Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What's More Important Than Family? | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 2:41-52

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. Right now, we're learning what it looks like to follow Jesus by working our way through the Gospel of Luke. Some of my favorite stories defy expectations, and they leave me with more questions than answers. Maybe that says more about me than the story itself. But here's the good news for me. There are stories like that in the Bible.

Starting point is 00:00:33 and one of them comes in Luke 2, 41 to 52. Let me read it to you. Every year, Jesus' parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of Passover. When he was 12 years old, they went up to the festival according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled for a day. Then they began looking for him among the relatives and friends, and when they didn't

Starting point is 00:01:03 find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days, they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were so astonished. His mother said to him, son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you. Why were you searching for me? He asked, didn't you know that I had to be in my father's house. But they did not understand what he was saying to them. Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured to all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in grace with God and man. Man, so many questions come out

Starting point is 00:01:55 of this passage. How did Mary and Joseph lose Jesus? But was Jesus being disobedient to his parents? is God, then what in the world does it mean that Jesus grew in wisdom, stature, and grace? Let's take each of these questions in turn. Was Jesus being disobedient to his parents? The easy answer is to say, well, you know, Jesus was sinless, and that means he wasn't being disobedient, so we can just move on. And while I think that's certainly true, Luke wants us to enter into the tension. Mary's words are almost accusatory, aren't they? Son, why is have you treated us like this? And Jesus's response would not satisfy a normal parent. At least they wouldn't satisfy me if my daughter disappeared for three years. Didn't you know I had to be in my father's

Starting point is 00:02:44 house? Mary and Joseph hear this and they're just perplexed. Why? Why don't they get angry? Why don't they get frustrated? Well, we're getting the sense that Jesus was a precocious child and that he'd been so obedient to his parents in the past that when he makes such a bizarre excuse that shouldn't be a good excuse at all, his parents actually take it seriously, even though they don't understand it. They don't have any reason to disagree with him. But the point is clear, and I think it's shocking to the reader of the story. Jesus, even at age 12, is no ordinary human. He's aware of some sort of special relationship to his Heavenly Father, a relationship that transcends all other relationships and allegiance, which transcends all other allegiances.

Starting point is 00:03:32 even his allegiance to his own earthly parents. And that's what Jesus is trying to get at. He's saying, look, I was obeying my heavenly father, and that's my primary allegiance. And it's precisely because Jesus was obeying his heavenly father that Jesus leaves the temple. And according to verse 51, is obedient to his parents. Why would he be obedient? Well, it's not because his parents were perfect. I mean, they were normal parents who made mistakes and probably made bad rules and bad decisions

Starting point is 00:04:02 in regards to their parenting of Jesus. But Jesus was obedient to his parents because he was following the Fifth Commandment to honor your father and mother. All of this would have been shocking in Jesus' world. I mean, this was a world where family was supposed to be the primal allegiance. And so again, we can imagine Jewish and Gentile readers of Luke feeling some comfort in this story. Why? Well, because to follow Jesus, many of them actually had to break their family. family bonds. They had to put family second. They had to put husbands or wives or children second in order to put Jesus first. And here we see that even Jesus had to do this. He had to put his parents second so that he could put his heavenly father first. So today it begs us a different question,

Starting point is 00:04:52 doesn't it? What allegiances are we tempted to put ahead of God? Here's a good test. Look at your schedule. Look at your day-in, day-out life. What does your schedule say about your allegiance? Okay, question number two. Were Joseph and Mary bad parents? I mean, how in the world did they lose Jesus? You know, a parent who takes their kids to a store could tell you that every now and then your child will turn around a corner and then you can't find them. But that's pretty different than losing your kid for three days. So what happened? Well, let me give you a little bit of the cultural background. You see, in those days, people traveled in large caravans, mostly made up of extended family. This was for protection, mostly. And the caravans, they would divide up into men in the

Starting point is 00:05:42 fronts and women at the back. And normally, children under the age of 13 traveled with the women. And boys above the age of 13, they would travel with the men. And so it's quite possible that because Jesus was around this exact age, that Mary assumed that Jesus was now traveling up, up in the front with Joseph and the men, while Joseph was assuming the opposite, that Jesus was in the back traveling with the women. And then they get to the end of the day, and they reunite, and you can't even imagine the horror. Wait a second. I thought you had him, Joseph. Wait a second. I thought you had him, Mary. I'm sure they had a pretty bad fight that night, but they turn around, and they go and they find Jesus. So we might call this the first marital miscommunication in the New Testament,

Starting point is 00:06:27 but they certainly were not bad parents. In fact, Luke presents them as excellent parents who are devout to following God's laws. That's why they're bringing Jesus up every year to the temple. Okay, question number three. How did Jesus grow in wisdom, stature, and grace with God and with man? I think it's a good thing that Christians are careful to defend the deity of Jesus. There are groups out there like Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, which have denied or redefined this central tenet of Christianity. And in the process, it leads them and others entirely astray from Jesus into doctrines about Jesus, which really have nothing to do with Jesus. But we have to be really careful, because in our rush to defend Jesus' divine identity that he is God,

Starting point is 00:07:16 we can fall into the exact opposite error of denying his humanity. There's a whole different set of errors that come from this mistake. Jesus was fully God and he was fully human. And part of being fully human is human development. Contrary to some of those medieval paintings out there, Jesus did not come out of the womb like a little many human speaking proverbs. No, 13-year-old Jesus was more mature than 7-year-old Jesus. 23-year-old Jesus was more wise than 13-year-old Jesus.

Starting point is 00:07:50 And here's the crazy part. Jesus had to work at growing and maturing, both in his character and his knowledge and his skills. He had to do it the exact same way that we do it. Do you know how Jesus came to know the Bible so well? He studied it. He did the hard work of memorizing it. He applied it into his life and lived it out. He saw the world through it. He prayed it day in and day out. it wasn't easy work, but he had to do it. If Jesus had to work so hard to study and to pray the Bible, how much more so do we? If he had to grow in his knowledge continually, how much more so do we need to be continuing to grow in our knowledge of God and how to live out his word? I kind of laugh whenever people tell me that they've already studied this book of the Bible and so they don't need to study it again

Starting point is 00:08:45 because they've basically got all of the big ideas. Really? Jesus read his Bible over and over and over and over again, and he grew more wise every single time. Reading and rereading helped Jesus grow. Again, how much more so do we need to do that? But what about growing in grace? Well, this is interesting because the Bible is actually full of characters who find grace or who grow in grace or find favor with God. They're all the same phrases in Hebrew and in Greek. Characters like Noah, Joseph, David, and others are all people who grow in grace, who find favor. And here's what they all have in common. They were all looked down upon and even persecuted. They all walked with God, though, nonetheless. And God worked through their faithfulness, all of them to bring about his redemptive purposes for the world. And so Jesus, in his humanity,

Starting point is 00:09:40 he goes through a similar experience to Noah, to Joseph, to David, to those who were looked down upon, were persecuted, but who were faithful nonetheless, and who God used none the less. You see, he was the ultimate finder of grace, we might say. He was the ultimate grower of grace because he was persecuted. And he grew in faithfulness as he walked with God through these trials. And through his faithfulness, God brought about not just a small scale salvation, but the salvation of all creation. when we consider how Jesus had to hone his allegiance to his Heavenly Father, how he had to grow in wisdom and walk more and more in God's grace. I hope it's both a challenging and and encouragement.

Starting point is 00:10:23 If Jesus needed to do all this, then I think we're challenged to do it infinitely more. But if Jesus found all this as a human, then we can be assured that we as humans can find these things too. We can grow in wisdom. We can grow in grace. we can grow in honing our allegiance to the Father. And we do it precisely by being people who are united to him in the spirit. Thanks for listening.

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Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What's More Important Than Family? | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 2:41-52

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