Coming Home - Part 5 - A Hard Place to be Yourself

December 31, 2023
Glenn Garvin

If you have ever left your hometown or home church and come back after a period time, it may be hard for people to see you as more than a baby, a teen, or a youth. You’re different from when you left and coming back home can be very difficult. Jesus had a similar story. After Jesus was born, He left his home in Nazareth to be on mission for God. When he returned home, it was a little awkward.

Then…Jesus said something so unusual it triggered his own community to decide to mob him.

What did Jesus say and why did it bring such a response?

Are you happy being you?

We discovered that Jesus was:
• Born into a family with a

past, with some shady grandparents.
• Born into

Reveal Answer

- a supernatural birth story with his mother and with a foster dad raising him.
• Born into chaos and

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with his parents traveling while Mary was in her last weeks of pregnancy and not finding the best of accommodations.
• Born where the

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became

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.
• So

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, that it confused and frustrated the very community He grew up in!

Jesus at twelve.

The 12th year was the final year of preparation for a lad before he entered full participation in the religious life of the synagogue. Up until that time his parents, especially his father, were teaching him the commandments of the law, but at the end of the 12th year the child goes through a ceremony by which he formally takes on the yoke of the law and becomes a bar mitzvah or “son of the commandment.

“Three days later they finally discovered him in the Temple, sitting among the religious teachers, listening to them and asking questions. All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.” Luke 2:46-47

Q: Were you confident and outspoken at twelve years old or shy and quiet?
answer to the right –>

“His parents didn’t know what to think. “Son,” his mother said to him, “why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been frantic, searching for you everywhere.” “But why did you need to search?” he asked. “Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they didn’t understand what he meant. Then he returned to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. And his mother stored all these things in her heart. Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people.” Luke 2:48-52

Did you notice that it was Mary, not Joseph who asked the question, “why have you done this to us?”

Jesus, returning to his hometown as an adult.

There is another scene where Jesus returns to his hometown, Nazareth. It is here that He reveals who is really is. The religious

and the

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in the community could not believe what they were hearing.

Luke 4:16 ”When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the Scriptures.”

Q: Have you returned to your hometown or family and been treated like a kid?
answer to the right –>

The Chosen Clip and Picture of Jonathan Roumie playing Jesus.

In Luke 4:21 Jesus said, “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”

Q: What was emotion was Roumie portraying in his facial expression when he said those words?
answer to the right –>

Jesus came to his own and his own struggled with knowing too much about who he was as a child or youth, the son of the local carpenter, Joseph. God had a purpose and mission for Jesus and Jesus was set on fulfilling it. Thank God he did!

What does 2024 look like for you?
What do you want to accomplish?
What do you sense that God is going to do?

NOTES TO DIG DEEPER