Sermon Tone Analysis

“Are You Smarter than a 7th Grader?”

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How many 12-year-olds do we have in the house this morning?

Will one of you come up here and help me for a minute?

· Tell us your name?

· What grade are you in?

· What school do you attend?

· What is your favorite thing to do?

· Do you have any brothers or sisters?

· Do you always obey your parents – you don’t have to answer that question.

· So you would consider yourself a typical 12-year-old?

Thank you, you can go back to your seat; I really appreciate your help.

What where you doing when you were 12 years old?

Most 12-year-olds are basically doing the same; eating, growing, learning, and playing!

When I was 12 years old, I specialized in eating and playing.

Here in this passage were told that Jesus was 12 years old; and his parents carried him on a trip from their home in Nazareth’s to the Temple in Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover.

I imagine that Jesus as a 12-year-old boy was excited about making the trip from his small town to the big city of Jerusalem and the Temple.

The feast of the Passover; was the greatest and largest feast of the Jewish people.

He would ask his mom, when are we leaving for Jerusalem?

And then as they are traveling, he would ask how much further?

Are we there yet?

This is the only picture we have in the Bible of Jesus as a boy.

We have Jesus being born in Bethlehem, dedicated in the temple at two months old, then we have this snapshot of Jesus as a 12-year-old boy.

We know nothing else about Jesus until he is baptized by John the Baptist at 30 years old.

Luke gives us the only glimpse we have of the boy Jesus, here in the temple, then he goes back to Nazareth to work in the carpenter shop for 18 more years.

From 12 to 30 we know nothing about Jesus, but that he was working as a carpenter.

They are called the hidden years of Jesus life.

Luke probably could have told us more about the child of Jesus, but the Holy Spirit did not lead him to tell us anything else.

Of all the things that Jesus said and did during his first 30 years, this is the only incident recorded in the Bible.

This passage also records the very first words that Jesus speaks in the Bible.

Therefore, it must have something significant to tell us about Jesus!

This does not mean that there are no other fictitious stories about Jesus as a boy, because there are.

During the second and third centuries many legends arose about the boy Jesus.

Stories of Jesus making birds out of clay, and then bringing them to life, and them flying away.

Those gospels were rejected by the early church because they did not have the authority, nor authorship of the Gospels we have in the New Testament.

Those gospels claim that Jesus did miracles as a boy growing up; but we know that is not true.

Because in , when Jesus turned the water to wine, were told that that was the beginning of his miracles.

So we know about Jesus as a boy growing up is only found in these verses.

The incident that takes place in these verses is something that most of us who have children can identify with.

Have you ever temporarily lost one of your children at the store?

Maybe in the toy section at Walmart, our Toys “R” Us, or at the mall, or the worst place ever the fair!

You tell Jr to stay right beside you while you look at something at Best Buy; and you look down and they’re gone.

And you have this sheer terror come across you.

Your adrenaline goes out the top of your head, and panic overtakes you; and you begin to run frantically all over the store screaming their name, not caring who hears you!

And then you spot them over by the TV’s; the panic and fear, turns to a mixture of relief and anger.

And you pick them up; and say don’t ever run away from me again as long as you live!

I’ve driven off and left my kids at Church, thinking that Tess had them with her, and she was thinking I had them with me.

We get home and realize neither one of us have them, so back to church we go.

This is what happened when Jesus parents left him at temple.

At Passover time family and friends would travel together to Jerusalem, spend a week at the Passover festivities, and travel home as a group together.

The women and the small children would travel out front and set the pace for the journey, and the men and older children would travel behind and be prepared to protect the women and the children.

Joseph would think that Jesus was with his mother and the smaller children; Mary would think that Jesus was with Joseph and the older children.

After they had traveled a whole day, Joseph and Mary saw each other that afternoon and realized that neither one of them had seen Jesus all day.

They sleep that night, get up the next morning and travel back to Jerusalem to find Jesus.

When they arrived back its late, they go to sleep; and wake up, go looking for Jesus and find Him in the temple on the third day.

What a vivid picture these words paint, and what an amazing answer that Jesus gives to his mother and Joseph.

Jesus as a 12-year-old boy, was preparing for manhood, learning about the Passover; he was in the process of preparing for his bar mitzvah which would happen the next year when he turned 13 years old.

Jesus is sitting in the midst of the doctors, the Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes and priest.

These were the PhD’s of the Jewish religion.

The format of teaching would be to sit and listen as the doctors shared the Scripture, and then ask questions, and make comments.

Jesus at 12 years old was asking mine boggling questions, and making comments that astonished all the learned doctors in the group.

Mary and Joseph came up and spot Jesus sitting in the middle of these doctors hearing them and asking questions; and they were amazed.

But Mary like any panicking mother, speaks up and says,” why have you treated us this way?

Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.

Jesus in a kind way, asked them a question, these are the first recorded words of Jesus in the Bible, V:49-”why have you been searching for me?

Did you not know I must be about my father’s business?

Frankly Mary and Joseph did not understand what he was saying to them.

Then were told that Jesus went back to Nazareth’s with Joseph and Mary and submitted himself to them.

Then we are given a summary statement of what takes place in Jesus life for the next 18 years, V:52-“Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man”.

This statement is a book-end statement about Jesus that goes along with what was said back up in:

V:40-“And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him”.

What we learn from these two verses is that Jesus was growing in His knowledge of who He was, who His father was, and what His mission was.

We also learn that Jesus lived a life of submission, to his Heavenly father, and his earthly parents.

Jesus Christ is our example, and if we want to be smart than a 7th grader; we must learn these two great lessons from Jesus this morning.

Lesson #1:

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Like Jesus, We should Grow.

V:52-“And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature…

Jesus was an ordinary boy, the Bible tells us He grew in stature, which means:

· Jesus grew physically.

Jesus grew from a baby to a 12-year-old boy.

Jesus wasn’t two months old one week, and the next week he six.

No Jesus had a real human body, he was God incarnate in human flesh.

So Jesus grew just like every one of us.

Here we get a picture of the human Jesus.

We can almost imagine his parents keeping his growth chart on the wall of their family home in Nazareth.

Jesus was fully God, and yet Jesus was fully man.

Is this important?

Yes it is, for several reasons; Jesus was not God, wearing a human suit, faking it.

No Jesus was a real man, He got tired and hungry, fell asleep in the back of a boat, stopped to get something to eat.

Jesus felt compassion and love for other people; Jesus was heartbroken when his friends died, he wept at Lazarus grave, he pulled aside to a secluded spot when he got the news that John the Baptist had been killed.

-“Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

When Jesus Christ went to the cross, it was a real body that Jesus offer on the cross for our sins.

It was flesh like ours that was torn and nailed to the cross.

-“Sacrifice and offerings you would not receive, but a body have you prepared me”.

This was the only way that He could save us,

-“He himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, by His wounds you have been healed”.

· Jesus grew intellectually.

V:52-“Jesus increased in wisdom…

This is a little bit harder for us to understand; that Jesus the omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient God, would willingly limit himself, to live life like everyone else.

Jesus did not lose, or give up any of these attributes, but he submitted their exercise to His father.

Yes, there were times when Jesus read people’s minds, walked on the water.