Father's Business

Transcript

If you could take your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter two, we're going to be reading verses 41 through 52. And actually I'm going to add a verse. I'm going to add verse 40. So open your Bibles to Luke chapter 2, verse 40, 52. And when you get there, go ahead and stand for the reading of the gospel, verse 40.

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The child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. Now, his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And when he became 12, they went up there according to the custom of the feast. And as they were returning after spending the full number of days, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. But his parents were unaware of it, but supposed him to be in the caravan and went a day's journey and began looking for him among their relatives and acquaintances.

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When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem looking for him. Then, after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When they saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to them, son, why have you treated us this way?

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Behold, your father and I have been anxiously looking for you. And he said to them, why is it that you were looking for me? Did you not know that I had to be in my father's house? But they did not understand the statement which he had made to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and he continued to subjection to them.

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And his mother treated, treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and men. You can be seated.

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Well, peace be with you. Let's pray. Father. May your will be done, Jesus. May your word be proclaimed and spirit, may your work be accomplished in us.

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We pray. Amen. Well, it is good to be back here at harvest Point. It's always an exciting thing to be among people that you love and have poured into your life. And so it is an honor to be here.

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When Pastor Marshall asked me if I could preach, I'm like, well, not typically. I can't, but praise be to God. I do have a retired pastor in my congregation who was able to step in for me and is preaching this morning. So as you think about them, please be in prayer for Fairview Methodist as they are engaging in worship at this moment. Well, we come here to our gospel lesson, and our gospel lesson is very unique and Special because it is the only one of its kind.

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Nowhere else in the four Gospels will you find a story or a narrative about Jesus as a boy. And not just a boy, but a preteen, 12 years old. Now in Jewish culture this is the last year of Jesus life that he is going to be referred to as a boy. Because when you turn 13 you have a bar mitzvah and you are considered a man of the commandments or a man now moving forward. And so we get a glimpse in this gospel, that Luke's gospel account gives us a glimpse into the life of Jesus as he's 12 years old, he's a preteen, and he is with his parents.

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And we get to see what it is that a 12 year old Messiah son of God does. And it's very unique, it's very special. Like I said, it's nowhere else to be found in any other gospels do you get to read anything about Jesus boyhood. But here we're giving it to us. And so that begs the question, Holy Spirit, what is it that you would want us to learn about Jesus being 12 years old?

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What is it that he's doing? What is it? Why did you include this in Luke's Gospel in no other place in Scripture? And so we have the burden to read it and to strive by way of the Holy Spirit to understand what it is that the Holy Spirit wants us to to see Jesus at 12 years old doing. And what I think you're going to find out is that we are given this account because Jesus even at 12 years old, takes seriously the mission that he was sent and born for.

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And so we're going to dive into that. And one of the first things that we're going to see is how Jesus at 12 years old as a preteen begins to prepare himself to die. Now that might be very striking to you, like a 12 year old preparing himself to die, but we already know the purpose of Jesus life. We already know that he was sent to die for the sins of the world. That's not a surprise to us.

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So it shouldn't be a surprise that a 12 year old boy who understands his father's business, who is aware of what his father had sent him to do, begins to prepare his life for. And one of the first things that you're going to find in this passage is something that is not special at all. There's nothing unique or special about how Jesus goes about preparing for himself to go and die when he becomes a man. And that is why we read verse 40 and the last verse, you see, we are given these bookends in this narrative that tells us on the front end that Jesus was growing in strength and in wisdom and in the grace of God the Father. And then we're given this whole narrative, Jesus getting lost and staying back in Jerusalem.

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And at the end of the narrative, when he goes back home to Nazareth with his parents, we're told that he grows in wisdom and stature and favor among God and man. And anytime the Scriptures give you these little bookends, you're to understand that they're trying to communicate that everything that happens in between contributes to the maturation of Jesus, that he begins by growing in maturity. And all of this takes place at home. And I think that is one of the most intriguing things. See, Mary and Joseph took baby Jesus to Jerusalem before.

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It's right before this account, so that he could be dedicated. And upon leaving Jerusalem, they head back home. And then we're told he's growing in strength and wisdom here in this passage that we're looking at today, our Gospel lesson for today. They go back to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. When all the festivities are over, they journey back home.

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Jesus stays. But at the end of this narrative, when they go and find Jesus, Jesus does submit himself to his parents and they go back home. And then we're told he grows in wisdom and in stature and favor with God and men. And what's significant about that is that as Jesus is preparing for his mission to do his Father's will, to do his Father's business, is that he did not attend some kind of special Messiah son school or class, that he didn't attend some kind of academy or private institution where he gets to learn how to walk on water or cast out demons. No, he does everything.

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His maturation takes place in the most ordinary ways possible. And that is at home under the guidance and the leadership and the training of his mom and dad. And I think that's very important because we have Jesus, what we would assume would have very special attention. And we're talking about the Son of God. We would think that there was some kind of special agent sent, maybe some little angels, incognito, that are dressed and tending to a little boy wonder, Jesus.

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But no, it's Mary, it's Joseph, training, equipping, and helping their son, Jesus, who's also the Son of God, to prepare for his mission. Jesus, maturation, majority of the time is taking place at home. At least that's what the Gospel is telling us. It says they every time they went to a special place. But then they came home and he's growing.

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He's maturing as a boy. He's growing in wisdom. And to me, this is very telling. Because what agency has God entrusted for his very own son to mature? It's the family.

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It's the family structure. It's mom and dad. See, God the Father didn't have to reinvent something special or give special agents to his son. He says, no, I've already created the family. I've already created the structure of the family.

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You can go back in Genesis and read all about it. Everybody has their individual roles, and my son will submit himself to that structure. I've already established which is the family, the family unit. And that's how the Son of God, the Son of Man, grows up and matures. That's how he gains wisdom.

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That's how he gains stature. That's how he grows in favor of God and men. It happens at home under his mom and his dad. But not only that, sometimes parents don't always have all the answers. Sometimes parents, as you might know, you might feel unequipped to be able to train your children in the way they are to go.

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And that's what we find with Mary and Joseph. And for this reason, when they venture back to Jerusalem this last time as Jesus as a boy, remember, he's 12 years old. This is the last time as a child, technically, that he is going to experience the Passover feast. And he has felt led, for whatever reason, to stay behind in Jerusalem and seek out special instruction from the temple leaders. Now, Mary and Joseph don't know this.

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Mary and Joseph are not as mindful of Jesus ministry and Jesus mission to accomplish the business of his Father, that they go ahead and say, well, Passover is over, so we're heading home and assuming that Jesus is coming with them. But Jesus, who knows that he needs to begin being busy about his father's business, stays back in Jerusalem because he does need some special guidance in understanding God's laws and understanding God's word. And so we find him back in Jerusalem sitting under the Temple leaders, being instructed, receiving instruction and asking questions. Jesus is very busy trying to figure out how he can further prepare and equip himself, equip himself for his mission that he will accomplish as a man. Now, mom and dad are freaking out over this because they just lost the Son of God.

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And so they're freaking out and they go. And it's very important that we learn that it has been three days that they go searching for him. And on the third day they find him right where he knew he needed to be to receive this special instruction, the ones that Jesus knew his parents couldn't provide. And so he came to the church to find that instruction and that's where they ended up finding him. And this is very important because mom, dad, if you ever feel inadequate to raise your child up in the Lord, you know what the good news is and what kind of agency and institution the Lord God has given you to help you in your endeavors of raising his child up in him, that is the church.

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So your, your, your students or your child's maturation is your responsibility. It's your stewardship. And a lot of the maturity that happens in the Lord ought to be happening at home. But when you need those special instructions, when you need that special attention to your child that you're not able to give because maybe you're limited in your resources, praise be to God that we have the church. And the church's whole primary role in each and every one of our lives is to preach and to teach this.

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And this helps us, helps us be equipped for every good work and mission that God has called us to do. And so not only does Jesus prepare himself to go and die as a man to accomplish the will of his father by taking on what he needs to do as just being a child with a mom and dad growing in wisdom and stature at home, but he also submits himself to being in receiving instruction from the church. And so both of these powerhouses at play in the 12 year old Jesus life is helping equip him to accomplish something that nobody can accomplish. And if it's good enough for Jesus to submit himself to, do you think it might be better for us to do the exact same thing, and we've already heard it this morning, that we're to be conformed into the image of Jesus Christ, that we are to live a life like his. And he is providing us an example at 12 years old what we can be doing in our lives to be more like Him.

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Students, this is a probably the passage that I know, I've preached many times, the high schoolers and junior hires, because we live in a culture today where kids just like to tell parents what they need to be doing. There's this fallenness, it's called the sinful nature that every child possesses. And even my 5 1/2 year old Bo has this all over himself. He likes to tell us how we ought to parent because he came downloaded with a really good parenting manual. He somehow knows how we ought to Teach him and train him in the way he says, no, we gotta do this, we gotta do that.

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That's the sinful nature, that's the rebellious state. It already wants to oppose the very means that God has already established.

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And kids, you guys all the time like to tell your parents, well we need to do this, this is better. And you rebel against them and you don't like to listen to them that you have to identify as a sinful nature. Take the lesson from 12 year boy. Tell 12 year old boy Jesus who subjects himself to his parents. That's what we're given right here at the end of the narrative.

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We're given that Jesus himself surrenders to the agency and the institution that God his father established all the way back when he created families. And this is why the scriptures teach over and over and over, children, obey your mom and dad and it will go right with you. Children, honor your father and mother. Parents, train your children in the way they should go, raise them up in the Lord.

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That's what we're given. And we're not really given that clear of a picture anywhere else but right here. So not only does Jesus by ordinary means, through his family grow in maturation, not only does he go to the church to get that special attention that he needs to further equip himself for the mission that's set before him, which is to go and die for the sins of the world, because that's his father's business, that's his father's loving kindness that he is supposed to execute in the world. But Jesus at 12 years old is already beginning to prepare his family because he recognizes that there is something that they're going to need to experience in order to endure the day that is coming down. And here's what I mean when Mary, when they come back to Jerusalem, Mary asks Jesus something very interesting.

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And the question assumes that Jesus did. He stayed back in Jerusalem very intentionally. And so it almost seems it is that Jesus intentionally gets lost for these three days in order for his parents to experience the separation from him. And he's preparing specifically his mother, because there's going to be a day where she is going to see some really horrific things being done to her child. And she's going to need the emotional stamina to be able to endure that.

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And here's what I mean. Just a few verses prior to the Gospel lesson that we've been looking at this morning, a prophecy by Simeon was given to Mary. And this prophecy says that Mary, your child is going to fall and then rise for all of Israel. But when that happens, your soul is going to feel as if a sword has pierced and cut you. So given that prophecy, when Jesus is lost for three days and they are frantically looking and they find Jesus in the temple, and Mary is the one that asks him, why have you done these things to us, son?

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Why have you intentionally remained back here when you know we are going home? What are you doing? And Jesus tells them, I have been going about doing my Father's business. Some translations say, didn't you know I need to be in my Father's house? But a better translation is that he has to be busy doing and accomplishing his, his Father's business.

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And what that tells us is Jesus takes his parents on a trial run for what they're going to experience when he becomes a man. All of this is as if to say, Jesus intentionally treats his mom and dad in such a way as to prepare them for his death. You've been looking for me for three days. You feel the anguish, you feel the distress, you feel the anxiety. Well, that's going to happen again.

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And what I need you to do is prepare yourself. Because there's going to come a day when I am going to go and we're all going to come into Jerusalem again for the Passover feast. But this time I'm going to be the Passover lamb and I'm going to be raised up on a cross and I'm going to die. And mom, you're going to see your child, you're going your son being slain and killed on the cross, and then I'm going to go missing for three days. But I need you to know, just like this small little trial run now, where I got lost and he found me in the temple, I want you to know that during those three days after my death when nobody can find me and everybody's scattered and everybody feels the distress that everything's going to be okay because you also found me to be okay in the temple, receiving instruction.

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I need you to be prepared for that moment because you are going to feel that sword slice your soul. So Jesus, out of compassion, Jesus, a 12 year old, a mama's boy, loves his mom, loves his dad enough that while he's preparing himself, his body, his mind, his life to go and die, he's also preparing those he loves to be able to have the maturity and the stamina to deal on that day. And that if they can remind themselves of all these things that they treasured up, notice how that the narrative ends that Mary treasures up in her Heart, all these things that took place. I have to believe that when. When Jesus died on the cross, when she saw her son die on the cross, that the thing that she treasured back then brought back to her mind.

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This has happened before. Jesus got lost, and it was for three days, and everything was okay. And I bet everything's gonna be okay.

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And all of a sudden, we're given this lesson, this trial run. And it points to another passage of scripture that's unique to the Gospel of Luke as well, to where you will find nowhere else in Scripture. And that is Jesus, on that day, dies, is lost for three days. And there's two disciples that are heading back from Jerusalem, just like Mary and Joseph were leaving Jerusalem after everything at the Passover was done. And there's two disciples that are heading back home to Emmaus.

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And as they're on the way, they are discussing what everything that had taken place. They're distressed over the fact that their Messiah, Jesus, the Christ, is dead. And they're discussing these things, not aware that Jesus is right there in the caravan with them. He's incognito. And Jesus says, what are you talking about?

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And they said, don't you know everything that just happened back in Jerusalem, how Jesus died? And Jesus says, all those things had to take place for my Father's business. And it keeps on going. And this is happening on the third day. And they finally get home, and Jesus reveals himself by the breaking of bread to the two disciples on Emmaus.

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And immediately they see Jesus. Immediately they became overjoyed because Jesus has now been found alive. And so they go back to Jerusalem and they report this to Jesus's new family, which is the disciples. And then Jesus appears to his disciples and says, peace be with you. I'm alive.

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And so this little episode we get when that happens, when Jesus is 12, is a glimpse of what happens at the end, when Jesus fulfills his Father's business by dying on the cross for the sins of the world. In this time, Jesus isn't found in the temple receiving instruction and asking questions. Jesus has become the temple, and he's instructing his disciples, and they're asking him questions. And everything becomes full circle. And we learn all of what this means and why the Holy Spirit has included this.

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Because in a way, as we read through the Gospel of Luke, Luke is preparing us so that by the time we get to the end of his Gospel, we can fully understand all that Jesus has done to prepare himself for the cross, to endure it with great joy, because it leads to each and every one of our salvations, if we believe in him. Now, there's a few practical applications that we can draw from this one is that we don't need special or exceptional ways to grow in our faith, that we can have it done right at home. But mom and dad, it has to begin with you. Can you imagine, and if you think about this, is that Joseph and Mary had a lot of responsibility to contribute to the life of their son, Jesus, so that he can go and do his father's business. It's because of their parenthood, of training them, of being devout Jews, of always going and taking them to the special feasts, of going to the temple when the temple's open, of being at home and pouring over him like they ought to have been doing.

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And there is nothing exceptional about it, mom and dad. There's nothing exceptional. You don't need special agents in your children's life. They just need you to be very serious about doing the father's business. And your responsibility is to train those children up in the way of the Lord.

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There's a reason why God, when he picked Abraham up and says, I'm going to show you and give you a land and I'm going to bless you from generation to generation to generation to generation, is because God expects to be working through the family for generations to come. And so what all of us as parents need to be doing is to raising up our children, to equip them, to prepare them to fulfill the mission that God is going to call them to do. That is primary. They don't determine for themselves what it is that they ought to use their life for. You don't dictate what your children's lives are meant for.

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God has already chosen it. God has already called them. God has already a mission for their life and your job are his agents. And the family is the structure that the children need to grow and mature, just like the very Son of God Jesus does.

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But not only that. There's Jesus in this is a great example of how you could be the Son of God being faithful to the mission and also being a child with two parents. And what I mean by that is he bridges this gap of how do I become faithful and obedient to God and at the same time be obedient to mom and dad, as if those things are opposed to one another. Jesus embodies this and bridges the gap between what it means to follow faithfully after his Father's will and conduct his Father's business, while at the same time being subject in Obedience and honoring his mom and dad. Jesus shows us that those things are not adamantly opposed to one another, that those things ride tandem together.

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That Jesus embodies this idea and this concept that as you are seeking after the Lord and what his will is for your life, guess what it's going to include? It's going to include being obedient to your mom and dad, honoring them.

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That's what Jesus embodies here. That's a lesson that we can learn from Jesus himself. That is a great and wonderful thing. Another point that we learn here is that there are seasons of life, really basic seasons of life. And what I mean was, while Jesus was a preteen, 12 years old, still a child, as we've mentioned multiple times already, he subjected himself to his parents.

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But then his parents had a responsibility as well. And I have come to find out that through all the scriptures, there are these seasons of life that we need to live into, that we shouldn't go quickly through any particular season to get to the next, but that we have seasons of life that we all experience in our lifetime. And there are three basic seasons. It's a priest, it's a king, and it's a prophet. These are also the offices that Jesus held.

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See as a priest. A priest is a person who's been prescribed the law. Everything they do, down to every detail, is told to them, is given to them by God's word. How they conduct sacrifices, what they ought to wear, what they ought to do, how they ought to speak, how they deal with people. A priest is a person in a season of life to where you are being instructed and that you are performing what you are instructed.

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And this is the season that every child is in. One of the things I tell Bo when he likes to tell me how to parent is I ask him and remind him, what are you? And he'll say, I'm a child. I said, and what do children do? We listen and obey.

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Perfect, wonderful. That's how it is. And that's what children ought to do. Children are in their priestness of their lives. They are to receive instruction, receive guidance, and to execute that without much other thought.

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They're not yet a king. They're not yet that next season of life that a lot of you parents are in, which is you have a kingdom. You make decisions. That kingdom rises and falls on the decisions that you make. You're leading and you're guiding your family.

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You're in that season of kingship. You're executing all the wisdom that you've learned as a priest. And now you're carrying it into being a king and you're doing that. And then third, the third season is profit. And this is for all those who have already been through the previous two.

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They, the prophets are the ones that, yeah, we've been through all that. They're the grandparents. They're the ones that have the word of God and the experience and the wisdom and the know how to say, hey, let me speak this word into you. They can tell a king, hey, that's not what God's word says. You've sinned and you need to repent.

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They can speak into the lives of others with God's word. They could speak into children in different ways than kings can. We all need the prophets in our lives to speak to us, to confront us. And that's what I think we find in this passage in the Gospel lesson is that we learn that everybody has their role and every role has a different season. And we need to live into that season.

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We need to live into that role so that we can fully together be unified to accomplish what the Father's business is.

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And lastly, I think that what the Holy Spirit has illuminated our minds to understand and see in this very unique passage of Luke here is that Jesus at 12 years old goes to great lengths to equip himself with the character he needs to possess when he becomes a man to endure the cross. That even at 12 years old, Jesus is mindful of what he's sent to do. That even at 12 years old, he is submitting himself to the Father and to his parents and that can stir us up to love him more. That it wasn't an afterthought, that it wasn't some kind of scheme that was put together last minute, that it was meticulous and was thought out and it was thoughtful. And Jesus as a 12 year old boy goes and does whatever he needs to do for the mission that has been set before him.

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That ought to stir our hearts up towards loving him more. Because what Jesus is demonstrating is that there is no height, there's no depth, there's no width, there's no canyon. There's nothing that's going to keep me from displaying my love for everybody and going to the cross, that I've been busy about it since I was 12 years old and I'm going to see it to fruition. We can trust in him and that ought to stir your hearts to deep love of Jesus. Not only that, but this passage tells us how as families, we can love each other better.

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By children, you Living in to your priest role. Living in as a one that needs to be instructed, one that needs to be trained. Living into that and trusting God through your parents and allowing them to pour into your lives is how you can love them better and parents to be very intentional in raising your kids and not giving them off to everything. But it's your responsibility to raise them up in the Lord that when you give yourself and live into that, what you're doing is loving your children better.

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So already we should be able to see that this special, wonderful passage and how the Holy Spirit is written stirs our hearts to love God more and also teaches us how we can love each other better. Let's pray.

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Holy Spirit, we thank you so much that you have been intentional on how you've written everything so that we can get to know all the things that you have been doing in Jesus Christ so that we might be able to learn how it is that we can navigate our own lives towards Jesus Christ. I pray for all the families here. I pray for the parents. I pray for the kids. I pray that as we continue to grow in our relationships with one another, that our primary concern would be the will of the Heavenly Father.

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I pray that you would reveal that will and that the families here that are present will be ignited to begin to equip the kids to accomplish what they have been called to do by God. I pray that you would embolden the parents to lead their students and to train them up in the way they should go so that they will not depart from it when they are older as adults. I pray that we would live into the seasons of life that you have created for us, for you know what is right and good. And again, we thank you so much just for the privilege to come into your house today and to have you speak to us so that we can leave here and live our lives for you. In Jesus name we pray.

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Amen.