Culture of the Kingdom: Built to Serve

Well, last Sunday night, there's one Sunday a year that I always count pretty special that I look forward to, and I always ask God, don't let there be an emergency on this night. Last Sunday night was the Super Bowl, and it's one of the things that I have very much, very much just sitting down and enjoying. And I know football has taken its wrath in the last year, and rightfully so, with a number of things they've done. But it's still an enjoyable evening.

The game, you know, if you didn't see it, was outstanding. But, you know, when I think back on the Super Bowl from last week, it's not the games, not the teams. In a month I'll have to stop and think who was even playing, who won, or anything like that.

But there's something that happened during that Super Bowl broadcast last week that has been on my mind all week. And in fact, when it came on, it wasn't during the game, it was one of those commercials. And everyone's heard of Super Bowl commercials, right? You know, people pay five, or companies pay five million dollars for a thirty-second commercial.

So they bring out the best of the best, and they have all these ideas they do. And I was headed out of the room, and then I heard words coming out of one of those commercials, and I had to stop and listen. And I thought about those words all week, and I hope they stay in my mind, the essence of them, because they were words from the Bible. And it's so unusual, any time you're listening to TV, to have anything come out that has to do with the Bible.

And it was a commercial, and it was a commercial, and the words that were quoted were from Martin Luther King, from a speech that he gave back exactly fifty years ago, on that day, back in 1968. And it's an excerpt from a speech much more than this.

But I wanted to read, wanted to read what the commercial said. As they aired the commercial, they had pictures of people playing sports, people in various service activities, and whatever else. But the words have meanings. Let me just read those to you. Let me read those to you. It's, um, if you want to be recognized, wonderful. If you want to be great, wonderful.

But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That's a new definition of greatness. By giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know the theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart that is humble and yielded, and a soul generated by love. Isn't that a nice way to say what the Bible says and tells us?

And the commercial is, I won't name the product, but at the end of it, they showed what the product was, and the caption was, built to serve. And as I launched that, I thought, you know what?

You and I are built to serve. That's what God is building in our lives. He's working with us to build several things into it because he knows what he wants us to do. He wants, he's molding us into what our role in his kingdom is going to be. And all of us, all of us, are in the process of being developed as we yield to him and as we let him mold us and develop us into those things. You know, we're built to serve, but Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ was built to serve.

And look what Jesus Christ did. He was God, and he humbled himself to become a man like you and I, flesh and blood. He humbled himself to come to earth to serve you and me. You heard in the sermon and we all know it. He came and he gave his life that we might have the opportunity to have our sins forgiven, to be able to repent, to be baptized, to receive the Holy Spirit, and to have eternal life.

And that's what he wanted. He came, not to be served, it says in the Bible, and we'll read that in a minute, but he came to serve. That's what he was on earth to do. Let's go back to Matthew, Matthew 23. Matthew 23. There's a few times in the Gospels that Jesus Christ harkens back to this same thing. Matthew 23. He's speaking to the Pharisees. And they were there, and they are the ones, the people he's speaking to, had the positions in life that they sought for.

But he sounded a message to them. Let's just read through the first 12 verses here pretty quickly here, because he tells something that you and I always need to remember. Chapter 23, verse 1, Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his disciples, saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do. They are the ones who are an authority over you. Do what they say, as long as it doesn't counter what God has said.

Whatever they tell you to do, do observe, that observe and do. But don't do according to their works, for they say, and they don't do. Don't follow their example of what they do. Listen to the words and do those, for they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear. They lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. They are very ready to bark out the orders, but they don't want to do. They don't want to do the work themselves. They want to just tell someone else what to do.

All their works, he says in verse 5, they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments. They love the best places of feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, rabbi-rabbi.

Ah, it's nice to have that position and to have people look up to me, and that's what those Pharisees were interested in. To be seen by men. And Christ is saying, that's not what the position of responsibility is. That's not what you're here for. That's what they do, but that's not what He did at all. Verse 8, but you, He says, don't be called rabbi. For one is your teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. We're all brethren. We're all family. We're all here, and God is working with all of us in the various ways that He intended to work with us. None of us decide what it is that God wants us to do. He decides what role we're in. And we have to yield, and we have to be humble enough to accept that role, whatever it is, and learn to follow Him, because He knows best. He knows best. Verse 9, don't call anyone on your earth, Father. For one is your Father, He who is in heaven.

And don't be called teacher, for one is your teacher, the Christ. But He who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That's exactly what that quote said. Whose greatest among you will be your servant, and whoever exalts himself will be humbled. But he who humbles himself will be exalted.

The same pattern that Jesus Christ followed. He was our perfect example in everything. He humbled Himself to be a servant, and He's exalted. Above all other names, He's exalted. That's the same pattern He expects you and I to take. Whatever it is He wants us to do, yield to Him. Follow Him. We're not here to be like the Pharisees of old and the people of that time, who just wanted to have a position so they could be patted on the back and people would look up to them.

Christ came to serve, and yet He was the greatest among all of us. A few chapters back in Matthew 20. Christ says words that you've also find in Mark and Luke. But back in Chapter 20, and I don't know how much time passed between the words in Chapter 20 and the words in Chapter 23. But in Chapter 20, we have the same thing happening. In this case, the mother of James and John, they see Christ and she goes, You know what? Grant it.

Grant it to me, Christ, that you would let my sons sit on either side of you. She wanted that position. It's a very carnal, very natural thing. All of us can fall into that. It's just part of being human nature. It's the antithesis of what God wants, but really, Satan wanted that. That's what he wanted. He wanted to be like God and push Himself forward.

And Christ did just the opposite. Well, here in Chapter 20 and verse 25, Christ calls attention to the same thing. Jesus called to them to Himself and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. When the Bible talks about Gentiles, it's really the whole world other than Jews at that time. Today we could say there's the church of God, the true church of God, and true Christians that are in it.

The rest of the world, the Bible might call Gentiles, and I'm saying that with tongue in cheek. But it's the people that God is working with, and the rest of the world, and the rest of the world, that is what they see power in. I can tell you what to do. You must listen to me. I am the one who makes all the decisions, and you do what I say. And He's saying, that's what the Gentiles do. Not you, not you, but that's what the Gentiles do. He says, Yet it shall not be so among you, but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant.

And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave, just as the Son of Man didn't come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. That's what He came to do. He set the example. He was built. He came to serve. Why would He expect anything less from us?

Because our standard, as you recall from last week, when we talked about the culture of the kingdom that we talked about last week, a little bit, and we talked about the priorities that a culture has, the standards, the values, and even the way they celebrate, that we touched on last week, and we'll touch on a little bit more this week, our standards are not the standards of the world.

Our priorities are not the priorities of the culture that we come out of. Our values are not the values of the culture and society of this world, but they're the same values, same priorities, same standards that Jesus Christ lived by and that all of His people lived by. That's the culture of the kingdom, and it includes more than that as well, that we should be developing in our lives, in our homes, certainly in our churches, because God is building something in all of us here.

He's building a new culture in us. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 3. Paul, I've mentioned a few times, when he worked with the Corinthian church, and he wrote to the Corinthian church, they were living in a culture and a society much like ours. It was depraved. They worshipped gods that had names that are foreign to us, but they didn't worship the true God. It was a wealthy society.

It was prone to all sorts of sin. It was kind of the Las Vegas of its time. Anything went, and they built it into their religion, so they gave themselves license to do all these carnal things that men want to do. But as he wrote to the Corinthian, he knew what they were up against, and as we read the book of Corinthians, there's a lot for us as well, as we look and see. That's the same type of attitude that's with us today. In 1 Corinthians 3, as he's working with the Corinthians, and he's prepping to tell them something here, and he reminds them who they are and what God is doing and the Holy Spirit that's in them, that sets us apart from the rest of the world, he reminds them what God is doing with you and me then and what he's doing now.

In 1 Corinthians 3, he says, we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field. You are God's building. We're working with God. He's called us for a reason. He's opened our minds for a reason. If we accept that call, if we choose not to reject it, but we accept what he has called us to, if we truly repent and say, I've had enough of me, I've had enough of the way I've lived, I've had enough of this way of culture, it isn't leading to life, it's leading to death, and we put it behind us and we come out of it and we are ready to be baptized and we receive his Holy Spirit.

He is working. We are fellow workers with him, letting him get us ready so that when Christ returns to earth, his kingdom will be ready to work with him. We are God's fellow workers. You are God's field. You are God's building. According to the grace of God, Paul writes, which was given to me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation and another builds on it. Well, he laid the foundation, a true foundation for that building. He spoke of Jesus Christ. He taught the same gospel that Jesus Christ taught. He preached the same words that Jesus Christ taught. It was based on the law and the prophets of the Old Testament not doing away with it, but using it to help explain and to the continuity of the Bible.

He laid the right foundation based on what Jesus Christ had said. But he said, there was time for me to go. And then another came in, and that person, that elder, whoever it was, was to be building on that same foundation. Keep the building going. The foundation has been laid. Continue the progress. Let the building, let the spiritual temple be built, is what he's saying. And he goes on in verse 10, but let each one take heed how he builds on it.

Because we all have a part in that building. What you and I do has an effect on that building that we're doing. Here in chapter 3, he's talking about the temple that he's being built in the church. You and I have a part in that. We're all God's fellow workers. We're all to be dedicated to the same thing. Letting God build us for service, build us for what his will is, yielding himself, yielding ourselves to him so that his will can be done. And we all have a peace that we're playing in this building that God has going on as we do it.

Verse 11, no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. And as we look at this church here in Orlando, but everywhere that God's people meet, that's the foundation that we're built on. And he says, if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and straw, each one's work will become clear. Well, you know, we all have a part in building this temple. We all have a part in saying, what are we going to use as we build the temple if we build it with gold, the true values, the very rich values, the precious values, standards, and priorities of God's kingdom?

If we put our best into it, if we don't withhold anything from him, and we build it with gold and silver and precious stones, oh, our building will be beautiful, and our part of what we're doing together will be beautiful. But if we use hay and straw and just think, you know, that's good enough. That's good enough for the job that I've been called to do. I don't have to give all of me.

I don't have to be dedicated to service. I have to do what I want and keep a little back for me, from me. That goes into the building as well, collectively but individually. God says, if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become clear, for the day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire.

It will be revealed by fire. There will come a time when our building and our part in the building of the temple that God is building and us individually and us collectively is tested. If it's built with gold and silver and precious stones, it's going to withstand that fire. It'll still be there, and we'll still be there when Jesus Christ returns. But if it's been built with hay and straw, the fire is going to do a lot of damage.

It's going to hurt a lot. And there will be people who suffer because of that, because they didn't in this life, in this time that we have, willing to give God our all. To let Him build what He wants to build in us, even though it may be uncomfortable for us and go against our nature in some cases, I'm sure it didn't go against, to go with Christ's nature to be wanting to suffer the way He did, but He was willing to do it to serve you and me, and because He loved you and me in that way.

It'll be revealed by fire, going on in verse 13, and the fire will test each one's work of what sort it is. If anyone's work which He has built on it endures, He'll receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, He will suffer loss, but He Himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. We'll build our building now with gold and silver and precious stones, or it'll be refined in fire later to see what we're made of. But God will have the building and its components, the way that He wants it to be, and it's our job to comply and to allow Him to do that.

And it reminds us in verse 16, then, don't you know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you. Don't you know that? Don't you remember that? He wants us to remember that. We should remember that as we go through our lives, whatever we do, because it is right to do the education thing and to work hard and do all those things that life requires of us, because they are an indicator of our spiritual lives as well. But to never forget who we are and what God is working, and the dedication that we need to have to Him, does we allow Him to build what He wants in us.

Let's go back to Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4, a little earlier in the chapter that Mr. Stevens was in, and a series of verses that we have read many times as we remind ourselves what God is doing and how He is building the temple and what He is doing with each and every one of us that is here today. I'm going to read verses 11 to 16, I guess it is. And see what God is building in us, because in these verses we see again what He is building us for.

Verse 11, He Himself gave some to the apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints. You know who the saints are? Those are those who God has called, who has responded to His call, who have repented, and who are being led by His Holy Spirit, who have taken the step of baptism or being led by His Holy Spirit, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry. Every time you read the word ministry, replace it with servant, because that's what ministry is. He is equipping the saints, that's you and me, for the work of service. Built for service. Okay? Built for service. For the equipping of the saints, for the work of service, for the building up, the edifying.

Edifying means building up for the building up of the body of Christ. That's what He's doing, building the temple, building you and me, getting it ready for the time that Jesus Christ returns. For the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

And lastly, we said, you know, the standard that we live by, that we come to the standard of the perfection of Jesus Christ. That's the goal of every true Christian. That we let God purify us and take out from us the impure things, the impure attitudes, the sin, the weaknesses that we have year by year, decade by decade, until He returns and we become, and we begin to look like Him, act like Him, if we're truly following Him and we are truly letting His Holy Spirit lead us.

And we're all united as that happens. Verse 14, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men. And boy, there's a lot of trickery that can go on when we look at how every wind of doctrine Paul talks about. You can go online and you can get every kind of thing that is a thing that you can kind of just cling to. But the people of God know the truth. The people of God know the shepherd's voice.

They've learned it by studying the Bible, by being close to Him and knowing that that doesn't make sense. That doesn't fit with the Bible, our instruction book and our guide book and how we live our lives. That they are no longer carried away by every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. But speaking the truth in love may grow up. There it is again. May grow up that we will continually progress in all things into Him who is the Head, Christ, from whom the whole body, that's everyone here, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying or the building up of itself in love, in agape, built to serve, built to love, and the way that the Bible defines service and the way the Bible defines love and what it means.

That's what He's doing with us individually. That's what He's doing with us collectively. That's what we need to understand that God is doing and that we need to allow Him to do that in our lives. And I mean allow because we could go through the process, but if we don't let God do the things in our lives that He wants to do, He won't.

He won't. He won't. We have to make the decision to do that. And so, you know, as we go through our lives and we understand that God is building us and directing us and building us into whom He wants us to be, there's things that we need to do. And there's things that God has built into our lives that remind us of that. We spoke of culture and we spoke of how in this society, you know, we have all our holidays.

And we have some holidays that are nationally oriented, some are family oriented, some are based on a false religion that the whole world has accepted that have meaningless, in fact, embarrassing origins, if in you will. Yet the society and the culture we come out of celebrates those things, but that's not at all what God would have us celebrate and observe.

Those things are meaningless, but God gives us something to hang onto. And as we approach the spring holy day season, this isn't something that God has just come up with because He had nothing better to do before the foundation of the world. He knew what He wanted man to be. He knew what He wanted you and me and mankind to be able to become. And before the foundation of the world, as it says in Revelation 13, 8, Jesus Christ was slain.

He knew He was going. He was willing. And He humbled Himself before then that He was willing to do that even before mankind was even created. It was all planned out because God knew what you and I needed. And He knew what needed to be part of our culture and what we would adhere to.

Let's go back to Isaiah, Isaiah 46. Isaiah 46. And in verse 10. Now we get into verse 9, actually. Isaiah 46, verse 9. Remember the former things of old. God inspires Isaiah to write, Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other.

There is just one true God. I am God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times, things that are not yet done. He knew. When He crafted the world, when He created the world, He knew what was going to happen. He knew the character of Satan. He knew what was going to happen. He knew how He was creating mankind, and He wasn't giving mankind the Spirit of God at the time of creation. They had the opportunity to take it. They rejected it. They chose instead to be their own gods, to decide for themselves what would be good and evil.

When they made that decision, they rejected God, and we have the world that we live in today. Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times, things that are not yet done. Saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure. What He purposed to do, He will do. We may not like it. The world we may not like it. The people in Judea, back in Jesus Christ's time, didn't like it. It was still accomplished. And it will be accomplished.

And what God says is going to happen is really going to happen. But this is all designed before the time that we were even on earth, before mankind was even there. Let's go forward to John. John 1. Jesus Christ. God in the beginning here, as we'll read in John 1, was willing to humble Himself and become a man. And we can't even grasp how significant that is to be able to give up, if I can use that term, and humble yourself to say, I will do this for them.

I'll do this for those created beings, because I love them that much. And I will serve them by sacrificing my life. John 1, verse 1. In the beginning was the Word. And of course, as you would look at the Bible chronologically, this is before Genesis 1.

In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. So two God beings. The one who became Jesus Christ, known as the Word, and God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him.

And without Him, nothing was made that was made. He was the one who created the earth. He was the one who created man and all the things that were on the earth. In Him was life. And life was the life. And the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness did not comprehend it.

Here He was, the one who would bring light to the world. A darkened world. Even in Judea, that thought they were the people of God and had the light of the world. Even in a darkened world, He came. And the darkness didn't even get it. They didn't understand it.

They didn't see the light that He was there. Just as the world today will hear a message, but they don't see the light. You and I saw the light. Not because we're so wise and because we're so smart that there was anything special about us, but because God opened our minds to see it. Back in Judea, they didn't see it. They didn't comprehend the light. One day they will, when God's will for their time to be.

Going on to verse 6, He talks about, even when Christ came to earth and was born as a man, there was a way prepared for Him. Someone else was out preparing the way, saying, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. John the Baptist. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all through him might believe. He prepared the way. There is one coming who's greater than Me.

In him, look. And you remember John 2. Follow the example that Jesus Christ said. He was willing to decrease, as He said, so that Christ may increase. Humbled Himself when His time was done. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all through him might believe. He wasn't that light, but he was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light, which is light to every man coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know Him. Can you imagine what it must have been like to know Jesus Christ, to know what you had done, and yet the world was rejecting you, and the only reason they exist. And had any future is because of you and what you were going to do. He came to His own, verse 11, and His own didn't receive Him. He was born right into Judea, and they rejected Him.

They should have known. They were waiting for the Messiah. They had the hundreds of prophecies. He fulfilled every single one of them. He came to His own, and His own didn't receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.

That was them then. That's you and me today.

As many as will receive Him. Will receive the message. Will follow what He said. Will repent and see the light. And choose not to go back and reject the way of God, but to accept it and embrace it and put it into practice in their lives, and turn from old ways and turn to new ways. Wiping out the old culture and letting God build in us a new culture and a new way of doing things, and building us for the purpose that He has called us and what He wants us to become.

And we know, John is writing here that they'll become children of God. That's what He's called you and me to be. It's a new concept for the world back there. Children of God? They didn't know what He was talking about back then. We know what He means. And He says the right to become children of God to those who believe in His name. And I hope every time, you know, I'll probably say it many, many more times before I die, every time you read that word, believe, in the New Testament almost always is the Greek word, the stoio, and it means believe as in such a deep belief it changes the way you think, it changes the way you think of the world, it changes everything. Not believe in the way the world does, because everyone, or most of America, would say, oh, I believe Jesus Christ is the Savior. But they don't believe it the way the stoio says to believe it. They don't believe it the way you and I do. We have to believe in His name. We have to have it rock us to our very core that we know this is truth, we know this is the future, we know this is who we are, we know that He is God, and that we would pattern our lives and follow Him. And it goes on in verse 13, as we're speaking of children of God, who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, because you and I, no one can will, and just say, I will be, it only is if God gives us the truth, who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we held His glory, the glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. He lived among us, the perfect example. He lived among us, the perfect example. You know, in this culture, we have days like Presidents' Day, coming up in a week, I guess, and we can champion and we can be very thankful for the service of George Washington and then Abraham Lincoln. You know, they did things. They sacrificed their lives in a way, and they, possible, and we know that God was working through them, and it's God's will that this country is, and we know that He blesses this country, but they made sacrifices in their lives. In our lives, we're the benefactors of everything God has done and those people that went before us. We can look at people like Martin Luther King, who said some words. He may not have understood the whole truth, but he made some changes that have benefited and helped draw some attention to some things that weren't right in this country. We can talk about people like Christopher Columbus on a Columbus Day, and as God led him, he came to this country, and it's right to have heroes and look back and be, remember what they have done.

All those heroes, whoever you count as a hero, they all pale in comparison to Jesus Christ. There isn't another man who has ever lived that can even come close to what Jesus Christ has done for you and me and all of mankind. Not even close.

And so, in the culture that we live, and in what we celebrate, and what we observe, and what we look to, our standards, our priorities, Jesus Christ is preeminent. He is the reason we're here. He is the reason that we have a future. He is the reason, His sacrifice, His willingness to give it all up for us. He's the reason.

We can have other heroes, none. None come close to Jesus Christ. He is the one to celebrate. He is the one to recognize. He is the one to have in our minds all the time and to recognize without Him we are nothing and we are going nowhere. We literally, as Paul says in Romans 12.1, it is our reasonable service. It's our only service to give ourselves to God and to let Him do what He wants in us.

He is the hero. And so when you look at the pattern of the days that God has given us to do, and I didn't even mention Acts 4, 10 to 12, you know what those verses say, salvation comes by no other name than Jesus Christ. No other name, the only in the entire world.

And so when God gave us a series of days to observe, it's only right and it's only fitting that Jesus Christ is at the center of every single one of them. Because we need to remember Him and we need to very fully be aware of what He's done and never forget it, never take it for granted, never count it common, and recognize what our responsibility is when God has called us and He's opened our minds to understand His truth, we have the choice to reject or accept, I hope, we will accept and we will accept right on through the end of our lives. Let's go back to Genesis 1. Genesis 1. Of course, in Genesis 1 we have the creation story, if you will. Verse 1, the earth was created, we know it became void and confused, chaotic and confused. And verse 2, God didn't create it that way, it says in Isaiah 45, 18, it's because of Satan's action on earth, that the world becomes that way and then God recreates it again and all the things that we are familiar with on earth today are here, including mankind. But let's drop down to verse 14. God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs and seasons and for days and years, and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and it was so.

So he created two great lights, the sun and the moon, and they light the earth. That's the second reason that he made them, but in the first verse 14 there, he created time. Man was going to be mortal, no immortal soul. In eternity, you don't care about days and years and months and whatever, because you live forever. But for mortal man, his time would be measured in days and years and months and things like that, and they would use the sun and the moon to count those things.

And he says here, that it will be for signs and seasons, days and years. When you look at that verse 14, and the word seasons, that's in verse 14, you know, we might think, and when we're reading it, that it means summer, fall, winter and spring. It's not that word at all. From the Hebrew, it's the word moed, M-O-E-D, and moed means this. It means it's an appointed time, place or meeting.

In the beginning, God created an appointed time, place and meeting for mankind, right from the beginning, before the foundation of the earth. This wasn't an afterthought when he created the lights. We're putting this in here, and the sun and the moon will measure time, and they will be for appointed times, places or meetings.

And God put that in there, not just for one race of people, but for all of mankind, because he was creating all of mankind. If we go forward to the book of Leviticus, verse 23, and we bear in mind that word moed, because when God writes the Bible, we can find the threads as we look through the Bible, what it means here, and follow what his thought process is. In Leviticus 23, in the book of Leviticus 23, we have all the holy days of God that he gave to Israel. Now, you remember that God brought Israel out of Egypt.

And many people think, well, when they look at Leviticus 23, this was something that God was giving to Israel. Not at all the case. Israel had been in Egypt for hundreds of years. They'd lost the way of God. And so he was reminding them, and as you come out of this culture, as you come out of Egypt and you are going to begin a life following me, doing what I want you to do, following my precess, because when you do, I will give you a land filled with milk and honey and all the fine things of earth. When you follow me, this is what you're going to do. This is your standard. Not the way of Egypt anymore, but now this is what you do. He's reminding them of the things that he has established way back in Genesis 1.14 that we read about. Leviticus 23, verse 1, the eternal spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are my feasts. Two times the word feasts is used in that verse. Both times the word translated feasts is moed, M-O-E-D. These are my appointed times.

In Genesis 1.14, he set the moon and sun in place for appointed times. These are my appointed times twice, he says, for all of mankind. He doesn't say, These are the feasts of Israel. He doesn't say, These are the feasts of the Jews. These are the feasts of God. This is what he expects. This is what his people will be observing and part of their culture now, in the future and in the millennium. And you can prove that in the Bible, that in the millennium they will be keeping.

God's holy days and these times, these moed times that he talks about. Verse 3, the very first one that he mentions is, Moed, an appointed time that we keep every single week. Six days shall work be done. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of solemn rest.

A holy convocation. Convocation means it's an appointed time, it's an appointed meeting. I want you there, is what God says. You shall do no work on it. It is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings. And then in verse 4, he says, Again, these are the feasts of the Lord. There's the word moed again. These are the moed of the Lord. Holy convocations, which you shall proclaim at their... And finally, the translator's got it right. At their appointed times. These are the things that you will say to them, Moses. This is what my people will do. Then, now, in the kingdom, as long as there is a physical heaven and earth, this is what they will do.

It's part of the culture of the kingdom and what we've been called into. This is part of what they will celebrate. They won't celebrate the things of the world. They'll celebrate the things of God. And then he lists all of them, but let's go down to verse 37. In case we missed it, you know, in the first, as he goes through them, in verse 37, he repeats again. These are the feasts. These are the moed of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations.

In verse 44, wrapping it up again, So Moses declared to the children of Israel, the feasts or the moed of the Lord. This is what you'll keep. This is part of your culture. This is part of what you do. These are part of your appointed times.

When you look at the calendar, these are the days you will circle because you have an appointment with me, God says. Not that we don't have times that we're with God through the week, as we study and as we pray, as we meditate and the other things, but during these times, he expects us to be with him.

And so we're now just a little less than two months away from the first holy day of the year. And as you go through Leviticus 23, you see the Passover. And it's a holy time, not a holy day, but the Passover is for baptized members of the Church of God. And God says, it's a very special time. On the Passover, we commemorate Christ's death, only fitting that as the Holy Days begin, who we remember and who's at the forefront is Jesus Christ.

And on that day, people who have already made the decision to follow God and give their lives to him and to let him build in them what he wants, recommit to him. They go to him and they commemorate his death. And one part of that Passover service is the humility that's built into it, because Jesus Christ was humble. And the first thing on that night is the washing of the feet, just as Jesus Christ did, that he was willing to serve others.

And we remind ourselves, we serve others, and we serve God. And we need to always have a humble attitude, because without humility, we're fooling ourselves. We're fooling ourselves. We're deceiving ourselves if we think that anyone that isn't of a humble nature will be in God's kingdom. And so, let's go back to 1 Corinthians 11. Let's see these first Holy Days in the spring that we'll talk about and see the things that God wants us to be paying attention to and that we'll be celebrating not too long, or observing, I should say, not too long from now.

Back in 1 Corinthians 11, as Paul is speaking to the Corinthian church, they're drawing up on Passover in the days of unleavened bread, and he has a message to them, because that church had some problems in it. In verse 26 of 1 Corinthians 11, you know, the verses before that, he talks about taking the bread and taking the wine, you know, which we do on Passover. Verse 26, he says, For often as you eat this bread and drink this cup... Well, we all take it many times, right? Not many times during the year, one time during the year, on the day that God designated.

But many times, because if we've been in the church for 50 years and baptized for 50 years, as often as you take the cup, once a year, it adds up. And every year, we should be growing and becoming more and more like Jesus Christ when we look at ourselves seeing and letting God seeing the progression, and others around us should see the progression.

As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. He's at the center. He's the reason we're here. He's the reason we observe it. We owe him everything. And as we keep that day, we recognize that. He goes on, and then he tells us, you know, to Passover, you keep it on the 14th of Nicin, the 14th of Abib, whatever month you want to give it.

But if all we do is come to the 14th of Nicin in the evening, and that's when we're getting ready for the Passover, maybe a few minutes before when we put our clothes on and get ready to go, we have totally missed the point.

It's not just about that day. It's the preparation of what God wants us to do ahead of time. That's the valuable time. It's not just that day. Those are the point of times we come before him. But if that's all we do is come before him, we've missed the point. Verse 27 says, 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. Well, that's some pretty powerful words there when we look to it. Coming before, taking the body and blood of Christ in an unworthy manner.

And he says, you'll be guilty of it. You'll be guilty of it if you take it in an unworthy manner. And then he tells us what we need to do as we prepare and come to that time of preparation. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. Search yourself. Examine yourself. Look at yourself through the eyes of Scripture. Look at yourself through the eyes of the Holy Spirit.

Look at yourself through the eyes of others. Where am I? Am I doing things the way God said? Are there things that need to be weeded out? Are there things that need to be cut out of my life? And believe me, we all have them. None of them. None of us are there yet.

None of us are near perfection. Hopefully getting nearer every year and every decade. But still things that we have to do. And year by year, we find things and learn things about ourselves and see things about ourselves that we have the responsibility then of doing away with, putting out of our lives. Verse 29, he says, Examine yourself.

That's a part of the Passover season. That's what has to be happening now. Too late, 10 minutes before Passover, to start doing that. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. Not really getting what God has called us for. Not really getting what Jesus Christ did. Yes, He paid the price for our sins, but no, He didn't do it all. He did it all in that sense, but we have our part to play, and that means we have a choice to make, decisions to make, from now until the time that we die or Christ returns, whatever comes first, to continually choose Him and to continually follow Him.

Verse 30, for this reason, He says, Many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we wouldn't be judged. If we would just listen, if we would just, when we see ourselves in the pages of the Bible, say, you know what, I need to put that out of my life. That can't be me anymore. That's the old me. It can't be me anymore. Or if we hear something, or if someone tells us something, that we would say, I have to do that, because God says, if we would do that ourselves, then He wouldn't have to chasten us, and He wouldn't have to make us see, because He's most interested, that everyone repents. Everyone comes to the knowledge of Him, and that everyone receives eternal life. And whatever way He will get our attention, He will, because He's not willing that any should perish. He wants us all to be there.

So Paul says that, as we go through, and as we look at where we are now, we examine ourselves, and we can ask ourselves questions. Are we yielded? Do we think about what God has called us for every day? Are we committed to letting Him build us for service, for love, in whatever manner He determines? Is that part of what we do? Are we following His ways implicitly? Are we keeping His moe-ed, and doing and living the culture?

Are we implementing that culture into our homes, into our personal lives, in our church, in our church, here, and in the bigger church around the world? Well, that's Passover. If we haven't prepared ahead of time, we've lost the meaning of the Passover. Following on the days of Unleavened Bread, or on the Passover, we have the days of Unleavened Bread. In the days of Unleavened Bread, ahead of time, we prepare for those days as well. If we get to the days of Unleavened Bread, beginning with the night to be much observed, that I mentioned during announcements, if we haven't done anything ahead of time, it's too late.

We have to keep those days holy. We have to keep them the way God intended, but we have to do things ahead of time. We can't wait until 10 minutes before sundown and say, oh, I've got to get ready to keep the days of Unleavened Bread. If we've done that, we've missed the point. It's a time of preparation ahead of time. And of course, in the Old Testament, what they did was put the leavening out of their homes.

It was very physical, the Old Testament. Put the leavening out of your homes, have your homes clean before the days of Unleavened Bread. Starts, eat only Unleavened Bread. Today, in the New Testament, we understand the spiritual applications to those things. We still do the physical because by doing the physical, we learn the spiritual application. But we understand that God is saying, you have to get rid of the leavening in your life.

You have to make it clean. You have to see what it is and put it out. The sin, the attitudes, the weaknesses, whatever it is. When God shows you where that leavening is, our job is to put it out as we come to the days of Unleavened Bread, as we examine ourselves for Passover. And then, during the days of Unleavened Bread, we learn, we eat, the Unleavened Bread of Jesus Christ. Let's go back to John, John 6. John 6 and verse 48. As Jesus Christ was on earth and He knew that this was the spiritual application of those days, He began teaching the people that.

You know, about the spiritual bread, who He was, what He was there for. They didn't get it then. We understand it now. John 6 verse 48, Christ speaking, He says, I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna, a physical bread that God provided. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. They're dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. Ah, that got their attention. Bread that we can eat and not die? There's only one bread that we can eat that can lead to eternal life. I am the living bread, Christ says, which came down from heaven.

If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. And so during the days of Unleavened Bread, we're reminded, that's the bread we eat. The Unleavened Bread of Sincerity and Truth. Back in 1 Corinthians 5, as Paul is preparing that church, years after Jesus Christ ascended into heaven.

A Gentile church, if you will. He's preparing them to keep the days of Unleavened Bread, and he shows the application of this in a very notable thing that happened there in the church in 1 Corinthians 5. He's writing from afar, and he's heard of something going on in the church, and he reminded them in chapter 3, as we've been reminded today, he's building a temple. There's nothing that should defile in that temple. We should all be here for the same purpose and for the same thing, letting God build in us and grow us into the perfect people he wants us to become over the course of our lives.

Chapter 5, verse 1. Paul sees in the building of what's going on there in Corinth, there's a problem. And as the days of Unleavened Bread approach, he shows them the principle and practicality of what they need to do in their church to put leavening out. It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, he writes, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles that a man has his father's wife. And you are puffed up.

And we know leavening puffs up. They were puffed up. They were prideful. They couldn't hear what he was saying. They had this among them, and they couldn't even see the sin that was among them. Because pride blames us. It hardens our hearts. And here was the Corinthian church. They had this thing going on. They lived in a society where they were used to these type of things going on, although Paul says it's even more than what the Gentiles would do.

They had these things going on, and they were blind to it. But he points it out to them that you have this thorn in your flesh, if you will. You have this weakness. You have this imperfection among you. And you are puffed up and have not rather mourned that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I, indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged, as though I were present him who has so done this deed.

In verse 4, he says what needs to happen in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, When you are gathered together along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

And he does what is a very difficult thing to do.

He says to the Corinthian church, put that man out of your fellowship. He's living in sin. He shouldn't be among you.

And deliver him to the flesh. And Paul's hope was that when he's so separate from the body of God, from the body of Christ, that he will see the error of his ways and come back.

Now Paul didn't do it because he didn't like the guy, or because he had an issue with him. He did it because he loved him. The same thing that God does with us, because he loved him. Because he said, I don't want him to continue in this way, because if he continues in this way, he's not going to be in the kingdom. He's not going to be there. He's got to see the error of his ways.

And the only way to make that happen is if he's not there. It wasn't an easy thing for Paul to do. When you read through the background of 1 Corinthians, you see that he worried about this letter. How was the church going to take it? It wasn't like the day that we have today where you can pick up the phone and say, what's going on over there? Or send an email across the ocean, what's going on over there? He didn't know. Were they going to do what he said?

Were they going to follow him? Or were they going to rebel and say, we're not doing that? We're not going to put him out. We're not going to clean the church up. And Paul said, all I want, all I want is for him to be in the kingdom. All I want is for him to repent, recognize his sin, and come back. You know, sometime, from time to time, people have to be put out of the church today.

It's never because the minister or whoever makes the decision doesn't like the person. It's never because he just wants to be mean to him. It's always, always, to my knowledge, because they love the person. Anytime someone is rebuked, it's not because someone is mad at you or someone is doing something. It's because there is something in you, something that is seen, that is contrary to the way of God. And the reason it's done is not out of spite or anything else.

It's done out of love with the hope that that person will repent, open their eyes, soften their hearts, and come back to God. In the case of the man in 1 Corinthians 5, it worked. Go back and read 2 Corinthians 7. Paul is elated when he hears that the man went out, repented, and came back. And he sees what happened to the church because it now is a church that's more zealous, more joyous, more positive in every way. The same way we feel when we make the decision to put sin out of our lives, when we recognize it and acknowledge it and don't fight it, and don't try to justify it, and don't try to defend it, and don't try to blame everyone else, but we start looking at ourselves and saying, what's being said?

What happened in this thing as they approached the days of unleavened bread? Paul said, this leavening needs to be put out. It was put out. And you see down here in verse 6, he says what happens because this is the temple of God that he's building. We all have a responsibility and a part to play in the attitudes that we have and the attitudes that we display. And we all have problems from time to time. He says in verse 6, your glorying is not good. Don't you know that a little leaven, leavens the whole lump. If you continue with this Corinthians, if this man says among you, other people will think it's okay, and pretty soon we don't have the church of God that's building toward purification and purity.

We have a church that is making excuses and that is tolerating something that it shouldn't. So he says, therefore purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump. Put it out when you are baptized, when you receive the Holy Spirit, you became a new creation, that God is going to write his nature on you if you let him.

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 old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Do it. Put it out and then keep the feast, and put the unleavened in. Put the purity in and continue doing that for the rest of your life.

The next Holy Day Pentecost, I'll talk more about that as we get closer to it. As people make that decision, as they repent, as they truly repent, the way the Bible defines repentance and not the way that you hear repentance talked about on TV, as they repent and as they make the decision to be baptized, and God puts his Holy Spirit in him because it's him who puts the Holy Spirit in when we go through the process, but he sees what's in the heart, and if we've really done the repentance in the way we should or not, and he puts his Holy Spirit in us, that is represented on the Day of Pentecost.

The people are called firstfruits. And from the time that we receive God's Holy Spirit until the time Jesus Christ returns, pictured by the Feast of Trumpets that comes in the Fall, all during that time, that Holy Spirit is at work, that Holy Spirit, we should be letting God use, mold, direct us, so that as we get closer and closer to the return of Jesus Christ, we are more and more like him.

We sound more and more like him. We act more and more like him. We think more and more like him. So the time he comes, and then the dead, and those who are not yet dead, are the dead in Christ, are turned, as it says in 1 Corinthians 15, into immortal beings. Because he's seen our patterns, and we become part of who we've then are made into and do the role that he called us to be into. So there's a lot for us to happen, a lot of preparation that needs to go on to it.

Bear with me for just a few more minutes here, because I want to, you know, sometimes I think when we get into Passover time, and we talk about examining ourselves and searching ourselves, some people may wonder, you know, how do we do that? I mean, do we just read the Bible and see what it is that God's going to just lead us magically to the verse that we need to look at and see? Is that what we need to do?

Well, he may. We have to read the Bible. That's part of putting the unleavened bread in that we do all the days of our lives. We have to pray. If we're not doing that, we're fooling ourselves if we don't have a relationship with God. But there are things that we can do maybe to help along that way, because we all, and I stress all, have things we need to work on.

None of us are where God wants us to be today. None of us. One of the things you might do is to, and you may know some of the things. You know, I think we probably all know some of the things we need to work on. Things that we're lax at, things that we have counted not important, things that we've gone and let go by the wayside and think, eh, there's bigger things to work on and whatever.

You might take a pen and paper and do this privately. You don't have to share it with your spouse. You certainly don't have to share it with anyone in church. I'm never going to ask for it. Write down. Write down those things between now and Passover. The things you know you need to work on. The things where you know you're coming up short compared to what the Word of God says. You hear it in sermons.

You hear it in the Bible. You hear other things. God puts into our mind the things that we're doing that's not right. Put some of those things down. Put them in there as a thing that I need to be working on, because you know sometimes when we write things down, it means something to us. If we just think about it and we don't actually put pen to paper, sometimes it doesn't seem to bear the same significance. Back in Deuteronomy 17 when God was talking to the kings of that time, He told them, You copy down.

You copy down the scrolls. You copy down the Scriptures. Don't just have the scribe do it. You do it. You write it down, because I want it in your minds and it's going to be important to you when you are judging my people. So put a private list of things down there. And you might say, I don't even know where to start with that.

Let me give you one area that you can look at. If there's any areas where there's conflict in your life, anywhere that you have conflict in relationships, be it marriage, be it work, be it anywhere, that there's a conflict. Look there. Look there. And you know, Christ gives the principle in Matthew 7.

It's so easy for us when there's a conflict to point the finger at the other person. This, this, this, this, this. But he doesn't say, you know, he says, get that finger pointed this way. What are we doing to create that conflict? Where is the thing is and what do we need to work on? Because conflicts can be resolved.

And if we're true Christians and you're working with true Christians, it can be resolved. There is no irreconcilable difference among true Christians when they are looking at it. That just doesn't happen. So we have to look at ourselves, and that might be a place we begin looking at and saying, you know, yes, yes, this relationship.

We've talked about some relationship issues lately. Think about some of those things. And look in the Bible. And the second point you can do when you have your list to do is pray about it. Pray about it. The Bible tells us that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. He's going to let us know if we diligently seek the things that we want, that He wants to exit out of our lives, the leavening that needs to be put out of our lives, before unleavened bread.

Something we should be doing all the time, actually. But He'll show us. He'll show us what those things are. Psalm 139, verse 23, David, a man after God's own heart, said, Search me, O God. Search me and find if there's any evil in me. Show me the intent of my heart.

Let me see what my real motives are. Are they the motives of Jesus Christ? Am I following His example? Do I think the way He thinks? Or am I thinking the way the world thinks, the culture that I've come out of?

Or am I thinking the way that the Gentiles think, as the Bible would say? What am I doing? Show me. Show me what it is. If we really are intent on keeping the days right, if we really are intent in letting God build us to serve, build us to love, build us in us, the culture of His Kingdom, we'll be willing to do that.

So pray about it and ask Him. Number three, set some goals. Goal setting is such an important thing in all of our lives. It's very good to know that we need to do something, but, boy, it's always easy to just keep it off. Just keep putting it off and putting it off and putting it off and saying, someday, someday I'll do it. I remember the song, there was a song in the 70s called, Someday Never Comes, and it always had meaning to me, Someday Never Comes, but someday needs to come with us.

And so you can set some goals. And maybe some of those goals, understanding that purity is the ultimate goal, right? Purity is the ultimate goal of true Christians. You might want to write down some, I will or I will not statements. Because you know where our weaknesses are. You know where we get into conflict.

You know the things that we fall prey to. I will. When this happens again, I will not do this. When this, and I will do this every day, if studying is your weakness or praying is your weakness or fasting is your weakness, I will do this. Set the goals. Set the goals and put them down. And write down what it is and rehearse those in your mind. And pay attention to them. And number four, you have to make yourself do it. You have to make yourself do it.

That's where character comes from. If we leave it to ourselves, we won't do it. That's what we do all our lives, is we know what we should do, but then we don't. There's the saying out there that the road to hell is paved to good intentions. And all of us have good intentions. But we have to do something about it. God isn't going to say in that day, Man, I liked your intentions. He's going to say, This is what you did.

Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Do it. Make yourself do it. Martin Luther King said, We're built to serve. So let him who would be the greatest among you be your servant. Be willing to do anything just as Jesus Christ did. And that's what he's doing with us. In Isaiah 64, if I can paraphrase and maybe take a lead from what he said, in Isaiah 64 it talks about the clay.

The clay that God is molding into who he wants it to be. And you know, clay is nothing. It's just dust and water. Dirt and water mixed together. Meaningless, useless. And we're all dust. I mean, the Bible tells us, Dust you are and dust you shall return. We're all useless. Until the master potter.

Until we let the master potter mold us into who he wants us to be. Just the clay by itself has no meaning whatsoever. It's useless. It's futile. But when we let God, the master potter, over the course of our lives, mold us into who he wants us to become. To build us who we, he wants to build in us. Then there's something of value. Then there's something to put our stock in. Then there's something that he is pleased with. And there's a building that's going on in his kingdom. So as we prepare for the days of Unleavened Bread, the Passover that's upon us, remember what God is building in us. Develop in our homes, in our lives, in our church, the culture of the kingdom, and remember that he built us to serve and to love.