Five Reasons to Take the Passover

So nice to see everybody again, and we begin this service and message talking about what's going to happen this coming Tuesday. As you know, baptized members will be taking the New Testament Passover. And, of course, there's always interest in going over what it all means, for this is a lifelong commitment that we have done. It is something very serious before God, and yet it's filled with joy, with thankfulness. We should come with that spirit of thankfulness. We know we don't deserve what we're going to partake of, but we're very thankful and appreciative of what God the Father and Christ did for all of us. I'd like to give you five reasons for baptized members to come to the Passover, to have it clear why it's so important. We're a people that follow God's instructions, that try to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, which is the Bible. And so we are committed to not adding anything to the instructions of God in the Bible, nor taking away from those instructions, to keep them as best as we understand and the best way in our hearts to carry it out. Because God cares about sincerity of having that dedicated and humble spirit where we tremble before God's word. We truly do want to respect it in every way. And so here are five reasons to keep in mind why this Passover is so important. Number one, because it's a commandment and not a suggestion. In other words, this isn't an option that you have. It's something that God commands. Now we realize that there can be some circumstances where you can't make it, sickness, or you're too far away. And for that, actually, God gave instructions that in Numbers 9, it says that a month later we have what is called the second Passover, just in case people are not able to make it. It's that important for everybody to do so. So let's go to Numbers 9, because we keep this as well. This is part of God's law. In Numbers 9, the heading says the second Passover. Verse 4 says, Moses told the children of Israel that they should keep the Passover, and they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight. In other words, at beginning, because of course you don't end the Passover at the end of the fourteenth. You end it, you start it in the beginning, in the wilderness of Sinai, according to all that the Lord commanded. So the children of Israel did. Now there were certain men who were defiled by a human corpse, and they had touched a corpse, and that made them unclean. By the way, that is a sanitary measure, because if you touch a person that is sick, you can transmit, as we well know. We went through this COVID thing. You were very careful. If a person was contaminated, you had to isolate them immediately. So this is the way God did it. So that they could not keep the Passover on that day, and they came before Moses and Aaron that day. And those men said to him, we became defiled by a human corpse. Why are we kept from presenting the offering of the Lord at its appointed time among the children of Israel? Notice it's an appointed time to set time to do this. And Moses said to them, stand still, that I may hear what the Lord will command concerning you. We see Moses' meekness here. He didn't say, well, let me just talk it out with some of the men, and we'll decide what you should do. No, Moses said, wait, let's go to God. He's the one that sets up the instructions.

So in verse 9, then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, speak to the children of Israel, saying, if any one of you or your posterity is unclean because of a corpse or is far away on a journey, he may still keep the Lord's Passover. On the fourteenth day of the second month at twilight, they may keep it. Now, here there's a proof that it's at the beginning, because if not, then you'll be keeping it on the fifteenth. If it's at the end of the fourteenth. No, it's the fourteenth. That's the day of Passover. First day of unleavened bread is the beginning of the fifteenth. They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They shall leave none of it until morning, nor break one of its bones. According to all the ordinances of the Passover, they shall keep it. But the man who is clean and is not on a journey and ceases to keep the Passover, that person shall be cut off from among his people, because he did not bring the offering of the Lord, talking about the Lamb. At its appointed time, that man shall bear his sin. The new international commentary says about this verse, cut off. It could have meant a death sentence, or at least the one so punished has lost God's protection, and in essence operates outside the sphere of the covenant relationship. So you're cutting off that covenant relationship. That's why I mentioned this is serious.

Notice in Exodus 12, verse 24, it says, And you shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you and your sons forever. That means as long as we live, we are to do this. It will come to pass when you come to the land which the Lord will give you, just as he promised, that you shall keep this service. So it is a ceremony, it's a service. And it shall be when your children say to you, what do you mean by this service? Then you shall say it is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel. So Passover means passing over has to do with that death angel that passed over the houses of the children of Israel and Egypt when he struck the Egyptians and delivered our households.

So we see here again instructions about carrying it out. Now in the New Testament, Jesus Christ talked about that Passover that was going to be kept later, and he brought this up in John 6, verse 53. He explained that to be a disciple of his, you had to go through this ceremony. John 6, verse 53. Then Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. This is talking about the symbols of the bread and of the wine. That you do not have life in you because it's the commitment that we make at baptism to every year meet together for the Passover and renew this covenant with God to continue in this way. We are not going to give up or give in. We're going to be faithful. He goes on to say, Whoever eats my flesh, again symbolic of the bread, the unleavened bread, and drinks my blood, which is symbolic of the wine, has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. So it's a requirement to be following his instructions. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. Again, these are symbolic. This is what we do in the Passover. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me.

So we see Christ saying this is a necessity to do. It shows that we have accepted Christ's sacrifice for our sins. So let's go to the second reason. It's not only a commandment, but it is symbolic of accepting Christ's sacrifice for our sins. Let's go to Luke 22, verse 19. Christ here in the Passover ceremony said, and he took bread and gave things and broke it and gave it to them, saying, This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. So again, he's explaining what that eating the flesh meant. It meant that bread that he broke here, gave it to them. This is my body. It's symbolic of it. And he says, do this. It's a commandment of his. Do this in remembrance of me, of what my sacrifice represents. And believe me, we need this every year, don't we? Nobody can be perfect, not come before God, and repentance, and realizing that Christ's sacrifice needs to cover that. Throughout our life, that's in a conditional state, as long as we repent, we change, we struggle and overcome, we are not going to give up. So, let's go to another scripture, 1 Corinthians 5, verses 7 and 8. What did Paul talk about regarding the Passover? 1 Corinthians 5, verses 7 and 8. He says, 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. You're unleavened. You have removed those sins through Christ's sacrifice. He was sacrificed. Verse 8, Therefore, let us keep the feast. And here the word keep means determining to observe it. In other words, it's not, again, an option if you like or not. This is something he's saying, 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. That's the attitude that God is putting in us. That's what he has cleaned us of our sins, so we can't have this attitude of sincerity and truth before him. So what else is there? The third reason for this is what it represents in the future. It's not only now. It's not only in the past, but also what it represents in the future. What does the Passover ceremony represent in the future? Christ said he would not take the Passover again until he would come in his kingdom, and then he said he would take it with us. Let us sink in for a moment. Can you imagine the privilege? Here we are. We'll have a Passover ceremony. It's just a rehearsal for what is coming with Jesus Christ. Aren't we going to be weeping? When he's there in living color, and he says, this is my body that I've given for you, it's no longer going to be some written information. We're actually going to see it for ourselves. Notice in Matthew 26, and verse 29. Again, Christ here in that last Passover, he took, he said in verse 29.

I think it knew with you in my Father's kingdom. So he has abstained from doing any of this until he comes back in his kingdom. He's going to be officiating that Passover. He will take of that wine. When it talks about the fruit of the vine, the word is oinas, which means normal wine with the alcoholic element to it. So he says he will not do it until establishing it in the kingdom of God. To me, that is incredible. There are many wonderful things that you can compare in your life that maybe you saw something spectacular. And yet that pales into insignificance. Some of the young kids, they have their great rock stars or movie idols. They pay sometimes thousands of dollars, especially older people. They go to these big concerts and you see some of these very important celebrities. Well, I'll tell you, that's nothing in comparison to when Jesus Christ is going to be there. He makes all humans and all celebrities pale into insignificance. And this is what he is inviting us to do. Do you want to be in that first Passover after he sets up his kingdom? I think that's going to be a unique experience. Maybe the second and third year, it'll be great. But that first one, that's going to be something special. So for some that are going to be taking the Passover this coming Tuesday, this is just the beginning for them of a lifelong commitment and the reward of one day taking it with Jesus Christ. That should just overwhelm us with joy.

And then we have the fifth reason. I'm going to dwell on this a bit more, which is the importance of the consistency and faithfulness in our commitment to God. This is part of why many are called, few are chosen.

Not everybody that begins the path continues in it to the very end, but God says how important that is to be consistent, to be faithful, to be there, to be reliable. Notice in 1 Corinthians 11. 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 20. Paul is preparing the brethren for their Passover ceremony. In 1 Corinthians 11 verse 20, he says, We see the name of the church. That's mentioned 12 times in the New Testament. Again, we have no authority to change that name. That's part of God's instructions. You shall not add or take away and shame those who have nothing. What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you. Then he goes on to say, For I receive from the Lord that which I also delivered to you. These are the instructions that he received from Jesus Christ. And this is what he is giving to the brethren. The easy reading version says, The teaching I gave you is the same that I received from the Lord. So again, if we want to do things correctly, we do them exactly as the Scriptures say. It says, continuing on in verse 11, I mean chapter 11, in verse 23, he says that the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke and said, Take, eat. This is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And so one point that needs to be highlighted here is the emphasis on the Passover done at supper time. He says this term supper in the Greek is dapenan. And it means dinner, supper time, the evening meal. It's used throughout the New Testament. It's always evening. That's when you eat supper. And so Paul is saying that he received the teaching that it was on this evening, and he mentions about the supper. Once it was finished, then Jesus Christ gave the Passover symbols of the bread and the wine that his disciples should participate in. And he also instituted the foot washing ceremony, which we're going to go into just in a moment. Notice in verse 25, it says in the same manner, he also took the cup after supper, the same term dapenan, saying, this is the cup in the New Covenant in my blood. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. So there'd be an anniversary. The Passover is every year, once in a year. And as long as we do this in remembrance of that sacrifice that he gave. So I find no authority to change the time established. That it's at that night, the night that he was betrayed, they took supper, and then he instituted this. And Paul is saying, these are the instructions that I received directly from Jesus Christ, because Christ instructed Paul later on.

So I want to bring, I mentioned the points. The first one is because it's a commandment, not a suggestion. The second one, because it symbolizes accepting Christ's sacrifice for our sins. The third is what it represents in the future. The fourth is the importance of consistency and faithfulness before God. And lastly, what it represents for us now. It's a lifelong process of overcoming. In other words, we're committing ourselves to this race, spiritual race.

And you're going to have a lot of adventurous things going on in your life. You're going to have all these different things as you're running toward the kingdom of God. And God says, you're going to go through happy times, sad times, interesting times, boring times in life.

There's every different experience as you are running toward that kingdom. And He says, every year, it doesn't matter what you've done, what lap you've run, whether it was a real tough year or an easier year, you're back here, ready to run the next lap. Spiritual lap around. And some of us who recall when we were quite young, we started this very early in our lives. And we know that the kingdom of God is ahead.

And we don't know everything that God has reserved for us, but He's going to be there accompanying us through thick and thin. And everybody has had to sacrifice in order to come to baptism and the Passover. And so it's a life of sacrifice and of giving up a lot of things that your ego, your vanity, says to do so. But you know, every time you do a sacrifice for God, He triples and blesses you in it. Can I give you just a few examples? Just my first year after I was baptized, I was only 18.

You know, I didn't know much about anything, but I knew this was the right church. It had the right instructions and truths. But you talk about what I had to go through. Here I was a high school kid, 17, basically, coming into my last year of high school. And before that time, my life was just going one way. I wanted to finish high school. I wanted to go to the university there in Chapel Hill. I'd been accepted to Chapel Hill to study pre-med, so I was going to follow my dad's footsteps.

I had a girlfriend in school. And then my sister, who was two years younger, said, Oh, there's this girl that wants to date you. You've always wanted to date her in all of this. And then I came across the truth. And guess what? I had to give up those girlfriends because they weren't following God's way. I had to give up my job because I worked at a hospital and worked on the Sabbath.

So I had to give that up. And the girl that I liked also, not only the one I was going out with, but the other one, I had to give it all up. Actually, something happened that Satan was just saying, Boy, I'm going to get him good.

I've got two turns on him. And God gave me this wonderful wife in the church later. But everyone was a temptation that just dangled there. Just go and do that. Of course, my parents, they wanted me so much to continue. And I said, No, I'm going to a Bible college in Big Sandy, Texas. That's where God's truth is, and I want to learn it. And so I had to leave without any money that my parents gave me. Just what I had accumulated to go to this distant place by myself.

I didn't have anybody else in the family and said, This is what I feel God wants me to do. And so you walk by faith, trusting that if you're going to please God, He will open the ways, and He opened everyone. I mean, every one of those were actually trap doors. There weren't doors of opportunity. They were trap doors. I was going to go down the tube with them.

And so everybody's gone through a lot of these experiences before. But, okay, so I took my first Passover after being baptized, and then I went to this Big Sandy, Texas, and I was able to have a Passover with probably over 700 people. They were at the college. Everybody was washing everybody's feet and doing all of this. And you go through these different tests in life. But guess what? I've never ever thought or questioned that I'm going to be in God's Passover every year. And whatever sadness you have, or tragedy, or whatever, you're going to be back. And you're going to start the New Year, Spiritual Year, because it's this run that you have, as Paul mentioned, in Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12.

As long as God is running with you, sustaining you, you have nothing to fear. He will provide. Jesus Christ is there with us. Notice Hebrews 12. It says, Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, so many have crossed the finish line. They were faithful. They kept the Passover to the very end. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us. There's always some weakness there that you just have such a hard time overcoming. Sometimes it's just there hounding you, and you just have to not give in, continues overcoming whatever it takes.

He says, And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not resisted yet to bloodshed, striving against sin. So, has anybody resisted sin to the point where he's been beaten or cut up and you can show the scars of the immense effort to overcome sin?

So, not really. And we can do it. And so Passover represents this lifelong process of overcoming, of walking humbly before your God, trusting in him, doing your part before him, being a servant of God, either a man or a woman, to be a servant, that God can rely on you, and you are training for that future kingdom. Notice in Hebrews 10, just going back a little bit, Hebrews 10, verse 23, Paul again exhorting to, whole fast, let us whole fast the confession of our hope, without wavering for he who promised is faithful.

He's going to be with us, but just don't give up. Don't get discouraged. Now, let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. Love is an action word, means the attitude to do things. And then the good works are the practical, the concrete results of the love. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some. Maybe there's one of those laps where people go through a lot, and they kind of drift for a while.

But don't let that drift continue. That's why it has to be caught every year. Every year it's a reset button that we have, that we push. But exhorting one another, and so much the more, as you see the day approaching, Christ's day approaching. And certainly what we've seen, the abominations everywhere, don't be long before God intervenes. This world is just teetering.

It's just they're balancing itself, because there are so many problems, and now economic problems, financial problems. And we know God is going to say, enough is enough. Christ needs to come back. Let's go to Revelation 2. Revelation 2, verse 25, talking about overcoming, prevailing. That's what tests are all about. When you're tested, God wants to see if you can prevail, if you can succeed or not. It says, verse 25, but hold fast what you have till I come, until Christ comes.

And he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations. And so there's a lot of blessings there, but it says to the end. So it doesn't matter if we are great members for the first five years or ten years.

If we abandon the faith, all that running really didn't mean anything. You have to finish. You have to cross. That's why Paul talked about not giving up. Notice in Romans chapter 8. He went through so much, and yet he never gave up and never gave in. It says here, verse 35 of Romans 8, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ, that relationship?

Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness? You can lose all you have economically. You can go through a terrible famine, where there's a lot of scarcity. Or peril or sword that can be wore. As it is written, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors. Why? Because we're so strong? No. Through him who loves us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor Satan, nor anybody, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created things, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Now that's an ironclad commitment there. And of course, that was God working in Paul. He allowed himself. So God filled him with that Holy Spirit and that power and encouragement he needed at that time. Notice in Revelation 12, verse 10, it tells us about the same thing, that the Passover is carrying out what it means. Revelation 12, verse 10 and 11, it says, Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren who accused them before our God day and night has been cast down.

And they overcame him again by their own strength? No. By the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. And they did not love their lives to the death. They were faithful.

And we don't know what life holds for all of us, but we know how we have to live it with courage, with faith, with patience and humility, and keep persevering. That's part of the lesson of this Passover. One last scripture before we end. Revelation 22, verse 12. Again, so many places it's all repeated. Revelation 22, verse 12, says, And behold, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to everyone according to his work. What is our work? It's doing things God's way. It's not our work. It's Christ's work in us. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are those who do his commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. And one of those commandments has to do with the Passover. And these wonderful days of Unleavened Bread, that we're also going to be participating. So brethren, this is not some type of repetitive ritual or liturgy that they do in the churches. They set up all of these types of rules. No, it isn't. This is God's instruction. And we are blessed to understand what the instructions are, understand why he gives them to us, and how important it is for him and Jesus Christ that we're able to fulfill and please them as we carry out the Passover in these coming days of Unleavened Bread.