Over the last several years, many news and research organizations have reported that teenagers today are struggling to flourish more than previous generations.
Compared to millennials, Gen X, and boomers, overall as a whole population, Gen Z is more depressed, more anxious, and more lonely.
On average, they spend less face-to-face time with people and more and more time on the internet and social media.
One professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh puts it like this.
Teenagers today are more connected than ever, and yet at the same time, they are more lonely than ever.
A couple years ago, the previous Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released a report some of you might have seen on the impact of social media on youth and adolescents.
And he recommended a Surgeon General's warning label, similar to what you would see on alcohol and tobacco products.
Because youth who use social media more often have predictably worse health outcomes than those who don't.
And I think all of this raises an important question for us in the midst of the culture in which we live.
How can we as a church, how can our church community be a community that bucks this trend?
How can our church community be a community where teenagers can flourish and thrive?
Our gospel passage here in Luke 2 is actually incredibly well-suited to answer this question.
Because in this story, we meet Jesus as a teenager.
He's almost a teenager.
He's 12, so he's on the precipice of being a teenager.
He's almost 13.
And this is an incredibly unique passage.
Not only is it a passage about Jesus as a teenager, but it is the only story in all of Scripture and in all the four Gospels
that we have of Jesus between his birth and between his adulthood.
And because of that, it's a really unique passage and it's a really important passage to pay attention to
as we consider the implications of the fact that Jesus was, in fact, one day a teenager.
The editorial summary that Luke gives us at the end of the story is that Jesus was a flourishing teenager.
Verse 52 says, at the end, that Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
If Luke was writing this to teenagers today, he would say, bro, Jesus was cooking.
He was slaying.
He was living his best life.
For all the older people in the room, the translation of that is that as a teenager, Jesus excelled in every aspect of his life.
He excelled physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.
And so we're going to focus today, this morning, on Jesus as a teenager.
And you might be here this morning.
You might say, well, why just focus on teenagers?
Why not just focus on all kids?
And the answer is, first and foremost, that's what our text focuses on.
But the second reason is the fact that the fact that Jesus was a teenager
introduces some unique drama into the story that we're going to see as the story goes on.
And the challenge it creates in this story is the fact that he had started to make some decisions on his own,
apart from his parents.
And this is something that younger kids can't do.
And so the fact that Jesus is a teenager is really significant.
So this morning, we're going to be focusing on that.
We're going to look at this.
We're going to look at how did teenage Jesus flourish,
and how can teenagers flourish today in our community?
That's what we're going to look at this morning.
First of all, teenage Jesus flourished by pursuing godly relationships.
He flourished by pursuing godly relationships.
In verses 41 and 42, we read that Jesus and his parents went up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover feast.
And verse 44 says that it wasn't just the three of them,
but that they traveled with a large caravan of relatives and friends.
And this is why, on the way back home to Nazareth, after celebrating the Passover,
it actually took them, Mary and Joseph, a day to realize that Jesus wasn't in their company.
They actually assumed that he was just hanging out with some of his cousins or some of his friends or aunts and uncles.
They're actually a day's journey back to Nazareth when they realize they don't know where their son is.
And so they start asking aunts and uncles and cousins and friends,
have you seen Jesus?
No, haven't seen him.
Is he with you?
Is he in your tent?
No, he's not with us.
We haven't seen him.
And they look everywhere and they can't find him.
And you can imagine, whether you're a parent or not,
you can imagine the anxiety that starts to creep in for Mary and Joseph.
Where is he?
What's happened to him?
I mean, is he lost?
Has he been attacked by robbers or wild animals?
Is he injured or worse, is he dead?
This is a moment that every parent in the room can appreciate.
It's the moment at the grocery store or at the mall or at school or even at church when you realize all of a sudden,
I don't know where my kid is.
It's a moment every parent can appreciate.
And let me just say, next time, if you're a parent, next time you feel like you're failing as a parent, just remember this story.
The parents of the parents of the perfect, sinless son of God lost their son on a family trip.
And if that could happen to them, it probably means you're not a failure.
It probably just means that like Mary and Joseph, you're doing your best.
So give yourself some grace.
And so Mary and Joseph, after they feel that initial panic and anxiety, they do what any parent would do.
They start to retrace their steps back to Jerusalem.
And verse 46 says that after three days, they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.
They eventually find Jesus sitting in the temple at a Bible study.
Now, before we move on and continue in the drama of this story, let's just stop and pause to notice something.
Let's stop and pause to notice that as a teenager, so far in this story, we see that Jesus' life was full of godly relationships.
It was full of godly relationships, both with peers and friends and with older adult mentors.
He's hanging out with a whole caravan of family and friends on the way to celebrate the Passover.
And he's hanging out with older adults.
He's hanging out with rabbis and teachers who are studying the Bible and discussing it with him.
And this is a really important thing to reflect on as a church, whether you're a parent or not, whether you have kids or not.
That at first, Mary and Joseph actually don't go looking for Jesus because they just assume that he's hanging out with others.
Imagine a church culture where if on a Sunday or on a weeknight, if a parent doesn't know where their kid is, their first assumption is just they're probably just hanging out with their friends in the youth room.
They're probably just hanging out with one of their youth leaders or one of their teachers.
They're probably just hanging out with another adult who's being a mentor to them.
That would be, if that was the first assumption, that would be a church culture where teenagers are flourishing because their lives are full of relationships with others.
Many research studies have concluded something that we see a dynamic here going on in Luke 2, which is that one of the most essential things that adolescents and teenagers need in order to flourish is multiple overlapping relationships with adults who are not their parents, whom they can talk to about their faith.
And some studies have even put a number on it.
And that number is five.
It's five.
If a teenager has at least five relationships with adults who are not their parents, with whom that they can talk about their faith, the odds of their flourishing spiritually, physically, emotionally go way up.
And so I think the question we have to ask is how can we cultivate those kind of relationships in our community between adults and teenagers?
And I think that there's a lot of ways that you could answer that question.
But I want you to notice a very specific detail in verse 46.
Look at verse 46.
We see Jesus sitting among the teachers, listening and asking questions.
And this was part of the Jewish rabbinic style of learning.
Rabbis taught students by asking questions.
And students learned by asking questions as well.
And there's a lot of wisdom in this ancient rabbinic practice of asking good questions.
A good question is like a key.
A good question is like a key that unlocks wisdom and insight and truth.
Ask a good question.
You can really learn a lot.
A good question is also like a bucket.
A good question is like a bucket that draws water from the deep well that's inside each and every person.
Ask a good question.
And you can open up someone's heart.
You can open up someone's mind.
When you ask questions that unlock something in somebody else.
When you ask questions that send the bucket down into someone's heart.
That's when the real stuff happens.
That's when the real connection and relationships happen.
Questions like what makes you interested in that?
What was that experience like for you?
How did it change you?
How did it form you?
What's your story?
How did you become a Christian?
What's God doing in your life?
Adults in the room, teenagers need you to ask them these questions.
They need you to ask them these questions.
If you're a teenager in the room, if you're a middle schooler, if you're a high schooler, learning to ask good questions is one of the things that is going to help you flourish and grow in wisdom in life.
It's going to help you flourish in school.
It's going to help you in friendships, in your career, in dating, and it will help you flourish in your faith.
Asking good questions is going to be one of the things that's going to help you find people who can become mentors to you.
People who can mentor you and disciple you in your faith.
How do you find a good mentor?
How do you find a good spiritual mentor or disciple?
Well, you look around at people that you respect, look around at people whose lives you want to imitate, and you say, hey, can we get coffee sometime?
I've got some questions about my faith.
I've got questions about the Bible.
I'd love to just ask a few questions I've been thinking about.
Hey, can we get lunch?
I want to ask you how you got to where you are in life.
I want to ask you how you think about your work and your career and how you think about your work and relationships.
It's important to realize that teenage Jesus did something here that younger kids mostly can't do, which is that he didn't wait.
He didn't wait for godly relationships to come to him, but he went out and pursued them.
Jesus made an independent decision to go out and pursue people who could mentor him and disciple him.
He pursued them by listening and asking questions.
So that's the first thing that we see.
Teenage Jesus flourished by pursuing godly relationships.
The second thing we see in the story is that teenage Jesus flourished by exercising godly freedom.
Exercising godly freedom.
We said at the beginning of the story the fact that Jesus as a teenager makes the drama of this story happen because in this story he makes an independent decision apart from his parents' permission.
This is not something that a five-year-old can do, but it is something that a teenager can do.
In Jewish culture, around the ages of 12 or 13 marked a significant transition from childhood to adulthood.
It's when someone started to become responsible to God, responsible before God, and responsible before the community for taking ownership of their faith.
And this is true even today.
You probably know that around 13 is when Jewish boys and girls still today celebrate their bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah.
It's this celebration, this ceremony that celebrates the beginning of the moral and spiritual responsibilities of adulthood.
And this is key.
Teenage Jesus here is making an independent decision.
And this decision makes his parents really anxious.
Verse 48.
When his parents saw him in the temple, they were astonished.
And his mother said to him,
Son, why have you treated us like this?
Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.
Now, I'm sure no parent in the room has ever felt anxious about their teenager's decisions.
But you can imagine what it would be like, right?
You can imagine what it would be like.
He makes this decision.
They end up anxious.
And how does Jesus respond?
He responds in verse 49.
Why were you searching for me?
Didn't you know I had to be in my father's house?
But they did not understand what he was saying to them.
Now, if Jesus was a normal teenager affected by the fall, you can imagine the exasperation in his tone in saying this.
This is something that I said when I was a teenager.
Something that all teenagers say,
You guys obviously don't understand anything.
You're so out of touch.
Right?
But this wasn't Jesus' tone because he wasn't a normal teenager.
He was the perfect sinless Messiah.
And so we have to conclude that both Jesus' response and his tone is not an exasperated one.
It's a holy one.
It's a sanctified one.
Jesus is saying,
My relationship with my heavenly father is the number one thing in my life.
And I have to prioritize that above everything else.
Including my own family.
But even though Jesus' response is a sanctified holy one,
I think we can all admit,
This is still a classic moment between a teenager and a parent.
A teenager makes an independent choice
That creates friction and conflict and anxiety with his parents.
And I just want to say a couple things.
I want to say something to parents and I want to say something to teenagers.
Parents,
I think there's something really important here for you to learn from Mary and Joseph,
which is this.
That for your teenagers to flourish in every area of their life,
They need to have increasing amounts of freedom
to make their own choices as they get older.
And you need to have less and less control over their decisions.
Not all at once,
but gradually over time.
Yes, they will make mistakes.
But learning from their mistakes is one of the ways
that they will grow in wisdom,
in stature,
and in favor with God and man.
Now, I'm not going to get more specific than that.
Because I think that's as far as the text allows me to go.
I realize that within that,
there is a lot of discernment.
There's a lot of prayer.
And probably a lot of hand-wringing that goes with that.
But parents need to understand that if you want your kids to flourish,
you have to learn to give up control.
And you have to trust.
You have to learn to trust that their heavenly father
cares more about their flourishing than you do.
Teenagers.
Not letting you off the hook.
Teenagers, as you get older,
you will have more and more freedom to exercise.
It's a privilege getting older.
Freedom is a great privilege.
It's also a great responsibility.
One of the most important decisions
that you can,
or one of the most important questions that you can ask
as a teenager who's moving into adulthood
is what am I going to do with my freedom?
Am I going to exercise my freedom
just to check out,
to watch YouTube,
play video games,
scroll on Instagram?
Or am I going to exercise my freedom
to prioritize the thing in life
that is going to make me most flourish
in every other aspect of my life?
What teenage Jesus models for you in this story
is how to exercise your freedom.
The most important choice you will ever make
now and throughout your life
is how you prioritize your relationship
with your heavenly father
above everything else.
Above everything else.
And now is the perfect time in your life
to do that if you're in middle or high school.
I remember when I first started to read the Bible
for myself on my own.
I was about this age.
I was about 12 or 13,
eighth or ninth grade.
And I had grown up in church.
I'd been to Sunday school.
I learned a lot from my Bible teachers
who had taught me the Bible.
And all of that was really essential for my formation.
But something happened
when I got alone in my room by myself
and opened up the Bible
and read it for myself for the first time.
And I remember that these words
that I heard in church and in Sunday school,
these words came alive for the first time.
It was like the words were leaping off the page
and they were penetrating my mind and my heart.
If as a middle schooler or as a high schooler,
if you choose to exercise your freedom
by prioritizing your time with your heavenly father,
by immersing yourself in scripture,
by learning how to pray,
then like Jesus,
you will grow in wisdom
and you will grow in stature
and you will grow in favor with God and man.
And I promise you
that you will have experiences
with the Holy Spirit
that you will never forget
for the rest of your life.
There will be moments
when you look back when you're older
and you say that as a middle schooler
or as a high schooler,
God met me,
he spoke to me,
he changed me,
and he transformed me.
By the way,
one last point,
teenagers,
middle schoolers,
high schoolers,
this story should really teach you
to have lots of compassion
and patience for your parents.
If your parents seem overly anxious
and exasperated
and frustrated with you,
it's because they love you
and it's because they want
to see you flourish
and like Mary and Joseph,
just like Jesus' parents,
they're worried
that the worst might happen to you.
And so,
if you're a middle schooler
or a high schooler
here this morning,
give your parents some grace.
Give your parents some grace.
That leads to our third point.
Teenage Jesus flourished
and he flourished
by pursuing godly relationships.
He flourished
by exercising godly freedom.
And thirdly,
finally,
he flourished
by submitting
to godly authority.
By submitting
to godly authority.
The story concludes
verse 51.
Then he went down
to Nazareth,
he went down to Nazareth
with them,
his parents,
and was obedient
to them.
Now,
admittedly,
if you're a teenager,
this is probably not
how you hoped
the story would end.
Okay,
now go home
and obey your parents.
It's kind of a letdown.
But,
it raises
an important point.
If Jesus Christ,
the perfect,
sinless,
son of God,
couldn't flourish
without submitting
to godly authority,
I've got news for you.
Then neither can you.
Neither can you.
God has placed parents
and teachers,
coaches,
youth leaders,
pastors,
in your life
in order to help you flourish.
To help you grow
in wisdom
and in stature
and in favor
with God and man.
Now,
but let's be honest,
as a teenager,
it doesn't always feel like this,
does it?
Sometimes it's difficult
to submit to the authorities
in your life.
Sometimes it can feel like
there's all these people
that are telling you
what to do
and they're giving you
rules
and expectations
and it feels like
they're restricting
your freedom.
But here's what you need
to know.
That submitting
to godly authority
isn't just part
of how you flourish
as a teenager,
it's how you flourish
for the rest of your life.
It's also how you flourish
as an adult.
Growing up
in your parents' home
is only the beginning
of learning
how to live
under authority.
When you leave home
in 18,
you may be no longer
living under your parents' roof,
but there will be
new authorities
in your life.
There will be
college professors,
there will be
managers,
supervisors,
there's something
called the
Internal Revenue Service,
which is an authority
that all of us
love to submit to.
We all have
authorities in our life
to submit to
and that is not
a bug
in God's plan
for our lives,
it's a feature.
It's a feature.
Living under God,
living under authority
is how God designed
creation
to work
from the very beginning.
Kids need
parents,
students
need teachers,
athletes
need coaches,
writers
need editors,
and citizens
need political leaders.
and yes,
yes,
I know what you're thinking.
Sometimes those in authority
have major flaws.
Sometimes those in authority
do things that are unjust.
Sometimes those in authority
do things that are even
harmful and abusive.
And that is a tragic reality
of living in a fallen world
and there are times
and places
to hold such authorities
accountable.
But,
the path to flourishing
when you're under
bad authority
isn't to avoid
authority altogether.
It's to come under
godly authority.
It's to come under
godly authority.
How do we know that?
And how do we know,
how can we submit
to authority
when it's difficult?
How can we submit
to authority
when our parents
are just so exhausting?
How can we submit
to authority
when our boss
at work
is being
incredibly difficult?
How can we find
the resources?
How can we find
the power to do it?
By seeing
that this is exactly
how Jesus Christ
himself flourished.
Think about this
for a second.
The perfect,
sinless
son of God
was obedient
to his sinful,
flawed parents.
The one
with all
authority.
The one
with all authority
in heaven
and on earth
submitted
to finite
human authority.
And as
a result,
he grew.
He grew
in wisdom,
he grew
in stature,
and he grew
in favor
with God
and man.
And we see
this not just
with teenage
Jesus.
We see this
with adult
Jesus.
If you flip
over 20
chapters later
in the Gospel
of Luke,
you see
Jesus
coming up
against
the will
and the authority
of his heavenly
father.
The night
before he was
arrested and
betrayed
before his
death,
Jesus was
praying on
the Mount
of Olives
if his
disciples were
asleep,
and he said,
Father,
if you are
willing,
if you are
willing,
take this
cup from me.
Father,
is there any
other way
that this
can happen
according to
your will
and plan?
And the
answer was
no.
There was
no other
way.
Not if you
and I
had any
hope of
truly
flourishing.
Not if you
and I
were to be
rescued
from sin
and death.
Not if you
and I
were to
know
the same
love with
the father
that Jesus
himself
experienced.
There was
no other
way,
and so he
bent his
will to
his father's
and he
said,
yet,
father,
not my
will.
Not my
will,
but yours
be done.
And by
submitting to
the will
of his
father,
facing the
cross,
Jesus brought
ultimate
flourishing and
salvation into
the world,
into your
life,
and mine.
Friends,
this is
the power
of the
gospel.
This is
the power
of the
gospel,
and it's
through the
power of
the gospel
that we
can not
only submit
to godly
authority,
but that we
can be a
church community
where teenagers
and adults
and little
children can
flourish together
as a church
family.
I started
earlier by
noticing some
discouraging
trends among
Gen Z and
teenagers today.
Let me end
with some
encouragement.
This is from
Ryan Penley,
who's the
campus
ministry
director with
CREW at
the University
of Maryland.
He was my
campus minister.
He's still
doing ministry
there,
and he sent
this in a
recent fall
update.
Meet
Will.
Will spent
the first two
years of
college pursuing
a number of
things,
but the Lord
was not one
of them.
things changed
after God was
at work and
some recent
events in his
life.
Will shared his
story with me
last Friday.
God is working.
I was chasing all
of the wrong
things, but now I
see clearly.
I thought I was a
Christian, but now I
can say definitely
that I was not.
Not until this
semester, and now
everything is
changing.
I'm in.
I'm done with the
old living.
I'm with Jesus,
and I'm locked in.
Now meet
Jacob.
Jacob is one of
Will's roommates
and a leading
scorer on the
club lacrosse team.
Jacob has watched
this transformation,
and Will has been
intrigued.
He came with Will
recently to our
large group meeting
a couple weeks
ago, and he
filled out a
newcomer card, and
Will and I met
with Jacob the
following week in
the bagel shop on
campus.
And 45 minutes
later, Will's
roommate and
longtime friend,
Jacob, placed his
faith in Christ in
the bagel shop on
campus.
Now meet Jay.
Jay is also on
the club lacrosse
team and living in
the house with both
Will and Jacob and
has noticed some
significant things
happening in the
lives of the
roommates.
And he recently
came to our
large group meeting,
and then our
intern, John, met
with him to share
the gospel.
And one week after
Jacob came to
faith, Jay placed
his faith in
Christ.
And I keep in
touch with campus
ministry friends all
over the country, and
I can tell you this
kind of thing is
happening everywhere.
It's happening
everywhere.
Despite what you
might read in the
news, God is moving
among Gen Z and
among teenagers and
college students and
middle schoolers and
high schoolers through
the power of the
gospel.
I've seen it
firsthand among the
middle schoolers and
high schoolers at our
church.
It's been amazing to
see God at work in
our youth.
Friends, if you want to
be part of what God is
doing in the world, if
you want to be excited
about what God is doing
in the world, invest
your life.
Invest your life in
teenagers.
Let's pray.
Father in heaven, would you
help us to be a church
family where teenagers can
flourish and thrive as we
together follow the
example of Jesus, as we
pursue godly relationships,
as we exercise godly
freedom, and as we submit
to godly authority.
And I pray that like this
story here in Luke 2, that
we would be a community
where teenagers would not
just have lots of great
relationships and examples
to follow, but that many
of them would be examples
to us of what it looks
like to seek our heavenly
father above all else.
We pray this in the Father
and the Son and the Holy
Spirit.
Amen.