Part 15, Jesus: The Early Years

Luke's Gospel, chapter number two. We're going to begin reading this morning in verse 41. Luke's Gospel 2, verse 41. It'll be page 910 if you're using the Pew Bible as I'm using. When you get there, if you're able, if you would stand with me as we honor God in the reading of His Word. Luke's Gospel, chapter 2, beginning in verse 41.

And now hear the Word of the Lord.

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 didn't 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. When they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for Him. After three days, they found Him in the temple, 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."

"Why were you searching for Me?" He asked them. "Didn't you know that it was necessary for Me to be in My Father's house?"

But they did not understand what He had 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

And in favor with God and with people. May God add His blessing to the reading, the preaching, and now your hearing to understand His holy Word. May our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ forever be praised. And all of God's people say, "Amen." You may be seated.

So far in this series, we've traced the great stories of the Old Testament. By the way, if you weren't here for those, they are on the YouTube channel. You can go all the way back to Genesis and hear these stories again. But while we were in the Old Testament and looking at those stories, we were looking at stories that whisper something more is coming—stories that point to something not completely defined. They strain toward a hope that was not fully understood in the Old Testament. Something greater was yet to come.

Now, as of last week, we have crossed a threshold into something greater—the greatest story of all time—the life of Jesus Christ. And this morning, we pause at a passage of Scripture that we often fly by, that is most of the time skimmed over too quickly.

This is all that we've got on the childhood of Jesus. Now, there are some other places—some extra-biblical sources—that record extra-biblical stories about the childhood of Jesus. But in the Bible, this is literally all that we have about the childhood of Jesus. And as I was preparing this—actually much earlier in the week because of the schedule this week—I began to ponder the question: Why does this even matter?

Yes, we say, "Why do we need to know the story of the childhood of Jesus?" But at the bigger-picture level, this whole story of Jesus—I've explained to you—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John: these four Gospels telling the same story from four different perspectives, four different eyewitness testimonies. But why? Why is the story of Jesus—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—such a big deal?

After all, Jesus never taught a philosophy class, but He changed literally how the world thinks. He never held political office, never had one person vote for Him, yet governments rise and fall in His name. He never wrote a book. The only thing we ever have Jesus recorded as writing down was when He scratched in the sand with a woman caught in adultery. He never wrote a book, yet more has been written about Him than any figure in history. He was never formally ordained as a minister, yet He is the cornerstone and foundation of the church. That's why it matters.

We know very little about His childhood, and that is intentional, I believe, because what matters most is not how He grew up, but what He grew into. He grew into that thirty-three-year-old man who died on the old rugged cross—the Savior who conquered death and opened the way for eternal life.

But because everything about Him does matter—even if it was two words about His childhood, even if that is all that we had—everything matters about Him. What we are given absolutely matters. So let's not gloss over it. Let's not skim through the few verses we have of the childhood of Jesus. Let's look at them more closely. Let's do as we have done in each one of these fifteen sermons. Let's begin with number one: retelling the story.

It was after the visit of the magi, the wise men, that danger crept quietly into the story. King Herod was feeling threatened by whispers of a rival king who would steal his throne, and so he unleashed violence in Bethlehem.

Joseph is warned by God in a dream, and he gathers up Mary and the child, and they flee to Egypt under the cover of darkness. So think about this: the Savior of the world had to flee His homeland for safety.

They stay there until Herod dies. The family returns not to Judea, but to the quiet town of Nazareth. And there, Scripture tells us, the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and God's grace was on Him.

Jesus, a little baby, grew into a toddler, grew into a pre-teen. That's an amazing thought, isn't it? He grew physically. He grew mentally. He grew emotionally, like any other child. He learned how to walk. He learned how to work. He learned how to read the Scriptures. And since He was the perfect child, I wondered this week—and of course they didn't have flashlights back then—but Jesus probably would have been the only son in all of history who could hold the flashlight in the right place for His daddy.

Jesus grew. He scraped His knees. He carried tools. He knew the rhythms of an ordinary family life. But each year, His family traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover.

Now Nazareth, where they lived, had a synagogue. It was different than the temple. A synagogue is a local place for Scripture reading, prayer, and teaching. But Jerusalem held the one temple. There was one temple and many synagogues.

The temple was the place—the center of sacrifice, the center of worship, the center of God's dwelling presence among His people. And at twelve years old—do we have any twelve-year-olds here today? Raise your hand if you're twelve years old. Yeah, we've got a couple of twelve-year-olds.

At twelve years old, back then, that was considered on the edge of manhood.

Jesus lingered behind when it was time to leave. And we can imagine how easily this could have happened—huge groups of people, huge family groups. I can think about my childhood. This even happened to me one time, where Mom and Dad thought I was going back home with my grandmother, and my grandmother thought I was with Aunt Terry and Jay. And they get back to Sunday lunch at my grandmother's house, and nobody's got Kurt. So they go back to the church, and there I was, sitting with one of my great-uncles on the front steps of the church, because he knew they would get there and figure out I wasn't there.

Y'all understand how this could happen, don't you? No cell phones, no beepers, no other ways of communication. And they're traveling along, and, "I thought you had Jesus." "No, I thought you had Jesus." And three days go by.

Mary and Joseph go back to Jerusalem, and they find Him. And it's very important where they find Him. They find Him at the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening, asking questions.

And when His mother, a relieved mother, sees Him, she speaks to Him with fear and relief. "Oh, how could You have done this to us, Son?"

Jesus answered—and this is an important answer. He answered gently. He said, "Mama, didn't you know that I had to be in My Father's house?"

It wasn't defiance. He did not speak defiantly. He spoke with identity. It was not rebellion. He was not rebellious. He was speaking on His calling.

And we think of this astonishingly—even though He's the Son of God—the Scripture we read said that He returned home and was obedient to His earthly parents. He submitted Himself to earthly parents. The One who would later cleanse the temple with righteous anger, driving out those buying and selling, at this point cared deeply for the house of God, even as a little boy.

We retell the story. Number two, we remember the truths. There are many truths, and we don't have time for all of them this morning, but three—maybe four. The first truth, real quickly, that I do want you to see and understand this morning—in our world today, we've got to be reminded of this—number one: Jesus is fully human.

Jesus was flesh and blood. He grew. He learned. He felt sorrow. He felt joy. You know, remember from John's Gospel, chapter 8—Jesus wept. He knew fatigue. He got tired. That's why He was asleep in the boat: because He was tired.

Yet with all that Jesus experienced as a human, He was without sin. Why is this important? It is important because we need to know that He knows our struggles, because He experienced them.

Hebrews 4:14 tells us, "Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens—Jesus, the Son of God—let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet was without sin."

Just as important as the truth that Jesus is fully human is truth number two: Jesus is fully divine. Jesus is fully God.

At twelve years old, He spoke of God not as our Father, as He would later teach the disciples to pray—He called Him My Father. Even in the presence of Joseph, His earthly stepfather, He spoke of the temple as the house of His Father.

Folks, Jesus did not discover His identity. Jesus lived His identity from the very beginning. What was the youth Bible verse this morning? "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning, and through Him all things were made. Without Him, nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of man. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

Jesus is fully human. Jesus is fully divine.

Truth number three. This is a truth that stands out in bold print to me: Jesus valued the house of God. Jesus reverenced the house of God. The temple to Him was not a marketplace.

It was holy ground. Later in Jesus's ministry—just a couple of chapters over, several years later, but only a few chapters—Jesus would clear the temple. And it's the only event that's recorded in all four of the Gospels. It's recorded at the beginning of His ministry, and it's recorded at the ending of His ministry during Holy Week. He would clear it out, defending the sacred purpose of the house of God.

It is the only instance—like the memes the kids say today, "violence is not the answer, but violence is always an option"—folks, this is the only thing that Jesus ever got violent about. I think that's the right word for it. He made a whip. He drove out the people who were buying and selling in the house of God. He turned their tables over. He kicked them out. He rebuked them. He cracked His whip.

Because of that, I know there are people who get sideways with me over this, but I think we need to be really careful about being casual about something that Jesus was so serious about. And I didn't used to be this way. But the funny thing is, as you read your Bible—I'm finishing reading the Bible from cover to cover for the twenty-first time, and I'll start the twenty-second time in January—you read something one time and you sort of say, "Okay." You read it the second time. You read it the third time. If you read it four times in one Bible, and you do that twenty-one times, it begins to stick with you.

And here is the conviction that I've developed: from conviction comes philosophy, and from philosophy comes practical practice.

I'll just say this: the house of God is not a place for buying and selling. And I'll be even more practical. You need to leave the school fundraisers and your business associations and networking to make sales and deals—you need to leave all that outside of the house of God, because there's one thing that made Jesus mad. It was buying and selling in the house of God. Amen.

Truth number four: Jesus lived in humble obedience. Though He was Lord of all, He submitted Himself to imperfect parents. There's a lesson here for our children and teenagers as well, isn't there? Boys and girls, your mom and dad aren't perfect, and they're going to make mistakes. Your job is to obey them and let God work it out. Amen.

True greatness—true greatness—always expresses itself in humility. Humility.

Philippians 2:5–8, we read: "Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead, He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when He had come as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross."

True greatness is always expressed in humility.

So, these are four of the maybe dozen to seventeen truths we could talk about this morning. But let's square the circle and find some ways to respond in faith to these truths.

First of all, we say that because Jesus became fully human, you can bring Him your struggles, because He understands. The old spiritual says, "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen. Nobody knows my sorrow. Nobody knows the trouble I've seen—nobody knows but Jesus." You can bring Him all your struggles, because He understands.

Number two: because Jesus is fully God—fully divine—you can trust Him completely. He alone is the One who can save. And I say this so often, but I want it to become ingrained into your heart, your soul, your mind, and your spirit: only God can do the things that only God can do. And praise the Lord, He's still doing it. Amen.

Number three: because Jesus honored the house of God, we should honor the house of God with worship, with reverence, and with joy.

Number four: because Jesus lived humbly—humbly—make your attitude the same as His.

Jesus grew up not just so we could admire His childhood, but so He could give His life for us. He humbled Himself. He obeyed perfectly. He went to the cross humbly. And because He conquered death through death, everything about Him matters—even the years we glimpse only briefly.

Folks, remember: He knows what you're going through. He knows who you are. And He calls you. Jesus calls you to come to Him—not just to admire Him, but to follow Him.

He's not merely a good teacher. He's not merely a moral example. He is the Savior, the Son of God—our Lord.