Walking with Jesus
God sees the Heart, not the age.
Families, welcome to the second evening of our journey with Jesus!
We are doing exactly what God desires from us. We are walking with the Lord, learning about him, learning his ways of doing things. This is exactly how relationships are built! Kids, today we learned about how even though Jesus is with us, Emmanuel, he also was a man. In fact, today we learned about some of the things he did even as a boy.
In the Bible, Jesus was recorded saying “If you love me, keep my commands”. (John 14:15). Earlier today we talked about commands as “rules”. Commands are in fact rules, but they are somewhat different than how we understand rules. God has given us a pathway to experience heaven here on Earth and it is by following his “commands”. Just like practicing hard and wearing jerseys helps a team to “represent” who they are, human beings are designed to represent who God is and we do so by trusting God and following his commands.
Remember, as we learned yesterday, he is the one true God. He is the only God who knows more than anyone and he wants to keep you and I safe and he wants us to experience true joy!
We don’t have to follow his commands, but if we don’t, the Bible says that it will feel like we are dying on the inside. We all know what it’s like to be scared or to feel alone. It’s not a good feeling inside of us. When we don’t follow God’s commands, it’s as if we can feel scared, confused, and alone all the time. He hasn’t given us his commands because he wants to control us, he has given them because he loves us and knows what’s best because he made us!
Jesus grew up in a culture where learning about God was important. Boys prepared for their Bar Mitzvah. A Bar Mitzvah is a special celebration for Jewish boys when they turn 13 years old. It’s a celebration of “coming to age” meaning they are becoming adults in their religion and are now responsible for following Jewish rules. During the ceremony, the boy reads a part of the Torah in front of everyone at the synagogue. It's a happy time that families celebrate with parties and gatherings.
For girls, there’s a similar celebration called a Bat Mitzvah when they turn 12. Both are important moments in their journey to growing up in the Jewish community.
Jesus understood that to love God meant to learn about him and his good ways of doing things, or as he calls it, his commands. Isn’t it amazing that although Jesus is God, he still lived in a way that was an example for us?! He doesn’t just tell us how to live, but he showed us how to do it. He doesn’t shout rules at us, but like a good shepherd, he has given us his commands as a pathway directly to him! As complicated as the Bible may seem sometimes, what’s simple for us to know is that God has always been after our hearts. He wants us to know him the way that he knows us and it doesn’t matter what age we are. As we learned today, we also can be an example to others no matter how old we are. Jesus was 12 and he set an example to other people even other adults who really knew the Torah well.
Talk it out!
In our passages from yesterday and today, we read a statement that was said about both Jesus and Mary? Did you catch it? In Luke 1:28 it says that Mary had found “favor” with the Lord. In Luke 2:52 it said that Jesus had found “favor” with both God and man. This word favor means blessing or “something that can only come from God”. It means that we have found trust in God by having the faith to learn about him and follow his commands. Even the teachers in the temple knew there was something special about the questions that Jesus was asking because they were from God.
1. After learning more about how special commands are according to the Bible and how following God’s commands is really good for us and for those around us, does that sound different that what you thought commands were?
What’s something that you want to do in order to follow God closer?
Today we also learned about what the apostle Paul said to his disciple Timothy. He said "Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young but set an example for the believers in speech in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity." Paul wrote this approximately 30 years or so after Jesus died and ascended to heaven. Paul was a church planter. He established communities of Jesus followers and then raised up leaders to shepherd to people to follow the ways of Jesus. Timothy was one of those people, but like Jesus in the temple, Timothy was young. In their culture, people weren’t considered mature until they were at least 30 years old, but Paul encouraged Timothy to get ahead of the game. He taught him that age doesn’t matter when it comes to following Jesus, and young people can still set an example for older people on how to love God and love others.
3. How can you today as a family commit to living in a way that sets an example to others?
Here's a really incredible fact that we will dive in to as the week goes on...
Passover was a time when the Jewish people would get together and celebrate a story of God. The Passover is kind of a weird story of God’s incredible love for people, and it shows us how he is the only one who can truly rescue us. The Israelites were a nation of people who God chose to represent who he is to the world. They were being used as slaves in Egypt and God wanted to rescue them. Egypt was run by an evil king, someone who acted like a god. He wanted all the attention, and he was greedy.
It sounds weird but remember making sacrifices to gods was something that these people were familiar with. God told them to mark their houses with the blood of the spotless lamb to represent those who were dedicated to following God. Those who didn’t choose to follow God experienced much sadness and grief.
Today, we now know that Jesus is the actual Passover lamb. He is the one who died to save us from our selfish ways. To set us free from a life that isn’t good for us and isn’t good for others.
The 12-year-old boy that impressed the teachers was the same person who years later would die to set us free. How amazing is that?!
-Remember, God doesn’t see things like we do. We often look at what is happening right in front of us, but God looks into our hearts. He wants us doing things for the right reasons. Things that honor him and produce life in our hearts in the those around us. Finding favor with God doesn’t mean that we have to make him happy, we simply need to express our love to him by trusting in his ways and as we’ve seen today, we can do that at any age.
We are super excited to be on this journey of Walking with Jesus alongside you!
We have been praying for you and your family!!
See you tomorrow.
