- Yes, Jesus that's our desire today. It's our prayer today in this moment, across every location, across every place where people are joining in as a part of this moment, Jesus, we pray that you would be glorified, that you would be lifted up. Jesus, we're thankful today that when you're lifted up, you draw all people to yourself. And God, we desire that today. We desire for you to draw us to you in a fresh way today. God, I pray for people today in this moment who may not be in a relationship with you, but yet today in this moment, you're drawing them right now to yourself. There's nothing greater than that today. Then you, you're drawing us to yourself. We wanna know you, we wanna walk with you. And God I pray that in this moment today as we look to your word, God, I pray that this wouldn't just be a moment about a transferring of information, but God, by the power of your word and by the power of your spirit, God, we believe this could be a moment of transformation. God, that will never be the same again because we encountered you and your presence today in this moment together. We thank you for that, Jesus and we thank you in advance for what you're going to do in Jesus name we pray. Amen and amen. I'm so grateful to be a part of this moment with you today. My name is Mark. I have the privilege of being the Lead Pastor at New Collective Church, which is an expression of Highlands Fellowship in the Johnson City, Tennessee area. And today I also have the privilege of being here for the beginning of a new series that we're calling Storyteller, Storyteller. So I wanna begin today with giving you the title of my sermon, title of this sermon today I'm calling it That One Time When Jesus Was Lost. That One Time When Jesus Was Lost. Now, I know for some of you right away because you've been reading through the New Testament in these 90 days and some of you immediately can guess where it is that we're headed today in the scriptures. For others of you, you're a little concerned with my title already because you have such a theologically and doctrinally robust understanding of God's word and you would like to go ahead and correct me right now and say that this is a heretical teaching because Jesus has not ever been lost. It is we that is lost and it is Jesus that has come to find us, lost wretched, sinners and all right, all right. That's also not where we're headed today either. All right, so don't get too far ahead of me. I promise you by the time we get finished with this, you'll also see that's not what I mean by this message title today either. All right, but here we go. We're gonna go to Luke's gospel 2:41 is where we're going to begin. Luke's gospel chapter two, begin there in verse 41. That one time when Jesus was lost. Story begins like this. "Every year Jesus' parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of Passover. When he was 12 years old, they went up to the festival according to the customs." Now, some of you right now could go ahead and begin to guess this is a pretty good possibility of a scenario in which you could lose a child in 12-year-old boy, Jesus at a large crowded situation in Jerusalem to celebrate the custom and the festival of Passover, which was the celebration of course, that the Hebrew people had celebrating that God had freed them and delivered them from bondage in Egypt thus setting them free from that bondage and slavery. And they are remembering the power of God and the freedom that God brought. It's a powerful, powerful celebration and scene and it's here that we find Jesus and his family participating in this custom. But verse 43, "After the festival was over while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem but they were unaware of it." All right. Now, I already feel in the room and in this moment, and those of you even from your living room, a little bit of judgment, right? A little bit of judgment on Mary and Joseph in this moment. How could you leave your child? Not just your child, but the Son of God, the Messiah, the chosen one. How could you just leave him behind and be unaware of it? But they do. And they journey, they journey unaware of it. Verse 44, it gets worse. All right, it gets worse. "Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day, for a day." This is not 30 minutes in an aisle at target, which may or may not have happened to me before with my own children, okay? All right, now it actually was at 30 minutes, I exaggerate. Okay it was more like three, but it felt like 30. Whenever you lose your kid in a public place, three minutes feels like a long time. But my eight-year-old son, Creed, whom this happened with not too long ago with myself, but it was just the two of us shopping. And my wife threatened to not allow me to take him with me anywhere for just a brief period of time after this. But Creed always tells me, he's like, "Dad, don't worry about it. Even when you can't see me, I've got eyes on you." One, that's a scary thought son, okay? I'm afraid that you've got stalking habits already in your life and I'm concerned about this and how this will affect your future. But also that's not good enough for me. All right, that doesn't work for me. When we're in public places, I know you feel confident that I've always got eyes on you, but I really need to have eyes on you son, all right. So in this moment though for Mary and Joseph, they travel on for a day then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. Now, here's what I know to be true. I know that I am not Mary and Joseph. I know that Jesus is not my child. I know that this is not the direct relationship that any of us have to Jesus, but there were a few words that started to cross my mind when I thought about this story. That one time when Jesus was lost and I had some moments in my own life where that was the sensation that I also felt was that somewhere along the way I couldn't exactly point my finger on when I couldn't exactly point my finger on how it happened. I couldn't exactly point my finger on how long I had been journeying, but it just felt like Jesus was lost to me in that moment. It just felt like there was this space and there was this distance. And so there are a few words that I highlight in this story so far for us. The first one is this. The first one is awareness. Is awareness. You notice Mary and Joseph are journeying and they are unaware that Jesus isn't there. And I started to think about in my own life, I am aware of a lot of things at times. I am aware of the problems that I face. I am aware of the difficult decisions that's in front of me. I am aware of conflict and tension in places and parts of the world that are even far away from me. But I'm aware of those things. I know about those things. I'm aware of what the headlines say on a regular reoccurring basis in a world that is flooded full of information. Sometimes I'm even aware of myself, which is a good thing. Self-awareness is a good thing, right? If you remember last week's message, Pastor Craig helped us be able to understand that sometimes we need people in our lives to help us be able to see our blind spots because we oftentimes lack self-awareness and self-awareness is good. But sometimes what I started to realize in our lives is that I'm aware of everything but the presence of God. I can journey in my life going on about my business and never stop to actually do a check in, wait a second, have I been seeking God with my heart? Am I pursuing the presence of God with my life or in my life? Am I practicing spiritual habits that help me be able to step into the presence of God? Am I journeying daily in God's word? Not just in these 90 days where we're going through the New Testament together, but each and every day. Awareness. And part of what I started to also realize in moments in my life, when it felt like Jesus was lost I used some of those moments to remind me of the power of his presence. I used those moments when it felt like he was absent, when I felt like he wasn't close to draw me in that I began seeking him again in a way where I realized, oh, there's nothing like your presence, God. The scripture say that in his presence are fullness of joy. In his presence is every good thing. In his presence we are lacking nothing. And so I think that in 2022, here's a good goal for us. All right, here's a good if you're a resolution kind of person which I tend not so much to be, I have a hard time keeping resolutions. I do a lot better with establishing healthy rhythms in my life. But if you're looking for a good resolution or you're looking for a new rhythm in your life, I think one of the best things for us to increase in 2022 is our God awareness. God is with me. He doesn't leave me, he doesn't forsake me. He goes with me always, but there are moments in my life where I step back and I leave, I leave Jesus parked someplace in my past. But here's the question though. Let's go back to our story. Here's the question though. Why were they so unaware that Jesus wasn't with them? Why were they just journeying on their Merry way and they were unaware that Jesus wasn't there? That's a good question, right? That brings me to the next word, which is this assumption, assumption. Here's part of the reason that they were unaware that Jesus wasn't there. They just assumed that he was. I thought about this in my own life because sometimes one of the most dangerous things that I can do in my relationship with God is just make the assumption that God is on my schedule. I can just make the assumption that God is all about my timeline, my schedule, my goals, that, oh, here's something we were so good at doing. We love to make plans and then ask God to bless them. We love to make plans for our lives, plans for our weeks and then go to God, be like God, would you please bless my plan? God, would you please help me be successful at fulfilling this plan? Will you please help everybody else get on board with my plan? Would you please make all of those things happen? And here's the thing. I'm not saying that God is not for your plan. I'm just saying that at times is a really, really dangerous assumption for me to make in my life that Jesus is just journeying with me to make all of my plans happen the way that I want for them to be. This is why so oftentimes in our lives why we dive into relationships as single people at times that we do not need them in an unhealthy way. I've got a plan. I've got a timeline. I've got to be married by the time I'm 24 and a half. And I have to have 2.5 children by the time I'm 33 and a half. We have all of these kinds of plans and timelines where we say, God, would you please bless my plan. Even if I picked a person that is not God's best for me and that actually doesn't love God and love people, but I've got a plan and it's a dangerous assumption for me to make that God is just there to fulfill every single one of my desires and my schedule and my timeline. Give you an example of this that I've encountered along the way. And honestly, it's a bad example. Okay, it's a bad example. This is not really a great example, but it's just one that I had in my repertoire of thought in regards to these types of assumptions that we make. I remember years ago walking down the street and I was in a town where I had preached at a couple of churches quite frequently in the past. And I was walking down the street and I ran into a lady who knew me, whom I did not recognize, but I ran into this lady and so she knew who I was. So like so often is the case when people know me from a church environment, they'll bring their prayer requests to me. So they'll say, Hey, here's something I'd really like for you to pray for me about. And I love this. But here's how the story went in this moment. Lady walks up to me and she's like, Hey, Pastor Mark I was wondering if you could pray for me about something. I'm like, sure, I will be glad to. What's going on. And she says, well, I'm leaving my husband and running away with my boyfriend and I would just like for you to pray that we would have safe travels. And I was like, this is... Okay, we're going to pray. We are gonna pray. Okay, I'm all about praying. We need a lot of prayer in this situation. We also need a lot of biblical counsel and instruction for this moment. But there've been a number of occasions like that where people will quote even out of context things like this from me. Well, Jeremiah 29:11 says that "God has a plan for me. And it is a plan to prosper me, not to harm me, plan to give me a hope and a future." So if a prosperous thing for me is to have an affair because it feeds my flesh and my cravings and it makes me happy for the moment, then that must be what God wants for me to have. See, this is why I said, it's a dangerous assumption. Maybe you're not there. Maybe that's not where you're at. Maybe that's not what you're doing, but I can see some signs in my own life when I make a dangerous assumption that God wants to fulfill every desire of my flesh. As though that that is the point and the purpose of following Jesus and experiencing life with him. And friends, that's not the case. It's not the case. They make an assumption, a dangerous assumption back to the story, verse 45 says "When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days, they found him." All right. Now, everybody who's not even judgmental I give you permission for about 10 seconds to actually be a little judgmental of Mary and Joseph in this moment. Three days now, okay? Not a moment, not a day. They're unaware of it. They make an assumption Jesus is with them. Now, it's three days that they have no idea where Jesus is at. So now they returned back to where they left him to be able to try to find him. They went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him, look where he is in the temple courts sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. All right, little side note. Oftentimes people ask, how do we know that Jesus is divine? How do we know that Jesus is both fully God and fully man, even from infant born of a virgin all the way through his adult life and in moments like this as a 12-year-old boy, how do we know that? I give you one great thing from this scripture. He was sitting and he was listening. If that's not God at age 12, I don't know who is 'cause if you have a 12-year-old or smaller in your life, you know that getting them to sit and listen for extended periods of time, that's a small miracle. That's a small miracle. Jesus is sitting and he is listening to them in this moment. But also look at what he's doing. This is amazing. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. Jesus is engaging with them. He's asking questions. They're responding back to him. He's giving them some answers. There's this beautiful thing called dialogue that is happening here that we could honestly use to improve upon just a little bit in 2022, have some better dialogues and better conversations. Here's this next word that I want for us to see from that time when Jesus was lost, it's this word of amazement, of amazement. They are amazed in worshiping Jesus. Amazed at the things that he said, amazed at the precision of his wisdom, his insight, his authority, amazed by the power that he had. But you know what? Here's what amazes me about Jesus. What amazes me about Jesus from this scene and from so many scenes is not just the answers that Jesus provides, that Jesus has some great answers to our questions. But what amazes me even more than the answers that Jesus provides is the questions that he asked, see, Jesus is the master asker of questions. Jesus was the best at providing a question. Even in response to a question at times, he would respond back with a zinger of a question that would cause us to think about things in a way that we would not have in any other way had he not confronted us with that. He asked questions like this to his disciples. We remember the same when they're on the water in the middle of a storm and they're there and Jesus arises and he asked them the question, "Why are you so afraid?" It's like, well, Jesus is pretty obvious. We're in the middle of a storm, but Jesus know sometimes the answer to the question that he provides to us but who really needs to consider the answer. I do. I do. I do. Why are you so afraid? Jesus asked the question to Peter on the occasion when Peter had walked on the water to come out to Jesus when Jesus had asked him to come. He walks on the water. He takes his eyes off of Jesus and he begins to sink. Jesus says, oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt? Why did you doubt? So the question, right? Jesus asked questions like this when he was teaching to a crowd in John's gospel 6 and he says, "If you wanna be my disciple, you gotta eat my flesh and drink my blood." A lot of the people in the crowd were like, okay, this is getting a little too weird for us now. I'm not gonna eat this guy and I'm not gonna drink his blood. We're not going there. This is too weird. This is too weird, it's too weird. I understand that. Jesus turned to his disciples though and he looked at them and he asked them a question, asked them a question, are you going to leave also? Are you going to leave also? Thought this was such a great question for us because you know what, take up your cross, deny yourself and follow Jesus. In the year 2022 sounds a whole lot like eat my flesh and drink my blood. 'Cause obviously in that moment, what Jesus did not mean was physically eating his body and drinking his blood, but he explained later at a Passover scene around the table with his disciples that this is my body broken for you. This is my blood shed for you. Letting them know that that's what he was going to do on the cross was to give his body and shed his blood for them. But in 2022, deny yourself, deny your cravings, your hunger, your flesh, your desire, sounds just like, eat my flesh and drink my blood. That's a foreign concept. When I want it, I wanna do what feels right to me. I wanna speak my truth. I wanna say what I wanna say. I wanna do to others whatever it is that feels right to me in the moment. And so when we hear those words from Jesus like deny yourself, take up your cross daily, follow me. No, that's too hard. We're out, we're out. And I hear the spirit of God saying to us in this generation just like Jesus as those disciples, Hey, Hey, are you going to leave too? Are you gonna walk away from me also? 'Cause I'm telling you, if we've learned anything over the course of these last couple of years, it's been this in the life of the church is that our consumeristic casual Christianity of the past cannot withstand the challenges that we face in the present. We walk away with the crowd. You know what Jesus? When Jesus asked that question, are you gonna go too? Are you're gonna leave also, his disciples responded with a great question though, to home else would we go? You have life. Where else are we going to go? That's a great question for us to ask ourselves. That's a great question for us to live on. To whom else would we go? Nobody else has the words of eternal life. Nobody else has unconditional love. Nobody else has the grace that's sufficient for me in my weakness. Nobody else has mercy that's new every morning. Nobody else loves me like Jesus does. Jesus is great at asking the questions. He asked the question like this when he was surrounded by a crowd of people, but the woman with the issue of blood touches the hem of his garment he asked, who touched me, who touched me? 'Cause out of all the crowd of people, he felt one person's faith, one person's faith, one person's faith just the size of a mustard seed. One person's faith. Jesus will fill out of all of the people thousands of people right now across physical locations, online TV, wherever you are thousands of people that Jesus feels the faith of when in any crowd who will press through all the rest of the noises to touch the hem of his garment. He is so good with questions. And now back to our primary story here in Luke 2 Jesus is about to be in a conversation faced with the question of which he will answer again with a question. Here it is verse 48. "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. I love Mary's question. Jesus, why have you treated us like this? If I'm Jesus even at age 12, trying to be submissive and obedient to his parents I would be like, mom, who left who? Who's the guardian in this situation? It's been three days and you come back into the temple asking me how I could treat you like this? How about what you did to me? How about how you respond? How about how you've treated me? Jesus doesn't do that. He doesn't do that. I for one I'm grateful in my life that I can go to God and I can ask a question like this, God, how could you let this happen to me? God, why would you allow that to happen to me? How could bad things happen to good people like me? I'm so glad that we can approach God like that with our questions and instead of firing back with condemnation and shame, Jesus wrestles with them. And in fact, that brings me to this next word which is anxious, anxious. Because Mary says we've been anxiously searching for you. Jesus, we've been anxiously looking for you. We have any idea where you are. And that is a feeling and a sensation that so many of us have had. That's a feeling and a sensation that I've had at different moments in my life where I'd be like, Jesus, I don't know where you are. I don't know where you are. I've been anxiously looking all over the place for you. There's no doubt that at times when it feels like Jesus is lost in our lives, that we feel anxiety and panic. There is no doubt that in this scene for Mary and Joseph anxiety was a very reasonable and healthy feeling for them to feel they had misplaced their child. That's an anxious moment, friends. That is an anxious few days for them. God doesn't condemn us for our anxiousness. Jesus didn't condemn them for their anxiousness. He wrestles with them in their anxiety. But here's something that I've felt like I wanna encourage us in. Just because it feels like Jesus is lost, just because it feels like we don't know where he is and we do not have any idea even how to get back to him, don't stop looking. Don't stop looking. Don't stop looking. There's one thing that the enemy wants for us to do in moments of anxiousness and fear is to stop looking for Jesus. He's too far. He's too distance. You've journeyed too far in the wrong direction without him. You've been living your life now for a years with no awareness of Jesus. All your assumptions in life have been absent from even considering Jesus and the enemy wants for us to buy into the lie and believe the lie that we are now too far gone and Jesus is hidden in a place that we will never ever see him or find him again. Hear me, don't stop looking. Don't stop looking. Don't stop looking. Don't stop praying. Don't stop seeking. Here's the way that this conversation concludes. Verse 49, "Why are you searching for me, he asked" Again, very obvious, very obvious answer to this question. "Why are you searching for me he asked. Didn't you know I had to be in my father's house." Or some translations say about my father's business. "But they did not understand what he was saying to them. Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them but his mother treasured all these things in her heart and Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man." Why are you searching for me? Didn't you know I had to be in my father's house? Didn't you know I had to be about my father's business. Didn't you know, didn't you know. See, when Jesus proposes this question, he wasn't just revealing his whereabouts and he wasn't just giving them some kind of a hint about, Hey, if this ever happens again, this is the spot. Just go back to the temple that's the safe place. We'll just always go there. I'll just always go there. No, no, no, no, no. It wasn't so much about the where as it was about the who. And see, a moments in our lives when it feels like Jesus is lost, here's that Jesus has given to us, it's this last word. And it's assurance, assurance. See, even when it feels like Jesus is lost, Jesus is still working. Even when it seems like Jesus is nowhere to be found, Jesus is still working on our behalf. Jesus is still moving. And I realized the powerful thing in this scene from this story that one time when Jesus was lost, he wasn't, he wasn't. He was leading them home. He's leading them home. He was leading them to the father's house. He's leading. He's leading them home. And friends in our lives for us today this remains to be true that when it feels like Jesus is lost in your life, come on, he's not. He's still leading us home. He's leading us to the father. And watch this, he's leading us to be able to see that God is not just his father, but that God wants to be our father as well. How we know this, how we know this, because later on in Luke's gospel in Luke 15, the ultimate storyteller, Jesus gives us this story where he tells us there's this man who has these two sons. And one of them decides I want my inheritance now 'cause I wanna fulfill all of my desires, all of my craving, all of my hunger right now, I can't wait another day. Father says, okay, you got it, you got it. And one day that son wakes up and he finds himself amongst the pigs, eating what they eat, living in the circumstances that they're in, that's the environment. The son starts to talk to himself, tells himself this story that he's going to explain to his dad when he gets back. He runs back to the father. Power of the scene is that where was the father the entire time? He's never lost. He's there where he left him. And father runs and he meets his son. You know the story, he throws a party for him. It's a beautiful, beautiful scene. It's also the story that every single one of us when we have felt lost and we felt like Jesus's lost, he's just leading us home. Leading us home. Jesus said to his disciples before he died on the cross and rose from the dead, I go to prepare a place for you. In my father's house, there are many rooms. Room for me and for you. And would you stand with me right now just at every location, those may be a different way for us to close, but would you just stand with me so I can just pray with us, pray over you at every location right now in this moment. God, we thank you so much. We thank you for your presence. God, we thank you that you haven't left a single one of us not one time, not one time. God, I pray right now for people who maybe will call themselves Christians. God, who've had a relationship with you, but somewhere along the way they lost their awareness of you. Somewhere along the way, they started making the wrong assumptions. Somewhere along the way, the anxiety of life started to overshadow them and they stopped looking for you God, right now in this moment, I just wanna re-engage with you, wanna re-engage with you. Come on you're leading us home. You're leading us back to you right now. And just in this moment, if that's you, if that feels like your heart, where you are, you're Christian yeah, but ha it has been such a difficult season and what you felt like you've lost Jesus. But come on, right now he's leading you back to himself just to re-engage with him. And right now in this moment, that's you, that's where you are and you just want to lift your hand to God and say, God, help me right now just to come back home to you. Wanna come back home to you. Wanna come back home to you. Wanna come back home to you. Back into the fullness of what you have for me. Yeah, yeah, across every location, every spot, even in your living room right now. Come on, put it in the chat online if that's you. I gotta return, I gotta re-engage with God. God, I pray bless everyone of these. Bless every heart, every hand, every person, when they return, help them to reengage with you well. Come on you can put those down. And right now across every location in this moment, if you already know Jesus, you should be praying right now for people who don't. 'Cause right now in this moment, Jesus hears you when you call out to him. Anytime you can call out to him. And if you don't have a relationship with Jesus right now is the best time to begin, the best time to start. And I just wanna guide you in a moment right now with Jesus, where you begin following him. Right now in this moment, call out to him this way. Jesus, I know I need you. Jesus, I bring my brokenness to you. Jesus, I confess my sinfulness to you. Then I come to you right now. And Jesus, I thank you for who you are. I thank you that you gave your life for me, that I believe that you're alive. Right now in this moment, Jesus, I receive you. I receive new life. I receive the gift of eternal life. And right now I ask you, would you save me, forgive me, make me new in every way, Jesus. And right now I give you my life, my whole life, my whole self, I'm yours, Jesus I'm yours. Right now in this moment, if that's you, if that's you beginning a relationship with Jesus today when I count to three, just to solidify this moment in your life, in your relationship with God when I count to three, you just lift your hand to God. Say yes, that is me today beginning this relationship with you, Jesus. 1, 2, 3 that's me. That's me. That's me. Today's my new beginning. Yeah, today is my new beginning. Today's the beginning of a new journey of following Jesus. Yeah, I'm stepping into new life. The gift of eternal life with Jesus. God, we thank you for every heart, for every hand for every person. And we thank you, God that you're our father, there's room for us in your house in Jesus name, amen.