Good Morning!
For today’s message, we're going to be reading from Luke Chapter 2 verses 40-52.
As you're turning to this in your Bibles, let's review what verses 1 through 39 cover.
In verses 1 through 21, commonly read at Christmas, we learn about the census that Caesar Augustus issued, about Joseph and Mary going to Bethlehem, of Jesus' birth there, about the Angel appearing to the shepherds and of their visit to Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus, about Jesus’ circumcision and naming on the eighth day.
In verses 22-39 Mary and Joseph take Jesus to the Temple where He is presented to the Lord. Simeon was a righteous and devout man, and the Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he wouldn’t die before seeing the Lord’s Messiah. Being led by the Spirit, Simeon went to the Temple, took Jesus into his arms and acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah. The prophetess, Anna, who was also at the Temple came up and gave thanks to God for sending the long-expected Messiah.
And now we begin reading in verse 40:
40 And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.
41 Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover.
42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast.
43 And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it.
44 But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance.
45 And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him.
46 And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions.
47 And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.
48 And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.
49 And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?
50 And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them.
51 And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart.
52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.
Let's pray:
Heavenly Father, I thank you for each person who is listening to this message and is ready to worship You.
Thank You for the power that You give us through Your Holy Spirit, to live the way You desire.
Each new day that You give us is so important, how we treat others, how well we do the tasks at hand, how we use the spiritual gifts which You have given to us in the ways that You intend, and the image we portray as Your children living in this world.
Help us to encourage others each day. Let us glorify You and be in Your will at all times.
I pray that you will open each heart to receive the message the Holy Spirit has for us and allow Him
to speak through me to each of us.
In Jesus' name,
Amen
If I was going to title this Message, it would be called “Mission Focus versus Mission Leak.”
One of the challenges we face in being faithful to Jesus is what I'm going to call “Mission Leak”.
What do I mean by this? Let's suppose I'm going to the grocery store to get food for my breakfast. I need eggs, bacon and bread for toast. So my grocery mission is to buy eggs, bacon and bread.
I go to the store where I get my buggy…I’m from the south so I get a buggy, not shopping cart…and start through the first aisle of the store where I get the bacon. Then I pass the veggies and fruits. The strawberries look delicious so I pick up a carton. The grapes also look tasty so I get a bag of them. Can’t forget the blue berries and bananas so I get them too.
Walking on toward the dairy section, I pass the meat section and the chicken reminds me that I want to make a chicken pot pie soon so I buy a package of chicken.
I proceed to the dairy section and get the dozen eggs. I also remember that I'm low on ice cream so I get a container of my favorite flavor, vanilla.
Looking at my watch I see I have only a few minutes to get this in the fridge at home and head to choir practice so I check out. Once home I unload all my purchases...and realize as you've probably noted, I forgot the bread.
Now I bought many things I needed which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but my mission was to buy eggs, bacon and bread. So I didn't fulfill my mission. I got distracted from my original mission by other things. I had mission leak!
Now the opposite of that would be mission focus.
We just read a great example of mission focus in Luke. Here we first encounter Jesus as a non-infant. This is the first time He speaks.
Just to review, Jesus is twelve years old when we meet Him here.
Mary and Joseph, along with a crowd of people are heading home from Jerusalem after celebrating the Feast of the Passover.
They've been traveling for a day when they realize that Jesus isn't among their other relatives and friends so they head back to Jerusalem.
After three days of searching, they find Jesus in the Temple and His mother asks why He has done this
to them and says, “Your father and I have sought You anxiously.”
Jesus says, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?’ (Luke 2:49).
Now Jesus' answer shows us two things about His mission focus:
First, at age 12 Jesus knew who He was...when Jesus said...about My Father's business...He indicated that He knew He was the Son of God. Scripture doesn't tell us when the boy Jesus first began to remember who he was but by age 12, as John 1:14 tells us, Jesus knew He was “the Word made flesh.”
Jesus didn't have an identity issue...He knew He was the Son of God.
Second, Jesus was surprised that His earthly parents didn't understand what His identity implied.
I must be about My Father's Business. The word ‘must’ shows a priority through which Jesus made decisions.
Jesus' priorities were rooted in His mission, and His mission was rooted in His identity.
When we read any of the Gospels, we see the adult Jesus doing wonderful things...healing the sick, making the deaf to hear and the blind to see. He even raised the dead to life.
All these things were wonderful and necessary for Him to do, and these signs had led Peter to declare that Jesus was the Messiah.
But the disciples didn’t understand Jesus’ true purpose because of their preconceived notions about what the Messiah should be.
So Jesus began teaching clearly and specifically what they could expect so that they would not be surprised when it happened.
Because as wonderful as these healings were, they were not His ultimate mission.
Contrary to what the disciples thought, Jesus had not come to set up an earthly kingdom.
He would not be the conquering Messiah that they were looking for because He first had to suffer many things and be killed.
For any human king, death would be the end, but not so for Jesus.
Death would only be the beginning, because on the third day He would be raised to life.
This was what Jesus had come to earth for. He had come to redeem a sinful people.
This had been God’s plan since the beginning of time.
If you read through the Old Testament, there are many prophecies that point to this.
Psalm 118 speaks of the stone that the builders reject that will become the cornerstone, while Isaiah 53 speaks of the suffering servant by whose wounds we will be healed.
But God also knew that this suffering would lead to ultimate glory, and we see this prophesied in Daniel 7:13-14.
“13 I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.
14 And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.”
The point is, God had a plan from day one, and Jesus was very careful about sticking to His mission.
It would have been easy for Him to get sidetracked in His mission – He could have just spent the rest
of His life going around healing people and raising the dead.
Every day would have been a banquet with Him around! He could have lived a good and easy life and avoided all of this suffering.
But Jesus understood His mission and why it was necessary for Him to carry it through, and so He continued it.
For us, the same can be true: when we know whose we are, we know what we are supposed to do.
And when we know what we’re supposed to do, we can prioritize making decisions about how we use the resources God has given us.
Our mission should determine how we use the gifts God has given each of us, such as our time, our talents, how we spend our money.
However, as Christians, it's very easy to get distracted from the mission that Jesus gave to all Christians in Matthew 28:19.
We get distracted by other missions, and this is how the mission leaks from our lives.
Normally, these other missions are all good things, just like picking up fruit, meat and ice cream at the grocery store is not necessarily a bad thing.
But if our mission is to get eggs, bacon and bread and we don’t bring those home, then we failed at our mission.
Jesus gives us a clear mission at the end of every gospel:
Matthew 28:19- Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.
Mark 16:15- Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.
Luke 24:47- Repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations.
John 20:21- As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you.
Now it is very hard to confuse or misunderstand what Jesus wants us to do.
He tells us to go – to leave, depart, go to another place – whether across the street, across the town, or around the world.
He tells us to go into the world – to all nations. All people on the planet need to hear the gospel.
He wants us to make disciples – true followers of Jesus.
We often think of making disciples as helping new Christians to grow.
But when Jesus said to make disciples here, He was looking at lost people.
Making disciples means to reach people with the gospel.
He wants us to take the gospel and share it...paraphrasing Romans 10:9, 10 and 13 tell people that through the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, people who truly repent and believe this good news receive forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
Again, this is the mission Jesus has given to all Christians and we should pursue our mission with the same passion that Jesus did.
So how do we end up with fruit, meat and ice cream instead of eggs, bacon and bread?
Because our mission is to reach the lost...and the lost don't complain about not being reached.
When our ministry is focused on Christians, they appreciate it and get excited and celebrate.
But when we have the nerve to concentrate on reaching the lost, who gets excited?
Sometimes people don't understand and that will mean ignoring negative influences around us.
This was necessary for Jesus to do with Peter. After hearing Jesus describe all that would be happening to Him, Peter was overtaken by the tragic thought of Jesus’ suffering and death.
He completely ignored the triumphant ending of His resurrection.
He had just realized that Jesus was the central figure toward whom all history pointed. And suddenly, there was all this talk about the Messiah enduring suffering and death.
Peter had never considered this aspect of the Messiah. He had only been able to see the triumphant side of the prophecies.
And so Peter took Jesus aside and said “Never!” In the Greek, the word that is translated as “never” means “may God be gracious to you.”
Peter’s rebuke wasn’t out of opposition, but rather it was out of concern for His master. He was trying to protect Jesus from the suffering that He had prophesied.
But if Jesus hadn’t suffered and died, Peter and the rest of the world would have died in their sins.
That's why it was necessary for Jesus to ignore Peter’s attempt at detracting from His mission.
Jesus also recognized the true source of the distraction – He said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!”
At the very beginning of His ministry, Jesus was led into the wilderness and tempted by Satan for forty days.
One of the temptations that He was faced with was the opportunity to bow and worship Satan, and if He did, Satan would give Him the entire world.
This would have made all of the suffering completely unnecessary. Satan had tempted Jesus by trying to give Him the easy way out and avoiding the cross.
And here, Peter is doing the same thing – trying to discourage Jesus from taking the long and hard road to the cross.
Satan had taken the same temptation and simply repackaged it under the disguise of a concerned friend.
But Jesus was able to withstand this rebuke because He had a clear sense of the calling of His mission.
Jesus came to 'seek and save the lost' (Luke 19:10), not to help religious people feel better about themselves.
And He was nailed to a cross. But on the third day, He rose triumphantly! He conquered death and the grave. He became the sacrifice for our sins and gave us the gift of salvation.
And finally, the disciples understood Jesus' mission.
Personally, I had to ignore one well-meaning Christian leader who told me that I should end a ministry God gave me in 2015. It was the vision of reaching the lost who may not come to church but may be at community events where they could hear the Word of God through the songs we sing.
He later expanded that mission to include preaching and singing in churches, revivals, and other events.
God also gave us a vehicle to go into all the world. By posting our sermons and Pastor T's Daily Messages on our websites and Facebook pages, we daily reach people with the Gospel throughout the United States as well as other countries such as China, Russia, Africa, Japan, India, Italy, England and Canada to name a few.
That Christian Leader thought they had a good reason to advise me to cease because of incorrect information they received.
I’d be lying if I said it had no effect on me as I respected this person.
But I was able to look at that comment and see it for what it really was – another deliberate attempt by the enemy to get me to quit. That wasn't his first attempt and likely won't be his last.
What they failed to realize was that I know God called me to this ministry and until God tells me to stop, which He has not done, I need to continue..
The calling on my life and my sense of mission does not come from any other source. No human being can give it to me, and no human being can take it away from me unless I allow them to do so.
Like Jesus in the temple when His parents didn't understand why He was still there, it's easy for us to be perplexed when others don't understand why we give priority to our mission.
However, the point to remember is this: it's okay for us to be swimming upstream against the current, because that's what Jesus told us to do!
Heavenly Father,
As we pray now, we just want to say thank You, to Jesus, our Lord and Savior, for His willingness to complete His mission and for His sacrifice and love for us. I pray that You will help us to draw near to you and to look to You for all of our endeavors in every area of our lives.
Help us to focus completely on You and the mission You have given each of us. Please change our selfish dreams into Your holy dreams. Help us pursue goals that are according to Your plans for our lives. May Your desires for us become our desires.
In Jesus' name, Amen