The Gospel Project Unit 19:5- Jesus as a child
Today’s Bible Lesson is from Luke 2 and Matthew 2, Jesus as a child.
Have you ever thought about what Jesus would have been like as a child? The Bible doesn’t really talk a lot about him between before his adult life. God left out those details for a reason, so all we can do is piece together what we know and what we can infer from the truths of scripture. We can infer that Jesus, being fully human, played, cried, and enjoyed being a child like other children. We also can be sure that Jesus, being fully God, was perfect, his whole life. He was without sin, even as a child.
So when we look at the story of him as a child, more accurately a pre-teen, we have to keep that in mind. The fact that Mary and Joseph could not find him and were no doubt upset, as any earthly parents would be, did not make it a sin. Jesus did not sin by deceiving or disobeying his parents. Jesus was always obedient to his Heavenly Father, as well as his earthly parents. In this story, we see that Jesus was interested in his Heavenly Father’s work, which was in the temple. This was something quite amazing considering other 12 year olds of his time would not have been dialoguing with the religious leaders. He was set apart. He honored his Heavenly Father, even as a Child.
What do we want our kids to see in this story? They can honor God too, no matter how old they are. Jesus was always about his Father’s work, and He invites us to follow him in that way.
“When we see ourselves in need of grace, and when we see that our children and disciples are also in need of grace because they are just like us, then we can hold out the cross as our answer for everything because it was Jesus’s answer for everything. Now nothing stands in the way of our enjoyment of God forever. Let’s run together with him wherever he leads us while we are yet alive on this earth.” — Gloria Furman
Gloria Furman, Missional Motherhood (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), 200
Check out our Promiseland Children’s Ministry YouTube Channel to see Mr. Moses tell this week’s lesson.