Aligning Our Lives with God's Priorities This Lent

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Our God, as we come before you, we are so grateful for the relationship that we have with you. One that not only brings us assurance, but brings us hope and peace and happiness and all the things that really make life worthwhile. Even when we're discouraged, we still know that when we look to you, that we can find the substance that we need to make it through these days. And we thank you for that. [00:21:15]

We pray that as we now enter into this season of Lent, we ask that as we set time aside to focus on who we are and who you are, that we might be open to having the spirit in our lives, doing the work that is necessary. So that as we know ourselves and know you better that there can be an alignment made where we could find ourselves pursuing even greater our relationship with you. [00:22:23]

I pray that as we open the scripture and as we think about the I must statement today that you might not only illuminate our minds but also our hearts that we might know you better as we come in contact with the scripture today. I pray that you would move me totally out of the way and the words that I speak would not be words that have been conceived in my own mind but words that are being extended through me by the Holy Spirit for the people of God for such a time as this. [00:23:20]

Lent is really about setting aside some intentional time to focus on ourselves and who we are in light of who Jesus is. Because what happens so often, just because of the normal course of what it means to be human, is there becomes almost a misalignment with who we are and the priorities of God in our lives. [00:37:13]

And so Lent helps us to become realigned to those things in our lives. And certainly I hope this sermon series can help us all to do that. But today we're going to start with I must be about my father's business. We're going to look at Luke chapter 2 and verses 41 through 52. [00:38:09]

And so this story is precious for that reason. It gives us insight into the boy Jesus and who he was. And even at an early age, how he began to come into his own and understand his own purpose and his own mission. I think the challenge of this story for us is to really understand our own awareness of God's presence and also God's priorities in our lives. [00:40:54]

But when we think about our own lives as complex as that understanding could have been for a boy, so it is for us, who are full-grown adults, still trying to figure out where we see God's presence and where we can live out God's priorities in our own lives. [00:41:42]

A lesson for all of us to open our ears and really listen to the kids around us and what they're saying. Though they are not Jesus and may not speak as Jesus would, I think they have a lot to tell us. And so part of the journey of Lent is just being more aware of those who are around us, especially in this case, the children. [00:44:16]

And the other thing I think that we find, even here at 12 years old, he was fully submitting and trusting in God's plan for his life. Sometimes I wish that we had more insight into the way in which Jesus was raised, especially the conversations that Mary and Joseph had to have with him. At what point did Mary set him down and tell the prophecy that Simeon gave to her in the temple? [00:49:48]

So when we think about our own Lenten journey, I hope that we ourselves can discover a greater awareness of God's presence in our own lives. Even when God seems so far away, yet the reality is that he is closer to us than our very breath. And sometimes the only way that we realize that is just by finding a place of solace, separated from all of the cares of life, away from even other humans, where we can just breathe. [00:50:56]

And then just simply trust God's plan for your life, whatever it may be. The thing that we also know about the plan of God, just as Jesus had to grow up into it for his life, so do we all. God's plan oftentimes is not fully known until it's actually happened and we're looking back over it. That's why we have to trust. [00:52:50]

And Lent helps us to create those spaces of consecration. Just as Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, Not your will, not my will, Father, but yours be done. So it is for us that we pray. That becomes our Lenten prayer. Not my will, Father, but yours be done. Are we truly willing to be about our Father's business? [00:53:58]

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