Well, good morning. Happy anniversary to you! [Happy anniversary! â€"congregation.] Twenty years ago, we had our first service. I mentioned to someone this morning that I was 12 years old at the time. We are going to be spending a little bit of time looking back, and then well spend the rest of the time looking ahead; but we thought itd be fun-at least I thought itd be fun-to get two of the families that were there the very first Sunday in the Janesville Motor Lodge-the Bakers and the Bergerons-and just reminisce a little bit. When you come into a building, its warm. In the summer, theres air conditioning, and it doesnt smell funny. Youve got nice chairs to sit in, but that was not always the case. In fact, it was very, very different from what it is now. I thought this video would give you just a little bit of an indication, tell some of the stories. Some of the stories you might have heard before and you might know. Others might be brand new, but were going to take about six minutes here and just talk about our past. (This is available on DVD. If youd like to listen, contact Brenda Uppencamp.) Lets pray: Father, we thank You for our past, and were excited about our future. This is Your church, and Lord, we are simply members of Your body; and our desire is to do Your will and to live out Your purposes, and so I pray that You would speak to each and every heart and life this morning-our part, and Lord we might partner with You, to do something wonderful in our world for Christ. In Jesus name we pray. Lets open our Bibles up to Luke 2. Weve spent some time looking back this morning, reflecting. Now were going to look ahead to the future. Im talking to you this morning about turning 20. I know some of you have already passed that and then some. Maybe youve turned 20 a couple two, three times. Others of you have yet to reach that milestone; but for me, turning 20 was a very much a defining moment. I remember thinking, Oh, Im not a teenager anymore. Theres nothing at the end of my age that says teen, and Im not a child anymore. Im just starting this adult thing, and I have to grow up. I was a little bit sad about that, but at the same time excited about the future. At 20, I was single. I didnt have any children. I hadnt started my career. [I remember thinking], Where will I end up? Where will I end up living? How many children will I have? All those things are a little bit up in the air at 20 for most of us. We look to the future, and one of the things we realize is we have to grow up. We have to start taking responsibility for our lives. We have to think of who we are. Moms not going to follow me everywhere. I have to stand on my own two feet. I have to forge a future. I have to decide the kind of person Im going to become, and I thought that would be a good analogy for us today-to just talk about this whole growing up process-and I thought who better to look at than the Lord? Lets talk about how Jesus grew up, and that will give us some indicators of how we are to grow and what we need to be focused on as we grow and as we look toward the future. Now, we know very little about Jesus childhood, other than He was a normal child. He didnt have a halo around his head. He wasnt out healing His friends. If a child got cut while he or she was playing, He wouldnt heal it-that didnt happen. As far as we know, this first miracle doesnt happen until He is an adult and starts His ministry. We know about His birth in Bethlehem. We know about His trip to the Temple. We know about His flight to Egypt to protect him from Herod. We know about His trip to the Temple at age 12 with his parents for Passover. Other than that, Verse 52 in Luke 2 is all we know of the time when Jesus was 12-when He is sprouting pimples, and His voice is changing, Hes starting to grow, going through a growth spurt-until the time when He is an adult, all we have is Verse 52. So I thought we would take a look at Verse 52 and some of the verses that proceeded to give us a glimpse, a snapshot, into how Jesus grew because it will help our church as we look to the future. In Verse 41 of Luke 2 (page 1015 of pew Bibles), let me set some of the context for you in whats going on in the life of Christ. As we said, He is 12. His parents and He and probably some of His younger siblings, half-brothers, half-sisters, are on their way to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, to commemorate the time when God delivered them from the Egyptians, delivered them from the plague of the death of the first born. It will be a time of sacrifice; it will be a time of sharing good meals; and a time with family and friends. And so it is one of the three holidays with Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles, Feast of the Booths, that they are to go to Jerusalem. There they spent the week; the festivities are done, and they are about ready to get in their caravan and head back to Nazareth, to head back home. There are a lot of good-byes. There are a lot of final preparations, packing things and returning home. They formed a bit of a caravan of relatives and friends, and this whole gang from Nazareth is going to head back. Mary and Joseph, they both think Jesus was with somebody else. Wheres Jesus? Oh He must be with so and so. So, they leave, but Jesus is not with them. The Bible says that they travel for a day under this assumption. So imagine that-you finally stop for the night. Youve been traveling all day, and you start going to family and friends inquiring where your son is. Jesus is with you, right? No, Hes not here. Hes not with you? No, maybe Hes over here, and so you go over there. You say, Is Jesus with you? No, Hes not. One by one, you start crossing off the possibilities, and as you do that, your heart starts to race. As you do that, your heart starts to race; you begin to realize that your son is not among the group. Every parent who has ever been away from your child and not known where your child is for 10 seconds knows that awful feeling. It is a horrific, torturous feeling in the pit of your stomach when you dont know the whereabouts of your child. So concern soon turns to anxiety and to panic, and Mary becomes more desperate. Finally, they realize that they have left Him alone. You know that Home Alone moment when she finally dawns on what happens, and she goes, Jesus! But He, just like in the movie Home Alone, Hes having a good time! Hes not concerned. Hes in the Temple; Hes talking about God; Hes making friends; Hes enjoying Himself, and they are starting the journey back. Theres no plane; theres no car. They were a day out, so it would take a day to get back. So, now, by the time they reach Jerusalem, it has been two days since Mary has seen her son. Can you imagine the panic? Can you imagine the prayer? I mean what was that prayer like? God, the Son that You gave me in Bethlehem-Your Son-to take care of, Ive lost Him. Youve offered some unique prayers in your lives, but never an I lost God prayer. I mean shes beside herself. Then they get to Jerusalem, and they start retracing all the steps. Well, we went to this relative. We went to this person. We saw this friend. They start going to all these houses saying, Oh, we thought He was with you. No, weve not seen Jesus. Again, her anxiety level just continues to rise. It has now been three days. They have searched for the entire day, day three, and they still do not know the whereabouts of their son. They arrive into the Temple to look for Jesus and to pray because they are exasperated. They dont know where else to turn, and they see a group of people. There is a focal point in the group. As they draw near, and as they begin to listen, they recognize the voice. It is the voice of their 12-year-old son. It has still not changed; its rather high, and as they look in and overhear, there is their son in the midst of this group of rabbis and Pharisees and religious elite, and Hes talking about God. Hes talking about ultimate reality, and Hes talking about theology. The Bible says the rabbis and the teachers of the law were amazed. The Greek says, To displace. It means they just dropped their jaws. They couldnt believe what they were hearing. How in the world does this 12-year-old know more about God and the Bible than we do? So they are asking Him questions. What questions could you answer at age 12? I could have told you about monsters. I could have told you about cartoons on Saturday mornings. I could have told you who was playing for the Cubs; but if you asked me questions about theology, Im not much help to you at age 12. But Jesus is teaching the religious authority. Mary, the first thing she does is just go, Ah… Hes okay. She wants to run and grab Him and maybe lecture Him a little bit, but she listens first. She just listens. The Bible says that she and Joseph are astonished at what He is saying! Theyre like, When did He learn that? We didnt teach Him that! How does He know that? Because remember Hes just a kid. All it says in Verse 40 is this: And the child grew and became strong. He was just a normal child. How in the world does He know all of this? And for a while, she just soaks it in in astonishment, in amazement; but then its time to get back to reality. Its time to head back to Nazareth. Theres a long way, so she interrupts the teaching, and she says to Jesus, Son, how could you have treated us like this? Why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for You. Maybe there was a place that they were to meet, and we just assumed You were there. You were with who You were supposed to be with. Maybe He was supposed to tag along with somebody different than Mary and Joseph, but He didnt do that; and so its a little bit of a lecture time, a little bit of parenting time in the Temple. Youve just taught the finest theological minds in the country a lesson on God for three days, but now Youre back to being 12, and your moms giving you the what for? Quite a contrast here, and she says, Ive been worried about You. We didnt know what happened to You. He says (in Luke 2:49, page 1016), Why were you searching for Me? He asked. Didnt you know that I had to be in My Fathers house? Where else would I be but here? I mean if you want to find Me, why wouldnt you come here first? By the way, youre the one that left Me. I didnt leave you. Youre the parent, but if you have to look for Me, wouldnt this be the first place youd come because wouldnt you know I would want to be in My Fathers house? Id want to be talking about My Father. I remember when I was 12; I was lost, kind of like Jesus. From Mary and Josephs perspective, Jesus was lost, but from His perspective, He wasnt lost. He was having a great time. This happened to me when I was 12: we just had broken up a meeting of the Monster Club, no girls allowed; and we left that little shack and we went right next to that shack. It was the greatest place in our neighborhood. It was a place called Kent Creek, just about 100 feet from the Monster Clubhouse. We walked down this little concrete walk that had steps in it, about 20 feet into the creek, and it was Little Boy Heaven. For hours in the hot summer sun, we would chase grasshoppers and look for frogs, fish and crayfish and just walk up and down the banks just having the time of our lives. Finally, I said to my buddy, Hey, I have to go home. I go home and theres a police car there. My moms been crying and my dads all flustered. The neighbors are around, and theyre like, Jeff, whereve you been? We have been looking all over for you! I wanted to say, Well, youve been looking all over for me? Why wouldnt you go to the coolest place in the whole world-the creek? That's where I was, chasing frogs. What do you mean, Where am I? Thats the first place you go. The problem was I wasnt allowed to go in the creek, so thats another story. Well save that for another sermon, but… Then Jesus says to her, Didnt you know I had to be in My Fathers house? Theres a lot here. Number one, it shows He is aware of who He is and His unique relationship to the Father. You say, Didnt Jesus always know He was the Son of God? The answer to that question is no; He did not. You might say, What? Listen, Jesus had to enter into the full human experience, didnt He? He was going to experience everything we experience. He was going to become hungry, tired, thirsty, experience pain, temptation, and to be fully human, you must learn. The Bible is very clear that Jesus went through times when He learned. He wasnt lying in the manger looking up at the galaxy going, Yeah, I did that. All He cared about was Im hungry. I need to eat. Im tired; I need to sleep. Im messy; I need to be changed. What age did He become cognizant of who He was? We dont know. Its a good question to ask when you get to Heaven, but we do know already by age 12, He is aware of His unique relationship with the Father. In fact, it says the Bible says that Mary is confused by that. It says when He said that I must be in My Fathers house, they did not understand what He was saying to them. Why is that? Its because of how He addressed God. If you wanted to address God and you lived in the time Jesus lived, you would say, Elohim. You would say, Adonai. You would say, Yaweh. Sorry, Brenda. You would say those things, but some of you think when I say, Sorry Brenda, Im talking to Brenda (Pastors wife, Brenda), but Im talking to Brenda, the signer; and Ive given her a word she has to fingerspell; and I forgot to put it on the slide. Im apologizing for my negligence. Some of you are wondering, Why does he talk to his wife during the service? Im talking to this Brenda who does a wonderful job, by the way. Where was I? Embarrassing you, okay-yeah, right. Thank you. No, we wont make her spell it again. So He calls God, Father. This was the normal word for father. This was the word that every child would have used to address their dads. Nobody called God that, so when He says, You know, I have to be in My Fathers house, shes like, Your fathers house is in Nazareth! Your father, Joseph, is right here. Hes been looking for You! But Jesus is talking about God, His Father. That just goes right over her head. Nobody addressed God that way until Jesus. So He follows. He goes home with her. He is submissive to her, and they take Him back to Nazareth, and they raise Him. The Bible says that He began to grow. Its going to tell us about that in Verse 52. This is where we want to spend the rest of our time. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor… or grace. That word is grace. By grace you have been saved-thats the word grace. Its a little bit different connotation in this setting, but thats what that word is. He grew in grace with God and men. So this fourfold manifestation, these four arms of growth, are what I want to talk about for our church. It says, …and Jesus grew, and we need to talk about that. This verb is very important. There are a lot of things in this verb. Number one, this verb means to progress, to make, to advance, to put forth effort to reach a goal. Its not simply a reference to Jesus growing up. Thats more like Verse 40 that we read. This is a different verb. This verb is whats called the imperfect tense, meaning that it is continuous. Its completed but it is continuous because the job is not done, so He is continuing to grow. All the things were going to talk about this morning are things we must continue in. They are things that we will not finish. We will continue to grow. I was on I-90 this week during that snowstorm. If you were driving, [you can relate]. All I was doing was advancing. I was going like 30 miles an hour, but I was getting there. I was making progress. Youre going to be watching football-some of you-this afternoon. If the offense is moving the ball, theyre moving the chains, if theyre getting first downs, you can say, Theyre advancing. Thats this verb. It means to slowly, methodically move toward a goal continuously. Jesus is moving toward this fourfold purpose of growth. Number one were going to talk about-for the purposes of our church-exalting God. It says that Jesus grew in grace with God. When we talk about exalting God, we mean worship. When we talk about worship, we dont just mean singing songs on Sunday. Worship is the entirety of our life. Worship is an expression of our life in living a life and ascribing worth to God, trying to live a life that pleases God; so everything that we do becomes an act of worship. We want our church-what we spend our time doing and what we are involved in-exalting God. That is the number one purpose of our church-to exalt God, to lift up the name of Jesus and to proclaim the Gospel to the community and to our world. Theres nothing more important that we do than that-to exalt God. Everything else we do is for the purpose of that number one priority-to exalt God, so thats first and foremost-that we grow in our relationship with God as individuals and as a church. Now we do that and there are three other parts or components to how we are able to express our worship of God and how were able to exalt God. That is what we see in this verse. The second one is that He grows in wisdom. He grows in wisdom. That word means that its more than just knowledge. If were filling out our outline, we would say that our church is to edify, our second purpose. We are to edify believers. We are to teach you the word of God, so you can know God better-that you can grow in your faith. That is how Jesus grew. He grew in wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge rightly applied. It is not just knowledge; its knowing how to use your knowledge. When someone lacks wisdom, its apparent, isnt it? Did you hear about the fellow that was on the airlines this week, and he became disgruntled because the stewardess wouldnt let him put his carryon underneath the seat? He wrote a nasty note, kind of a weird note, saying, Hey, what if this plane crashes? What if we land on an island, and its Gilligans Island, and the only one left is Mrs. Howell. Id kill myself if that happened, or something like that. It was some crazy kind of note, and he hands it in as a comment card. He thinks theyre going to read it when they get back to the states. She reads it on the airplane, looks at him like he must be some sort of suicide bomber, and tells the pilot. The plane turns around. It was going to Hawaii. Everybody was going to Hawaii. He turns around and gets a military escort back to the homeland. He has no idea why until he gets off the plane, and they come over and interrogate him about blowing up the plane. Hes like, What? Did you write this note? Oh, boy! That's not wisdom. He was arrested. So whats wisdom? Its the opposite of that. Its knowledge rightly applied. We know when someone is acting in wisdom and when theyre acting as a fool. Our job as a church is to edify you so that you can grow in wisdom, to build you up in the things of God. We have wisdom-seeker classes. We have small groups. We have womens Bible study, mens group, womens group-all the small group areas for you to come and learn the Word of God, so you can grow in wisdom cause thats an important part of what we do as a church. When we first started, all we had were our weekend services, and that is one of the tools that we use. Our weekend service-when you come on Saturday night or you come on Sunday morning-one of the things were trying to do is edify you to teach you the Word of God so you can grow in wisdom. But thats all we had, but as we grew as a church, we added teachers. We added classes; we added small groups and other ministries where you could come and be edified and grow in wisdom. We added support groups-whether its our support group for alcohol, whether its divorce recovery, whether its our group whove lost loved ones-whatever the small group is, its designed to edify you and help you to grow in wisdom. Theres a third facet. It says here in the text that He grew in stature. That means more than just growing up. When it says He grew in stature, its a different word. It means to attain or to grow to a point where you are able to accomplish a thing. That's literally what the definition means-to accomplish a thing. Its the word we looked at in Ephesians 4 when it says, Until we all reach a unity to attain the stature or the fullness of Christ. To sum it up, its to equip, to become equipped. We grow in stature. We grow in maturity so we are equipped to serve God. Its not just chronological age growth. It can be that, but in this context, it is much more than that. One of the things we do as a church is we strive to equip. We have ministries that we offer in our church that you can get involved in. You take the GPS class, which is today at 12:30. Lunch is provided. You talk about learning your spiritual gifts, your passions and your talent, and you plug into service. In that service, you learn. In that service, you become equipped. Through making mistakes, through watching others who are doing that ministry and learning from them, you become equipped. We have a Real Zeal ministry that you can sign up for today where you can either be a mentor or a mentee, and well plug you in with somebody one on one; and now through the rest of the year, youll meet together once a week for an hour a week, go through a curriculum together, study the Bible and pray together just one on one. That is a form of equipping you for a service, and that is one of the jobs that our church has; and we want to grow in that area where we dont say, Were everything we need to be as far as exalting God, as far as edifying one another, or as far as equipping the saints. No, we have a long way to go. We want to advance together in that, but this is one of our fourfold purposes. Lastly, it is what Jesus said-He grew in grace with men. It has to do with outreach. It has to do with ministering outside the four walls of our church to other people. That was one of my key goals. Every year at the beginning of the year, I meet with my staff; and we all share our goals. Its called, Soup and Goals. We meet at one of the staff members homes, and we have soup. She makes a killer soup, and we all read our goals around the table. When I came to my goals, I said, One of my goals for 2009 is our church grows in outreach, that we become more involved in our community than we are now-that were doing more things. Weve established the CARES ministry. Each month we partner a ministry outside of our church. It might be the Salvation Army; it might be the homeless shelter; it might be the Lighthouse; it might be the CARE House that we just focused on in December. This month its a clothing drive for the Haitian Church in the D.R. Every month we are focusing. When we have volunteers that go and spend the night in the homeless shelter, when its our turn, thats outreach. When our ladies go to the school, the public school, and help prepare breakfast, thats outreach. When our team goes to Wilson School to tutor on Wednesdays, thats outreach. When my wife and Jonanne lead the after-school Bible study at Wilson School, thats outreach. When Mike Powers ministers to the Clinton High School at release time, thats outreach. When our teams go into the nursing homes-two different nursing homes every week-thats outreach. When we send money on the mission field, thats outreach. When we go to the mission field as we do-our youth go every other year, and our whole church family goes every other year-thats outreach. That is what were talking about. Thats extending the love of Christ to our community. We have to continue to grow in that. We can never be satisfied. Were going to keep working and growing. Now, I want to go back to that verb. I want to go back to that verb that says Jesus grew. He advanced; He progressed, and I want to give you a word picture to think about and reflect on. How many of you guys played high school or junior high football and had to hit a tackling sled? Let me see your hands. All right. Thats hard work, right? Thats hard work and usually youre tired, and your coach tells you to hit that thing. Everybody has to hit it hard. You have to put your helmet down, your shoulder pads down, and bam! You drive that thing, and you push it and its heavy. It takes everybody working together, and as you push it, you advance. Thats this Greek verb. You make progress towards your goal, so theres the team. That represents the Gospel that we have to advance. There are obstacles; there are challenges, and that represents you, and youre there. Youre pushing forward; youre giving effort, and together we are advancing. I hope thats you because were going to show you a couple other images that we dont want you to be; but we hope this is you. We hope you recognize, Heres the direction were going. Im on board. Im giving. Im serving. Im helping to advance the cause of Christ here in Janesville through Faith Community Church. Thats good; thats healthy. Its tiring. Its hard work; but were working together, and were getting the job done through serving, giving and equipping and all of that. Lets look at the next slide. This image shows one guy working really hard while a bunch of people behind him are just kind of watching, watching him work. Now, Im not thinking about any individuals, but there are some who do that. There are some who dont serve and dont give, but theyre watching everybody else serve and give. Theyre watching this and they might even go, Good job! but theyre not putting their shoulder out to help us advance. My message to you this morning is we could move this sled farther and faster if you would help us. I hope you come to the GPS class today at 12:30. We need you. We need you on the sled. You have a gift; you have something to offer. You learn what that is, you find your place in the sled, and you push. Its hard; its rewarding, but it involves sacrifice. It involves your resources; it involves time. We need you! Come on! Theres room for you. We will move over, and you come put your shoulder here, and you help us out, okay? Now theres a third group, and I hope nobodys like this, but there are some churches, believe it or not, where leadership might question whether somebody was actually pushing against the church. Instead of working with the vision and helping the vision happen, theyre actually on the other side of the sled pushing. You look up and theyre facing you instead of facing in the same direction; and youre going, What are you doing? Were going that way! Turn around! Get on the other side of the sled! Were going this way! There have been people like that, and you want to say, Youre not helping! Youre making our sled go crooked! If youre not careful, were going to squish you because were still going this way. Now, come on! Lets get around here, and lets go in this way! Hopefully, thats not you. Again, Im not thinking about anybody, so dont throw shoes at me. Dont get mad at me. If you want to advance the cause of Christ in the world, you believe the Bible is the Word of God, Jesus is the hope of the world, and were to take the love of Christ to the world, come on! Lets go! We have a place for you! Maybe youre tired, and you needed a rest. Phew! Ive been pushing that sled a long time. I need a little time out. Okay, time outs over! With the condition of our society, of our world, with the condition of our economy and all the people that are hurting, we really dont have time for bystanders. We really need you to plug in. When you plug in with what youre passionate about-even though its work-its fun. If youre a builder, build. If youre a teacher, teach. If youre a leader, lead. If youre a helping person, help. If youre hospitality, open up your home. Whatever is your niche, do something you love. If youre an artist-whatever you are, lets find out. Lets get the job done. Together we, number one, exalt God; we seek to edify one another; to grow in our wisdom and understanding of God; to equip so we can serve God; to discover and use our spiritual gifts; and to extend the love of Christ. Thats physical; that's practical; thats reaching out through our mouths and sharing the Gospel, through our hands and our feet and advancing the cause of Christ in the world. So that is our job. Its ongoing. Were not there by any stretch of the imagination. I pray that you will help me, and you will help all of us as we seek to do that. Twenty years from now, who knows who will be here. I pray the church will still be here. Forty years from now, most of us wont be here. Those children down there will be leading this church. Somebody else will be the pastor. They wont know who I am. They wont know my name. Maybe Im a portrait on the wall nobody cares about that needs to be dusted once in a while. They wont know who you are, but if weve done our job, this church will still be exalting God. This church will still be proclaiming Christ as the hope of the world. It will still be teaching the Word of God, and it will still be serving the community, sending out missionaries and helping missions around the world-if weve done our job. So lets do our job; lets pray: Father, we are so grateful that we can work and serve the One who died upon the cross for our sins. Lord, You have forgiven us, and we have received Your grace. Because of that, we desire to worship You and exalt You. In order to worship You and exalt You, we must be equipped. We must edify one another, and we must take Your love and extend it to the world. That is how we live out worship, and that is the purpose of our church in bringing people to faith and maturity in Christ. Help us to let in and give us the strength, the wisdom we need, and the perseverance we need to get the job done. Thank You, Lord, for these past 20 years, and, Lord, we look ahead to the future. Were excited about what Youre going to do. We thank You for the ministry this morning of CARE House and a practical way we can come alongside of them. I pray that this equipment would be used to help prevent and to bring to justice those who harm the innocent. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.