Storms Creek Church 7-30-2023

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Episode Transcript

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Good morning, and welcome to StormsCreek Missionary Baptist Church this Sunday morning radio
program. This morning, we'll bejoining Pastor Kenny Hurts as we once again
open descriptions and study God's Way.Okay, today we're going to be in
the Gospel of Luke once again.We're in chapter two and we're going to

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focus on the final verses of thischapter, which is verses thirty nine down
through verse fifty two. I've titledthe message for today the Hidden Years.
In my first year of coaching inbasketball, this was back in well nineteen

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seventy nine, nineteen eighty, wetook our basketball team to Columbus to watch
Ohio State play Michigan. And itwas a weekday game. I think the
game started around eight o'clock. Andwhat we did was I drove and in
two other people drove. So wedivided the twelve players into among the three

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cars. When the game was over, we hurried to get to our cars.
We wanted to beat the traffic out. It was starting to rain,
I think lightly. We had atwo and a half hour drive home and
we were supposed to be in schoolthe next morning. Well, we all
arrived back in South Point safely,came to school the next day thinking everything

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was okay, had a good timethe night before, and then I was
asked to go down to the principal'soffice and I heard news that I'll never
forget. That is one of myplayers was still in Columbus. He had
been left behind somehow. There wasa mix up and he didn't get back
to the car that he came upin, and he was well, he

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was still in Columbus. He wentto the bus station where he then was
able to take a bus and comeback home later that day. I was
a young coach. As my firstyear coaching, I was concerned with what
the parents I might do, butthey were very nice, they were very
understanding about it. I felt terriblebecause as the coach, I was responsible

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for the team. I was responsibleto make sure they all got back home
safely. Well. I learned avaluable lesson and that way, and that
means every time that I took ateam to an away game or took the
team anywhere, I made sure thateverybody came back. Everybody was accounted for,

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so either called roll counted or whatever. But I would never make that
mistake again. Well, this morning, we're going to look at a incident
that's well similar to the one thatI just described. It is when our
Lord Jesus Christ was twelve years oldand he was taken to Jerusalem with his

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family, with his parents and hisfamily to celebrate the Passover. And when
they left, well they left withouthim. They found out later that he
was still back in Jerusalem. Sowhat we're gonna do is we're gonna look
at, as I said, versesthirty nine through fifty two, a passage
that I'm referring to as the HiddenYears. Now. Last time, when

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we looked at verses twenty five throughthirty eight, we talked about Jesus the
early years. We talked about hislife as a well, basically as a
new born. What happened for thefirst forty days of his life was what
we have record of. Well,now we're going to see that. We're
going to look at his life fromthe time he was forty days old until

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the age of thirty. That's whatwe're calling the hidden years. And they're
hidden because during this time, speriodof almost thirty years, the only thing
we know about our Lord Jesus Christ, the only incident that we're told of
is what we find here in thispassage when Jesus was twelve years old.
So what I've done is I've dividedthis passage into three parts. We're gonna

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look at Jesus maturing, We're gonnalook at Jesus missing, and we're gonna
see Jesus's mission. So maturing missionor missing and mission. So first of
all, let's look at Jesus maturingverse thirty nine. And when they had
performed all things according to the lawof the Lord, they returned to the

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Galilee, to their own city ofNazareth. Now, before we go any
further, I do think we needto just take it just a couple of
minutes and just kind of put thingsin a proper perspective, kind of put
a timeline here to what's going onthese early years from the time that Jesus,
well that Jesus was born up untilthe time of twelve. What do

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we know, Well, we haveto look at Matthew and Luke to get
the picture. Now, Mark andJohn don't mention anything about Jesus's birth or
his life growing up. They bothstart when Jesus began his public ministry.
But now Matthew and Luke both giveat least some details in regard to his
birth, and hear this incident whenJesus was twelve years old. So see,

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first of all, both gospel writerstell us that Jesus was born,
and then Luke in Luke chapter two, verse eight, talks about the shepherds
who visit him as he's just beenborn. And then in Luke chapter two,
verses twenty one through twenty four,we see Jesus taken to the temple
when he was forty days old,and there Simeon and Anna will testify to

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the fact that this is the Messiah, this is the one that we've been
looking for, And that's in versestwenty five through thirty eight. That takes
us up to where we are atnow in verse thirty nine. But that
doesn't give us the whole picture,because this is where then you need to
look to Matthew chapter two, andin the first twenty one verses of that
chapter he fills in the details afterthat, and that means after their visit

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to the temple when Jesus was dedicated, they returned back to Bethlehem where they
will stay for a while until theMagi visit. Now, these wise men
will come, maybe even two yearslater than the present time. The family

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is warned by an angel that Herodintends to kill all the male children under
two because he hears that there's aking who's been born and he doesn't want
a rival, so he's going toput to death any two year olds and
under just to make sure that thereis no king that would be a threat
to him. Well, they marryand Joseph flee to Egypt with the young

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child Jesus. They stay there untilHerod dies, and then when he dies,
they return, not back to Bethlehem, but they go back to Nazareth
where Jesus will be raised. Soyou see between Luke verse thirty eight and
thirty nine are the events that Ijust talked about in Matthew. And the
one that's probably the most puzzling isthe wise men the magi, because we

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see the Christmas Nativity scenes and youknow, we have Christmas songs that talk
about the coming of the wise menas if they come to see Jesus as
he's just been born. Well,most Bible scholars they dispel that myth.
They don't believe that the wise menwere there when Jesus was born. As
I said, it could be upto almost two years before they came and

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visited him. So let's see Jesusin his hidden years at the city of
Nazareth, because that's what we're toldin verse thirty nine, that he returned
to Nazareth. Now, for variousreasons, Nazareth didn't have a very good
reputation. You know, it wasn'tlisted among the top ten cities that live

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at in Judah. No, peoplelook down upon Nazareth, you know.
You remember that in John chapter one, when Philip told Nathaniel that we have
found the Messiah, Jesus, theMessiah, and he describes him as Jesus
of Nazareth. Remember how Nathaniel respondedto that news. Can anything good come

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out of Nazareth? Well, yes, something very good has come out of
Nazareth, the Son of God,the Messiah. That was his hometown,
that's where he was raised, that'swhere he spent his well his life up
until the age of thirty. Andthen we get the verse forty says and
the child grew and waxed, strongin spirit, filled with wisdom, and

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the grace of God was upon him. Here we have a summary of Jesus's
life from the time he was fortydays old until he's twelve. One writer
says of this, he says,there's not much here to gratify our curiosity,
but enough to regulate our conduct.Now, I'm sure we've all,

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you know, asked questions and wonderedabout you know, what was Jesus's life
like as a boy, when hewas growing up, and as a teenager,
even as a young adult. Youknow, what experiences did he have?
You know, what do we knowabout him? What kind of child
was he? What about Joseph?You know, did something happened to Joseph?

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Because he's never mentioned after this timeearly in Jesus's life when they went
to Egypt. You know that wejust have so many questions, and a
lot of times people speculate, buttheir speculation is really, well, it's
really unfounded, because if the Lordwanted us to know these things, he
would have inspired these writers to includethese events in their gospel accounts. The

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Lord has given us what we needto know, and so we will just
have to be content with that.So what do we know about Jesus during
these hidden years in Nazareth? Well, first of all, we're told that
he grew. I think he's talkingabout physical growth. See, Jesus grew
like any other Jewish boy would grow. When he was born. He was

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an infant, and then he becamea toddler. Then he became a small
child. Then he became a teenager, that a young adult. So he
had to grow, just like allhumans grow. You go from one stage
to another. He had to learnthings. He had to learn how to
walk, he had to learn howto talk, he had to learn how
to read. He just didn't actuallydo these things. He didn't as soon

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as he was born to talking tohis parents. No, he had to
learn how to talk. He didn'tstart walking around as a little baby.
No, he had to learn howto walk. He had to learn to
do all these things. You see, friends, he was fully human.
He was a human being, justlike we are, one hundred percent human.
He had a physical body that lookedlike the physical body of other Jewish

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children. I don't believe there wasanything that stood out in regard to Jesus
that made him any different than otherJewish boys. So he had to grow.
Then, it says he waxed strongin the spirit. He grew not
just physically but spiritually, and inorder to do that, he had to

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study, He had to learn.He just didn't have this knowledge. Now,
again we have to understand he isfully God, but at his incarnation
he laid aside his divine attributes.He chose not to use these, including
obniscience. So he as omniscient.He would know everything there is to know.
He wouldn't have to learn, becauseGod doesn't learn, nor does he

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forget. But the puzzle of allpuzzles is is that when Jesus was born,
as Jesus grew, even though hewas God and had the attribute of
obnisciens, he chose not to usethat. He had to grow and learn
like other Jewish boys do. Hehad to learn the scriptures, so he

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matured. He matured physically, andhe matured spiritually. Also says that he
was filled with wisdom. Now thiscould go along with spiritual growth, or
it could be also just a generalknowledge that he he had to learn things
about this world in which he lived. Now, this is difficult for us

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to really fully understand. And andI acknowledge that you know, I cannot
grasp I cannot understand how Jesus,how he was both completely and fully God
and also completely and fully man.It wasn't like he was part one and
part the other. He wasn't amixture of the two. No, he
was a man and he was God. But he chose to live his life

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as a as a young boy,as he grew as just a human being
who had to learn, who hadto sleep, who had to eat,
and do all the other things thatyou and I do. But it also
says at the end diverse, thatthe grace of God was upon him.
Now this is not speaking of savinggrace. We usually think of grace in

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regard to the fact that we whoare saved, who need to be saved,
that we need God's grace, weneed his saving grace so that we
can be forgiven of our sins.Well that's not the case with Jesus,
because Jesus, well, Jesus hadno sins to be forgiven of. So
it says here that the grace ofGod was upon him. I just think

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it means the father's favor was uponhis son. As we get to chapter
three next time, we're going tosay that the father was well pleased with
his son. And if you skipdown and you look at the end of
chapter of verse fifty two, you'llsee again a summary of his life,
this time from the age of twelveuntil he's thirty, and it carries the

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same thought, what did Jesus doduring those years? From the time he
was twelve until he was thirty,that's eighteen years. So what do we
know? That he increased in wisdomand stature and in favor with God and
man. That's all we know.That's all we know. We have no

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record words of Jesus as a boyperforming miracles. When he began his public
ministry, he was at a weddingfeast in Cana of Galilee and he turned
water into wine, and we're toldthere in John chapter two this was the
beginning of his miracles. And Itake that to mean that that was the

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first miracle that he performed. See, Jesus wasn't some type of a wonder
child who went around and did allof these amazing things. No, Jesus
didn't commit or didn't perform any miracles. No. Now, there are some
unreliable sources that claim that Jesus didsome amazing things, but these are just

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myths that have been handed down.For example, one is is that when
Jesus was five. Supposedly, hetook some clay and modeled this clay into
the image of a sparrow, andhe made twelve of these sparrows out of
clay, and then he clapped hishands and they came to life, and
they flew away. Frans, thisis just this is just the myth that's

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been passed down, you know.In fact, up until the time Jesus
began his public ministry, the onlysupernatural thing that happened was when he was
conceived of a virgin. Because evenhis birth, he was born just like
any other child is born, andagain he was brought up like other children

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were. So the only thing supernaturalis the fact that he was conceived of
the Holy Spirit. He was bornof a virgin. You know, I
sometimes wonder when Jesus was a youngboy, as he was playing with other
children, you know, was Jesussuperior to everybody else, and would think
that. You know, if you'replaying a game and you're choosing side says,

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hey, we want Jesus, wewant you. He always wins.
He's the best. Whoever was teamhe's on is guaranteed to win. I
don't think we should look had itthat way. Jesus was just a normal
Jewish boy who had to grow,who had to mature. So that's the
first part. Secondly, we seeJesus missing verse forty one. Now,

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his parents went to Jerusalem every yearat the feast of the Passover, and
when he was twelve years old,they went up to Jerusalem after the custom
of the feast. We're told herethat Jesus was twelve, his parents take

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him to Jerusalem to observe the Passover. Now, according to Exodus chapter twelve,
there were three annual feasts that allJewish males were required to attend his
Passover with unleavened bread, which is, although it's two feast, that really
was treated as one because they bothoccurred over an eight day period. Then

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you have Pentecost, and then youhave tabernacles. Women and children were not
required to go, but most ofthe time they did. Now we have
to also understand that this time theJews were dispersed. They were scattered around
the Roman Empire, and it wouldbe very difficult sometimes for a man to

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be able to take off and makethe trip to Jerusalem three times a year.
You have to understand they didn't havecars to drive. They couldn't take
a plane or you know, atrain or anything like that. No,
they had to walk. And soit came down to the one feast that

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they all attended or tried to,was the feast of Passover, an uneleavened
bread. This journey that Mary andJoseph and their family are going to take
as they leave Nazareth to go toJerusalem, is about eighty miles, which
means it would take him probably aboutfour days to get there. Now,
as they would travel, they wouldn'ttravel just their own family together, No,

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they would a bunch of families wouldall go in together. They would
travel in a company, as Verseforty four says, something like a caravan,
and it would be quite a fewpeople that would be they would all
go together. Now, a lotof this was for safety reasons, keep
them safe. So Mary and Joseph, with their growing family, attend his
feest. Now we have to stopand say a little something about Mary and

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Joseph, because they were godly parents, They had a godly home, they
were god fearing, They were concernedabout the spiritual education, the spiritual condition
of their children. They certainly trainedtheir children in the ways of the Lord.
You no parents today, we canlook up to them as an example

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to emulate our children. Should bein church, should be in God's House
every week. There need to bespiritually trained. That's the most important task
a Christian parents can have, andso we need to understand that there's a
need to train your children in theways of the Lord. That's exactly what
Joseph and Mary are doing with Jesus, and there are other sons and daughters

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as well. Now why point outhere that Jesus is twelve. What's the
significance of that. Well, atthe age of thirteen, the next year,
he would be considered a son ofCommandment. He would be a full
member of the Jewish religious community.Today, at the age of twelve,
the Jewish boys have their permits fortheir coming of age. Well, Jesus

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has a twelve year old is preparingbecause he is soon going to be thirteen,
and he's going to be considered aman, so to speak, and
so it would be important for himto go to the feast at this time.
But I think they went to thefeast every year. It's just to
point out here that he was twelve, because there was something important about this

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particular time, because what's going tohappen is is that verse forty three tells
us. And when they had fulfilledthe days, as they returned, the
child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem,and Joseph and his mother knew not of
it. They stayed for the entirefeast, which was eight days, and
then they joined the other pilgrims.They were going to head back to Nazareth.

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But see what they didn't know isJesus didn't go with him. He
wasn't in the group. He stayedback and was still there in Jerusalem verse
forty four. But they supposing himto have been in the company, when
a day's journey and they sought himamong their kinsfolk and acquaintance, And when
they found him not, they turnedback again to Jerusalem seeking him. Now,

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when they would travel normally, whatthey would do is the women and
the smaller children would be up inthe front, and then the older children
and the men would be in theback. Well, I think you could
probably imagine here that Mary thought thatJesus was with Joseph in the back,
and Joseph have probably thought that hewas with his mother up in the front,

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because as a twelve year old hecould probably go with either group.
Well, either way, they thinkthat he is with the group. They
travel for one day, which willbe about twenty twenty five miles. Then
they stop for the evening and theymake the discovery that Jesus isn't there.
He must still be back in Jerusalem. So they get up the next day

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and they return. And I'm surethat there was a sense of panic that
certainly had set in at his time. Now what was Jesus doing. Well,
he was hearing and asking questions ofthe religious leaders, and they're amazed
at his spiritual maturity. Now there'sa lot of things we could say,

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but we don't have time to doit this morning. But you know,
some asked, was Jesus a disobedientchild? Did he disobey his parents?
I don't think so. Some thinkhe did, but I don't think so.
Because if he was a disobedient childand friends were in a world of
trouble, I means he's not qualifiedto be our messiah because he had sin

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that needed to be atoned for.That means he wasn't qualified to be our
savior. In John chapter eight,verse forty six, Jesus in his ministry
said, which one of you convictsme of sin, will no one could,
and he couldn't look back at himas a child and convict him of
any sin either. So his cominginto the world, his mission. The

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New Testament scriptures all rest on thefact that he was without sin, which
leads into the third and final thing, and that is Jesus's mission in verse
forty seven. And all that heardwere astonished at his understanding and his answers.
This is not the first, norit is the first, but it
won't be the last time that Jesusconfounded the religious teachers. If you look

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in John chapter seven, you'll seethat he confounded them. And they said,
never a man taught like this mandoes verse forty eight. And when
they saw him, they were amazed. And his mother said it to him,
son, why hast thou thus dealtwith us? Behold thy father,
and I have sought thee sorrowing toJesus didn't intentionally defy his parents. What

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Mary asked him. The question ismeant to be a rebuke to make him
feel guilty. That's because she doesn'tunderstand who this child actually is. Well.
Verse forty nine says, and hesaid into them, now this will
be the first recorded words that wehave of the Son of God. Not
the first words he ever spoke,certainly, but these are the first recorded

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words that we have. How isit that you sought me? Wish you
not that I must be about myfather's business? To Jesus, amazed that
his parents don't know where to lookfor him at you spent the whole day
looking around, and here I amin the temple. You should have known
this is where I would be.See at the age of twelve, even

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before he became of age, Jesusunderstood who he was. He knew that
the unique relationship he had with hisheavenly father. He came to do his
father's will. He came to fulfillhis mission. This also is this statement
is the first time that we havean individual who claimed God to be his
personal father. Well, Jesus doout his life, will talk about his

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heavenly father and the relationship that hehas with him. So it's clear here
that his first priority is not todo the will of his earthly parents,
but to do the will of hisheavenly father. You notice he says I
must be about my father's business.This phrase will be used often in Luke
Luke chapter four and verse forty three, I must preach in chapter nine and

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verse twenty two the son of Manmust suffer. And then, of course
when you get to Luke, chaptertwenty four and verse seven says the son
of man must be must be deliveredin the hands of sinful men and be
crucified in the third day. Riseagain, so that will complete his mission.
That's why he came. Now,the question that we ask is,

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at the age of twelve, atthis time, did Jesus fully understand that
one day he was going to die. That's a good question. That's a
question we cannot answer. What wedo know is that at the age of
twelve, he did understand that hewas the son of God and he was
here on a mission. And sowith that we just have to be content

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verse fifty. And they understood notthe saying which he's spoken to them,
why they'd receive angelic messages. Maryhas to behold her baby was going to
be the son of God. Josephsaid, he's going to be Jesus,
going to save his people from theirsins. Well, Joseph and Mary were
not the only ones who didn't fullyunderstand who he was, and then they

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went down with them and came toNazareth and was subject under them. But
his mother kept all these sayings inher heart. Luke sneaks that in that
he was subject under them, obedientto them. I think that just dispels
the misconception that he was a disobedientchild. See, his relationship with his

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heavenly father did not eliminate the responsibilityhe had to his earthly parents, So
we need to keep that in mind. Jesus kept all the law, including
the fifth command, which is honoryour father and mother. He did that,
but he also understood that he hada greater allegiance to his heavenly father.
He had to be about his father'sbusiness. So what we've seen this

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morning is long before Jesus began hispublic ministry at the age of twelve.
He was aware of the fact thathe was God's son, that he was
sent on an important mission. Hewas a beating to his earthly parents,
but he had a greater allegiance tohis heavenly father, just as all of

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us do as well. Well,I'm going to stop here. Uh,
this is a passage that you don'thear appreciated very often. I think it's
very interesting when we look at Jesushere the only only thing that we know
about him from the time he wasborn until he began his public ministry is

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what we looked at this morning.Here he is at the temple, and
he's about his mother opinions us do. We'd like to thank you for listening
to our program this morning. Wepray to God has used this message to
draw you closer to Him. StormStreet Missionary Baptist Church would like to take

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this opportunity to invite you to anyof its services. We have a Sunday
School which starts at nine p thirtyeight, Sunday Morning Worship ten fifteen,
and our Sunday Evening service starts atsix pm. We also have a Wednesday
Night Bible Study which starts at sevenpoint thirty pm. Storms Creek Missionary Baptist

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Church is also on the internet underSermonaudio dot com. You can go to
www. Dot Sermon Audio, lookfor Storms Creek Missionary Baptist Church and listen
to any of our sermons in fulllength audio. At the side. Again,
we'd like to thank you for listeningthis morning, and may God bless
you throughout the week.