So, what do we do now?
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Have you ever had an idea and then no idea how to make that happen?
I was reminded this week of the movie Finding Nemo
Do you remember Gill and all the fish in the fish tank at the dentists office? (at P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney)
They desperately wanted to get out of the dentists office, and so they were trying every possible way to get out of there.
Finally, they come up with a plan:
The plan is that they were going to block the filter to the tank, make it as filthy as possible, and then they were going to wait until the dentist puts them all in bags to clean the tank, at which point they were going to roll out the window and into the harbor.
They had an idea, they wanted to be in the ocean. They have a bit of a plan, but then they start to see the folly of their plan.
At the very end of the movie, after Nemo is found and the fish are saved, there’s a scene where all of the fish roll into the harbor in their plastic bags, and that’s where the plan comes apart. They don’t have any way of getting out of the bags!
And we’re left with them wondering, “Now what?”
They had an idea, but no way to make their idea a full reality
Similarly, we all have the “million dollar ideas” that are never worth a million dollars.
We have the idea for the “next best” piece of technology, but no idea how to make it or market it, but we know at the end that we’re going to have so much money!
We do the same thing with relationships, careers, parenting, skills, the list goes on. It’s really easy to have a dream, but really hard to do anything to make that dream anything.
We even do this with our faith!
We think, “I’m saved, and then I’ll go to heaven.”
There’s a big phase 2 that we’re missing here!
Based off of the way that the entire Bible is written, it’s not
Phase 1: Get saved
Phase 2: ??
Phase 3: Heaven!
There’s a second step that’s incredibly necessary!
Which leads me to the question that allows us to begin our time today, which is
What do you do now that you’re a follower of Jesus?
Maybe you are very new to your relationship with Jesus.
The holidays were a period of growth (or pain) that brought you to the foot of the cross, and you are questioning what you are supposed to do with all of this excitement and energy you have.
Maybe you’ve been a follower of Jesus a really long time.
It feels like you’ve never not followed Jesus. But, maybe you’ve started to notice that the growth you thought you would see hasn’t happen, or maybe your life before coming to Jesus doesn’t look that much different to now.
Or, maybe you haven’t become a follower of Jesus yet.
You’re just here because your family told you to or it’s court-ordered or you just want to check out what these Jesus people actually do on a Sunday.
No matter what your story is, the question of purpose is something that weighs heavily on us.
That’s what this wondering what we’re supposed to do really has to deal with. What am I doing with my life? Why am I here? What’s the point of all of this?
A resource I quote regularly is the Westminster Shorter Confession, which states that
“The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”
But how do we get to the forever bit?
I think it would be helpful for us to spend time seeing what Jesus did in order to define for us what we are to do.
Luke 2:39-52
Jesus is the Son of Man
Jesus is the Son of Man
All throughout Luke, Jesus uses the title of “The Son of Man.”
He uses it 25 times in this Gospel alone, it was one of His favorite ways to describe Himself. And that is really important for our understanding of who Jesus is.
When Jesus uses the term, “Son of Man,” it’s a call back to the Old Testament.
The term was used multiple times in the Psalms to talk about kings, or humanity in general
It was used in Daniel 7 to talk about a coming king
And it was used all throughout Ezekiel to talk about the prophet Ezekiel.
So, whenever Jesus uses the term, He is reminding people who know the Bible well that He is the Messiah that was alluded to and promised all throughout the Old Testament.
Now, He doesn’t use the term Son of Man in this text, but Luke uses this story to continue building the case that Jesus truly is the real Son of Man.
One of the ways that we notice this in this story is by seeing that Luke is emphasizing that
Jesus is fully God and fully man.
This is the end of the testimony of Jesus’ birth and childhood, this is all that we get, and yet in this story and the entire text before, we are shown time and time again that Jesus is both divine and human.
He is born (human) but of a virgin, with no man involved (divine).
He was born of humble means (human), but angels and shepherds and wise men announce His arrival (divine).
And then here!
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.
He has to learn and ask questions of His elders (human), but they were amazed at His answers (divine).
He had to grow, but He already knows more than many!
Or Luke 2:48-49
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?”
He is in his father Joseph’s household, but He belongs in His heavenly Father’s house.
Jesus is not just divine, and He is not just human, He is both simultaneously!
The belief that Jesus was just a great teacher like Mahatma Gandhi or Siddhartha Gautama is false and goes against everything that the Bible teaches.
He is God, He was not merely a man who knew a lot, and to say otherwise is to speak serious heresy.
However, on the flip side of the coin, Jesus was not just a divine projection of a human.
He ate, He bled, He got tired, and He was a boy once who needed to grow and have His mom’s help tying His sandals.
If we cannot hold those two things in tandem, then we cannot be followers of Jesus.
Without Christ’s divinity, He could not forgive the sins of the world by acting as a sacrifice for our sins.
Without Christ’s humanity, His crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection becomes a dumb magic trick that has no meaning.
THIS IS GOD WE’RE TALKING ABOUT, THIS STUFF REALLY MATTERS!
We also see here that
Jesus prepared for His ministry.
What do you think that Jesus was doing that whole time while He was at the temple? Waiting in the lost and found?
NO! He was with the rabbinical teachers, the brightest minds in Judaism at the time, learning and growing.
This is my personal opinion, not fact, but I think that Jesus didn’t even notice His parents had gone until it was too late because He was so focused on learning!
And, if Jesus was working so diligently to be prepared for His ministry, that would mean that Jesus knew His purpose. He was aware of His goal, and knew how to get there.
All of this adds up to show us that the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus actually matters.
He was not just some man who died a long time ago, and He’s not just some god who faked His death to get followers.
The Son of God, who is coequal with the Father and the Holy Spirit, truly lived a human life and truly died a human death as a sacrifice for our sin.
There was a moment at the crucifixion where the earth trembled because the One through whom all things were created died and that changed the fabric of eternity, and all of that was because you and I are sinful people who need to turn to God but were unable to because of our sin.
God died so that you might live.
You see, much like in this story, there was a time when our Lord could not be found for three days, but at the end of that, He rose from the dead, changed everything, and ascended to the right hand of the Father.
And so, to continue our discussion on the chapter, I was led to a few questions about this for us.
How does this draw us closer to Jesus?
Is Jesus an example here, or a picture of God?
Essentially is this descriptive or prescriptive?
However, there’s one specific line in here that I think shows us something important, which we can then use as a lens for the rest of the passage.
And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
If this is true (and it is), then this will be our guidepost for looking at us.
You have a purpose
You have a purpose
And I think we find a helpful line of that purpose here.
To grow in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man is our goal, or maybe a way of understanding our goal.
That was what Jesus did in His life, and continued to do until He ascended to the right hand of the Father.
Therefore, if it was good enough for Jesus, I think it should be good enough for us.
Wisdom
So, how do we grow in wisdom?
For us, there’s always this interesting sense of wisdom that is the interplay between intellectual knowledge and lived in practical knowledge.
But, for the Jewish mindset, what you know intellectually influences the practical life that you live, so this is both head and heart knowledge that Jesus grew in.
Wisdom, in this sense, means knowing God more and knowing about Him more.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
So, let’s spend time getting to know our Lord!
Spend time in intentional prayer
Read your Bible
Now is a great time to start because you have a whole year looking at you in the face!
Get plugged in with a small group!
Learn from others, not just on Sunday
Read or listen to excellent books by awesome followers of Jesus!
Two books that deeply affected my faith this year are Beginning to Pray by Anthony Bloom and Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard. Both of those are phenomenal books that will push you in your faith!
That’s what Jesus did!
He went to the temple and spent days learning and growing from people that knew the Bible well!
By the time He entered into ministry, He was quoting large sections of Scripture from memory!
Paul knew philosophy so well that he could debate with the Greek philosophers in Acts 17!
We have to be learning, we have to be growing!
If you want to be wise, you have to show up! Begin to care about what you are putting in your soul, and then watch what God does with it!
Stature
This doesn’t mean that you have to become taller in order to be a good follower of Jesus! The word for stature here actually means maturity or age.
If wisdom takes up space in our intellectual understanding and relational knowledge of God, this is where the action part of our faith comes in to play.
Let’s start doing the stuff that Jesus followers do! That’s how we’ll grow in maturity!
Actually take time out of your day to pray and read your Bible.
Fast with the purpose of growing in the Lord
Be silent before the Lord and let Him speak
do you notice how the people that seem the wisest and most mature typically aren’t the biggest talkers?
Serve others
A big part of being a mature individual and follower of Jesus is the knowledge of the self and of others. You aren’t the most important person in the room, and so we should begin to act like we believe that!
And Jesus did all of those things!
He was known as a Person who went off to pray regularly
He took a 40 day fast before He began His ministry
He was not known for always talking and was clearly a good listener
He spent His earthly life serving and loving others.
Favor
This word is also a little confusing, at least to me. This word favor is the word χάρις in Greek which actually means grace or goodwill.
It essentially means that Jesus became a Person who was clearly more and more filled with the Spirit of God.
And how do we do that?
We must submit ourselves to the Lord.
Pray, “Thy will be done,” not “My will be done.”
We have to be willing to let God change our plans and guide us in the way that He needs us to go.
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
If we are willing to grow in wisdom, constantly knowing God and knowing about Him more, and if we are willing to grow in our maturity by doing the things that followers of Jesus are to do, and if we are willing to grow in the grace of our Lord by submitting ourselves to Him and giving up ourselves over to Him, you will have purpose, and that purpose will guide you forever.
There is a final little point here that I think is definitely worth making, and that’s Jesus’ age.
At this story, Jesus is twelve. He’s not a grown man, He’s a child.
And I realize that Christ is different from students in that students are not the Son of God, but the scribes and teachers were shocked at the wisdom that the student Jesus displayed. Similarly, students will shock you.
Don’t brush off students! They are just as smart as you are, they’re just worse at hiding it.
I know that they are going to say and do things that seem completely illogical, but they can also have moments of immense wisdom. Don’t write them off! It will only harm you and them.
Application: Lean in to what you need to grow in this year.
There is one of these three things (wisdom, stature, and knowledge) that the Lord is highlighting to you that maybe you haven’t focused on yet. How can you in the next few days make a plan to lean in to that this year?
Maybe it’s joining a small group, or starting to serve inside or outside the church, or simply just starting to pray the Lord’s Prayer and meaning that line “Your will be done,” but there is something for you to do.
And, if you are not a follower of Jesus, I beg you to turn to the God who died for you.
