Losing Jesus (2)

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When I was about 12 years old my family went to December Nights down in Balboa Park. How many have you have ever been there?

It’s huge. There are anywhere from 20-25,000 people that cram into the park over the weekend to celebrate Christmas. The museums are open, there are food vendors, craft vendors, and local performances at the Organ Pavilion.

When we were there we were having a good time, and my youngest brother, his name is Jordan, was about 3-4 years old somehow got lost.

I remember my parents looking at me and my brothers in a panic asking, “Where is Jordan? Where is Jordan?”

Immediately my Dad looks at me and my older brother and sends us off in one direction to look for him. My Dad runs in another direction. And then my Mom took my other younger brother and they go off in another direction.

And for what felt like an eternity, we looked everywhere for Jordan.

It might have only been about 5 minutes, but then my Dad found him and we regrouped.

How many of you know that 5 minutes feel like an eternity when something like that happens?

This was 30 years ago, and I can still remember the feeling of losing our brother for just five minutes that night at Balboa Park.

Now, I’m sure many of you have that same story. Maybe it was you who got lost. Maybe at Disneyland, or on a family vacation.

Maybe it was one of your brothers or sisters.

It happens!

Nobody means for it to happen, but sometimes it just happens…

Now imagine for a second if that time that you lost your sibling, it wasn’t just for a few minutes, but it was for 3 whole days.

How would that feel to lose someone for three days?

Well, there is a story of that happening here in the Bible, and I think it teaches us an important lesson.

Because the person who gets lost in the story is Jesus…

Idea

Now, it’s one thing to lost your little brother or sister, right?

But how do you lose Jesus?

That’s what always confused me about this story that we are going to read together.

How in the world do you lose Jesus?

But the truth is, I think it is far more common than we all think.

Need

And today, as we celebrate our Seniors and get ready to head out on our Summer Breaks, I want to talk to you about how Jesus’ parents lost him. And, if you’re not careful, it’s easier than you think to lose Jesus.

And my job today is to teach you how to not lost Jesus.

Text

Luke 2:41–50 NIV

Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. When he was twelve 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 on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not 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 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 I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying to them.

Losing Jesus

Application

Ordinary Jesus

So the first thing that we see here in our scriptures is that Jesus’ parents made this trip every year to Jerusalem. It was now the 12th time that they brought Jesus to Jerusalem, and then the writer gives us these four words that frame up the experience…

“According to the custom”

Does your family have any customs?

Every December we go here…

Every year we take this vacation…

Every year we do this…

Customs are good. They give us a sense of normalcy. We get to make traditions.

And those are good until customs become customary, and traditions become traditionalism.

That means, they start to lose their importance.

They start to lose their sacredness.

And I think what happened on this trip was that this important trip to Jerusalem, just became a thing.

It was a thing…

It wasn’t a big deal anymore…

It’s just what we do…

And when we start to treat coming into the house of God as just a thing… It’s just what we do… It’s just a part of our life…

We’re in danger of losing Jesus.

Jesus can’t become another custom in your life.

We don’t come to church for ourselves, we come for Jesus.

We come to worship him.

We come for His glory, and His glory alone.

I get that maybe you only come to church because your parents make you come, but at some point you need to find God for yourself and to fall in love with him for yourself and you want to come to church, not out of obligation, but because you want to enjoy the presence of God together with the body of Christ.

If Jesus is just a thing in your life, He is nothing in your life.

He is not a hobby, or a club, to belong to.

Jesus is the savior of the world. His Kingdom is without end. He is the first and the last. The alpha and the omega.

Jesus needs to be everything in your life.

Jesus Moved

The next thing that we notice in the text is that when the festival was over his parents returned home, but Jesus stayed behind.

His parents got out of step with Jesus.

One thing that you need to know about Jesus is that he moves…

If you go all the way back to the very beginning of the Bible, it describes creation in a word, and the spirit of the Lord moved over the face of the waters.

If you ever hear the preacher say, “It was a move of God…” it is because we see that the Spirit of God moves. Jesus moves. He is not always going to be in the same place he was the day before.

Your job as a follower of Jesus… did you catch that? You follow Jesus.

Why? Because Jesus moves!

And when you fail to move with Jesus, you get out of step with Jesus.

When you get out of step with Jesus, you won’t fulfill assignment God has for your life.

How many of you know that God has a plan and purpose for your life?

It won’t be fulfilled when you get out of step with Jesus.

You need to “lock in.”

How many of you are familiar with that phrase?

A couple of seasons ago I was coaching my son’s football team and we were winning the game 21-0 and our boys checked out of the game…

It was 21-0 at half time and the route was on!

But after the first half my boys did not lock it. They started playing sloppy. They played distracted. They weren’t paying attention to the game that was slipping away from them right in front of their eyes!

I kept saying, “Lock in! Lock in!”

But they weren’t. And we lost 28-21…

If you don’t lock in to Jesus, one day you’ll wake up and find yourself living in sin.

And you can’t blame Ps Peter, or Ps Ruthie, or anyone other than yourself.

You have to lock in to Jesus!

About My Father’s Business

We read that after 3 whole days of looking for Jesus, they finally found him. And he has this exchange with them… they ask him, “Why have you treated us this way? We have been looking for you!”

And Jesus responds with a leading question… he asked them… “Why were you searching for me?”

If you don’t know what that means, he’s asking them a question that he knows the answer to, but he asks them to get them to admit the answer…

In other words, he’s trying to get them to admit that they lost Jesus.

And students… that is how you lose Jesus.

It’s gradual.

It’s a slip.

Things that are sacred become common…

Then you fall out of step with Jesus…

And then days go by and you don’t even realize that Jesus is no longer with you!

That’s probably the worst part about it.

Every Sunday I welcome people to our church, and I smile, and I shake their hands, and I talk to them… they tell me all about their life and their family and their vacation plans and immediately I can tell, “you lost Jesus!”

You no longer carry the joy and the passion for Him.

You are no longer excited to be in his presence.

You’ve traded in the miraculous for the mundane.

You’ve settled with simply being at a building, but not in his presence.

The worst thing that can happen to a Christian is you spend time in a building, thinking you spent time with Jesus. But when you ask Jesus, he simply responds, “I’m about my father’s business… I don’t know what you’re doing.”

Conclusion

Graduates, we celebrate you!

We honor you!

But it’s going to get more difficult to follow Jesus as you become an adult.

You won’t be coddled into a relationship with Jesus.

We won’t baby sit you to come to church.

You have to decide for yourself if you love him and want to serve him for the rest of your life...

And for every other student here, this isn’t a decision you wait to make when you graduate. This is a decision you make right now.

Will you lock in to Jesus?

Will you surrender your life to him?

I want to lead us all in a prayer of surrender right night… so that we never lose Jesus.

[Prayer]

Lastly, I want to give you a tangible next step. If you have surrendered your life to Jesus, but you have never been water baptized, that is your next step.

Don’t wait on that. Lock in! Make the commitment!

I’m getting baptized because I am locking in to Jesus!

As a matter of fact, that’s how I am going to end this night. Who would like to make a decision to get water baptized on June 8, right here?!?! You got over a week to make the invites and get everyone you know here.

Who wants to do it?