll that shows up and that is available at some synagogue where he might be preaching.

Jesus is learning in that day, they learned by rote, and they didn't have Bibles everywhere.

There was no Gutenberg press and all of that stuff.

That happened later.

And so what Jesus is doing is he's learning by rote, and he is learning at the feet of teachers and priests and his parents, and they're quoting scripture back and forth, and they're doing everything by memory.

And so Jesus owns these scriptures.

And then he goes out and he begins to preach and he shows up at a synagogue, and they wouldn't necessarily have all of the books of the Old Testament.

They would have some, they would have whatever they could get their hands on, whatever had been uh had had ever been copied and put there.

And so he'll show up, and it might be the book of Isaiah, or it might be the book of Jeremiah, or there might be some psalms, and he begins to teach from the scripture, and he's teaching from his spiritual preparation and his life.

And the Bible tells us in one of those sessions in Matthew chapter 7, verse 29, when he's finished teaching, the people are in awe of his teaching, and they say, He teaches as one with the authority as if he wrote it, not like one of the scribes.

Matthew 7:29

It's incredible the power and the preaching and the teaching of Jesus as he taught from the Word of God.

That just doesn't happen by accident.

It doesn't happen just by happenstance.

It doesn't happen just because he's the Son of God.

Yes, he was all God, as we talked about, but he was also all man and he was human and he functioned like we do, and he had to learn those things just like we do.

And uh, you see, when Jesus goes towards Jerusalem as he is working his way towards the cross, the Bible says that he takes out the scriptures and he tells his followers, This is going to happen to me.

The priests and the scribes are going to do this.

I'm going to be nailed on the cross.

I'm going to rise again on the third day.

I'm going to do that.

And he's unpacking it from the scriptures and he's teaching them.

Jesus understands what's going to happen.

He understands his role and he is prepared to go to the Savior.

He is prepared because he's done spiritual preparation.

I want you to see this preparation here a little bit in Luke chapter 2.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

The first thing you see is a word to parents.

A word to parents.

Every year, his parents traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover festival.

Now here's what I want you to think about: parents.

This is an incredibly long and difficult journey.

They are walking from Nazareth to Jerusalem.

Most of the time they would gather in a group as people were making the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

And they are walking, and it takes days to get there.

And then if you'll see, it says, when he was 12 years old, they went up according to the custom of the festival.

And the way this is all unpacked, Passover was a very specific festival.

If you'll remember from the Old Testament, when God led the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt.

There were all those Pharaoh and let my people go and frogs and you know locusts and the rivers ran with blood and all that sort of stuff.

And yeah, you can get them.

And the next day I changed my mind.

You got all that stuff.

You get to the end.

And Moses says, based on the word of God, there's going to be judgment now in Egypt and to Pharaoh.

And God is going to kill the firstborn unless you do this, the firstborn across the land, unless you do this.

You must kill a lamb and you must offer its blood as a picture of the coming Savior.

And you take the blood of that lamb that's been shed to cover your sins, and you paint it on the doorposts and lentils of your house.

And if you do that, then the death angel will pass over you, which is why it became known as Passover.

And after that, the children of Israel were let go.

As a part of the Passover feast, the families in Israel were instructed to prepare themselves, pack their bags, be ready to go.

And there was a meal that went with that lamb that they prepared.

And that meal is the Passover Supper or the Passover meal.

And they prepared that meal and they did all of that and they went to the bed.

And then the next morning the death angel passed over most of those homes in Israel.

And there was death and an outcry of all of God's judgment on Egypt, and the children of Israel were let go.

And because of that, that became a part of their worship.

What we serve now we call the Lord's Supper, Jesus, as he's headed to the cross during Passover festival.

Now Jesus, as a 12-year-old, would understand the picture of the Passover and the Lamb of God who was going to die for the sins of the people, and he would understand all that and what was happening.

When he was going to the cross in that year in his life, in that moment in his life, he takes the Passover Supper with his followers, and then he tweaks it and changes it to instruct them what we now call the Lord's Supper.

This is me.

That's why we say, This is my body which is broken for you when they break the unleavened bread.

This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

We are done with the old.

We're moving forward to the new.

Passover.

The Jews had developed a two-week system of festivals and events and all of that that went around this moment of Passover.

And here you find his parents are going days' journey, walking to Jerusalem, taking off work two weeks, spending two weeks in Jerusalem at the Passover festival to teach their son and then their other children how to walk with God, what the Savior is going to be, how our sins are forgiven, who Jehovah God is, and they're teaching them all of that.

His parents are deeply invested in spiritual preparation for their families and their children.

It is a model that we need to learn.

We need to understand that our children need desperately spiritual preparation.

It is a spiritual preparation that is committed and consistent.

You see the sacrifice that they went through.

The difficulty and the hardship.

The Bible does not tell us that one year when it rained during Passover, they decided to stay home.

The folks on the internet will get that.

Thank you for being here today.

What we learn about his family is that they were a very middle class or lower middle class family.

They didn't have a lot of money.

They were not a rich family.

We saw that in the way Jesus was born in common circumstances and all of that.

We didn't spend much time on it last week, but when they went to the temple after Jesus' birth to dedicate him and all the things that they do, the Bible says that you would take a sacrifice as a part of that.

And the poverty version of that sacrifice, the sacrifice that lower-income families would give as a part of that, God made a way for them to make that simple because the point was spiritual faith and spiritual activity, not more money.

And the Bible says very clearly that they brought that poverty version, the doves that they brought for that.

And it tells us that his family, he was not raised in affluence.

They were a solid, normal, Jewish, working class family.

And it was difficult for them every year to be that committed.

They probably had to save up most of the year to be able to take the time and spend that entire journey and the two weeks off without work and all of that, and living there on the road and in hotels and all of that kind of stuff, and then journeying back and trying to pick up life.

His family, Jesus' family, his mother and father, the Bible tells us over and over, they were righteous and they loved the Lord.

Verse 39, they had completed everything according to the law of the Lord.

Verse 41 every year his parents traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover feast.

When he was twelve years old, that means every year from the time of his birth, this is at least the twelve.

Time Jesus has made that trek as a child with his parents to Passover.

There is no amount of spiritual preparation that you can give your kids that is ever enough.

Let me say that again.

There is no amount that is ever enough.

As Rose said so eloquently, talking about why we're doing awanas and teaching them how to use their Bibles and all that kind of stuff, they're learning stuff on the playground.

And they're learning stuff on the playground at younger years than you and I learned them on the playground.

Right?

I mean, I remember when some older kid told me, hey, go home and say this word to your parents.

I didn't know what it meant.

So I, okay.

You know?

And then I remember coming home from work one day, and I pulled my car, and I was still practicing law.

Our kids were little.

I pulled in the garage.

I went into the house, and Janet is sitting there with both of our little kids, and there's like silence in the house, and everybody's afraid to move, and I'm thinking, uh oh, what happened?

And so Janet says, Grant learned this word at school today.

Everybody's had that moment, right?

If your kids are not old enough, it's coming.

Get ready.

First thing you have to do is poker face.

Don't react.

Because if you react, and then the other kid on the bus who told him that, thought it was funny, and he tells them another word, they're going to go back and do that again to see that reaction.

And so you've got to go like calm and you step into that deal.

But here's the other truth of that.

They were several years younger than I was when that happened to me.

And now that's happening younger.

And then you have the schools, some of them, now praise the Lord for our godly teachers and administrators.

So listen, don't take this wrong.

We have some people who love Jesus and are invested in kids, and thank you for what you do.

But there's a lot of administration and policy and culture, and they're teaching our kids stuff that we don't even believe, much less shouldn't be taught at those ages.

And they're learning stuff from other kids, and the culture's going on, and they got cell phones and they got all this stuff going on.

And let me tell you what, there is not enough spiritual preparation that you can put in your kids to compete with the constant 24-7 garbage that was going into the lives of your children.

You've got to ask yourself as a parent how much is enough to compete with every lost kid they deal with on a daily basis, and what those kids tell them, and what they're learning in school, and what is on the Disney Channel, or whatever kind of stuff y'all are watching, and whatever's on there, and where all that comes out, and do they have enough filter of that?

And if they're learning these many things from the world, and we go twice a week to church, how's that gonna translate?

How's that gonna work?

I mean, how are they gonna filter all that?

How are they gonna face all that?

There's a volume problem at church, and it's not mine.

There's a volume problem in terms of the volume of Jesus and Scripture that our kids are getting to compete with and filter against all of the garbage that is being shoveled at them every moment of every day from every place that they turn.

I mean, we've got to understand this spiritual preparation.

Mary and Joseph were there when the angel said, the Holy Spirit's going to come upon you, and he is going to do something miraculous, and you're going to raise the Son of God.

They were there when he was born of a virgin.

They understood all those things.

They understood that this was God's son, and instead of taking for granted, oh wow, we can take a weekend off because, man, he's like spiritual and doesn't have all this stuff.

They doubled down and are invested in spiritual preparation for their family and their children so that Jesus is ready, so that he has everything he needs, and that as their other children go through life of being Jesus' half-brother and half-sister, they have a preparation to filter and understand and stand against all the things that the world is teaching them and throwing at them.

I mean, it's incredibly vital that we understand that.

And if Jesus needed that spiritual preparation, don't you think our children need that kind of spiritual preparation?

And that comes from the commitment of mom and dad.

The Bible says very clearly every year his parents traveled to Jerusalem.

It is a parent's responsibility to speak Jesus in the home.

To make sure your children are memorizing Scripture.

It is your commitment to be the first one that is at church and that you are telling your children how wonderful church is and setting that up.

Listen, it's hard being a seven-year-old, right?

I mean, you only have this much attention span, and these things are fun, and those are not, and I'm not mature, and I don't know how to process it and all that.

And there are going to be mornings where they get up and it's just a rotten morning, right?

I mean, they spill their cherios and they throw stuff around.

They're mad because you fed them fruity pebbles and not cocoa pebbles, and they want to wear these two shoes that don't match, and they want to wear a plaid shirt and shorts, and it's 20 outside, and everybody's been through that, right?

And then they're mad because you drug them in the car and you drug them to church.

My parents used to sell that joke all the time, old preacher joke about, you know, I had a drug problem.

My parents drug me to church on Sunday mornings and sunny nights, and we wasn't all that.

Y'all got all that.

And so here, that all that happens.

It's up to the parent to make it awesome to be at church.

To tell your kids that you love church and your teacher loves you, and your friends are going to miss you if you're not there.

Every parent should be serving in extended sessions, should be involved in I or Sunday school or whatever it is.

Every parent should show up every now and then in children's church.

You have my permission to skip church and go to children's church and worship alongside your kids.

It is your job to do that as a parent and make church wonderful because, as somebody told me a long time ago, most of the time kids in their journey and falling in love with Jesus, they fall in love with the body of Christ before they fall in love with Christ.

And how much is it important in spiritual preparation that you teach your kids it is more important that we go to church than we play ball?

It's more important that we go to church and we skip opening day of deer season.

Because it's more important that my kids understand I cannot walk through life without spiritual preparation.

It is incredible to see the picture here of these parents who are investing and sacrificing with commitment and consistency to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

And you can't say, well, it's easy to raise Jesus.

No, because they got, the Bible tells us they've got other kids in the house.

And they have things in their house that you and I didn't have in our house.

I mean, I was a good student, I was pretty good.

I was the oldest of three, and we all know the oldest children are always smarter and better and all of that.

And mom and dad get tired and they deteriorate on the second and third child, right?

I'm kidding, if you're a second or third child, we love you, right?

I love my brother and sister, they're awesome.

But but that first child, and here's what happens: I make straight A's, and my siblings think, oh my goodness, why won't he ever make a B so I don't have the same pressure?

Now, my kid, my siblings are smart, they're intelligent.

My brother was a better ball player than me.

My sister is way smart and gifted and disciplined and all that.

I mean, you know, but you think about that dynamic, right?

What do you think that dynamic was like if Jesus was the firstborn?

I mean, you think about raising kids in that setting.

And I'm telling you, Mary and Joseph, they made a decision, we're not doing this without God.

We're not doing this without teaching our children Scripture.

We're not doing this without spiritual preparation so our kids can grow.

And so we got to understand, parents, I'm trying to be, I want to encourage you because you're gonna see in life, Jesus, that it works.

But sometimes somebody's got to be grandpa and say, listen, y'all got to keep your kids in church.

You can't skip because it rains, or because you want to go hang out in the summer at the lake, or you're playing ball, or whatever.

Listen, we did that.

My kids played ball.

We did that.

I remember those days, right?

I'm pastoring, I'm teaching, I'm preaching two services in that church.

We were raising our kids in that deal, and Mabry played softball, and she's playing on really good teams and they're winning.

And you know, the baseball guys would have their uh championships on Sunday or whatever, and the softball people would act like they were more spiritual, and they'd get theirs done before Sunday.

Well, what that means is if you make the finals in a girls' softball tournament, you start the final game at like 12.30 a.m.

And so here we are with these, you know, 10-year-old girls, 11-year-old girls, they don't even care that much.

And we're doing all this deal, and I'm getting up the next morning and we're dragging our kids to church, and I'm preaching twice because we're teaching our kids, it is way more important that you be in church than you do this other stuff.

You are not going to make a living as a professional softball player or a professional volleyball player.

A few ladies do, and praise the Lord.

Our ladies are doing all that, but like your son, your daughter, whoever, they're not that good.

One half of 1% makes the NFL or the MLB or the NBA or whatever.

Your kids aren't that good, right?

I mean, I see your kids, I go play with them on Juanas.

I'm kidding, y'all with me.

But your kids are gonna live in a sinsick world till they're 90.

Isn't that true?

And so we have got to teach our kids that the most important thing in their life is the spiritual investment they make in memorizing God's word and understanding how to do their Bibles without Google.

There's nothing wrong with using Google.

But you've got to know it in your heart.

The Bible says, How does a young man cleanse his way by taking heed according to his word?

Now I want you to see this picture of Jesus here.

Look at what the Bible says.

Verse 46, after they found him in the temple complex, sitting among teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all those who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers.

Let me talk, tell you what spiritual preparation is.

Here's what spiritual preparation is, and I want you to see it from this patch of scripture.

This is what Jesus focused on, and if Jesus needs it, we need it.

Spiritual preparation is a deep commitment to learning.

You've got to be committed to learn.

Now, everybody learns in a different way.

If you're not a reader, fine.

It's not an excuse.

They didn't even have, Jesus didn't even have Bibles to read and all that.

Jesus went to synagogue and they repeated it back and forth and they memorized it by rote, and then his parents taught him because they didn't have a family Bible like we do, they taught him from what they had memorized by wrote and what he was learning and memorizing, and they were talking about it together because they had learned it.

It's a deep commitment to learning.

Again, I'm going to tell you, one little paragraph in a devotional guide is a good start to the morning, but that's not learning.

That is not spiritual preparation.

Right?

I mean, I love a chocolate donut as much as anybody.

It's one reason I'm a Baptist.

You come to the church, and somewhere up here, y'all got donuts, I can find one every Sunday.

But a donut ain't gonna carry you through the day.

In about 20 minutes, you're hungry again.

And if you eat two of them, like I generally do, you also have a sugar crash that goes on with that.

That's not gonna carry you through the day.

That devotion guide is great.

It's a donut.

It wets your appetite, it gets you thinking, it helps a step in the journey.

But there'll be there have got to be times when you sit down with the Word of God and you are invested in learning and you've set everything else aside, and this is what you're doing.

And here's what you're committed to learning: embracing your identity and equips you for your purpose.

You have to embrace who you are in Jesus Christ, and you have to equip that God is giving you a purpose, and he's equipping you for that purpose.

Look at what happens.

In the very first words that Jesus speaks, he speaks those two things.

They say, Where are you?

We've been searching for you.

Verse 49, why were you searching for me?

Didn't you know that I had to be in my Father's house?

And that word had, if you translate it from the original language, it's the word must.

It's why I used the word necessity when I said spiritual training is a necessity.

When Jesus said, I must go to the cross, that's this word.

I must.

There's no salvation without this.

When Jesus says, Didn't you know I must be in my father's house?

I have no choice.

It is a necessity to my life.

He is first giving his identity, that he understands who he is, even as a 12-year-old boy.

I had to be in my father's house.

My father's house.

This is not some euphemism about God is the father of all and all this kind of stuff.

This is my father.

He is recognizing that Joseph is not my biological father.

God is my father.

He sent me.

As I'm going about this journey, I'm going to have to follow him.

It is the preparation and the understanding so that later, when Jesus is teaching in the book of John, he can say this: I don't do anything without my father's instruction.

It's when he goes to the Garden of Gethsemane before he's facing the cross and he knows what's about to happen.

And it's right before Judas betrays him and gives him to the officials.

Jesus goes into the garden and prays, and the Bible says he's intensely pleading with God, if there's another way to do this, let this cup pass from me.

And he is so in awe of what he's about to go through spiritually and physically, and he all of that.

The Bible said he sweat as drops of blood, but then he says, Father, father, father.

It's your will, not mine.

Jesus understands who he is, his identity.

Sometimes liberal theologians will try to tell you some way that Jesus never claimed he was the Son of God.

That's just flat out wrong and a lie from the pit of hell.

Jesus clearly states, He is my father.

And as a 12-year-old boy, as he is moving into manhood, he is understanding these things and he is embracing his identity.

As Christians, we've got to learn to embrace our identity.

What the Bible says about you, what happened to you when you got saved, who the Holy Spirit is inside of you.

How much more would we be witnessers and aggressively telling people about Jesus if we understood the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives?

And we understood in Acts chapter 1, when Jesus in red letters tells his followers, you wait right here, I'm going to send you the Holy Spirit that I have promised you, and he is going to empower you supernaturally to be a witness of me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost part of the earth.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

Man, if we understood and embraced who we were in Christ, nobody would keep us from telling folks about Jesus.

We would believe that people get saved when we share Jesus with them.

The whole book of Acts, it says the Acts of the Apostles and some of those titles or whatever, but it's really the acts of the Holy Spirit.

All of those miraculous things are happening incredibly in the lives of Peter and Paul and all these Barnabas and all these guys.

Why is that all happening in the church?

Because they understood who they were in Jesus and the Holy Spirit empowered them and he was making things happen and stuff was happening because they understood who they were in Christ.

Why doesn't stuff happen in our lives?

Why doesn't stuff happen in our church more often?

Now, praise the Lord, things are happening because we're learning that, we're embracing that.

But I'm telling you what, why isn't there revival in the river valley?

Do you think we're so small that God can't see us from heaven?

Or he's only worried about places like New York and London and Rio and stuff like that?

No, he cares about every person.

Jesus died for every soul in the river valley.

And we should have a revival in the river valley.

People should be getting saved rampantly in the river valley.

We should be building new churches because we don't have enough spots for all the people to get saved.

If we embraced our identity in Christ and we were surrendered to Him and we knew greater is He in us than He that is in the world, if we understood and recognized that the Holy Spirit is empowering us to be witnesses, man, stuff ought to be happening.

It's because we don't spend enough time committed to who I am in Christ and what happened to me when I got saved.

What he's trying to do in my life.

And the second thing is equip you for your purpose.

Jesus says, didn't you know it's a necessity for me to be here?

I've got to understand how this is going to unfold.

I've got to prepare myself to go to the cross.

I've seen people crucified.

I've read Psalm 22.

I don't know how to do that.

I understand that prophecy from the book of Genesis that he's going to bruise my heel, that Satan's going to attack me and come after me.

How's that going to happen?

How am I prepared for that?

I'm in a teenage boy's body with all of these hormones and all of this stuff and everything going on in here in a normal 12 to 13-year-old boy.

And I have got to live with purity and holiness through this life.

How am I going to do that and get to the cross?

And so Jesus is embracing, learning to equip himself for his purpose.

What is your purpose?

It's real simple.

It's got three aspects to it.

The Bible, first of all, says, what is God's will for you?

It's your sanctification.

That means being transformed in the image of Jesus.

That means you're going from an intellectual understanding of what happened to you when you got saved to putting it into practice and allowing God to do it in reality in your work.

The Bible says about Jesus very clearly, verse 52, he increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and with people.

Why is that?

Because it's going from this is who I am as the Son of God to this is what that means for me to bear fruit in my life as the Son of God.

The second aspect of that, God made you who you are.

He gave you talents, he gave you abilities, he gave you strengths.

When you got saved, the Holy Spirit moved into your life and he brought a very specific ability and power.

We refer to that shorthand sometimes as a spiritual gift.

He activates that in your life.

And so he has wired you in a certain way.

He's given you certain aptitudes and abilities.

Some people, he's made you incredibly relational.

Some people you can sing.

Some people, like me, put music in our heart and gave us no instrument to get it out.

Right?

And so singers sing, right?

Some people, he's given you an incredible gift of giving.

Some of you have given you an incredible gift of hospitality.

Some of you, he has given you the gift of evangelism to go out and lead people to Christ.

Who's coming down the aisle today?

It's learning to express those gifts.

And soul winners, winning souls, and givers giving, and people who have hospitality, showing love and caring for folks and bringing them forward.

And then the third aspect of that is he's put you in a place, in a church, in a spot, and he has something for you to do there.

As you are sanctified as you grow in the image of Jesus, as you are learning to unleash who God made you with your gifts and aptitudes, and then the place where He's put you and why He's put you there, that is your purpose.

That is your purpose.

And so spiritual training is not just learning cool new facts about the Bible.

It's not an encyclopedia.

It is a chemistry lesson on how we grow spiritually with our connection with the Lord.

So spiritual preparation is that commitment to embracing our identity and equipping you for your purpose.

I just want to give you these four words and I'll quit.

It involves these things.

You see them here, I've highlighted them: commitment, sacrifice, learning, and practice.

You have to do those things with your spiritual life.

You have to do them if you're in school.

Jesus is a 12-year-old.

And he's doing that.

I had to do it in law school.

When I was studying in the library so much, I thought my eyeballs would fall out of my head.

I didn't get a three-year window where I didn't have to be a Jesus follower.

You got kids at home, you're raising your kids, you're getting your extra degree, you're working, whatever it is.

You're 78 and you're retired, and you think, oh, I'm past that now.

No, you are not.

No, you are not.

Commitment, sacrifice, learning, and practice.

When we embrace who we are in Christ and we find that purpose, I'm telling you what.

Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and with people.

And when we learn the lesson to prepare the way Jesus did, we're going to increase in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and with people.

Why don't you bow your heads as we close?

We've talked about this process and it begins with the decision to be a follower of Christ.

It begins with the decision to give your life to Jesus.

If you've never trusted Him as your Savior, it's very simple to understand.

Jesus went to the cross because all of us have sinned and he came to deal with sin.

If you are old enough to understand what I'm saying today, you were old enough to have a conscience and to recognize that there are things you've done wrong, and the Bible calls that sin, and sin is punished.

That's why there's death in the world.

That's why everyone faces it because of sin.

It is the judgment of sin.

And all of us will pay the price of that sin.

But Jesus came and prepared himself for the purpose, as we mentioned, of going to the cross, of doing the things that we sung about.

He went there with a sinless life.

He took our sins.

He died as a substitute, death for our sins, rose again conquering death and sin to offer us salvation.

And to become a follower of Jesus.

It means you believe that that historically happened.

That's a real thing.

And the spiritual impact of that is if I give my life and I surrender it to him and I give him my sin and life and all of that and confess that to him, and I make him the Lord of my life, he'll save you.

He'll take over your life and he'll do more with your life than you could ever imagine.

I'm going to pray, and then God's people are going to stand and sing, a testimony of what salvation is.

And if you need Christ, I'm going to invite you to come.

We'll have pastors at the head of our aisles here.

There's somebody, if you're in the balcony, you can come out down there.

We want to pray with you and help you become a follower of Christ.

Lord, we love you and we thank you for this short but incredible picture of Jesus and his family and spiritual preparation.

Lord, I pray you'll bring it to our minds and our hearts, and I pray you use it.

If there's someone who needs to be saved, they can realize they can do this through Jesus and the model and the example of Jesus if they'll just come and give their life to him.

We pray this in the saving name of Jesus and all God's people said.

We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.

Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.

Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.

Thank you for listening to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.