Good Questions, Boy Jedi

Engage with Jesus’ Teaching:

"After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers." - Luke 2:46-47

I would encourage you to read the parables of Jesus if you have never done that before. Read the them all the way through. See how revolutionary his teaching still is today. If were were truly to take the time to study Jesus’ teaching closely we would be amazed at the depth and quality of his teaching, but the problem is taking the time to really engage with it. 

• Time Magazine released an article a couple of years ago explaining the diminishing attention span of humans. They took 112 people and monitored their brain activity using EEGs. Around the year 2000 when the mobile revolution began the average attention span was 12 seconds and in 2015 this dropped to 8 seconds. The average attention span for a goldfish is 9 seconds. So congratulations our attention spans are now shorter than goldfish. 

So I want you to follow the example of Jesus here as he is in the temple. I want you to sit down when you read God’s word, I want you to listen as you read to his Spirit, and I want you to ask questions. That’s how you engage with teachings of Scripture. You sit which is an indication that you are willing to take time, you listen, and you ask questions. Well maybe you are thinking, “I can have questions of the Scripture?” Absolutely. Do you think God is looking for robots who just blindly follow him? If that were the case, then Jesus wouldn’t have told us to Love God with all of our heart soul, strength, and mind. I want to challenge to pursue the scriptures with all of your mind. Be a thinker, analyze the text, ask questions of the text. This is when meditation on God’s word happens. When we are willing to engage with what it is really saying. 

Examine Your Allegiance:

"And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, 'Son why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.' And he said to them, 'Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father’s house?' And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them." - Luke 2:48-50

The temple had extreme significance for the Jewish people. It was where the Jews met God, it was where their sacrifices were done. There is not a more powerful symbol in the Jewish faith than that of the temple. In fact, today orthodox Jews still pray that the temple will be rebuilt when the Messiah comes. 

Jesus as a good Jewish boy understood the significance of the temple. But there is something special about Jesus’ relationship with the temple. You see before Jesus’ death on the cross the temple had immense importance to the Jews. The sins were atoned for by bringing your sacrifices to the temple. But we know that Jesus came to usher us into a new covenant. One that was no longer built on animal blood as the atoning sacrifice for our sins, but his blood as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 

So for you and I Jesus is the temple. He is where we go for forgiveness of sins. This is why Jesus says tear down this temple, and I will raise it up in three days. Because he himself is raised from the dead after 3 days. This was blasphemy to the Jewish leaders of his day. This is a charge that was brought against Jesus at his trial. 

You see when Jesus is at the temple teaching and discussing with the religious leaders his parents don’t understand how Jesus could be so deceptive and untrustworthy. But they are missing the point. Luke 2:50 points to this when it says they didn’t understand what he was saying to them. 

Jesus’ response to his parents is basically this, “Where do you think my allegiance lies?” That is the same question I want to ask of us this morning, where does your allegiance lie? You see I think we read this text, and other texts where Jesus tells his disciples that they will have to abandon their jobs, families, possessions, and money to follow him and we think well Jesus is just exaggerating. No he isn’t. Would you be willing to do whatever it takes to give your whole allegiance to Christ? Not just a portion of your allegiance, or the majority of your allegiance, but the whole thing. 

I am fearful that we are Jesus’ parents in this passage. We look at what Jesus is telling us to do or the actions that he takes, and we just don’t understand. Or we find ways to justify away what he is actually telling us to do so that we will feel better about ourselves. Church family where does our allegiance lie? 

Friends, another important distinction here that Jesus reveals is that your allegiance is not to the brick and mortar of this building. The beautiful thing about being a follower of Christ is that we are not tied to any central location. The church of Jesus Christ is a global, multi-site operation dependent on nothing but the word of God and the Holy Spirit. We don’t need Wifi, computers, or office buildings to thrive. Christianity was built upon a grass roots movement of word of mouth testimony about what people had seen and heard Jesus do. 

• A workplace design company put together some interesting statistics and their report said that people are spending only about half their professional time at corporate headquarters. This particular report also said that in a given day people are only spending about 47% of their time at their desks and meeting rooms are not being used as often either. Some companies are actually reserving desks for their employees to use when needed, and not giving every employee their own desk. 

Reflect on His Importance:

"…And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart." - Luke 2:51 

Could you imagine the amount of questions Mary must have had of her son? Even more so, could you imagine the prayer conversations she had with God over her son? For Mary, it must have been constant processing of what her son was up to. 

When Jesus does amazing things in our lives, just like Mary did here we need to treasure these things up in our hearts. The fast paced world in which we live doesn’t give us much time to reflect on past events. I want to challenge you to sit down and physically write down all of the ways that God worked in your life in 2016. Let them serve as reminder to you about how God worked in your life and in your relationships in to 2016. 

I’ll be the first to admit that I am always looking to the next thing. I don’t like to sit down and reflect. My personality is geared towards movement. I don’t like to sit still and think for long periods of time. I want to be up doing stuff. 

In 2017, let’s try to write down the ways that God provided for us, and then let’s commit to ponder these things in our hearts. 

Never Stop Moving:

"And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man." - Luke 2:52

This is the verse that we use to bridge the gap between Jesus’ birth narratives and his ministry in Galilee and the surrounding areas. This verse right here is all we really know about his teenage and young adult years. 

I just have a hunch based on what we know about Jesus from the Gospels that he did not “find himself” during his young adult years. We often hear this statement, “It wasn’t until college or right out of college that I really found myself.” Brothers and sisters, as believers in Jesus Christ our identity is rooted firmly in Him. There is never a need to find yourself. You have been found. Your identity is in Him. 

Young adults in the room, if your identity is rooted in Christ, there is no need to squander years of your life “finding yourself.” Middle aged adults, if your identity is in Christ there is no need to live with remorse concerning your career path or decisions you have made in the past. Senior adults if your identity is in Christ, then he is never done with you. The beauty of a follower of Christ is that no matter what stage of life you are in, God can always use you. Your purpose has no expiration date. Your internal motivation to succeed never goes away. 

• I was talking with one of our senior adults who now lives in an assistant living facility the other day. He was telling me that he had a conversation with one of his friends at the facility who was not feeling well. And our senior adult said just go to the dr. and get this fixed, and the man said that he wanted to die. He didn’t want to go to the doctor. He didn’t see a purpose in living. And our senior adult said he wakes up every morning and there are 17 teenagers that walk right in front of his facility. He prays for them each individually every morning. He told me that gives him excitement, and purpose. He knows that God can use him through praying for those teenagers that he doesn’t even know. Never stop moving friends. 

I visited Jason Bezou, one of our church members who underwent open heart surgery shortly before Christmas. The doctor walked in the room to check up on him, and he told him that the quicker you can get up and start moving around, and walking the faster your recovery will be. Movement is good for everybody. People that get knee replacement surgeries will begin doing exercises and walking shortly after surgery. 

The balance between favor with God and favor with man. Leaning completely in either direction will cause you to lose focus on the other. Important to stay centered. Jesus had focus with his Father, and with the people.