Transcription

Chris
Well, I can’t imagine Jesus as a teenager because I can’t imagine any teenager being perfect. Yeah.

Jeff
Me neither. Well, that’s what we’re talking about.

Chris
Yeah. We are.

Jeff
Yeah. Jesus is 12 years old in this, in this part of the story. So he’s Chris and I’m Jeff and we’re the Bible guys. Okay. Well. Hey, Chris, uh, today we have a very important segment. Everybody loves it. And, you know, we’ve really enjoyed the last couple of times when you got to share what made Chris happy this week.

Chris
Yeah, because I was complaining that the people always think I’m mad about stuff.

Jeff
That’s right. But I got to be honest with you, I just really don’t like sentimental Chris. Not nearly as much sentimental. Christmas is is less fun for me. Yeah. I delight in in in passionate, fiery Chris. That’s what I love. Okay. So sure. So we’re going to go back to, uh, what did Chris, uh, what made Chris mad this week? And I just want to point out that this segment always happens on Friday, because we want people going into their weekend just delighting in Chris’s. Yeah, yeah, raging.

Chris
I don’t know why it always happens on Friday. Yeah, yeah. Um, so as soon as I by the way, I did not know that this question was going to be asked till about, what, three minutes ago maybe. Yeah. Um, but I had one right away and.

Jeff
It’s right away. Yeah.

Chris
Because because, uh, usually when I get mad, it’s usually like, um, uh, things that happen that that’s, uh, community. Right? Yes. Like, like things that that you’re, that you’re not, you’re not considering other people around you.

Jeff
You’ve taught us before that your rage is on behalf of others.

Chris
On behalf of others.

Jeff
Yeah. You’re so benevolent.

Chris
So I went to the doctors and I was in the waiting room, and there was an older couple, not terribly old, like maybe in their 60s. So, you know, older, older than you, just older than me. And, uh, they had a phone conversation. There was probably wait, there’s probably one, two, three, four, five, probably six of us in the waiting room. They had a phone conversation on speaker, on speaker phone and turned it up. Uh, number so loud. Bad enough it was already on speaker. But, uh, and by the way, they could have easily, uh, just, you know, held it up to their ears. Or they could out in the hallway, stepped out in the hallway, anything like this. But they had on speaker phone and then they had it all the way up. Yeah. And so there’s nothing for the rest of us to do in a waiting room except read a magazine or twiddle on our phones.

Jeff
Hey, mom, how’s your bunions?

Chris
No, it was worse than that. Oh, no, it was worse. It was two old people talking, uh, so literally, you know, like, you ever hear two old people talk? Yeah. Like, hey, so the pharmacy, you know, that’s what it was, right? Oh, you paid $12. You know, if you go to Canada, you get it $9. I’m not even kidding. I’m not making that up. That is literally the conversation. It was the price of of pharmaceutical, you know, drugs in Canada versus and I can’t.

Jeff
$7 in gas to go get that.

Chris
I can’t unhear this. Right, right. And it’s so insulting. It’s so matter of fact, it’s not insulting. It’s assaulting. Yes. Right. They’re assaulting all of us. Right.

Jeff
And it wasn’t just you. You could have put up with it by yourself. No, it was the fact that there were 6 or 7 other people.

Chris
No, I didn’t want it. No, I didn’t want this for me either. Had I been the only one?

Jeff
Oh, no. Oh, no.

Chris
Had I been the only one in the room, I still would have been like, dude.

Jeff
Come on.

Chris
What are you doing? Like. Like I’m not a part of your conversation. Yeah. Step out in the hallway. Listen, if you want to do speaker phone for you and your wife, that’s fine. Just do it in the hallway. Right. And then. And then to find out it was just the most pointless conversation whatsoever. And I’m thinking to myself, man, this is rude. Yeah, well.

Jeff
This is what happens. You’re only ten years away, Chris. Yes. And you’re going to start talking about the price of pharmacies.

Chris
Oh, yeah, I know.

Jeff
Talk about.

Chris
I know.

Jeff
Bowel movements in the morning.

Chris
I already complained about everybody else’s lawn in the neighborhood. Yeah, yeah. Because I’ve become the guy with the nicest lawn. Yeah. I never thought that would happen. I never thought that would happen.

Jeff
Get off my lawn. Have you yelled at kids yet for getting on your lawn? I don’t care about that’s coming to.

Chris
I don’t care about. No, I don’t care about anybody walking on.

Jeff
Pretty soon you’re going to be talking about fiber content and food. You’re going to be talking about all kinds of stuff. The compression socks.

Chris
For now, it’s all coming. For now. I’m thinking like a young guy. Jeff
You always see me looking for a restroom.

Chris
I’m saying to the old guys, don’t put your speakerphone on in the middle of a public place, right? Right.

Jeff
We used to call that a conference call. Right. And the reason is because, you know, it was a conference of multiple people that need to be in on the conversation, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, good. Chris, thank you for sharing that. That was well, you know, it was a delight.

Chris
It’s important to remind everybody what’s acceptable and what’s not.

Jeff
That’s right. So if you’re not sure just tune in every Friday Chris I’ll let you know. This is our segment of do this, Not that.

Chris
Right.

Jeff
Okay. Well, hey, this is great. So, uh, you referenced at the beginning that now we’re moving into Jesus adolescence.

Chris
Yeah.

Jeff
And it’s kind of weird to think about Jesus growing up.

Chris
Yes.

Jeff
Isn’t it?

Chris
Well, because we know that he experienced the full range of humanity. Yeah, but at the same time, we are given the information that he never sinned. Right? Which means that he was able to, you know, probably get angry without sinning because anger is not a sin. The Bible is very clear about that. Yeah, he was probably able to procrastinate without sinning. You know, uh, you know, I wonder if, you know, we always say obeying your parents means right away and do it immediately. I wonder if you know, Mary ever said, hey, make your bed. And then Jesus didn’t do it. And then and he’s like, why didn’t you make your bed yet? Oh, I forgot, you know, there had to have been forgetful.

Jeff
Yeah. When you’re a young teenager like that, man, you forget everything. You lose your mind.

Chris
Well, it’s hard to believe that Jesus had to learn how to talk. Jesus had. To learn how to walk like.

Jeff
He had to be potty trained.

Chris
Yes, he had to be potty trained. There are, you know, when when Joseph was teaching him the trade, Jesus probably made mistakes. Yeah, he probably cut himself, right? I mean, there are things that are, you know, just because he wasn’t sinful didn’t mean he wasn’t human. Yeah. And so, you know, it’s hard to see Jesus like that in our minds. Not to mention there’s almost nothing written about it other than this one passage that we’re about to read. Right? Right.

Jeff
Well, we’re actually going to read two passages, but one is just one verse.

Chris
One verse out of Matthew. Right?

Jeff
So remember there’s a there’s the idea in the, in the Gospels of the parallel gospels. And so sometimes it shows a story will show up in 2 or 3 or in all four. This one shows up in two different spots in Matthew chapter two, verse 23. Chris
In one verse.

Jeff
Yep. And then Luke chapter two, verse 39. So I’m just going to read them back to back. Yep. Go ahead and you’ll pick up the likelihood. So Matthew says, so the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophecy had said. He’ll be called a Nazarene. There you go.

Chris
Yeah. That just gives us proximity.

Jeff
They moved to Nazareth. Right then Luke goes on and he goes. When Jesus parents had fulfilled all the requirements of the law of the Lord, they returned home to Nazareth in Galilee. There the child grew up healthy and strong. He was filled with wisdom, and God’s favor was on him. Every year. Jesus parents went to Jerusalem for the Passover Festival when Jesus was 12 years old. They attended the festival as usual. After the celebration was over, they started home to Nazareth. But Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents didn’t miss him at first because they assumed he was among the other travelers. But when he didn’t show up that evening, they started looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they couldn’t find him, they went back to Jerusalem to search for him there. Three days later, they finally discovered him in the temple, sitting among the religious teachers, listening to them and asking questions. All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. His parents didn’t know what to think. Son, his mother said to him, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been frantic searching for you everywhere. But why did you need to search? He asked. Didn’t you know that I must be in my father’s house? But they didn’t understand what he meant. Then he returned to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. And his mother stored all these things in her heart. Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people.

Chris
That’s a that’s a strong last statement, isn’t it? Yeah.

Jeff
It’s fabulous.

Chris
In wisdom and stature and in favor.

Jeff
With God and people.

Chris
With God and people. That’s right. That’s very descriptive, very big statements. Yeah. Uh, you know, to be wise and then to grow tall and then to have favor with people relationally, both with God and man is, uh, just one awesome sentence.

Jeff
You know, I had, uh, back in the day, you used to run college ministry, young adult type ministry stuff.

Chris
I was a college pastor.

Jeff
I had a guy in, uh, young adult ministry I was running at the time. He was 20, in his mid-twenties. He was very gifted. He was intelligent. Uh, he was he was a go getter. Um, he graduated from college. He got a master’s degree. By the time he was, like, 24, he got got his bachelor’s in his master’s at the same time. Um, he got a good job. Uh, he was in love with God, but was a little frustrated with all the other parts of life. You know what I mean? Um, he felt like he should have done a little bit better in school. He felt like by that point, he should have a wife or or, you know, be seriously dating. Didn’t have that in order. And then he kind of felt like he was supposed to do more with his life and couldn’t figure out what. And so I probably had 4 or 5 meetings with him of just going, Jeff, I feel like I’m wasting my life. I’m like, dude, you’re like 27. What are you talking about? You know? And he just was was frustrated, feeling his wasting his life. Finally we sat down and I said, okay, let me talk to you about this. When you don’t know what you’re supposed to do next, do something. He goes, that’s what I’m saying. What should I be doing? And I said, you need to grow in wisdom. You need to work on your body, grow in stature. Work on your relationship with God and work on growing in favor with other people. Those are. So learn how to become a great man. How do you become a great man? Uh, get physically fit, be strong. You know, he started working out and he lost some weight.

Jeff
He did some really good things that way. Um, uh, growing wisdom. How do you grow in wisdom? I said, dude, so you need to become, uh, uh, more intellectually engaged with what you believe is going to be your career, but also grow in wisdom and God’s wisdom. Spend a lot of time in the wisdom books and the Bible, in the book of Psalms, book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes. Spend regular time there developing godly wisdom and instincts. Spend time in the Gospels so you could start to think like Jesus thinks. The way you build wisdom is to learn not what to think, but how to think. That’s that’s what I think wisdom comes from. So spend time learning how great wise people think. And, uh, that means you have to spend time with them and then, uh, favor with God. That’s daily devotions. That’s growing in your habits that are necessary for spiritual growth. And then favor with people is, I think, diplomacy and social graces. Um, and so he put together a like a diary, not a diary, but like a playbook for himself to work through. And then probably every six weeks or so, he’d come back and go, hey, I’ve been working on the this is great. And I’m telling you, when he finally did, uh, get engaged and all these things, I just felt like this guy, of all the people I’ve ever met, this guy was just ready for the next level of life because he’d been spending all this time preparing for it. He wasn’t just living life and hoping life would happen. Well, right. He was prepping for it. And he took these four, these four verses, and that’s what he did.

Chris
That’s really cool.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris
And it’s amazing.

Jeff
Or these four words I mean.

Chris
You can find, you can find uh, so much just in that one verse. Right. Those, those words.

Jeff
Well, I mentioned in one of the earlier podcasts Jesus ministry lasted about a thousand days.

Chris
Right.

Jeff
That’s only three years, right? Three years and three and a half years, whatever. But Jesus was 33 years old, traditionally, maybe a little older than that, depending on how you view the, you know, the timing. But, um. It was. We only get less than 10% of his life right in here. And the other 90% was he grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and people. Right? That’s the other 90% of his life.

Chris
Right.

Jeff
So, you know, maybe we overemphasize. You know what every day of our life should be. And we underestimate what the what the. I mean, we should we overemphasize what the the big arc of our life should be. And we underestimate or underemphasize the daily things.

Chris
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because every, every day counts. Uh, who you are, uh, you know, uh, in the grocery store is, is just as important as what you do on a public stage.

Jeff
That’s right, that’s right.

Chris
Yeah, yeah. So that’s. Yeah. Good thoughts. Yeah.

Jeff
When, when my, my kids, all three of them my, my daughter is dating I think fairly seriously right now. And it’s different being a dad of a daughter than it is being a dad of sons by the way. But, um, uh, and my, my two sons are married, and all three of them, I said, I told them, hey, you don’t go running after just trying to find the one you become the one that somebody else is going to need, right? And, um, uh, and then be praying that God sends it is preparing them too. So it’s it’s not about what’s going to happen to you. It’s about what you’re preparing for. And that’s why I think a daily devotion with God, daily prayer with God, these things, uh, sometimes I’ll be honest with you. I mean, I get prayed to do this. I get paid to do this stuff. Sometimes I read my Bible and put it away and go. Not sure what I got out of that today. Um, you know, uh, but it’s developing the habit. It’s developing the we call them spiritual disciplines, right? Developing these disciplines that eventually become part of your character. And God’s more concerned about your character than he is about specific events in your life.

Chris
So I was a singles pastor for two and a half years at my previous church before I became a lead pastor at a campus. And, uh, and so that singles ministry had me interacting with literally hundreds and hundreds of people who were either single or never been married or, you know, single again, those kind of people. And, uh, and so the question of what should I be doing with my life? And I feel like there’s more and I feel like my life will begin after this happens, that kind of thing. And that was a massive part of my ministry. Yeah. And, and so, uh, my, my, my previous church before that, that I was a part of for only nine months, uh, that pastor made a statement, and I’ll never forget it. And it said, are you the person that the person you’re looking for is looking for?

Jeff
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Isn’t that great.

Chris
Are you the person? Are you the person that the person you’re looking for is looking for? Yeah. And so, uh, you know, the one that you’re looking for, you want that, you want that person. And so the question is, are you the person that the one you’re looking for is looking for. Yeah. It’s just it’s just a great it’s a great reflection for anybody who feels like, you know, they’re looking for somebody and their life will begin when they find that somebody.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we we honor Mary and Joseph and what, uh, uh, you know, what a sacrifice they made, what risks they took, the courage that it took, the all those things. Um, but the only parenting story of Mary and Joseph is they lose God, right?

Chris
Right.

Jeff
They lost him.

Chris
They lost him. And then it says three days later. Right. So it’s not like lost them. Like. Like I lost for an hour, right? Yeah. Yeah, but.

Jeff
They didn’t lose him at Walmart.

Chris
Right, right? For an hour.

Jeff
They lost him in a city back, you know, three days ago.

Chris
By the way, this is a true story. Um, I set my daughter Sarah, who was in a, uh, you know, one of those little carriers. Baby carriers. I set her on the a table, okay? On, like, a big, like, uh, church table, like a big rectangular table. And was doing stuff in the church. Turned out all the lights, closed the doors of the entire church, and then got in my Tahoe with my wife and started to pull out, and we were we we pulled out, uh, onto the road and we I bet you we went like one mile and, uh, and my wife turned around and screamed out of her mind and said, you forgot to load Sarah in the car. Now, she was safe. Yeah. And she was in her little carrier, and she was in pitch black church lobby in a baby carrier. So we got one mile down the road, turned around. I felt like the worst father ever. And I was. And I pulled up and I opened the doors and she was not even crying. She was just sitting in the dark, like, happy as a cricket. Yeah. You know, uh, and that was bad enough. Yeah.

Jeff
Babies don’t have anything to be afraid of.

Chris
And that might have been a total of, like, seven minutes.

Jeff
Yeah. That’s right.

Chris
But three days later.

Jeff
Jenna was brand new born. It was our first Sunday. Uh, she’s my youngest. It was our first Sunday back to church, and I was a worship leader. Bonnie was a musician. And, um, so then everybody wanted us to go to dinner with them. And so, uh, Bonnie and the boys, I dropped Bonnie off at the front door of the restaurant. And the boys, they go in and there’s maybe 8 or 10 other people waiting for us at this restaurant we all like to go to. And I got out and. Went in, everybody’s waving at me and I’m waving back and just feeling so proud. Everybody’s congratulating me for being a father. I walked in and it turned out they weren’t waving at me. They yelled at me that I left the car seat in the car.

Jeff
So I left Jenna and it was in December, January, January something. So cold.

Chris
So cold.

Jeff
And I’m just walking in, you know, just totally forgot. Yeah. So I did it too, man.

Chris
But the car was still warm, I’m sure.

Jeff
Oh, yeah yeah, yeah, it had been. It was literally the amount of time it took me to park at one end of the restaurant and walk in the front door so you know, three minutes.

Chris
But still funny.

Jeff
I just felt so stupid because I thought everybody’s like, look how nice everybody’s being about what a good dad I am.

Chris
That’s so funny.

Jeff
Oh, I don’t have my baby with me.

Chris
And by the way, um, I thought that it was really interesting. The hidden gem in this passage. Yes. Is that they said, uh, when he didn’t show up, uh, they started looking among their relatives and friends. So, I mean, you never really picture Mary and you always picture Mary and Joseph and Jesus those three.

Jeff
Mhm. Mhm.

Chris
But, but but it says right here there was relatives there. Oh yeah. Right.

Jeff
And friends. Chris
Yeah. And so um you know what family was there with Mary and Joseph.

Jeff
Yeah.

Chris
You know was it, was it Elizabeth.

Jeff
Yeah, right. Yeah.

Jeff
Zechariah, maybe. And John the Baptist?

Chris
Yeah.

Jeff
I don’t know people from the village. You know, they would travel together in caravans to protect themselves from robbers and, you know, uh, that kind of thing. Uh, do you ever wonder, though, about people like. So we don’t get anything for, like, 18 more years after this? So nothing for, like, for ten years, you know? So there’s those first two and nothing for like ten years and then nothing more for 18 years afterwards. And so who are these friends? Do you think there’s some mom. Hey, what do you think about that? Jesus, boy? You know, to the girls, did Jesus have crushes on people? On on girls? Did you know? Uh. So did he have acne? Did he start sweating when? When puberty hit?

Jeff
Did he all of a sudden get greasy and smelly?

Chris
The answer to all that is, yes, we were.

Jeff
We were at fireworks. Uh, my wife and I, and there were some teenage boys that were maybe 13, 14. They were just too loud, too sweaty, too disheveled, but they were kind of showing off for this little cluster of like seventh and eighth grade girls, just just over. And little girls were, you know, laughing and giggling and acting so put out. But they wanted to stay close. Yeah. Right. Right. Can you imagine? Did you think Jesus and his buddies were too loud?

Chris
Right?

Jeff
Right, right. All the all the stuff that we go through, this really, in my mind, this whole passage just really humanizes Jesus on a level that.

Chris
Well, I just so I’ve been watching The Chosen, and I think I referenced this episode even before, but there was an episode where, uh, I reference the part of the episode where Jesus wasn’t accepted in his hometown. Oh, yeah. And he actually said, I’m the Messiah. And everybody freaked out in the same exact episode. Right before that time, uh, they invited Jesus to play a game, and it was almost like a, like a hacky sack type game where they’re in a circle and they’re sort of. But but in this case, they’re sort of throwing this little bag of something and they’re catching it. And Jesus wasn’t very good, and they were all teasing him. And they were like, they were like, have you improved since last time? And he’s like, we’ll see. And they started playing this game. And at first I thought, like, why are they spending minutes doing this? And then afterwards after, you know, it gets done and it goes on to the next scene, you realize, I know exactly why they’re doing that. Yeah, they were humanizing Jesus. They were they were they were showing what was about to happen, where Jesus was about to claim that he was the Messiah in his hometown and be rejected by by people who were literally his friends. Right? People who played games with him and people who knew him growing up.

Jeff
But one of the ways that you know that this is probably really how it happened was because people like Mozart were famous at three for being savants on the piano. Yeah, he was writing symphonies by the time he was 12. Right. And the whole world knew about him. His friends almost worshipped him. He was famous all throughout Europe. Mozart was as a as a kid, so that by the time he was in his adulthood, he was a ragingly famous guy for music. But nobody was claiming that Jesus was. There’s nothing said here and in history you should see this five year old. That’s the most amazing carpenter we’ve ever seen. You should see the fireplace this guy built. You should sit. Nobody, nobody was saying this kid was a savant in any area, except for the fact that the teachers of the law were impressed with him in Jerusalem.

Chris
Right.

Jeff
Nothing else. Everything else. For the sake of growing up, Jesus had to learn those skills, right? Because he’s not considered. There’s nothing referenced in history, nothing in the Bible that he stood out. As a matter of fact, in Nazareth, people weren’t really. Are you serious? He’s the Messiah, right? Right.

Chris
And it doesn’t say. And he was good at darts. He hit the bull’s eye every time, right? Right, right. Yeah. It doesn’t say anything.

Jeff
Well, he was a tradesman, right? And it wasn’t like, you know, Herod Herod was building stuff like crazy, right? He was building Caesarea. He was building all this crazy, all these things. If he was a great artisan, just naturally, supernaturally gifted artisan, not learning his trade, but just was a savant at it. He would have been working for Kings. King David when he was a teenager, was playing the harp for for Saul because he was the best harpist in Israel. Right? Right. He was a savant. But there’s nothing hinted that Jesus was supernaturally gifted at hacky sack, or carving or doing woodwork, or stonework or masonry or anything else. He was a normal kid that seemed to have a gift with regard to the Bible understanding.

Chris
Which by the way, is right in line with his humility. Right? It’s the order in which he it’s the manner in which he chose to come into the world. And and apparently it’s the manner in which he chose to live his life. That’s right. It just just under the radar, uh, average guy who, again, experienced every facet of humanity.

Jeff
And so that back full circle. Call to where we started. Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people. Right. He got better and better. He developed. These are skills that can be developed and I think enhanced by the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives as we surrender to him.

Chris
That’s great. Well, that’s a great place to end. And we will see you next time on The Bible Guys.