Hebrews 6:1, Luke 2:41-49, Romans 12, Malachi 3, Joshua 24:14-16, James 1:6, Luke 10:38-42

Glyn Barrett

Over the last few years, I have noticed an increasing trend of people 're-committing' their life to Jesus. Church & Conference altar calls are packed with people who have 'backslidden' and therefore need to say yes to Jesus again. The great thing about God is that He is a God of grace and if the story of the prodigal son teaches us anything, it tells us that God is ready & willing to accept people over and again. But imagine for a moment if instead of people saying yes to God & walking away from Him, they actually grow in God from day one. Imagine church where people are not continually backsliding and then coming back to God. Imagine church where people just grow in God (Hebrews 6:1).

Sadly, somehow and somewhere in the mix of life, people lose God & then have a need to find Him again.

Look at these verses in Luke 2: 41-49.
Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, "Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you." "Why were you searching for me?" he asked. "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?"

The Feast of the Passover was a celebration of God and what God had done. The ironic thing about this story is that they lost God at God's party! Likewise, church is God's party on earth. Christianity is a celebration of God on earth, and it's amazing how so many people in 2006 continue to lose God at God's party. There are three main ways we lose God.

1. Presumption
v44 says -'Thinking He was in their company'
No-one had searched for Jesus. No-one had checked to make sure He was there.
Recently, my family went on holidays. We had a travel checklist & ticked off everything as we placed things in our bags. Travel iron? Check. International adaptor? Check. Passports? Check.

Joseph and Mary may have had a checklist for travel, but Jesus wasn't on the list, they just presumed He was there, following the crowd.

The dictionary defines 'presume' as 'to take something for granted.' We often presume things about God, and end up losing Him.

• We are late for church and presume God is OK with that & that He won't really move in power until we arrive or we presume church is ok without us being there on time. We would however be early (or at least on time) for an exam or for an appointment with the Prime Minister. We presume too much!


• We have an'ad hoc' prayer life and presume we will be ok, rather than inviting God into every day, situation and circumstance.


• Our attempt at Bible reading is poor, presuming that because we are not very good at reading that excuses us from the Bible. (You can always get the Bible on CD!) We presume too much. The Bible is a lamp unto our feet & a light to our path. We presume we will make the right decisions in life, rather than let the Word of God guide us.


• Many people attend Church but don't get involved because they are too busy. Presuming the church doesn't need their involvement, without realizing that God has a part to play for them in the church (Romans 12) and that the Church IS the Hope of the world!


• Many people don't tithe and presume God will help in times of need. Malachi chapter three teaches us to tithe & then await the blessing of God.


• Others can't be bothered to lift hands in worship because they had a bad day or bad week. 'I'm having a bad day' - so was Jesus when He died on the Cross, but it turned out to be the best day ever. I have heard people say 'I didn't get anything out of Worship today!' The truth is, you were never meant to. Worship is about you giving to God - The preaching is about you receiving from God.

2. Crowd
'v44' - Thinking He was in their company.
The second way people lose Jesus is they lose Him in the crowd.

In Bible times, whole communities would travel together to the national feasts. It would have been likely that Nazareth (a town of only 500 people) would have traveled to and from Jerusalem together for the Feast of Passover. The crowd was large & they lost Jesus in the crowd.

Churchgoers have lost Jesus in the crowd for centuries. You may be in a large church and feel like you are doing ok because church is doing OK. However, there is a major difference between going to church & having a personal relationship with God. Going to church is essential to the spiritual growth of a person, however your relationship with God necessitates that you are regularly spending time alone with God at home, work, school or on the tube. Otherwise you risk living your Christianity based on how other people are doing with God. You risk losing Him in the crowd.

3. Preoccupation / Distraction
A few years ago, I was running late for a staff meeting. I had slept in late that morning & in my panic to get out of the house, I made a major error of judgment. I was suffering from a bad dose of hay fever, resulting in itchy, red eyes. My doctor prescribed eye-drops in an attempt to alleviate my suffering. On that particular moment I was distracted by the clock and the need to leave the house to get to the staff meeting on time. I quickly picked up the small bottle from the table & stood in front of the mirror willing the drips to fall into my eyes. The drop seemed to take ages to form & finally as it fell from the bottle I remember thinking, 'This bottle doesn't feel like my eye drops bottle. It doesn't look like it either.' At that moment, the drop hit my eye, and my wife heard me scream in pain as I realized that it indeed wasn't eye drops, it was Olbas Oil. Why did I do it? I was distracted!

When I went on holidays recently, I was distracted by a lot of things whilst packing. I did however remember to take my son and daughter on the plane with me. Mary & Joseph had their iron, stick of rock for Granny, passports & the money for the toll road in Galilee, but in their distraction, they forgot their son. There was a pre-occupation with the less-important issues.

How often do we let ourselves get distracted before we get to church?