I wanted to talk today about the Passover which is coming up, crept on us, in fact it's not crept up on us, it's right breathing down now the days before we come to observe the Passover. We go through the traditional self-examination that we do every year. We do it in different ways. One year we might have a chart of some sort that we list criteria of our faith and our devotion and our consistency and our character, other years we may just be reading through books of the Bible, I have a process of reading certain things that have to do with baptism. Another year we may go through our baptismal contract and go through those things that our pastor, when he baptized us, went through when we were baptized.

Well this year, as I was going through this process of not only looking at myself, but also as to what to speak about as far as examining yourself or prepare for the Passover. What can I say that might be a little bit different? It's not that I want to say something different, or something way way different than what we have said before, but how can I look at it a little bit differently? Well, I actually went in our local church. I still pastor the Terre Haute congregation, We've started a series – a Bible study on the book of John. And as I've been looking at the book of John, I see that so much of the book revolves around the Passovers – the Passover which is first mentioned in John 2, and then there is this other Passover in John 4, another Passover in John 6, another Passover of course, with the foot washing in 31 AD that is mentioned. That's in John 13. And I thought, well that that is very very interesting – that He speaks about that.

And so I began to read the book of John and I see that the entire book is the story of the Passover, it talks about those things to consider as a Christian, the very deep things of Jesus's teaching, Jesus's love for mankind, Jesus's service for mankind. Jesus giving His life for mankind, Jesus being the Bread of Life and the One who shed His blood for mankind – all covered so eloquently in the book of John. I said, this year, maybe go no further, but just stay in the book of John and prepare for the Passover that way.

The book of John is majestic in that…I'll just say a few things about the book because I think it's important to realize just how important this book is in the New Testament. It was written, as much as fifty years after some of the earlier books in the New Testament were written. What was written by Paul and Peter and even James, were books that were written in the 40's and 50's AD, when the Church was still maybe less than 20 years old, or somewhere between 20 and 25 years old, when the first writings were put down regarding the works of Paul or by Paul, or the history of the New Testament Church. We know that the book of Acts was written as a chronology that ends about the late 50's.

But the book of John is two generations later – it's close to 95-100 AD when this book was written. It's not written from any kind of Judeo influence or Judeo context of…these are former Jews (now we're talking to a Jewish audience). He's speaking to a world audience. He wrote it from the island of Patmos, which was technically part of Greece and part of the Roman Empire. It was not written from Jerusalem or was not written from any of those areas, but it was written from a world center on the island of Patmos where he saw great things.

It begins in John 1 and what is stated in the book of John, precedes anything else that's in the Bible. In John 1 it talks about the origin of God. Genesis 1 talks about the origin of the earth – in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Well, this goes a lot further back than that.

John 1:1 – In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. It's very eloquent and in some ways mysterious language. It speaks about the mystery of God, about His origin, about the One who was Jesus Christ – became Jesus Christ.

John 1:2 -He was in the beginning with God. Whatever this beginning is, however we can define it. He speaks about that One who was with God.

John 1:3-4 – All things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

He's the one who created life. He's the one who brought to this earth the continuation of God and consciousness of God to this earth. And then consciousness…you know, secondarily to the animal world, the creation of all life. If you want to find out where life came from, here it is. Believe these words.

John 1:5 – And that light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. Then he talks about John the Baptist and so forth.

But we see that the book of John revolves around – of course there are some stories that are not Passover stories – but in John 2 it speaks about Jesus coming down to Jerusalem to the first Passover, then, of course, the other three that I had mentioned. And actually from chapter 11 on – we're talking from chapter 11-21 – virtually the book of John is about the last days of Christ's life. So the first 11 chapters are the beginnings of His ministry and incidents that are specific. And what's in John, oftentimes, is not found in the synoptic gospels in Matthew, Mark and Luke, although there are some things that coincide or dovetail.

But John speaks about things that I am certain were important to him as he's coming to a point in his lifetime at age – in his 90's – probably close to 100 years old on the Isle of Patmos – and no doubt he's thinking to himself, "I have got to record some very very important aspects and teachings of Jesus Christ," that no doubt, either he had in his notes or were not codified or canonized, whatever. Obviously he has quite a bit of the story of Jesus Christ – in the first person – in chapters 13, 14, 15 16 and 17 that is covered. He had all that. He says, "I need to make sure that this is preserved." And so he begins with the Passovers and he ends in a grandiose way, covering extremely important aspects dealing with Christ's coming – because He was our Passover. Christ Himself was the Passover and then, of course, it took place at the Passover time. And the Passover is the gospel in one sense. It is the way to eternal life. It is redemption. It is giving life. In Him was the light of men. In Him was life. In Him is life forever.

So this book, as we prepare to take the symbolic bread and wine of the Passover, I find to be most refreshing and most enlightening and something that…I read many of these chapters again this morning, which I will read again before the Passover service itself. So when I'm sitting there and we have finished the foot washing and the bread and the wine…that we don't just read them ceremonially, and we sit there, and it's all kind of read quickly, and we don't even have a chance to even think through what's there. But to read them, to mediate about them and to think about those important things.

So if there is anything you will be doing…or my request after this sermon – because I cannot cover everything in the chapters of John – is read the book of John before the Passover and just see for yourself how much of the book is about the Passover. Reading this morning again, in John 6, where He talks about people are going to have to eat My flesh and drink My blood, if you don't do that, there is no life in you – powerful words – words that offended people at that time, but very, obviously, important to John.

The book of 1 John as well – you might as well toss that in as well – there's so much in 1 John that dovetails with John himself, talking about what love is. But he brings up the subject of love and John speaking and identifying God is love and speaking about what constitutes love and that subject.

John 13. You know, when we conduct the Passover service, we actually have very little to write about, little to say about the Passover, from Matthew, Mark and Luke. I mean, when we read from Luke about the Passover service itself – you know, where Christ gave the bread and the wine – there is so very little said – just a few verses – and when we read them, we kind of go quickly. Actually, there is far more in the Old Testament, you know, that explains the Passover and the sufferings of Jesus Christ. But John majestically fills in gaps – speaks about what Christ said, speaks about the foot washing service, which is not even mentioned in Matthew, Mark and Luke. It talks about the importance of the foot washing service and why it's necessary for all followers for all time to do the same thing. What you see Me do, you do – and that's what we'll be doing at the Passover service here in the Church.

In John 13:33, he writes about what a Christian is:

John 13:33 – "Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer…you think of the term little children is being just maybe sounding a little too childish, but it's not, different languages and different cultures have different terms of endearment. In the Russian language, the term ‘chlopiecy' – it means little boys. What that means is big tough guys saying, "These are my comrades," and they call each other little boys. So funny when I go to the Ukraine, we talk about chlopiecy – you know, "my little boys" – they talk about all their business associates, you know! Well, in John, when He speaks about His disciples in this very special kind of their private talk, His little children – "the ones I'm close to" – I shall be with you for a little while longer. You shall seek Me and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,' so now I say unto you."

John 13:34 – "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you."

And, of course, the love that Jesus had for His disciples was far more than just He really liked them, He just really enjoyed being with them. He gave His life for them, He gave His life and attention for them. He emptied Himself from His divinity to become a human being so He could give His life for His disciples. That is love. It's a love in deed. In fact, interestingly enough, when we take a look at love and faith – fruits of the spirit – both from the book of James and from the book of John about love, we find that there's a very strong component of doing something – of acting in a certain way, rather than just having feelings – that faith is not just believing. I believe it's warm outside. I believe all kinds of things. I have all these beliefs. No, your belief is shown by your works. In the book of John we'll see a number of other passages. Love is shown by your deeds and the things that you do.

John 13:35 – "By this…by this love…all will know that you are My disciples if you have love one for another."

This demonstrates more than anything else that we are Christ's disciples. People will take notice. "These people really do care about one another. This Church is a band of brothers. This Church is a group of people that really watch out for another. They care about one another. They don't undermine one another. They don't subterfuge. They don't indulge in subterfuge. They don't steal things. They don't lie. They truly do love one another."

Some say that the Christian's sign is the keeping of the Sabbath – from what we read in Exodus 31:17 – that the Sabbath shall be a sign between you and Me. That was the old. The new was that Christ's love, or the love we show for one another, is the sign of us being Christians. Which is true? Both are true. We are known by the fact that the Sabbath is a sign between God's people –  always has been, still to this day is. And, in kind of a strange way, the Jews are always identified around the world no matter where they're at, whether they're in Africa, or China, or Philippines, or wherever they may settle, they're always known as Jews. They know their footsteps go all the way back to Jerusalem. Why? Because they keep the Sabbath. It's a sign. But in that same way we need to have our identifying sign – our badge – be our love for our mother, in addition to the keeping of the Sabbath day. John 3:16 – we all know this passage well but it won't hurt to read it again.

John 3:16 – "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

And when you really think about all the components of that, all of us want eternal life. I don't want to perish. I don't have time to die. I have so many fun things I want to do – not just in this life, but beyond. I want to live, if at all possible. Its reality. And it's only possible through Jesus Christ – that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:17 – "For God has not sent His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."

Interestingly enough, if you go to 1 John 3:16 – I find these a coincidence it's the same chapter and verse except it's in 1 John – it is some profound thoughts about this theme as we continue.

1 John 3:16 – By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

So what Christ did was not just some act for us and we're spectators. We are to mimic and to do the things that Christ did.

1 John 3:17 – And whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in Him?

Of course, you can get me talking about this for a long time. Our brethren in Zambia make 1/50th of what you do – 1/50th on the average. The price of gasoline in Zambia – when we go there – is $8 a gallon. It's an oppressive system for just the very few who can afford things. 70% unemployment. Most people in the country are at subsistence level. And, if we can get our brethren to grow four times the amount of grain that they have, maybe they can buy toothpaste, and shampoo, and to have some more conveniences, and maybe have some solar panels, even. To me, I enjoy doing that, I enjoy seeing us be able to share the little bit that we have. We're not there to make them like us. Believe me, no way.

But you know, one of the greatest thrills that I had is when I went there in the year 2000 and saw how ragged they looked, it was amazing how devoted they were to the Church. When I came to their village, the first question they had is, "How is Dr. Ward?" I thought, "What in the world? How do you even know him? I don't even know how Dr. Ward is today!" Speaking of Dr. Ward, he had both knees replaced on Monday, and he wrote to us just this morning. The fact is that he is recovering well. But then, to go to the Feast of Tabernacles – and we've been there for the Feast four or five times – to see them, every year, coming to the Feast with their children, better dressed, to see them look happier, to see them have the medicines they need, to see them have protein in their diet – because, for the most part, if they can have any kind of meat once every two weeks – a very small amount – but a specialty on the Sabbath, and have some tomato sauce on Friday night, that's a big treat. Otherwise they have as their staple, nsima, which is ground maize and greens. That's it. That's all they eat – day after day after day after day. Then it's a specialty if they can have a tomato – if they can have something special Anyway, back to this verse:

1 John 3:17 – Whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in Him?

It's an important aspect of our faith to be watching out for our brother. And while we want to preach the gospel into the world, and to preach the truth, and talk about the kingdom of God, and it says in Matthew 25, "I was hungry and you gave me food," it doesn't say, "I was hungry and you gave me a booklet." You know – that's important too – we also need to be there to help our people. And one thing that really strikes me…I wonder how in the world do these other organizations help so many people overseas – and they really do make a difference? Of course,  there's a few that give a bad name for everybody else, and you know, people say how do you know what to give them? Well, I know how they get the stuff. I know that. I know very, very well. I see it. I talk to them. We're in communication with them. I do see that it makes a big difference and we get it for a very tiny fraction and for a very small cost. Again, that's another subject which I've spoken about enough.

1 John 3:18 – My little children, let us not love in word or tongue but in deed and in truth.

So John wasn't just a lovey-dovey minister, who spoke about love and sent Hallmark cards to everybody so he could think about how much he loved them. He spoke about the fact that you should not love in word or tongue, but in deed and in truth.

1 John 3:19 – By this we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before Him.

1 John 3:4-5 - Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness and sin is lawlessness. As you know He was manifested to take away our sins and in Him there is no sin. This is one of the greatest things Jesus Christ did of His deed towards us.

Let's take a look…going on – and again, I'm just hitting the high spots of John 14-17. Again, I'd advise you to read these chapters carefully and give thought to them before the Passover service. Don't just wait to sit there and have them read, because they are read relatively rapidly and you do not have time to think through. It's like being at a wedding and have all these wonderful things said, but the parties getting married don't even hear the words, because it's a different occasion. The time to read those is right now. I'd like you to turn to John 14. And once again, I cannot cover everything in these words, but I found that, when I read them just straight through –  and of course I have conducted 42 or 43 Passover services – we've done this over and over again, plus read these, plus given sermons from them – I found these words to be most profound, when just reading them privately and quietly. And I won't read too many of them but I want you to read all of them this next couple of weeks.

John 14:1 – "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me." 

The disciples who were with Christ…they still didn't get what was going on. They were a little bit upset – agitated – but they didn't fully understand all that was happening, including that Jesus Christ would even be dead that day. The way they reacted to Him, it sounded like they weren't really sure what was going to happen.

John 14:2 – "In My Father's house…here was Jesus Christ speaking to them…are many mansions…we've taken different meanings for this word mansions – you know, many offices. Many opportunities is, perhaps, another way to describe what Christ meant. My Father's house…His domain and His world, there are many mansions. Okay, but what are these mansions for? If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

The indication is, one of those mansions – many mansions – and they're for you. But again, these are opportunities. These are what is set before us. This is responsibility. I get so inspired about the fact that we just have a small glimpse of what's beyond in the world. There are very few people that have ever had a glimpse of the world tomorrow. One of them was Paul, who said,

"Wow, what I saw! I can't believe it!" Or John, who said, "Eye has not seen and ear has not heard all the things that will be." There is no way to even explain it right now to any of us. We can't understand the dimension. We can't understand the concept. We just know that it is going to be wonderful, and I'm so convinced, and I'm just waiting for that moment – in a way, just like the apostle Paul, who already had seen a vision of what was in the world tomorrow. When he spoke to people that were concerned about his life, he said, "You know, I'm not worried. I want to stay in this life so I can be with you, but if not, I'll be with Christ. I win both ways." And right now, we should be living our lives as though the next moment passed our life right now – there's that wonderful kingdom and that wonderful world. It's past this milestone that we've got to cross, which is death, and the new life that goes on forever, because that's why Jesus Christ came to this world and that's why He wants us to keep the Passover. And that's why He wants you to be serious about the promises that He's given to you – because He wants to give you many opportunities. He wants to give you many cool things to do in the world tomorrow. He wants to give you a lot of responsibility and those things are really going to be exciting – of which we have only a few glimpses, which we see through a foggy window – just see shapes, like in windows in bathrooms. You know, you see shape, maybe, there, but you can't make out what it is…through a glass darkly. But we will be seeing these things in time.

John 14:3 – "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am you may be also."

So, we make a lot of this scripture – and we should make a lot of this scripture – because it's talking about those things that are set before us – opportunities that are set before us – not only eternal life. You know, one thing that I'm so excited about and one thing that really excited me about the Church when I first heard about the World Tomorrow – because the church that I went to formerly taught that I would go to heaven and stare at Christ for all eternity. I thought, that's okay for a while, but after a while, you know, you kind of see what you're doing you know, I know who You are. But that would be so terrible – something so repetitious as that would be a terrible thing. It's frightening to just stare for all eternity. You might as well go to hell. But we will have mansions. We have responsibilities. We have duties. There are indications from the New Testament there will be cities to rule – that certain positions, certain mansions, and certain sub-divisions have already been taken by David, the apostles and so forth. We just get little inklings. It's very, very vague, but we get the drift – that there will be responsibilities. They're be a society. There will be people doing things. And as we look out over the universe, we see a huge universe.

We live in a very very limited world of three, four, maybe five dimensions. There's going to be new, bigger dimensions going through twenty, up to twenty five dimensions. Mathematicians can figure it out – but I can't, because we don't have the capacity for these things. But that will be available to us. We'll have immense power, immense capability to spread God's love through the entire universe forever. That's wonderful! We'll be doing new things. We'll be inventing things. You know God is a creator. God is an inventor. God is artistic. God is musical. God creates. God has an imagination. These characteristics have also been given in a limited way to human beings. And we'll have the same – that we'll be doing.

When you take a look with the Hubble telescope and the images that have been sent from outer space – and I see some of the galaxies that have been created – they're not alike. Some of them are galaxies that have come into one another. My favorite galaxy is the one called the Sombrero. I don't know if you know that one. It really looks like a big Mexican hat. You know, it's got this huge wall of fire around it – hundreds of thousands of light years around. But, you know, God planned that. It didn't just happen. It was created that way. What's beyond where our part is? It's just too complicated to explain. For right now, we need to be doing certain things that are very, very relevant, so that we can get there. When we get there, then, you know, we can enjoy what's there.

In chapter 14 also, Jesus promises a helper to come.

John 14:15-17 – "If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another helper, that he may abide with you forever, the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; but you know him, for he dwells with you and will be with you."

Talks about the Holy Spirit – not afraid to call the Holy Spirit a he. Now most languages give genders to inanimate objects. If you're German or if you know another language, you know that there's a feminine, masculine and neuter-gender that's applied to almost everything. In the Ukrainian language, a desk is a he, a pencil is a she. How does that work? I don't know but that's how they apply that type of pronoun to it. And the Holy Spirit is a he – does not mean it's a personality. It's very interesting in the Sabbatarian Ukrainians, when we talk about the Holy Spirit with them, that they really get it and they really understand fully the nature of the Holy Spirit, because obviously the Holy Spirit is a he being. The Holy Spirit is a he, but they know it's a god without a face – that's what they call it – the god without a face – the faceless god. It's the power of God – the entity of God. It's the composition of God and it's this Holy Spirit that will be in you.

John 14:18 – "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you."

So the Holy Spirit would be given to the Church – which it was about fifty days after the Passover here – and provided them with the energy, provided them with recall, provided them with power and all the other attributes of the Holy Spirit.

John 14:21 – "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father…so he talks about the Holy Spirit.

The third point here in the chapter is the gift of peace. As I said, one of the features and one of the responsibilities given to me by the Council of Elders is to train ministers in peacekeeping. And that's, actually, one of the strategic actions that we need to be taking his year, which I want to take very seriously and work with Roy Holladay on, because right now we have peace in the Church and this is the time to be working on peacekeeping. We want to keep things this way.

Now when people dig in and people get into very difficult situations – when husband and wife come to a point of no return – there comes a point of no return. There comes a point at which the only thing is to play out the cards. It's either a divorce or a split or something. You want to get that solved before you get to that point. Peace is a gift of the Holy Spirit – love, joy, peace. It's a function of the Holy Spirit. This world has not had a day of peace. Some say that there was a period of a hundred years of peace during the Roman Empire. False! They're finding out that that really didn't happen. Every year of man's existence, there has been some type of conflict and most likely loss of life in every year of man's 6,000 years of existence. Man does not know the way to peace. Why? Because peace is a function…if you have the Holy Spirit…. And if there's anybody who knows how to maintain peace, it should be us. It should be the true Church of God. If we want to be called the true Church, let's be true Christians. Let's act like true Christians. Let's have the capacity to be able to do those things that bring about peaceful outcomes.

John 14:25 – "These things I have spoken to you that while being present with you, but the helper,  the Holy Spirit will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring you to remembrance of all things that I said to you."

John 14:27 – "Peace I leave with you. My peace…as opposed to the peace of the world…I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

There's a special peace that's given to us personally – in our minds, where we feel at peace with God. And I've talked to people…all of us have had to make our peace, so to speak…we've made that statement where we have said, "God, I'm at peace with this decision, I'm at peace with this action. I'm at peace with my fate. I'm at peace with whatever. I'm at peace with God." I can rise up off my knees. I'm at peace with God. I've done my best, in my human way.

But then Christ also gives peace to His Church. Ultimately He will give peace to this world and in Isaiah, where we talk about the kingdom of God – the end of this peace – there will be no end to His peace. That's one of those things that's a spiritual component – that is simply not available right now. Its grayed out for the world. They cannot click on that, because they can't get to it –  because they don't have the Holy Spirit.

With us, we still can click on it and find the way to peace. I have been on the Ethics Committee of the Council of Elder's. In fact, I was chairman of that committee for a three year period. And people would bring conflicts to me. They would write up long papers of "here's my side of the story," somebody else would write up their side of the story. We go through this, and discuss it, sometimes have a meeting, have fingers pointing back and forth. And I've gotten to the point of where I wanted no more write ups. I wanted no more of that. It went nowhere. And then when we had a peace, it was like, you know, Chamberlain's peace with Hitler. It was just kind of a cessation of tensions until it blew up again. We, as Christians, need to find true peace, which is a function of the Holy Spirit, and if we're going to be called the true Church, we have to be true Christians. And we've got to imbibe of the Holy Spirit.

So, one of the components and one of the subjects regarding the Passover is peace – receiving peace, practicing peace, being a peacemaker. Actually, when we were talking about this as a function of Ministerial Services, the assignment in the last year or so is being skilled at conflict resolution. And I wanted it changed to being peacemakers. Conflict resolution is only one side of it and actually sometimes – oftentimes – it is too late. We want to keep an environment of peace – what creates peace – so that people can live in an environment that does not break down, where people don't form alliances and people become metastasized in only something that could end up in something very, very bad. So you have the Holy Spirit.

John 15 – and again, I am just giving you a very quick overview. Chapter 15 talks about:

John 15:1-2 - "I am the true vine…" you are the branches… We've got to produce. "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit…or produce…He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes that it may bear more fruit."

Are we bearing fruit? Are there some results in our lives? Is there something good that we can say? Bear fruit? What are the outcomes from the things that we have learned?

 You know I took a course in philanthropy at the University of Indiana and it was a fantastic course. It went for one week. It was 8 hours a day and we had like a boot camp sergeant, who was our teacher, because she quizzed every one of us, very very individually, because she went to everybody who was in class – 25 people – and some of the people were developmental directors for universities, some were development directors for like the Komen Foundation, for Alzheimer's, for half-way houses, and I was there for Life Nets – and she would go up to each one of us and say, "What is your mission?" People would say, "Well, my mission is this, to do such and such." "So that what?" "Well…so that we can have happy calves for our people." "So what? What for?" "Well, calves, so they can have milk for the children." She drilled down until she got outcome from these people. She said, "Don't have mission statements that lead to generalities in what you're doing. Have mission statements that lead to what happens. What are the outcomes? What is the product?" It's not how many Good News's we send out. It's how many people we baptize. It's not the activity that we have. It's not the things that we talk about as far as outputs. It's the outcomes.

So what kind of outcomes do you have in your life? Are you happier in what you're doing? They told us, United Way actually has a whole system of judging whatever project you have – does it lead to a higher status in your work, quality of life, in mental approach, the things you learn? I mean, they had a whole list of about a dozen things that were called outcomes and that's how you judge the effectiveness of your project.

Well, Jesus Christ is doing the same here. He's talking about the true vine, He says, "I want you to bear fruit." He doesn't talk about, "I want you to do this, do all those things." "I want you to bear fruit." Because if you don't bear fruit, He's going to take some action, like He's going to trim some branches and we're going to throw it away if it doesn't bear fruit. And if it's doing some good, He will find ways for it to produce even more by doing some more trimming on it. So part of Christianity – a very important aspect of Christianity – is to bear fruit. It's to produce good outcomes and proper outcomes.

Chapter 16 talks more about the Holy Spirit. I wish we could have more time here, but I'm trying to make the point here for you, to take to heart these chapters and see the things that you could learn – the things you can apply before now and the Passover, so when they're read, it will resonate. You will feel, "I read it. I know it. I know what it said." The last time that you heard it was not last year's Passover service. It's because of what you read days or a week before the Passover service itself.

Then in chapter 17 are the last words of Jesus Christ before He was taken. He speaks about unity, He speaks about being together, He speaks about knowing the truth, He talks about being able to share our faith from what's been given to us and that those whom Christ was teaching through them. His word would be made known to others. Read chapter 17 – the final prayer that Jesus Christ has. "Let them be one as We are one." There was one person that got fed up with divisions and so forth. He said, "That's the passage – that's the prayer of Jesus that never was." I said, "Well, what do you mean by that?" And I got some smoke and mirrors statement about I'm not sure what.

Jesus Christ really meant what He talked about: "I pray that they be one as We are one." Can't we pray that we can all be together in our way of thinking – with diversity of personalities and different ways? That we can still be of one mind, of one purpose, going in the same direction? And, if there are any warning bells that you know, start setting off alarms, like they do at an airport. You know, they have things that…there's wind shear. Alarms go off in airports to keep planes from going off – so they don't crash. That we have alarms set off when things go bad. I've had to have certain alarms go off too, you know, I've seen certain things develop again, you know, people start talking against one another, saying disrespectful things and undermining. You cannot do that. And I'll be first to stand up in front of a group and say, "Don't you know what happened last time that happened? Let's fix the problem right now. What is the problem?" We cannot be causing more division, because Satan will find a new way to test this Church. And we don't need any more division right now. We need to take the offensive and we need to be one as God the Father and Jesus Christ are one.

I hope that we really, really get that – very seriously. It was the prayer that was – not the prayer that wasn't – it was the last prayer that Jesus Christ had – that we all be one. And Jesus prayed for all believers – the last thing that Jesus Christ did, while He was very troubled because of what He had to go through. And He knew what was going to happen to Him. He said in verse 20 of John 17:

John 17:20 – "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through your Word."

You know something? He was praying for us, because generations and generations later, as a result of the faith of the apostles that was passed on and passed on and passed on. We became believers as well.

So we are – you and I are – an answer to this very very prayer:

John 17:21 – "that you all may be one, as You, Father are in Me, and I in You, that you may also be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me."

I look forward to the Passover, because I take the Passover with a joy, I take the Passover with a sense of it is the heart and core of the gospel. It's right there. If you do not eat the bread – if you do not eat Christ's flesh – and drink His blood, you have no life in you. It's very very important. Let's take very seriously these words of Christ and prepare ourselves mentally, and look at aspects of service – of love one for another, of a vision of great opportunity, the power of the Holy Spirit working in us, of learning peace and how to make peace, of accomplishing and bearing outcomes that are pleasing to God, developing the character necessary to be part of that kingdom and to be part of what Christ says.

As we see right from the book of John, it's far more than just a very vague love. It's a love in deed, not just word. It's a love in action. It's a love of the working of the Holy Spirit.