Are We Worthy?

[Darris McNeely] Well, good afternoon, everyone. Good to be with you, and I will say hello to all of you that are listening online as well. And good Sabbath, we pray that you are having wherever you may be. So, good to be with all of you again here in the PM congregation. A bit of traveling of late and other activities, and all of a sudden, Passover and the Holy Days are just about here.

Appreciate that special music, Ayla and Melody. There were some words in there, I think, that will come out in what I bring here this afternoon. So, very nice. Thank you.

Well, it was a dark and stormy night. It really was. It really was. And there came a knock on my door. When I opened the door, there stood before me a man named Tom. He was wet. He was downcast. You see, Tom’s wife, Martha, was about to leave him. He had sinned against her and she had discovered that sin. What could he do, he asked me? How could he get her to take him back? He came to realize he had just made the biggest mistake of his life. He felt he was not worthy. He wanted my help.

So, how could I help him? And more importantly, I guess, what did I do? And what did I say? At that moment, in that particular session—as I did invite him into my home, dried him off, and we talked—you know, occasionally through the years, as a pastor, I would have members about this time of year, and usually a little bit closer to the evening of the Passover service, I could pretty well figure that I would get a call or two from someone who was in my congregation—or in some of the later years, someone who had not been in the church for a period of time, having been lost in all the issues and shuffles of the church.

And Passover would bring out a phone call. It would spark something in their mind. And I would get phone calls: Am I worthy to take the Passover? I don’t feel that I am, some might say. Can I come and take the Passover? some might ask. So it was not uncommon for that to happen—to come to that particular time. When we come to the Passover service, questions sometimes do come up. We had to field one this week, if that came in: Who should take the Passover? Who should be sitting in the room taking the symbols of the New Testament Passover—the bread and the wine—participating in the foot-washing ceremony?

And those are questions that we work through—our ministry does—on a regular basis. And it’s just part of what happens as we come up to that night of, that night of nights, I like to call it, that we sit down to observe the Passover. And very often—even in your mind or mine—as we prepare, as we heard in the sermonette given here this afternoon. And I don’t know how it is that Mr. Cook and I always wind up speaking—it seems—about the same time on some of these occasions. And I think we are led by the same Spirit to come up with the same topics and work along the same lines there.

So people ask—and we ask ourselves—Are we worthy? And so I ask: Are you worthy? I ask myself: Am I worthy to take the symbols of Christ’s sacrifice? How can we be worthy on this most important occasion? Well, let’s answer those questions here this afternoon.

God does give us instruction to examine ourselves in preparation for the Passover each year. And let’s go ahead and turn to those and look at them. I don’t know if they’ve been read already here in this congregation, but repetition, if it is, is always good.

Let’s first turn over to 2 Corinthians 13 and begin at verse 5: “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified. But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified” (2 Corinthians 13:5–6).

Paul writes this to a church that he’s had to kind of wrestle with. If you know the story of his experience with the church at Corinth, he had a revolt on his hands. Some were rejecting him, and there were divisions in the church—as is told in 1 Corinthians. Some were of Paul, some were of Peter, some were of Apollos, some were even more righteous—they were of Christ.

And so there had been a revolt, and it may very well be Paul had made a trip back over to Corinth to deal with it, and then he writes the second letter. And after he works through a lot of issues—and it’s a powerful letter—he comes down to this and he says, “Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.” But then he says, “I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified.”

Test yourselves to know that Christ is in you. This is the essence of the examination. This is the essence of what we want to determine when we go through an examination of ourselves prior to coming to the Passover service and taking part in that.

Now let’s turn over to 1 Corinthians 11 and look at another well-known passage that should be on our mind at this time of year. 1 Corinthians 11, beginning at verse 27: “Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup” (1 Corinthians 11:27–28).

The cup of the wine representing Christ’s shed blood, the bread representing His perfect sinless life. “For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body” (1 Corinthians 11:29). And so it does kind of ring a note of seriousness and sobriety as we consider coming into that service—making sure that we don’t do it in an unworthy manner, so as to not bring judgment upon ourselves.

And, you know, always when I would be answering those phone calls—Am I worthy? or whatever—these are the passages you work from in explaining it to people to bring them to the decision.

“For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world” (1 Corinthians 11:30–32).

And so we are to examine ourselves. Let’s look at a few key thoughts from these verses that we’ve looked at. First of all: not to take it in an unworthy manner. As I’ve said, there were problems in that congregation of Corinth. There were those, it would seem—and when you look through it all, one of the things that stands out is—they took the Church for granted. They didn’t fully understand even, I think in some cases, what the Church was.

You look at the context of chapter 11, even right there, and you will sense that people didn’t take membership very seriously. For some, it may have just been another association or another organization, which they had many in the Greco-Roman world—just like we have various organizations and associations that people can take part in and join into in life today.

But the Church is not just another organization. It’s a spiritual body. And so, for many, there was no sense of a special occasion—a sense of formal worship, of a holy gathering on a holy day, the Sabbath—and a group of people where God’s Spirit dwelled being together. There was no awe, no inspiration.

It’s clear when you look at chapter 11 and other statements that are made there, that they were to come together to take the Passover. Eat the food at home. But when you come together with the Church—and you look at that very carefully there—I won’t go into that part of it here in this message, but that you were to come together as a body to take these symbols.

You know, sometimes people get the idea that the Passover is something that they can do on their own—apart from the body of Christ. And people have differing interpretations of even when to do that. And look, there are all kinds of ideas. And I recently had a discussion with someone about the way they have, for a number of years, chosen to observe that night.

And it's not what is described in here, and yet people read the same scriptures that we do. They come to a different interpretation, and they do what they do. But it’s very clear that you are to come together. And the body—the fellowship—at the same time, taking the symbols of Christ’s sacrifice, is very important—that it be done in that setting.

A few years ago—about five years ago—we will remember, first time in my life, my wife and I kept the Passover by ourselves because of the COVID shutdown. And as you did, I’m sure many of us did. And it was a very special time. And it actually brought out some different aspects for us as we did it on that evening. But it was good then, when we finally were able—after all of that cleared away—to come back together to take the Passover as one body, one spiritual organism.

Paul also says to let a man examine himself. That’s where the self-examination comes in—where we take an honest look at ourselves, we evaluate who we are—really who we are—in relation to the truth, in relation to the Church, how we walk our walk in our life, how we walk in the streets of our world, and the conduct that we have when we’re not together.

Is it righteousness? Is there a piety about us? A reverence about life and about who we are? Is there a holiness about our normal walk of life as we work and we walk the streets of our everyday life—apart from each other on the Sabbath day?

Those are some things to examine. Think about. Because this is a way of life. This is not just a one-day-a-week gathering. This permeates every aspect of our life. In the book of Acts, one of the names for the Church in those early years was “the Way” (Acts 9:2). We very often, as I remembered through the years, would always comment on that—that it reflects the way of life God has called us to. 24/7, 365.

There’s no downtime from being a Christian. Sorry. You know, we can take our tie off and take our coat off and put our shorts on and kick back. Yeah. But we’re still a Christian. We still have to walk the walk, talk the talk. Examine ourselves on how we do that.

An examination is also a year-round job—not just for a few days’ run-up to the Holy Days in the spring. Really, it’s year-round. I think the ultimate goal of it should be, for a seasoned Christian, to come to a godly awareness. A godly awareness.

To see us as God sees us—as the ladies were singing here in their music today—to see ourselves as God sees us. To look at our life from the biblical perspective about the person that we are to become by what Scripture tells us. It’s only when we look through the lens of God’s Spirit in us that we can come to an accurate self-awareness.

Self-awareness is an important concept. You look it up and there’s a lot of psycho-babble and pop-psychology attached to it today about being self-aware. But there’s validity to it as well. Finally understand who we are, how we do come across, how people do perceive us. There’s a value to that.

But it’s only after we have come through repentance and faith to understand how God looks at us—what God says about us prior to conversion—and through that repentance we come to accept the sacrifice of Christ. That’s godly awareness. And that’s the true path to any proper idea about a self-awareness that we should come to only through the lens of God’s Word.

Then Paul says to let him eat of that bread and to drink of that cup. And when we do that, we find out that we need that bread. The bread of life. The true bread, which is Christ.

He went through—very carefully recorded in John chapter 6—that He is the bread of life. “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). And it’s that bread we are to eat to have eternal life—His life—His life in us. And we fall short of that ideal. But we are directed back to the symbols of the bread and wine, the symbols of Christ’s body.

And remember that we need that bread. We need His life in us. We need His blood shed for our sins to be forgiven. And when we come to that, that does truly satisfy us so that we don’t eat and drink of that in, again, an unworthy manner. Because the new soul is going to bring judgment on us if we don’t take that calling seriously.

We are to indeed look at, understand the body of Christ—the spiritual body in which we are a part—value that, but also understand how that, through His symbols, brings us together. So we go back to that and an appreciation.

We go through the scriptures that tell us of Christ’s suffering on the day of His death. There’s power in those scriptures and in understanding the beating and the scourging that Christ underwent.

You know, as we do that examination, it’s good to think about a few things. Number one, to remember our baptism and what we did commit to at that time. Go back and read Acts 2:38 where we are told to “repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Repentance then, repentance now, repentance always is a way of life.

But that’s where it began. And we were baptized. And if that repentance was genuine and godly—given from God, as Scripture tells us—“God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life” (Acts 11:18). We can’t work that up. We can’t build that up through words. It has to be given by God, as He leads us by His Spirit to that understanding and to that point to be properly baptized.

And then, to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit is the second point there to think about—because in Romans 8:9, Paul tells us, “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.”

What did he say in 2 Corinthians 13? “Examine yourselves... Test yourselves... Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?” (2 Corinthians 13:5). That’s the key. Is Christ in you? That’s what we have to come to understand. And if He is, then we are His. And that is where our life is.

Receiving the Holy Spirit makes us a Christian, a follower of Him. It’s the one sign that puts us into the body of Christ. And when we’re called and we choose to accept that call, the challenge is to remain faithful.

Which is why we were—mostly always—and at least as I work with people and counsel them for baptism, I turn to Luke 14 with them and begin to read at about verse 25 of how we are to count the cost. To see whether or not we have what it takes.

Christ uses two examples beginning at Luke 14:28. “For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it?” Or again in verse 31: “What king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?”

Counting the cost. Counting the cost.

I had that read to me when I was counseling for baptism many, many years ago. And I have to admit, I understood it only a little bit when I was—whatever—20 years old, I guess, when I was baptized. And now, many years later, I understand it... well, maybe a little bit more.

And I always remind a young person, this is what you have to consider now—at 19, 20, 21, whatever it might be. And you really can’t fully understand it because your life is yet ahead of you. But we have to count the cost. Do we have enough to finish? Are we going to stay the course, keep our hand to the plow—as other scriptures say?

I like to use the term—many of you, we all know, or many of us know—it kind of fits, because Christ is talking about a king that sets off to do battle. There’s a phrase: when we set off to do something, if we’re going to finish it, if we’re going to never take that first step—unless you’re ready to cross the Rubicon. Cross your Rubicon.

It comes from ancient history, a bit of Roman history, where Julius Caesar crossed the river named the Rubicon in what is now France—then Gaul—on his way back to Rome in defiance of an order from the Senate, the Roman Senate. And he led his legions back into Italy. Then he was at war with the Senate because he defied their order. And so to cross one’s Rubicon is to set yourself on a course that you can’t turn back from. Once you do that—once you take that one step.

And with baptism, that’s where we are. It’s a great turning point. It’s the best turning point, because it has eternal consequences. But once we set out on a life of faith and obedience, then we know there’s challenges. We know that we can and will sin. But we also know that we can repent and be forgiven.

In 1 John 1, beginning in verse 5, “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:5–7).

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). So we don’t want to ever fall in that category. After baptism, we will sin. We do—in many different ways—even when we don’t want to. In that famous passage from Paul, where he said, “What I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do” (Romans 7:15), it echoes back in our mind at times, especially through this process of examination.

We cannot deny that we have sinned and examine ourselves in that way.

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:10).

Confession—they say that confession is good for the soul, good for the heart, good for the mind. When we do admit a mistake—to God, to our brother if we need to—it is good. If we confess our sins to God, we can be forgiven. And that assurance—that awareness of forgiveness from God—is so important for us to be able to acknowledge and to expect and to know.

That takes faith. That takes knowledge of the Scriptures. That takes a belief that indeed God is, and He can, and He will forgive us of our sins. And as we approach the Passover, a scripture like this is so important for us to examine ourselves on, in the privacy of our own life before God, and to confess our sins.

When we do that and are honest, then we’re beginning to be aligned properly with these eternal truths—of faith and forgiveness and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. His broken body for our sins. His shed blood for our sins. And all.

Then we’re beginning to be aligned with that. And then we come to a moment of clarity: that Passover is not about us. It’s about the sacrifice of Christ—“the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Christ who overcame the world to show us that it can be done. That His death could pay the price of our sins, and that His life within us can help us to overcome our world—our sins.

We accept that sacrifice in faith, and we understand that God does forgive us. And that gives us hope. That gives us peace. Because we must accept that, and then—as it is so critical for each of us—we have to forgive ourselves.

We have to forgive ourselves. And that, sometimes, is the hardest part. Forgiveness of ourselves is sometimes tougher than forgiving someone who may have offended us. We can reach out to that brother, that sister when those occasions come—and we should. But to forgive ourselves, at times, is the difficult part. And that is often what leads to the question: Am I worthy? Can I be forgiven of this sin—whatever it might be—even so horrible as it might be?

Remember the Tom who I said was at the door that night, on that dark and stormy night, when I opened the door—wet, downcast, wondering if he could be forgiven, wondering how he could put it all back together.

Forgiving ourselves.

In Ephesians chapter 1, let me walk you through a few scriptures to think about here, in looking at and coming to answer these questions that I’ve put down about: Are we worthy? Can we ever be worthy? How are we worthy?

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). Paul brings us right to the essence of what the Father has done—in heavenly places in Christ. That’s what the Father has done through Christ.

But then he goes on to show what Christ did: “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love” (Ephesians 1:4). Before the foundation of the world. Before the beginning of the world that we read about in Genesis—in the early chapters of Genesis.

Whether you choose the point when Adam and Eve made their decision, or you go back to prior to the actual beginning of what we read about in Genesis 1, the foundation of the world—before that—God’s determination is that we would be holy before Him, without blame, before Him in love. That is the essence of God’s purpose and plan.

He goes on: “Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (Ephesians 1:5). It is His pleasure. It is His will. It is what the family of God—the Son and the Father—chose to do. And it is their pleasure. It is what they will to do. It is what they want to accomplish.

“To the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:6–7). And all this was in place in the plan and purpose before the foundation of the world, “which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence” (Ephesians 1:8).

“Having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him” (Ephesians 1:9–10).

One of the great verses of the Bible, in my opinion. I’ve said before—I ponder that one and think that one through, to try to understand what all of that means. But it is to be done in Christ, whatever it all means, whatever it all is. And we’re a part of that. We have a place within that.

You know, brethren, there are times like this that we need to just step back and get perspective—from whatever it is that’s going on in your life. Whatever disappointment, whatever trial, whatever challenge, whatever tribulation, whatever difficulty, whatever loss, whatever we may be suffering, whatever we are having to live through—there’s always a need through the Scriptures for the moment, for the need to read them and to step back and to get our perspective.

That it’s not all about what is happening now. That it is not just this life that we are involved with. We are involved in this life for the ultimate goal of eternity with God and His family. And there are moments and times that bring us to this. The Passover is one of them. It certainly grounds us.

When there’s a time of loss, when there’s a funeral, and we are at that grave and we are at that moment and we’re reflecting upon the life of the person that we loved, knew—but didn’t know—but wanted to know, and someday will. Whoever it will be—a parent, a sibling, a friend.

And we read the scriptures of the truth of life, of the resurrection, and the hope of that resurrection. And we walk away from that—sobering, thoughtful, hopefully closer to God, more appreciative of the truth. But we step back, and we get a perspective in the moment.

Passover is a moment for us. Passover is a moment for us to get that perspective—of these thoughts in our mind.

“In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:11–13).

When we received that Spirit at baptism, through the laying on of hands after repentance and faith and all, we were sealed with a Spirit of promise. It is a promise that God has made to us—to bring us into His family, to give us eternal life. That is our hope. Again, that’s the perspective that we step back and gain. And this is the plan, all made possible through Christ’s sacrifice.

Are we worthy? Do we examine ourselves? Well, how does God look at us? Well, He seals us.

“Who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory” (Ephesians 1:14).

We, as we examine ourselves, will find at times that we’ve got pretty rigid expectations of ourselves. But keep in mind that Passover is not about our righteousness. As good as it might be, sometimes our righteousness borders on self-righteousness.

How much of God’s righteousness is there?

Passover is not about ours—our righteousness. It’s about God’s righteousness and what has been done in these and other verses.

We all know that building character, making changes, becoming a better person, overcoming a habit, overcoming sin—it’s a tough business. It’s hard. We can devote a lifetime to this examination process—working on ourselves, overcoming sins and habits.

You know, sometimes we make progress, don’t we? What will you find, or what have you already found, as you’ve examined yourself going back over the past year? We will find it. We will have made some progress.

Sometimes that progress comes in a very decisive and dramatic fashion. We can step back from destructive behavior—sometimes with a jolt, with an intervention, with a sudden awareness: Hey, I’ve got to stop living an ungodly life. I’ve got to change and put away that habit of abuse—of substance, of pornography, of each other—whatever it might be—and make a break with that behavior.

We come to that moment, and it can be done.

Other issues might take a number of years to master. And sometimes the mastering is more subtle, and it comes with maturity and experience. And we may wake up at some point—or kind of have a moment where we realize—Yeah, I can handle that better now. I can handle that stressful moment, that stressful situation much better now because of what we’ve been through.

The gossip slows down. It’s not quite as much. Still there a little bit, right? But it’s not quite as much. And we find that peace gains a foothold in our heart. We’re a little calmer. Less anxious. We know better how to avoid a confrontation or a problem created by something we might say or do. And our speech becomes seasoned a little bit more with grace—and less with salt.

But can we forgive ourselves when we do stumble?

True forgiveness is a process. Giving up the false for the true. Getting rid of some of our thinking. Some of our rigid ideas. Developing habits and patterns of thinking that are of a far higher and greater expression of the mind of God.

Forgiving ourselves sometimes is about coming to the point where we’re really honest and open-minded. And we take that faith and that belief that God does forgive us, and we begin to move forward. We’re grateful for that sacrifice. We fully understand that it is indeed for us. And we don’t want to be a part of that type of behavior any longer.

And we come to that in our life. Forgiveness can be about knowing that although we experience pain, we don’t have to suffer. We struggle to hold on to the familiar. Sometimes guilt can be a crutch. But growth comes when we let go—and we move to a deeper spiritual faith.

The moment that we acknowledge a sin and set about to confess it to God and move forward that’s when we begin the healing process. We begin to forgive ourselves. We break down that structure of ego and self. We’re then free to build a healthy frame of mind with God’s Spirit and from His perspective upon us.

We read a passage like John 16, beginning in verse 31: “Do you now believe? Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me” (John 16:31–32).

And then He said the comforting words in verse 33: “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

And we have that peace of mind that comes when we recognize that it’s found in a relationship with God and His Son, Jesus Christ.

In Romans 5, one other thought that we should not forget as we examine ourselves on these questions of, Are we worthy? Romans 5, beginning at verse 6:

“For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6–8).

While we were still in our sins. Before the foundation of the world. All of these phrases come back to us as part of our examination and coming to an answer of the question—that we certainly don’t take it in an unworthy manner.

And if that question lingers in our mind—that we may not be worthy, Can I come and do that? And should I?—we know the answer, because we know the Scriptures:

“Christ died for us while we were still sinners.”

That is the love of God. That is the purpose of God. While we were still sinners. And that should even frame not only our view of God, but even our view of one another.

Let’s go back to Tom and Martha. I left their story hanging. What happened?

It was a dark and stormy night. And Tom was wet, and he was downcast, and he came in—and we talked. We had a good talk that night. And I told him what he had to do if he thought he was going to win back his wife, have her confidence, and even go further than that. He wanted a relationship with God.

He took it to heart.

Martha forgave Tom. Martha forgave Tom while he was still a sinner. She hadn’t seen the full proof, if you will, of that repentance. But she forgave him while he was still a sinner.

Tom was later baptized. I baptized him.

You see, Tom gave up his image of himself, and he put his faith in God. He put down his burden, and he took the yoke of Christ upon him—and he got baptized. And Martha? Martha turned to what she already had, which was the Holy Spirit. You see, she was a baptized member. She turned to what she had—and she forgave him. And they went on to have many, many years of happiness in their marriage.

In Matthew 11:27, Christ says, “All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:27-28).

Tom was heavy laden. Sometimes we are—and we need that rest. And no matter how many years of examination, and of taking the Passover and all, we need to remember that when we labor—and it is hard—we need to remember the Scripture:

“Come to Me,” Christ said. “I will give you rest.”

Verse 29: “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:29–30).

Until we have done that, we don’t know what it means—these verses—until we have taken the yoke of Christ upon us through forgiveness, through the symbols of that Passover, through an understanding that comes as we examine ourselves and we understand what it is. And we are together in the body of Christ, and we collectively take that, and we continue to encourage and work with one another.

We don’t know what that really means—but it’s when we continue to just kind of try to do it ourselves that it’s hard, and we labor, and it’s heavy.

Is Christ in you?—is what Paul says we are to discover. He should be. And if He is, then overcoming sin is done through that life within us. And that is the yoke that we take on, that then gives us that ability—not only the forgiveness—but then the ability to overcome sin and to put that from us.

Christ waits patiently for each of us to come to Him and take His yoke, in that sense.

I think you are coming to understand the answer to what I put here at the beginning: Are we worthy? Well, not by ourselves. No. None of us are. But it’s only through Christ that we are. And then—we are to come and do it. We are to have that relationship. We are to renew that relationship through the Passover service.

Who is worthy?

Revelation 5 tells us.

Beginning in verse 8, as part of this vision that John has of the throne of God—of four living creatures, twenty-four elders before the Lamb, the harps, the bowls, the prayers of the saints—they sang a song in verse 9:

“You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:9–10).

“Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice: ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!’” (Revelation 5:11–12).

Worthy is the Lamb.

Who’s worthy? Well—Christ is worthy. And through Him, we can take the Passover in faith and in a worthy manner.