There’s something powerful about coming home! In this series – Homecoming at Gateway Church in Austin – we are realigning our hearts and minds with what is most important – faith, family, and calling. You see, home is not just a place but stepping into our purpose. We are looking at how God forms us in community, meets us in our struggles, and sends us out to make a difference. To do this, we are looking at the life of Jesus.
Digging Deeper
Work through the following questions and scriptures on your own or get together with your group, spiritual
running partners, or family to talk through what you are learning.
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There’s something powerful about coming home! In this series – Homecoming – we are realigning our hearts and minds with what is most important – faith, family, and calling. You see, home is not just a place but stepping into our purpose.
So whether you’re deeply committed to following Jesus, rediscovering your faith, just curious about what this is all about, or were invited by someone to check this out, this series is for you. We are looking at how God forms us in community, meets us in our struggles, and sends us out to make a difference. To do this, we are looking at the life of Jesus.
So we hope this month is a joyful reunion, a fresh start, and a chance to grow deeper roots. This is your invitation to belong, to believe, and to become who you were always meant to be.
Have you ever been to a family reunion? Some of us are old enough to have been invited to our high school class reunion. Ever go to one of those?
Reunions can be fascinating!
Some people you see all the time. Some people you only see at these reunions. Most people want to talk about your job, where you live, and if you have children, it’s a chance to show photos and brag about them.
When I went to my class reunion, I was coming back to Dallas/Fort Worth from CA. So many of my high school friends had stayed just around the area. Some of them seemed to be reliving their high school days as if that was when their life had peaked – much like Napoleon Dynamite’s uncle Rico. I remember at my 10 year high school reunion, I had a chance to apologize to people that I had regretted how my younger self had treated them. I also talked with people who thanked me for helping them find faith – even though I had not remembered that happening.
I always think it’s awkward looking back at our teen years as an adult.
Well, today we are going to look backward at Jesus at age 12. There was definitely some awkwardness, but not because of Jesus. Instead, his parents find themselves in a very embarrassing situation. We are going to look at the only story we have from the life of Jesus between his birth and his public ministry which began at age 30.
The Gospel of Luke is the only who records this story. For this reason along with the fact that we have the Song of Mary when she discovered she was pregnant with the Son of God along with other interesting details only Luke includes, scholars believe that Luke interviewed Mary to help him write his account of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
So let’s read from Luke 2:
41 Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. 42 When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. 43 After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. 44 Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
49 “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” 50 But they did not understand what he was saying to them.
51 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.
So much to discuss in this brief account! And there are some principles that we can apply to our own lives as well.
First, let’s make some observations.
If you have children, have you ever felt like a bad parent? Have you ever been afraid you weren’t sure if you were making the right decisions or protecting them or providing for them?
Let me ask you this: have you ever left your kids somewhere and couldn’t find them for 3 days?!
Had this been in modern times, someone might have called Child Protective Services on Mary and Joseph! They continued on their road trip back to Nazareth from Jerusalem without Jesus! This seems almost as bad as when in the movie Vacation, Clark Griswold left his dog Dinky tied up to a leash on the bumper of his car and drove off to WallyWorld in the movie Vacation!
Could you imagine how horrible it would have been for Mary during those 3 days looking for Jesus?! We looked at the birth of Jesus and when Mary and Joseph dedicated him at the temple last week. Now, they left him at that temple and left him just 12 years later. I cannot help but wonder if Mary was scared to pray and ask for wisdom to find Jesus because she didn’t want to tell his Heavenly Father that she had lost His Son! Or maybe she was worried the angel Gabriel would show up again. This time instead of saying to Mary: “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” She might have been scared he would return and say: “Greetings, you who used to be highly favored! Why isn’t the Lord with you?”
So let me clear some things up. I know I have been hard on Mary and Joseph – actually harder on them than I should have been. You see, they lived and operated in a different culture. It is important when we read the Bible we don’t read with our cultural biases and cultural prejudices.
The guys at the BibleProject.com talk about coming to the Bible more like a cultural anthropologist or like a tourist visiting a foreign country. The Bible Project is a great free resource for you as you spend time reading, studying, and applying the Bible to our lives. Too often we read this beautiful and ancient document as if we are far superior or at least smarter than they are. Certainly progress has been made in many areas of life. It has been followers of Jesus who have worked for the end of slavery and for the education of women.
Even still, it’s important to consider when we read the Bible and come across something that seems way off to us, there are probably some cultural differences between them and us that would be helpful to understand before jumping to any judgmental conclusions.
So here’s a few factors that contributed to Mary and Joseph not knowing where Jesus was for 3 days.
- 2000 years ago in a Middle Eastern context, there was much more of a community-orientation. They were not as individualistic as we are in the Western world. They were far more connected with their extended family and neighbors in ways we wish we were (in some ways and glad we aren’t in other ways).
- More than likely, all of those traveling from Nazareth to Jerusalem probably traveled together. Historians estimate that Nazareth was a small town with between 200-1000 people. So in a small town like that, everyone knows everyone. (Just for contrast, historians estimate Jerusalem had between 25,000 to 75,000 people living there, but during a religious festival as many as 180,000 people could show up! Percentage-wise that would be like Austin going from 2 million people on a normal day and then having 4.8 million people showing up for SxSW! We thought traffic was bad now?!)
- In Jesus’ time, the Jewish people did not celebrate bar mitvahs or the bat mtizvahs for their boys and girls. This began in the Middle Ages, but in Jesus’ day the boys were considered religiously mature and responsible for observing the commandments at the age of 13. Jesus was just on the edge of being considered responsible for himself in so many more ways than our 12 year olds may be. Some of us still have to remind our 12 year olds to flush!
- In addition, after the immaculate conception of Jesus and his birth, Joseph and Mary had more children that were probably keeping them busy and definitely needed more of their attention.
More than likely, Mary and Joseph began the 3 to 4 day journey back to Nazareth from Jerusalem assuming Jesus was with his friends or with his uncles or cousins. The moment they realized he was missing was probably the moment they turned around so if they had traveled a full day before realizing it then they would have traveled a full day to get back!
So what can we learn from Jesus at age 12?
Faith Ownership Starts Young
At just 12, Jesus chose to remain in the temple to interact with the biblical teachers. Even before it was expected, Jesus was taking personal responsibility for his own relationship with God.
Too often, we tend to live vicariously through our grandparents or our parents. We think because we grew up attending a church service on a Sunday or that we know all the answers to the Sunday School questions, that all is good with us and God. In reality, every one of us needs to choose whether we will follow Jesus or not.
We cannot live on the spiritual fumes of others – whether it is our parents, our small group leaders, or our pastors.
I love it when we can celebrate together the good things God is doing through the lives of our church family. In fact, I am the first to celebrate and honor the fact that so many of you bought school supplies for our friends at Rodriguez Elementary or went out to help with the rescue or clean up efforts after the floods. But if I am not careful, I can celebrate what others are doing and miss what God is inviting me to do personally.
Years ago a church was trying to determine what helped someone grow spiritually. In The Reveal Study, the researchers discovered something fascinating. The #1 factor for spiritual growth was not serving, being in a life group, or even church attendance. The #1 factor was taking personal responsibility for your own spiritual growth. In other words, when you decide you want to connect more with God and follow Him and the ways of Jesus then He will guide you into spending time in the Scriptures and prayer on your own, serving others with others, participating in a life group, and coming on Sundays. When you take personal responsibility, you grow! When you take personal responsibility, you are willing to make the sacrifices to love God and love people. You don’t depend only on the message on Sunday. You don’t depend on your small group leader to help you. Instead, the message on Sunday and your small group or ministry team leader become a part of helping you grow!
Faith is not passive—it grows when we take initiative.
There’s a fascinating fact I wanted to share with you – especially those of you who may be free agents right now and considering where you might want to serve this fall. Did you know that 80% of those who follow Jesus, began following Jesus between the ages of 5 to 15?! It is for this reason that investing in our preschool, children, and teens is so important.
I mentioned this last week, but our kids team has been very intentional about creating classes for specific ages, and as a result our older kids are coming in record numbers! Some of the 3rd and 4th graders felt too cool to be with the Kindergarteners. And maybe they were! But now we have classes for kids for each age group which helps them learn more and connect more! And our students are moving towards a middle school group on Sunday mornings and a high school group on Sunday evenings. For now both are combined in the evenings and the middle schoolers are meeting every other week. To have the number of classes we want to have during both services, we need more young adults and adults to serve. We could use a few more men with the kids and a few more women with the teens! We have such amazing volunteers who serve in one service and participate in the other service. They are making a huge impact, and they are blessed in the experience and growing from serving as well!
So what else can we learn from Jesus at the temple at age 12?
We Must Be About the Father’s Business
Jesus wasn’t lost—He was where He was meant to be (Luke 2:49). He was where he had chosen to be.
Think of how remarkable this must have been for these biblical scholars to have a 12 year old asking questions and sharing things he knew with a level of wisdom that amazed them.
It’s a sad thought to consider, how 21 years later some of these same religious leaders could have been there planning to kill Jesus because his popularity had grown beyond what they felt comfortable. He kept welcoming people they felt were unworthy of God’s love. He kept confronting them for their oppression.
If you read the full historical account in the Gospels of the life and ministry of Jesus, you will notice that Jesus was always about his Father’s business.
So what does that mean?
Jesus was on mission to announce that the Kingdom of God was now here and he demonstrated that by healing the sick, caring for the overlooked and marginalized, and confronting injustice.
And when we choose to follow Jesus, we are invited to become more like Him and to do what He was doing.
Jesus announced the Kingdom, revealed God’s character, and launched new creation.
He did this with grace and truth, but sometimes in a different order.
In the life and ministry of Jesus we can see so many examples of how he knew exactly how to approach the people he encountered.
Too often, followers of Jesus seem to lack the emotional intelligence to navigate the culture wars politicians and our society wants to wage. Rather than falling into the traps being set for us, we would do well to learn from the ministry of Jesus how to treat people based on where they were coming from rather than where we want them to be.
Jesus seemed to show no hesitation whatsoever to befriend those with whom he did not agree. Wherever Jesus went in his days on earth, many people were drawn to him. Others despised him. Many others were confused by him. Generally, those who despised Jesus were those who were deeply religious. They hated the way Jesus would fraternize with “sinners,” yet those who were drawn to him tended to be those very same “sinners.”
Tax collectors, thieves, immoral people, and those who were demon-possessed all redirected their lives to follow Jesus. The kindness and love of Jesus led them to repentance and lifechange.
Jesus gained a reputation among the religious leaders as “a glutton and a drunkard” (Matthew 11:19) because he spent so much time with people known for their immoral choices.
Jesus reveals a very different approach from being judgmental which too many Christians often embrace. Jesus actually befriended people on the fringe of society. He embraced the people the religious leaders loved to hate.
A quick example was the woman caught in the act of adultery.
The religious leaders thought they had found a way to trap Jesus. Creeping around and peering into the bedrooms of some of the more notorious women in town, they found their bait. Dragging an adulterous woman in front of Jesus, they demanded that their moral legislation be followed. They knew that Jesus would not condone her behavior; therefore, he would have to participate in her stoning, an act that would prove that his teaching about showing love to others was wrong.
They brought her in front of Jesus while he was teaching a crowd that had gathered. Do you know this story? He began to write on the ground before saying to the religious leaders:
“Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Then notice their response…
… At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
“No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” – John 8:7-11
Jesus saved her from execution on moral grounds. Rather than condemning her, he showed compassion and love while calling her to live a transformed life. Jesus showed kindness and grace before He called her to leave her old life, an incredibly wonderful and freeing invitation. He was saying: “You don’t have to live the way you’ve been living!”
Too often we relate to others in the opposite order. Through our actions, we communicate, “We will love you when you change,” rather than Jesus’ approach, which was, “I will love you whether or not you change, and if you want to change, I will show you how.”
A loving community is not only welcoming to all but willing a community where people care enough to have the hard conversations. Too often, churches have hard conversations before being invited into a real relationship. We start with “go and sin no more” rather than starting with “I don’t condemn you” as Jesus did.
We should consider the person with whom we are interacting to determine the best way to communicate the good news of Jesus. We should look at Jesus’ style which took a kind approach with the woman at the well and a strong even harsh approach with the religious leaders or even someone the Bible refers to as the rich young ruler. Jesus had a different conversation with each person – depending on who they were and where they were when He met them. Both conversations included grace and truth. To those who felt unworthy of God’s love, Jesus began with grace. To those who felt they had already earned God’s love like the rich young ruler, Jesus began with truth.
We should learn to listen to notice how God is at work in someone’s life to know how to serve them and communicate with them rather than assuming truth and then grace is the only way to share with others. It certainly may work for some like it did with the religious leaders – Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimethea, but it doesn’t work for every person.
So let me ask you: if you are a follower of Jesus, are you about your Father’s business?
Are you asking God to help you love others, serve others, bring justice to others, bring hope to others, or share your faith with others?
As always, we want to point you towards the Digging Deeper which is a Bible study based on the message, and there will be more to help us grow in these areas.
Following God may surprise others, but it often looks like obedience to God over what the world may expect of us. Following Him because our first priority and from that He guides us in all things.
Now, let me also point out that some translations quote Jesus as saying: “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” rather than “I must be about the Father’s business.” Both are good translations of the phrase Jesus used.
One has more action associated with it when referring to the Father’s business, but the other one has more of a relational aspect to it. I love the idea of 12 year old Jesus wanting to be in his Father’s house which prepared him for being about his Father’s business.
Participation is a Pathway to Maturity
A remarkable part of this story is how Jesus returned with His parents and submitted to them. It says: “they did not understand what he was saying to them. Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them.” (Luke 2:50-51)
Think about that for a minute. Jesus is able to have meaningful and deep conversations with the religious leaders, and then his parents show up and they do not understand him. Even still, he went with them and obeyed them.
Spiritual growth involves both action and humility. We learn to exercise the muscles of humility by submitting and serving others at work, at home, at church, and in life!
If we are trying to become like Jesus as His followers then that means choosing humility.
Now often we do not understand humility. A few quotes that can help us:
In his classic book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote:
“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.”
-C.S. Lewis
In what a pastor friend of mine referred to as the most life-changing book he’s ever read outside of the Bible, Andrew Murray writes a couple of powerful and helpful quotes on humility in his little book called Humility:
“Humility is the displacement of self by the enthronement of God.”
“Pride must die in you, or nothing of heaven can live in you.”
-Andrew Murray
In what ways have you let selfishness get in the way of your relationships?
In what ways have you allowed pride to keep you from growing in your walk with God?
Any time we think we have it all figured out, we are allowing pride to get in the way of the new thing God is doing or may want to do in our lives!
God Grows Us When We Show Up
Finally, we learn from Jesus, that just being in the right place – learning, asking questions, contributing – can lead to unexpected growth (Luke 2:47, 52).
That’s why we emphasize coming on Sundays and participating in a group as a priority!
As I have said many times, come on Sundays with a heart expecting God to move.
Every Sunday, pray this prayer: “What do you have for me and what do you want from me?”
In other words, show me something and show me someone I can serve.
God has something for you to discover every single Sunday
It could be a conversation in the lobby, a lyric in a song, a passage of Scripture read, an illustration from the message, a prayer prayed with the prayer team, a thought in the midst of singing, or a conversation on the way home
God has something for you to do every single Sunday.
It could be looking for people to meet (those who may be alone or uncomfortable – be wise and kind about this!), praying for people, encouraging others, giving financially, serving others with others, investing in our children, serving as a greeter or on the production team.
Here’s what is even more mind-blowing. God has something for you every single day!
Stay connected to God’s love with a heart for being in God’s presence.
Abide in Him as Jesus says in John 15.
Take a look at the Following Jesus handout as we start a new season!
So let me ask you:
Like Mary and Joseph, have you lost Jesus?
You need to know. He has never left us, but we may have left him.
Maybe you stayed close to Him and then you got busy or distracted.
You can find Him.
He is always easy to find. He is always doing his Father’s business – loving God and loving people.
Or maybe you’ve never walked with Jesus. You need to know, no one has ever loved you or will ever love you the way Jesus loves you. He gave His life for you that we might experience forgiveness from God and relationship with Him.
Come to Him. Start with a simple prayer: “Jesus, I need you. Forgive me. Lead me.”
If you prayed that prayer today for the first time, let us know in the area for Prayer or via the Connect Card. We want to help you follow Him closely.
