Turn in your Bibles to Luke 2:41, we are going to be reading through verse 52.
By way of reminder, we are spending the summer fixing our eyes on Jesus. We are looking at aspects of who Jesus is, and what he did while he was on earth in two primary ways. First, and most importantly, we want to know more about Him, so we can worship Him more. As a reminder Worship is a natural response of our affections that is based on our belief about the object we are worshipping. No matter who you are, or what you believe, you know how to worship. The question is not if you will worship, the question is always who or what will you worship. Furthermore, your worship of whatever you are worshipping should grow, as your knowledge or belief of that object grows. So, if you believe that your greatest need is to be happy, you will throw whatever you can into the pursuit of happiness. That belief is fueled by the messages of the world telling you that all the time, and the more you hear them, the more you believe they are true, and the more you believe they are true, the more passionately you will pursue them. So, here is a thought for you, if you find yourself bored in our worship time, or you are tired of worship, it may be that your belief about the all satisfying nature of Jesus is deficient, and you need to soak in the truth of who you are worshipping. Hear me in this, I am not trying to force an external response, I want to encourage you to cultivate an internal belief that will fuel an emotional response that may look different for everyone, but some of you may be surprised what you do when you truly believe that time in God’s presence is the most important time of your week. That is the first goal of our study of Christ, the second reason we are looking at Jesus is to see His example of living so that we might understand how we are to live with and minister to others around us.
So, here it is, my question to make you think. I am going to ask you to fill in the blank for me. I am going to ask this question in a statement, and I want you to write down this sentence, and fill in the blank for yourself. “I’ve learned enough about scripture to stop studying when ________.”
Big Idea: Jesus was focused on His Father’s work, and had to learn in order to do it.
Ok, let’s read the text:

A little background to set this story up. This is the only story in the Gospels about Jesus between his infancy and His ministry beginning. Only Luke records this story, and so some people have said that it was added to the Bible to fill in the gaps and prove more of His deity. Now, there were some stories about Jesus that floated around early on that were the equivalent of tabloid stories. Both of the ones I have read about have Jesus Killing a kid that He was playing with, Kind of far out, and fanciful. The kind of stuff you read in the tabloids. Now, in case you wonder why it was discounted when the Bible was canonized, it is for the same reason we don’t incorporate National Enquirer stories into our history books. anyone who lived at the time could recognize the truth from the lie. Also, if this was one of those types of stories, it would not have gotten included because whoever wrote it was awful at their job if it was one of those, they didn’t last long in that biz. Who would pick up a story that read, “Son of God stays behind in Jerusalem to… hang out with the teachers.” Oh the scandal. not really, kinda boring. At most you might get, “Son of God thought missing, found in Father’s house.”
So for those reasons, we can be sure that what is recorded her really is a legit story about Jesus. So, what do we learn here about Jesus. Well, there are a number of things that jump out to me, but we will only focus on a few of them. We are going to look at the two main interactions in this story, Jesus with the teachers, and Jesus with His Parents.
Jesus with the teachers: 12 years old, parents taught, not yet a man.
Jesus listened: Imagine for a minute you wee the one through whom all things were created. You were eternally existing with the Father and The Spirit. If you were the one who held the all things together by the word of your power, why would you sit and listen to the people you created? Why did he do that? the simple answer is that he was humble. He was yielding to the rules, and commandments that He created. He was fully God, and fully man, so in being fully man, He allowed himself to be subject to the rules that He had set up for 12 year old boys. You listen, and learn, and ask questions. By that, you also learn. Jesus was learning from these teachers. it says at the end of the text that He Grew in wisdom. You know, I realized very early in ministry that my main role when I am not preaching is to listen. In fact many of the conversations I have had in ministry are very one sided. As people, we very much want to be heard, but seldom do we want to hear. Think about that for a minute, do you intentionally listen to people when they speak so you can understand, or are you formulating your response the entire time?
Jesus asked questions: Two reasons: 1. He was humble: OK, here is something that should blow us away. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the one through whom the world was created, was asking questions. Not afraid to look dumb, not afraid to be seen as intellectually small. He was asking them questions. How many times in your life have you carried on in ignorance because you were afraid to ask a question? 2. He knew how to persuade: DO you know that if you want to persuade someone of something, you can often do it without ever making a declarative statement? It is true. If you are in a dialogue with someone about a subject, and they have a strong opinion that is contrary to yours, your declarative statements will be like the wind to them. One the other hand, if you ask the right questions about their position, they will have to think and explain. If you are fortunate enough, you will be able to ask them questions until they contradict themselves, and then all you have to do is ask the question: “You said this earlier, but now you are saying this, how do you reconcile those things?” Also, the more you ask about someone, their life, and their views, the more likely it will be that they ask you about you, then you know they are ok to hear. Which seems to have happened to Jesus Because…
Jesus gave answers: when you have listened, and asked questions, there will usually be an opportunity to give answers. This played out for me once on a plane ride from Minnesota…
Jesus with His parents:
Jesus Jesus knew who he was: to my knowledge scripture does not indicate how Jesus knew he was God. Mary and Joseph could have told hIm, or he May have had knowledge from an early age, but what is clear is that by the age of 12, He knew who His father was…
Jesus was submissive: to the authority that He created…
Jesus was about His Father’s business (in His father’s house): He was focused on the task at hand.

My exhortation to you today is this: Be about your father’s business.