And Now, a Word From Our Sponsor

I invite you to turn to 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 7. 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 7. What we have in these few short sentences encapsulates the meaning of the Passover and the days of unleavened bread. Verse 7. Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. This gives the New Testament, the New Covenant, understanding of the Passover. A couple of things in this passage. Christ is not like the Passover, not a simile, but he is the Passover.

We are the ones who are unleavened, and this meaning is passed on to us. For a New Covenant church, we praise God for the events that we've had here last night, the night to be much observed. It was absolutely wonderful, the music here, and the atmosphere. It certainly has been very, very wonderful, and Bev and I have appreciated it very much.

Since Christ is Passover and he's sacrificed for us, in verse 8 you see the word therefore.

Therefore, it's an important word in usage, because it means, go back to the previous sentence or paragraph, because of that, this is true. Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness. The Feast of the Passover focused on Jesus, on his centrality to the feast and Christian purpose. And we are unleavened, and the Apostle Paul explains how we are unleavened.

Before the feasts, or before the Passover, we had sermons in this church and around the world about preparing for the Sabbath. It is one of those festivals that we have to prepare for and give thought beforehand in that process. It's amazing that the New Testament understanding of the Passover is instruction that is given to a Gentile, corrupt church. The church in Corinth. 1 Corinthians 5, which we just read, and then also 1 Corinthians 11, which we read probably in its entirety, or big sections of it for the Passover service, where we are given instructions of what exactly to do for the Passover service. We are now at the period of the Unleavened Bread, the Passover. We take the daily act of eating Unleavened Bread, which has also been instructed to us, as symbolic of becoming sinless, sincerity and truth. It is our effort, now, after taking the Passover, to live a life of righteousness. Now, is that true? Is that so? Is it about our ability to be righteous by putting out the leaven and eating Unleavened Bread?

I'd like to tell you a story about an elder that I had got to know very well. I had ordained him more than 40 years ago. Hard to believe that. The wonderful family, wonderful person that I had gotten to know. We worked together very, very closely. In the revolution of 1995, when we had a major disturbance in the church, he went with the new theology, which actually wasn't new, but the old theology. And a key feature of this new theology, or what the church had adopted, was that the law was done away. And he bought this completely. In fact, he is very proud of that. And we have stayed in contact since, and he is very, very open about speaking about it. The law is no longer applicable. It's no longer on the books. You don't have to keep the law of God. In fact, even more so, Christ kept the law for us. And Christ is the law. Also, a believer in the doctrine of guaranteed salvation of once saved, always saved. Eternal security is the belief that Christian believers are assured of their salvation throughout their lives. Nobody can snatch that away from you. I've had him and others who have written to me about their newfound freedom and liberty, and not being tied down to the teachings that we have. Especially since the publication of the booklet on grace, what does the Bible teach about grace? People have been writing to me and to others who had been involved in the publication of that booklet. They fiercely defend what they did and what they believed. He also wrote to me a very, very touching letter about how he and his wife have tried to keep the commandments of God and be perfect. He said, we really, really try to do what you say you should be doing. We tried to put out the leaven from our lives, we tried to be absolutely perfect, and we found ourselves failing. And the more we tried, the harder it became, because we just couldn't reach these standards of righteousness that seemed to be expected of us. We felt guilty. We huffed and puffed. We chugged and chugged. But we just really couldn't reach the standards of perfection that we knew had to be there because we were not unleavened. But now we are living in a bubble of liberty. These people are good, honest, and moral people. They're fine people. They're honest. They have a faithful marriage. They have a wonderful family. But they said Christ kept the law for us. We discussed some of the straightforward commandments about killing, adultery, and lying. Oh, we wouldn't do those things. We don't do those things. I asked him, what about the Sabbath? It is something which appears for the first time in Genesis 2 at the very beginning of the Bible. I was wondering what his response would be to that. Well, for one thing, that commandment is not on the books because the law has been done away with. But he said, every day is the Sabbath day. Oh, really? I said, well, if every day is the Sabbath, then no real one day is the Sabbath. He also said, Christ is the Sabbath. And honestly, at this point, I said, this is stretching into absurdity because nothing means anything anymore. This is just a house of cards. But we've had extremes in belief about putting out eleven and being absolutely perfect and being very strict on one end. The other extreme is there is no law. The question is, what does Christ expect from us? What does he expect from us? And what is he doing for us?

So today, I'd like to take a look at the allegation that you can't keep the law. And how it fits in with what Jesus Christ and who Jesus Christ is, and what he is doing for us, and where we fit in. That's what I want to discuss today. I'd like to take a closer look at Christ's role in our salvation, as it comes through in these days of Unleavened Bread. So it's first turn to 1 John 1 and verse 8. 1 John 1 and verse 8.

He's writing to a mature congregation. This is written about 95 AD or so. This was written 60 years after Christ had died, or more. And there have been generations now of churches and Christians. And he's writing to the people saying, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Now, you know, every year we go through this self-examination process. We think of the things in our minds that are dark and sinful. The resentments, the anger, the reactions to life, the wrong thoughts, etc., etc., the coveting, this jealousy, the lust and greed.

We took the Passover, saying, God, cleanse me from these things, cleanse me from these sins. But we'll give these same sermons, and we'll go through the same process next year. And we've gone through this process five years ago, ten years ago. So, what is the answer? What is actually happening?

I'd like to read from Romans 7, starting with verse 7, and read it with minimum comment. I have read through this over and over this week, and it seems to just sparkle. It seems to come through with more meaning and depth. As the apostle Paul was writing it with depths, of discussing a very, very important topic of what we're talking about here today. What does it mean to lead a sinless life? Where is Christ in the whole mix of things? What is expected of me? What does He do, and what do I do? Let's be real.

Romans 7, verse 7, What shall we say then? Is the law sinned? Certainly not!

On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, You shall not covet.

Verse 8, But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law, sin was dead. I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin reviled and I died.

And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death.

For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. Therefore, the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good, just in case you misunderstood what I was talking about. In verse 13, Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good. So that sin, through the commandment, might become exceedingly sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice. But what I hate, that I do. Ring a bell? If then I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good.

Should that ring a bell? Of course. But now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells.

This is written by an apostle of twenty years. For to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not, but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do, what I will not to do is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

Verse 21. I find that a law that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. And then he offers this plea in the next verse. O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of death?

He answers it immediately. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. He says that I will be delivered. He knew that it was through Jesus Christ only that he could be delivered from this mental, spiritual conflict that he was living through.

We talked about this even in our table yesterday a little bit about the process of self-examination and going through this over and over again.

Having this war that we have with our mind.

And it seems that when we try, it's like a rubber band. When we are not trying at all, the rubber band is limp. It's comfortable. But when we try, we pull and pull and pull, it wants to pull us back.

How do we deal with it? So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God. And with the flesh, the law of sin.

The most perfect man, or one of the most perfect men, I can't judge that, was ancient Job. He was a person who was known for being upright and even perfect. He really was. He treated people right. There was nothing about him that was tawdry or evil. And it took 42 chapters in one of the longest books, if not the longest book in the Bible, to break Job down to help him understand what he really was as a human being. And that he viewed himself in a way as a perfect person that was far beyond or lower than the standard of God's. In fact, his most poignant words are, you write this down, 42 verse 6, Job 42 verse 6. I abhor myself, he came to the point after being broken down, after being talked to, after being interrogated, after being had his arms of his friends around his shoulders saying, Job, you really aren't that great. He finally began to believe it. Therefore, I abhor myself and I repent in dust and ashes. Another reference scripture from the Old Testament, Isaiah chapter 64 verse 6. Isaiah 64 verse 6, but we all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are like filthy rags. The disgusting terms, menstrual cloths, that's what our righteousness is before God. Because there's either something about it that's the wrong motive, it's below standard, it's said incorrectly, or it's inconsistent. Whatever it is, all our righteousness is as filthy rags. We all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. Okay, I'd like to continue on in Romans here, because here we find the role of Christ in this unleavening process in our lives. Verse 23 of chapter 3, Romans 3 and verse 23. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That's us being justified freely by His grace. We're made justified means where you weren't just, but we are now just. God the Father does not hear the prayer of sinners. But when we pray, do we want Him to hear our prayers? Of course we do, and we expect Him to. So what's the conflict here?

We're justified, we're made right. We appear to God different from what we were.

By His grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, and that is only through His sacrifice.

We're redeemed, we're bought, we're purchased. The bill is paid. Whom God has set forth as a propitiation. That's a word that means expiatory sacrifice, the sacrifice for the purpose to make payment. God set forth as a propitiation by His blood through faith. To do what? To demonstrate His righteousness. Not to give us points, not to give us credit for our righteousness.

Because in His forbearance, God had passed over the sins that were previously committed. To demonstrate at the present time His righteousness. That He might be, these are important words, just and the justifier. God doesn't do away with His law. He's just. He expects payment. He expects obedience. He expects compliance.

He comes just, but also the one who is the justifier through Jesus Christ, the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Herein is the message of the Passover and the days of Unleavened Bread. One magic scripture here that I have, which I refer to often and do not forget, which is very important. One in parentheses, like, hey, here, just make sure you remember this. It's Romans 2, verse 13. Romans 2, verse 13. For not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God. But the doers of the law will be justified. You've got to put this whole thing together. You've got to be one who is doing it, trying to do it, trying and failing, but one who is trying. Not someone who rejects it and says it doesn't exist like Church of Christ's scientist. I'm not sick. It's not true when it is. We do admit it.

The doers of the law will be justified. Now, what are the roles of Christ in the unleavening process? Let's get to what Christ actually does. Because the answer is awesome. And how does he manifest this? Do you know that Christ has more than 120 different titles, names, and metaphors ascribed to him? If you were to say about you, what are some of the titles that you could ascribe to you as far as who you are, what you are, and what's been given to you? Very, very few. Christ has 120 of them.

And they all have to do with us and his relationship to us.

Some of you who have seen my Facebook page, I posted this list of 120 manifestations of Christ. So you can go up there and download them. There's too big a handout here to distribute in services. So if you want to go to my Twitter feed or to my Facebook feed, it's right there. Click on it and download it and print it. You can print it right from Facebook. But it's got all 120 of them. I'd like to go through just a few of them. I can't go through all 120, but just first of all, let's take a look. In alphabetical order, the first attribute or metaphor of Christ is that he's our advocate. What does that mean? Those of you who know another language mostly, advocate, Russian-Ukrainian, means lawyer. What who stands up for your interests? Christ is our lawyer. Wouldn't it be nice to have Christ to be our lawyer? The only problem is that when he helps us out, we have to plead guilty. We're not like OJ. I did it. And then Christ takes it from there. But he's our advocate. And every one of these attributes, I have a scripture attached to it. First John 1-2 on this one, but on this handout you can see them all. Okay, here's some other names of Christ and his functions. He is the Almighty. He's the angel. We've had a lot of discussion about this in our doctoral meetings about the angel of the Old Testament. That's Christ, capital angel. Genesis 48. He is the anointed. He's the bridegroom. He's going to be who the church will bury. He's the creator. He's a desire of all the Asians. He's called the Everlasting Father, the Everlasting God. He's the Holy One.

He is the I AM. He's the Emmanuel, God with us. He's King. He's the Lamb. He's the Lawgiver. He's the Light. He is Lord. He is Man of Sorrows. He's the Messiah. Mighty God. He's Reverend. You know why they don't call men reverent? And why I stop it when people call me Reverend Cubic? Because Holy and Reverend is his name. Psalm 11, verse 9. That's one of the names of Christ and one of his attributes. He is the rock. He is the stone. He's the ruler. He's the Savior. He's the servant. He's the teacher. He's the witness. That's just very, very few. That's what he was as a human being. That's the attributes assigned to him, even outside of his being a human being. But nonetheless, you do see in Jesus Christ a lot of, hey, here's somebody who could really help us out.

And I want to hire him to be my lawyer. I want him to help me with coming before God the Father, with the mistakes that I have made, and have him plead my case.

It's interesting that this particular listing, you'll see the source of it. I forgot a couple ones that I even thought of. One of them was the high priest. The whole book, the book of Hebrews that's written, that describes Christ as high priest. He's the one who offers sacrifices on our behalf, and one of the sacrifices is he himself that comes before us. There's one other attribute that I want to focus on, and that is he is our sponsor. Sponsor. Mr. Creech made a reference to his car breaking down six weeks ago. Well, I was commissioned at the very last second to give a sermon, if I wanted to, as I was driving here to church. And I said, well, I'll speak about citizenship. I thought that might be apropos to what we're going through at this time of year. And I quickly went through all those things that a person has to be to become a citizen of the United States.

Similar to what a person needs to do and become to become a citizen of the kingdom of God. There were many similarities. There were certain responsibilities. But in my haste, I left out a very important step. Actually, it's a little bit different step, but it's a pre-step to becoming a citizen of the kingdom of God. Is that we needed to have a sponsor, to become a citizen of the U.S., at least pre-Southern border times. You needed to have somebody who sponsored you, somebody who could stand up for you, who could vouch for you, who could get you on your feet. And one of the attributes of Jesus Christ is that He is our sponsor. He is the one that will vouch for us. He's the one who can become the door for our coming into the citizenship of the kingdom of God.

My parents lived, and I talked about my parents who became citizens of the U.S. and what they had to go through in order to achieve that citizenship, to have that citizenship. They had to be compliant with the laws of this country. They had to know who the leader of this country was. They had to speak the language. They had to do a lot of different things before they were allowed to become U.S. citizens.

But before that, just to be let into the country, they had to have somebody from this country who would sponsor them to the United States of America. They lived in a refugee camp after World War II for four years. They had already gone through three years of slave work in the city of Magdeburg. Then after that, they fled to Hanover, the United Nations camp. They were married, and I was born there two years after they arrived in 1947.

They searched and searched for somebody to sponsor them. They didn't know anybody. And their friends at the camp were getting sponsored, some to Australia, some to Canada. They had relatives who would sponsor them. We had a number of them that were sponsored to South America. My parents could even get to South America.

Not to Australia, not to anywhere. And so they just sat there in that camp, dreading each day, wondering where they will be a week or a month from now. They were missing their parents. They were 16, my mother, when she left Ukraine. My father was 18. They were missing their parents. They were gone for seven years now. And they had a little baby, that was me. And so they thought, well, maybe we should just go back and take our chances. And the reason that it was hard to go back is because the Russians looked upon the teenagers that had gone to work in Germany as collaborators with the Germans. Those people, those kids, didn't have any choice in the matter. The Germans came in, they went to the courthouse, they got courthouse records, and they said, this family, this family, this family, we want to have your son or daughter, whoever, to be at the train station here in two days, and he's going to go work in Germany. That's the way it was decided. There was no, hey, this is a great opportunity. I'd like to go first class. They were put into a boxcar and shipped across Poland to Germany, and that's where they worked for three years, undergoing a great deal of hardship. My father then wrote back to his dad in Ukraine and said, dad, we're coming back. He said, my dad, my grandfather wrote back and said, don't you dare. They'll kill you, they'll kill your son. They're treating everybody who's returning back like absolute dirt and traitors. So here are my parents. No place to go back to. They're tired of this camp, and there's no door open to freedom and to a new life. But then my dad asked his dad, what are some other possibilities? And my father, where he lived, this little town of Uhorsk, I've been there a couple of times. I wanted to see where he was from. There was a landowner, there was a person of wealth, that actually owned their parents' house, too. And he was a good neighbor. My father was in a family that had a lot of kids. And so sometimes my father stayed overnight, stayed at this landlord's home. They got to know him. And my father says, well, maybe you could ask him, because this landlord had a history. In 1939, I'm just giving you a brief history, in 1939, before Germany invaded Poland, Germany and Russia had made an agreement to carve up Poland between them. Half would go to Russia, USSR, and half would go to Germany. They would divide this up. And then when my family over there learned of this agreement that, hey, we're no longer Poland. We're going to be Russia. We're going to be the USSR in a few weeks. So this landowner, landlord, said, I'm getting out of here, because I know what they're going to do to me. The Russians will come in, they're going to take my farm, they're going to take my land, they're going to make it a collective, and they'll kill me. And so, in a short period of time, he left. He went to Czechoslovakia. He fled with his family. Now, he had a cousin in the United States by the name of Alex Granowski, who was a professor at the University of Minnesota. Actually, a very well-known person in entomology, the study of bugs. And this cousin of his sponsored him and his family to come to St. Paul, Minnesota. So, to make a long story, not so long, my grandfather told my father, maybe contact Nipritzky now, who was your landlord, who lives in the U.S., maybe he will sponsor you. Well, Nipritzky couldn't, but he knew Granowski did, and so Alex Granowski, the professor, sponsored my parents to come to the U.S. What a relief! What an absolute relief! This was in 1949. This was salvation! Literally, salvation! Who knows what would have happened to our little family?

I went, my family went through some of the archives at the University of Minnesota, and Dr. Granowski was well-known. Known name, and he has a whole archives of the things that he did. He sponsored more than 200 families to the United States. And so my father wrote this letter to him, just the day before they boarded a ship to come to the United States.

I'd like to read it to you. It's a short letter, but it really is full of feeling of what my dad felt. From Bremen, Germany, Monday, July 18, 1949. Highly respected, Sir Professor. I'm happy to inform you that on the 19th of this month, we completely will leave these inhospitable camps, which all got under our skin these past seven years. I don't know whether you realize, Professor, what a great favor you have done for me and my family by taking us out of this cursed German nest.

And we are, for those experienced, who have experienced these seven years in these camps, had not eaten one ration of bread or ladle of soup, which was not given from the hands of those who considered us the lowest of people.

We appreciate the great favor that you have shown us. At the earliest opportunity, we will thank you properly. On Tuesday, 19th of this month, we are sailing off to Bremen. Our ship is called the General Muir, the Troop Ship. With my wife, we together are a bit anxious about how the American society will accept us and how we will be taken.

But I think that we are not the first ones to go through this. Will you hear me 74 years later? I'm okay. I've been treated great. I'm happy. Thank you. By then, we'll stay well and greetings from all of us to your family with great respect to you, Igor Kubik. I just wanted to give you a little bit of the feeling of what people who had a savior in the form of a sponsor had.

That is the same thing that we're going through. We had a sponsor, somebody who said, here, I'm going to sponsor your way. You can be sponsored. The word sponsorship is used quite often. Sponsorship into a club, sponsorship into a rotary club, sponsorship into AA, sponsorship into anything. It's somebody who will stand up for you, who will vouch for you. When we came to the U.S. and we were growing up, we always showed the highest respect to, in our families, we called them the sponsor.

My parents always said, treat them with the greatest dignity and respect. One time when I was a teenager, a 14-year-old, we met Dr. Grunowski at a concert at the University of Minnesota. He asked me a few questions. I was just sullen to him. No, no, no, no, no. I just acted stupid. When I got home, you could not believe the lashing, not physical, that I got from my parents.

You never, never talked to your sponsor in that tone. Don't you know who he is? He is the one who is responsible for us being in this country. My parents, then after they lived in this country for a few years, became sponsors themselves for a few families that they brought over.

I remember how they did that because they wanted to pay it forward. They wanted to pay back, I should say, what blessings they had. Even myself here in Indianapolis, when I lived here before, we had a Sabbatarian family who at that time, this was back in 2007 or so, had won a green card lottery. The State Department had lotteries where people could draw out of a hat to become just a magic person coming over here. They could get a green card, but they had to have a sponsor. They had to have a sponsor.

So they wrote to me and said, would you be our sponsor? I'm thinking about all the blessings that our family has had. Just living in this country, I'll be a sponsor. I wasn't sure exactly all that was involved in it. But there was quite a bit involved. I had to prove to the State Department a lot of different things, that I have a steady job, that I have what was my net worth. I had to spell that out, make it public, and make it public to the people in Ukraine, which I hated to do.

It is not huge or anything, but to them it was maybe huge. I had to go through questions about my ability in my mental state. I was told that I had to not really watch over them for a long time. It was only like three months or six months or so. But I had to make certain that they got on their feet. I had to know that they were skilled at something that they could possibly get a job. And so they came over. We settled them in Portland, where there were a lot of other immigrants.

And it went very, very well. But being a sponsor was a big, big deal. It's a big deal to the sponsor, and it's a big deal to the people who benefit from it. But Jesus Christ is one who is our sponsor. And we should be very grateful to him for that.

I'd like to read the passages.

Now, about the Advocate. I didn't read them. I just commented about it as I read the list. 1 John 2, verse 1. Now, as we move from being a sponsor, Christ is far more than just a sponsor to us. I gave you an abbreviated list of some of the other things that he is and represents. But 1 John 2, verse 1. My little children, these things I write to you that you may not sin. Again, remember that he's writing to people that have been in the church for a long time, several generations, and he's admonishing them not to sin.

And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate. Again, we have a lawyer. With the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. If we did not look to Jesus Christ in a certain way as our attorney.

And he himself is the propitiation for our sins, not only for ours only, but also for the whole world.

Now, by this we know that we know him. How do we know him? If we keep his commandments, he who says, I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. Pretty strong words towards the end of, this is actually past almost the first century of the church, almost getting up to the year 100. But whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in him. He who says he abides in him ought also to walk just as he walked. I'm kind of getting back at some of the people that left in 1995. One person who was very close to me. Here I had been a minister now. In fact, I got my 25-year watch at World Wide Church of God, and a few weeks later I was terminated.

That was 1995.

And this person came to me, and I had been a pastor of a number of churches over a period of time. He says, Victor, do you know Jesus? I kind of looked at him, well, of course I know Jesus. That's my business.

That's what I do. I speak about him. But do you really, really know Jesus? As these people kind of talk that way, obviously we're on different tracks already. But this is how we know Jesus. You know what people talk about? Do you really know Jesus? People who want to kind of get in your face with the new theology, or old theology? If we keep his commandments, and if you walk as he walked, you know him.

Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment. Which you have had from the beginning. Hey, there's nothing new here. It's the same story.

From the time of Jesus Christ, before the cross, so to speak. The same commandment that we had before. The old commandment is a word which you heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in him, and you because of the darkness that is passing away, and true light that is already shining.

There's one more attribute of Christ I'd just like to touch on, because again, there are so many of them that we could make entire sermons of the fact that here's Jesus, who was the Word, who was with God, and was God, and became flesh, as it says in the first chapter of John. And all these attributes by which we can associate with.

That is not a big, a high priest.

In Hebrews chapter 2, verse 17. Hebrews chapter 2, verse 17. The entire book of... well, actually there are several themes in the book of Hebrews, but one of the most important one is Jesus Christ, our high priest.

Hebrews 2, verse 17. Therefore, in all things, he had to be made like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest.

We want somebody who can overlook, be merciful to me, to us.

And things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. Again, this word, expiratory sacrifice. Paid the bills. Make it right. That is why the sacrifice of Christ is so valuable. That's why it is so sobering, as we did two nights ago. Take those symbols because of what he did for us, because of being a sponsor, high priest. Somebody who watches for us, a bridegroom. He is everything to us, our sponsor.

For we do not have... this is Hebrews 4, verse 15. Pardon me. I'll finish up 2, verse 18. For in that he himself has suffered being tempted. He is able to aid those who are tempted. Able to aid those who are tempted. Now, Hebrews 4, verse 15. Hebrews 4, verse 15. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses.

You are lazy.

You get angry. You react. Inappropriately, you have lustful thoughts. You know what you think.

I know what I think. One of the examinations is, God, I hate being this way. Just like the Apostle Paul said, the things that I do, I hate. The things I should be doing, I am not doing them the way I should. That is quite an admission for somebody who has been around for a while.

He is somebody who can sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are.

Flashes of jealousy, envy, covetousness, lust.

Christ did not sin, but he was tempted at all points as we are. Because of that, verse 16, Hebrews 4, let us therefore, again that word therefore, pay attention to the word therefore. If you see it again, don't just kind of run over real quick, just say stop there and read the sentence in the paragraph before it, or even the chapter. Therefore, it is because of what I have already said, therefore, come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. High priest, and all the different responsibilities that the high priest had, for that matter, the priesthood in the temple had, was to bring the concerns and all the things that have to do with us in our mind from man to God. They were the ones who officiated at the sacrifices. They were the facilitators.

The first five chapters of the book of Leviticus, the book of Leviticus, is a manual for the priests, for the Levitical priesthood. There were five different offerings, Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Chapter 4 is the sin offering, and Chapter 5 is the trespass offering. And explanations are given how those sacrifices were to be carried out. Again, priests brought things from the people to God. The prophet was just the opposite direction. A prophet is the one who brought the Word of God to the people, thus saith the Lord.

He gave orders. He gave announcements from God to the people. So that's the difference between priests and prophets. Let's be thankful that we have a high priest. Let's be thankful that we have a lawyer that we can consult with, that we can retain, who will be interested in our livelihood, in our salvation. Let's be thankful that we don't sit here in frustration having to feel like we've got to fulfill everything perfectly, yet we should. The doers of the law are going to be justified. And James also wrote very, very clearly that our faith is shown by our works and the things that we do. That's what we do. But they will never save us, because they're never enough. Even being perfect, you make one mistake and you're done. We need Jesus Christ. We need Him to look upon us in a favorable way. We need Him to represent us to God the Father. We need Him in all the other attributes. Download that worksheet and you'll be amazed as to all the different things that Jesus Christ is doing for you. So in summary, here's my few points. You can't be saved by perfectly keeping the law of God. Why? Because you will fail.

If somebody kept the law perfectly over the past year to this Passover, please let me know. I really want to talk to you, because I'll give a different sermon about the topic. It shows that I have failed. The law of God stands, and God is just. The law is beautiful. Everything about the law is beautiful.

God is just. But He's also the justifier, knowing that we won't keep it perfectly. The unleavened bread that we eat is not our perfection. We think that we'll eat His unleavened bread. That's us. No, no, no, no. That unleavened bread represents Jesus Christ. This season, the Passover season, began with a broken bread representing Christ's body for our sins. Eating unleavened bread represents Jesus Christ living His righteous life that we look to as the captain of our salvation. The one who does all these attributes for our salvation. Christ is our sponsor. He's our high priest. He's our mediator, as we heard in a sermon a few weeks back. Excellent sermon on the subject of mediator, which actually inspired me to talk about the sponsor as well. He's our advocate, and much, much, much more. So we continue on now from the Passover, the broken bread, now to the unleavened bread. And both are Christ.