https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=lUKE+2%3A39-52&version=ESV (Luke 2:39-52) Grace and peace are always for you from God our Father and from our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. What do you want to be when you grow up? We often ask that question of children. But if it is asked of us as adults, we might be perplexed, unless the question were directed to the spiritual part of our lives. Are you spiritually all grown up? Have you ever met someone who never grew up? Their body aged, they found a job, got married, and had a family, but emotionally they were immature, irresponsible, undisciplined, undependable, self-centered, underdeveloped. I wonder sometimes if God’s people in Christ’s Church are Peter Pan Christians. Remember what he said, “I’ll never grow up.” We might not consciously say it, but the reality of how we live floating in our spiritual lives without a committed intentionality of maturing has the same result. We never fully develop into the people God created us to be. In Philippians chapter 3, Paul said, “I want to know Jesus Christ and the power of His resurrection. I press on that I may lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Christ.” A parable is told of an American Indian who stole an eagle’s egg and put it in the nest of a prairie chicken. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All his life this changeling eagle thought he was a prairie chicken. He did what prairie chickens did. He scratched in the dirt for seeds and insects to eat. He clucked and cackled. He flew in brief thrashing of wings and flurry of feathers no more than a few feet off the ground. After all, that’s how prairie chickens fly. Years passed and the changeling eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird far above them in the cloudless sky hanging with graceful majesty on the powerful wind currents. The bird soared with scarcely a beat of his strong, golden wings. “What a beautiful bird!” said the changeling eagle to his neighbor. “What is that?” “Oh, that’s an eagle, the chief of birds,” the neighbor clucked. “But don’t give it a second thought. You could never be like him.” So the changeling eagle never gave it another thought, and he died acting and thinking he was a prairie chicken. God has given us new birth by faith in Jesus Christ intending for us to grow up to become fully developed men and women of faith impacting the world for the sake of God’s kingdom. Today we read the story of Jesus at age twelve in the Temple. He had been separated from his parents for a few days. Jesus is discussing the things of God with the scholars, theologians, and spiritual leaders of His time. I think we can learn a number of key truths about spiritual maturity from this story of Jesus. The first truth is, when we seek God, He will open our heart and mind. After all, discipleship means learning from the Master. It includes a receptivity to learn and a seeking to understand. God doesn’t want churches filled with parrots – people who speak the correct truth, know the creeds, the doctrines of the church but never understand their impact for life or apply those profound truths to our real life ethics. Wisdom is the application of knowledge. C. S. Lewis once wrote, “I talk of love – a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek – but, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.” Better an honest cynic wrestling with the tough questions of life related to suffering or sickness or death or tragedy in the light of an all-loving God than an apathetic pew sitter who never invites God’s Spirit to lead him on a daily basis. I think about Joni Eareckson Tada, who as a young teenage girl had a diving accident and has lived her whole life from a wheelchair. She has gone on to write multiple books and is well sought after as a Christian speaker – even a singer. The impact she has had to share how faith and suffering go together and her insights into how God is alive and at work in a world because of...