The Hidden Meaning of the Passover Bread

Well, happy Sabbath to you. Good to see all of you. Hope you've had a great week. Seems like this year's already flying by. Gonna have to really be careful, or we'll be in December before we know it, the way things are happening. We want to say hi to all of those who are online.

I think we have two new people listening from Hawaii, so I'm happy about that, that we have a couple of more over there that are wanting to be a part of the church. And always good to see, again, the church began to increase. And we pray that prior to the return of Christ that God calls many, many more. You know, we often talk about the meaning of the Passover wine, and a lot of what we say about the Passover, it refers to the blood of Christ as we understand.

It's through the shed blood of Jesus Christ that we are forgiven. And I think we understand that, that our sins are forgiven and washed away by the blood of Jesus Christ. But what about the bread? What about the bread? Because that's also a very fundamental part of the Passover ceremony. What does it portray? So let us come to see the hidden meaning of the bread that we eat on this sacred ceremony when we partake of this emblem on Passover evening. We'll talk about that.

I have four points, very simple points to give to you. I could probably have seven points. Maybe that would be more biblical to give you seven rather than four. But, you know, we don't have a lot of time. And I think you can come up with probably three more if you want to. Well, the bread that we partake of at the Passover shows us that Christ is the source of eternal life. Without Jesus Christ, we could not have eternal life. We wouldn't even have—that wouldn't even be possible for us to have eternal life.

You know, when we look at the family of Jesus Christ, it's very interesting because they were very noted for their generosity. Some manuscripts actually say that the family of Jesus Christ gave 30% of its income for the poor. And so it might be no surprise why the poor connected with Jesus himself because of that great generosity.

Let's go over to John 6 here and talking about how the bread shows that Christ is the source of eternal life. But here in John 6—and I won't read through verbatim here, verses 1 through 14—but it talks about this tremendous miracle of feeding the 5,000. Now, Jesus Christ was able to do that, and it was close to the Passover. And Jesus was pursued by multitudes and multitudes of people who, of course, grew hungry, being, again, away from their homes. But the only thing that they had is that there was apparently a young boy that had two small fish and five loaves of bread for 5,000 people.

Of course, I wish we could all feed 5,000 people on that. It would be a wonderful thing in our house, by the way, if we could do that with much, much less. But anyway, they sat down in an organized manner and remembered that Jesus blessed the food, He blessed the bread and the fish, and then it was served. And it fed 5,000 people.

And afterward, they gathered it up. They were very careful to gather up all the remaining food. And they gathered up 12 baskets and fragments of loaves of bread. 12 baskets. You know, incredible. You could feed, again, a whole lot more people just with that, having that. And so, this was a tremendous, tremendous miracle that took place. But it had a great deal of symbolism. Let's go now to John 6, if you're in the book of John, and in verse 26, we'll pick up the account here.

And it says, Jesus answered them and said, most assuredly I say to you, you seek me. Here were these multitudes that were seeking Jesus Christ. You're coming after me. They sort of had a soup kitchen attitude, considering, you know, that the way they were acting here. But he says here, again, you seek me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.

It's because you had a full stomach. That's the only reason why you were seeking me. And he said, do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal on him. Now Jesus Christ, of course, was set apart for this purpose, for this reason. And going on here, and then they said to him, what shall we do? That we may work the works of God. You know, we want to do the works of God. What do we do? And Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he sent.

No, that is the work of God being done. A lot of times people wonder, what can I do to do the work of God? We're doing the work of God right now.

You're sitting here in services. We're doing God's work right now. A part of that work involves us listening to what is being said. In verse 30, and therefore they said to him, what sign will you perform then? That we may see it and believe. And it says, what work will you do? You know, what kind of miracle are you going to do here?

I mean, he had just fed 5,000 people. That's a pretty big sign, wouldn't you say? Pretty big miracle that took place here. So what sign are you going to do? And then they say, our fathers ate manna in the desert. As it was written, he gave them bread from heaven. Are you going to do the same kind of miracle?

You know, they had eaten bread right there that day. A tremendous miracle that had been taken place. And so Jesus again, of course, he's incredulous by their reaction. In another place, Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

And the Jews were always seeking a sign. You know, Jesus said, an evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign. No, they want this miracle. They want this sign. And it's, you know, reveals an evil heart in people of unbelief, quite frankly. You know, bread is called the staff of life. I think most of us know that saying, it's the staff of life. People, of course, have survived, you know, for centuries in millennia on bread, bread and cheese and other things like that.

But you know, the bread does not sustain us. We need something else for life to go on.

I mean, for 6,000 years, people have been dying. And you know that people don't want to die.

But you know, it sort of creeps up on you, doesn't it? You get old and you die. We don't like that word die, do we? And that's why we say, well, you know, he or she passed away. You know, and sort of the idea that they didn't really die. They just passed away and went to heaven.

I guess a few might go to the other place, you know, as well in the minds of some people.

You know, I don't know why, again, we have a problem with saying the word die, because we all are going to do it. But you know, in this physical life, we're going to need a lot more to sustain us. Well, let's go on here in verse 32. Jesus said to them, most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven. Moses didn't give you that bread, you see. It wasn't Moses who was it that gave the bread. It was God who gave the bread.

It was God that did that tremendous miracle. But my father, he says, gives you the true bread from heaven. You see what he's saying here? Look, God gave the manna from heaven to, during the time of Moses, and God is giving you the true bread now. The true bread who, of course, was Jesus Christ. In verse 33, for the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. It is through Christ, again, we have that source of eternal life.

And it says, then they said to Him, Lord, give us this bread always. In verse 35, Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He that comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you, that you have seen me, and yet you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will, by no means, cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of the Father who sent me, of all that He has given me, that I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And so Jesus Christ is the source of eternal life. If we eat of Jesus Christ, then we will have that opportunity for eternal life. And Jesus Christ again emphasized the fact you have to eat of Christ, eat His body, and drink of His blood. On down here in verse 53, on to verse 58, and you'll notice that after this it says that many of the disciples of Jesus Christ stopped following Him because it was too hard for them. So they ceased from following after Christ, and Jesus asked the apostles, are you going to leave also? And of course they said no, you know, you're the ones that have, you're the one that has the words of life.

So through Christ we have the opportunity of eternal life. He's the source. So when you eat that bread, you know, on Passover night, think about that. That's through the body of Christ, you have eternal life, that opportunity. And remember what the apostle Paul said, you know, as well, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.

So eternal life is a gift through, in fact, as the Scripture goes on to say, Jesus Christ our Lord. It's a gift that's conveyed to us. You know, it's hard for people to grasp, isn't it? Even now. I mean, most people that are considering themselves Christian, of course, we need to put quotes always around that word Christians when we talk about the world, because they only are Christians in name, because they do not truly follow Christ. You know, how could you say you're following Christ if you don't do anything that Christ did? Don't keep the Sabbath. Don't observe the Holy Days. You know, don't even eat the right foods, for crying out loud.

And so, you know, they claim to be Christian, but they're really, really not. But we need to know who Christ was and the fact that He is the source of eternal life for every last one of us.

Point number two here, I told you I was going to give you four points, is the bread pictures a personal relationship with a Father through Christ?

So when you eat that bread, remember you are in a personal relationship with a Father in heaven.

Now, how could that be? How is that? Because Christ said, if you eat me, you eat of me.

You drink my blood and you eat my body. You have eternal life dwelling in you.

So we're ingesting Christ. And it's more than, of course, just a symbolic gesture by eating a piece of bread. We're drinking in of His way of life. We're eating of His way of life. You know, you've heard the saying, what you are is what you eat. And if we're eating of God's way of life, we're becoming like Christ. We're changing. We're overcoming. You know, when one does this, Christ dwells in us and we in Him. We become a part of each other. Why? You know, we need to, of course, know who Jesus was to rightly partake of that Passover so that when we eat that bread, we know what we're retaking of. Of course, we don't believe in the church and what the Catholics call transubstantiation. You know, the Catholics believe that that bread is turned into the body of Christ, actually, literally. You're eating of the body of Christ. We, of course, believe it is symbolic like the true trees of the Garden of Eden are symbolic. I believe they existed, but it doesn't really matter because they were symbolic. Had a great and tremendous meeting. Let's go to John 14. John chapter 14 over here to continue this one point.

I'll spend more time on, I think, point number three than I do on any of them. But in this second point, the bread pictures a personal relationship with the Father through Christ, chapter 14. Let's look down at verse 15. He says, if you love me, keep my commandments. So love has to do with responding and doing something. You know, you could tell somebody you love them all day long, but if you ever don't, if you don't ever do anything that reflects that love, you know, what good is it? What good is it? So Christ says, if you love me, you keep my commandments.

And I will pray the Father, He will give you another helper. He's going to give you another helper that He may abide with you forever. The Spirit of truth, which the world cannot receive.

You know, that is a statement you need to underline there. The world cannot receive this confeder. Frankly, the world cannot partake of the emblems. You know, they have no right to take the emblems. The only ones that have the right to partake of the emblems are the saints.

There's something the Bible talks about, and I think we'll cover that particular verse that talks about that. But going on here, you know, in verse 17, the Spirit, which the world cannot receive because it neither sees it nor knows it, but you know it, for He or it dwells with you and will be in you. And it says, if it were not, if it, I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you. I had a prisoner that asked, talked about how when he was a 15 or 16 year old boy, that he gave his heart to the Lord. And he thought that the Spirit came into him. And he described in this letter, he knows because he felt something. Well, the fact is, it wasn't the Holy Spirit, because you can't feel the Holy Spirit. It is non-physical. And so I've got to somehow educate him about that to let him know. And of course, what probably with a feeling he had was emotional.

It had nothing to do with the Spirit of God. But that Spirit may have been with him. It brought him to the point where he is. So anyway, you know, we have people, and of course many people in Protestantism, and no doubt probably even Catholicism and other religions, you know, they believe they've got the Spirit when they do not. You know, God's Spirit is only given to those who really truly know God, who truly are embracing God's way of life.

Going on down here, let's notice in verse 23, and Jesus answered and said to them, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. You see, if we truly, truly love God, then God makes his home with us.

He's a part of our life all the time, and we're always growing. We're always overcoming and changing. You know, Jesus himself, when he came and he was working with his disciples, you know, this word comforter in the Greek is paracletos, which means comforter. Jesus was a comforter for the disciples for the time he was with them. He was there. He consoled them. He encouraged them. He taught them. Of course, being a rabbi, he was instructing them to be disciples, and one day they would disciple other people in the future. But the Holy Spirit was another consoler that was promised to be there. And this Holy Spirit, when God gives it to you, when you're baptized and the Holy Spirit enters through the lane out of hands, it never leaves you. It is always with you, and it helps you. It guides you. It doesn't make you do anything.

It leads you. It can lead you, but you have to, again, have a mentality of wanting to obey God, wanting to walk in God's way of life. So the Holy Spirit is that consoler, and what is the purpose of the Holy Spirit? The purpose of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how to have a relationship with God, to teach us how to have a relationship with our older brother, and to come into an intimate relationship with the Father and the Son. So that's what the job of the Holy Spirit is.

You know, we are to abide in Christ, abide in the Father. Live, in other words, is what that word means. It comes from the Greek word mino, meaning to remain or live in Christ.

If you read carefully what it says in John 14, you can't bear fruit unless you do that.

You can't produce fruit in your life. You ever wonder why sometimes it doesn't seem you get answered prayer? Because abiding in Christ is a key to answered prayer. Letting Christ live in us, be a part of us. You know, the Apostle Paul told the Galatians that Christ was being formed in them. And if you look up that Greek word for formed, it comes from the Greek word morphuo, and it means to be fashioned in them.

And the root of this word is to morph, to morph someone. Slowly in our lives we are being morphed, we're being changed from one nature to another nature. That's what's happening to us on a daily basis, on a monthly basis, on an annual basis. And you should realize that you're changing over time.

You may not see it day to day, but you know, you will see it eventually as you go on in your life trying to overcome and trying to change. You know, we live with two minds, unfortunately.

We wish it weren't so. We have a carnal mind. He wants to hang around a little longer, even after you get baptized. I'm reminded of the fellow that I baptized in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

And he was a pretty rowdy guy anyway. And that day we baptized 12 people, by the way, in a widow's basement. He was one of them. And it was during the week that we baptized these people and came on Sabbath. The man came up to me and he said, you know, he said, I got baptized. I forget what day it was. But he says, you know, the devil beat me home. Because he went somewhere, did something. And I said, that's the way it is. You're going to have to fight that carnal mind.

Because Satan is not going to let up. He's going to work on that carnal mind.

And of course, there's the other mind, which is the mind of Christ.

And that is, we want that to be the strongest mind. We want to, in fact, mortify the old man or that carnal mind to get rid of those carnal ways where we live. The purpose of the ministry, brethren, and why it's so important to have elders and pastors and ministers in the church, servants within the church, the ministry works so that we can be morphed. We can be changed, as it says in Ephesians 4, 12, to the measure and the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Now, I will tell you, I'm not there yet. So God is using imperfect human beings to bring us to the measure and the stature of Jesus Christ.

Along the way, let me tell you, I've stubbed my toe many, many times and have had to ask God to forgive me and to help me overcome, to give me His Spirit, to make me alive.

You know, the apostle Paul said this. He said, I am crucified with Christ. This is in Galatians 2, verse 20. He says, I'm crucified with Christ, but yet I live, yet not I. He says, but Christ lives in me. So Christ lives in us, and we want the Christ that's in us to become stronger and stronger and stronger as God's people. So, brethren, point number two, if you're writing these down, the bread pictures a personal relationship with a Father through Christ. So you eat that bread, think about that, your relationship. How close are you to God? How determined are you to live by God's way of life? How determined are you to not kid yourself and to do as Jesus said, to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God? Point number three, point number three is the bread that we break on Passover night. And when you hear, you know, the cracking and the breaking of the matzos that we use, or any other bread for that matter, it symbolizes the suffering and the shame that Jesus Christ endured. Again, think about that.

The broken bread, pictures, the things that Jesus had to go through. And when one does this, Christ dwells in us. We begin to understand what he went through, what he experienced. He told the brethren, he told the disciples in Luke 22 and verse 19, that the Passover bread symbolizes his body given for us. He gave his body for our benefit. Let's go to 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians and verse 23. 1 Corinthians, verse 23, if you turn with me there, unless you have a computer, you can punch it up, huh? Unless you have a cell phone, one of those cell phones that sometimes can be pretty fast. I'm not fast on them, but some of the young people, they've got these magic thumbs, you know. I see, sometimes I see these young people with a cell phone, and I'll tell you, I can't even see their thumbs. That's how fast they're going.

They can type something in so rapidly. But in 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 23, Paul told the Corinthians, for I received from the Lord that when I also delivered you, that the Lord Jesus on the same night which he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, take eat. This is my body which was broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And so that's why we do it on the evening prior to the Passover day. The 14th, of course, is the day that was designated for the Passover. Jesus gave the emblems to the disciples on the evening of the 14th. And of course, the Jews were observing the day part of the 14th, and some of them had gotten off track. The Judean Jews apparently were keeping the Passover correctly and not those that were, I mean, the Galilean Jews were keeping it correctly, not those that were in Judea that were there. But anyway, going on here, well, I guess that's all we need to read of that. So Paul says here that Jesus' body was broken for us. Not only did Jesus Christ die, he suffered for us. I won't go to 1 Peter 2, verse 21. And it was an agonizing, an agonizing suffering that Jesus Christ went through. He was tormented. Not only was he tormented, but he was shamed. You remember they spit in his face. They put a crown of thorns on his head and pressed it down, and it stuck into the blood vessels of his head, and he bled. And he was beaten with a with a cat of nine tails. And he received, you know, 40 stripes. Think about how many pieces of flesh came off with 360 leather tongs with glass or metal that wrapped around the body of Christ. Then it was ripped back, and he was struck again. That's what Jesus Christ endured. We need to think about that when you eat that bread that was broken at Passover, what it is. What Jesus Christ went through, brethren, he wasn't like some superman that just throw this horrible load off. It was hard. It was very hard. I remember I had a cousin, and his name was Donnie. Donnie was always getting in trouble. You know, sometimes kids just, you know, can't think straight. Donnie was one of those kind of guys that you couldn't tell him anything. He knew everything. He was a tough guy. He ended up in a reform school in Arkansas, by the way. And Arkansas is not noted for being nice to people. Especially, you get caught by the law. But Donnie was telling me this because when he was in the reform school, he said he got in trouble. And there they didn't swatch you on the rump. What they did to him, he told me this, is they strapped him face down, naked on the bed, and they whipped him with a leather strap.

He told me, you can think you're pretty tough. But he said, I cried like a baby. It wasn't easy.

And I'm not sure that Donnie ever learned because he ended up going to prison later on.

But, you know, we, what Christ went through, brethren, it was not easy for him to endure.

It's like Isaiah 53, in verses 4 and 5 says, surely he has borne our griefs.

You see, all of the things that we experience in life, where there is pain, where there's suffering, Jesus Christ endured those things in his life and carried ourselves. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God. God must have punished him. You know, even some were there at the crucifixion said, you know, what did this man do? Surely he did something terrible that God would put him there where he is. But he was spint of God, as it says in Isaiah, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him.

And with his stripes we are healed. So the bread, the broken bread, also depicts certainly that we are forgiven of sin in the spiritual sense, but through the stripes of Christ we are healed.

When we cry out, we've got suffering or we've got something that needs to be healed, it's through Christ. And the penalty he paid that we can be healed. Without him doing that, it could not happen.

Christ suffered for what we truly deserved. If you can envision in your mind Jesus Christ being tied to a post to be scourged as he was, realize the fact, brethren, that you and I are the ones that should have been tied to that post to suffer for our own sins. But he did it for us, brethren. And he suffered greatly. He took the stripes, he took the wounds, and the agony, and the shame. And that whole ordeal on the day he was crucified. Let's go to Hebrews 13. Hebrews 13 over here. Hebrews 13 in verse 10. It's incredible what Jesus Christ was willing to do.

You can imagine the conversation that the Father must have had with Jesus Christ before he was sent as that manna from heaven.

Jesus said to the Father, or as he was the Word at the time, I'm willing to do it. I'm willing to go. And the Father said, are you sure? It will be a horrible, horrible experience to go through what you're going to have to go through.

Yes, Father. I know, but they need me. And so Christ did it. Hebrews 13 in verse 10. He says in verse 10, we have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. He was talking about the Passover, brother, earlier. No one has the right to eat of the Passover except the saints of the Most High God. That's how special, brethren, God's people are.

And it says, And so Jesus, remember, bore the stake, that heavy stake, and he carried it out to Gogotha.

And they dug a hole there, and they had the upright post, and Jesus Christ was hoisted up on that stake, and he was crucified outside the city walls of Jerusalem. I've been there.

I've looked down, by the way, from Gogotha, where at least they think they know where it is there. And you know what? There's a bus stationed right below. Buses are coming and going. It's a very busy place. And so it wasn't special. And he says the word, it was somewhere where you would put to death a criminal, which they considered Christ to be.

So, brethren, we, as God's people, just as Jesus Christ, willingly suffered for us, not only in the flesh, but from the standpoint of shame, we must willingly suffer to battle sin.

Jesus said, whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

I don't know what your problem is, brethren, in your life, what you go through. All of us have our stories to tell. But whatever it is, brethren, it does not compare with what Jesus Christ endured so that you and I could have the opportunity for eternal life to be a part of God's tremendous family. We must mimic the life of Christ. Indeed, as Christ suffered for us, suffering is a part of our calling. And if we do not suffer, brethren, in our calling, I promise you the time will come where you will have to. You'll have to do it. All of us will have to do it as a part of our calling.

You know, after the Apostle Paul raised up the churches, he went back to confirm the brethren, and he told them this. We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

You know, Paul learned this from his own experiences, all the things that he went through. And I'll tell you what, his life was an incredible ordeal in so many, many ways.

Paul was shipwrecked. I won't go to the scriptures, but if you want to read what he went through, is in 2 Corinthians 11, verses 23 through 28. Paul was shipwrecked, a night and a day in the Mediterranean Sea. He was beaten five times, receiving 40 stripes, minus one. He was stoned and left for dead. He risked his life, was robbed even. He was thrown in prison, and on and on it goes. Paul had a track record of suffering and persecution. He must have been a very daring human being, and he suffered a lot. I sometimes wonder if Paul went through all of the things that he went through because he realized what he had been before God called him. He had killed Christians.

And I wonder if Paul may have said to himself, you know what, I deserve it. I deserve it.

I don't know about you, but sometimes I go through things, and I may have a problem or something.

I've said, well, God, I understand. I deserve this. I deserve going through this.

Now, I don't know about you, but you know, the older I get, the more I want to do good.

I've seen too much evil in the world.

And, of course, I ask God for his strength to be able to do that good.

But, you know, Paul's life was something that wasn't pretty to experience.

So if you ever get discouraged, brethren, if you ever get down by your trials, it's good to know others have had it much worse. Look to Christ to avoid the discouragement, you know, from these trials and other ordeals you go through in your life. We haven't resisted to bloodshed, as Jesus did. We haven't resisted to bloodshed, as Paul did. And Peter, you know, according to legend, Peter was crucified upside down. He refused to be crucified the way that Christ was, because he did not deserve it. He didn't deserve the same thing. But he suffered willingly. And you could read about saints, and I've read much of the history of that, brethren. It's something, I think, if you ever read a book, read Fox's book of martyrs, if you haven't looked at that in a long, long time. And you realize what people went through, what they endured to be a part of God's church. In Romans 8 and verse 17, I'm not going to turn there, but I want to quote part of the Scripture, because it says there, we will be joint heirs with Christ. Now, again, think about what that means. Joint heirs with Christ? The Son of God? We're going to be joint heirs, you know. It's like if you ever receive an inheritance, and all the people are going to get an inheritance, they show up and sit before the, you know, executor of the will, and all of you have a chance to be partakers of that will. By the way, I've never been in that particular situation. But when the will is read, we're going to be joint heirs with Christ. We're going to be in there, and, you know, God is going to say, you're going to get this, you're going to get that, you know, you're going to have this responsibly. That's the way it's going to be. But Romans 8 verse 17 says, we're joint heirs with Christ, if so that we suffer with Him. You see, we've got to be willing to suffer with Him. And the time may come, brethren, we're going to have to do that in a greater way than we ever have. And then it goes on to say that to be glorified together. And remember, Christ is going to confess us before the Father. And, you know, He's going to say, Dad, this person here is a dedicated person to you. And I have witnessed them. I have seen what they have done. And they should be a part of your family. And we're going to be inducted right into the family of God.

So let's think about that when we can eat that bread that the Passover, the broken Passover bread symbolizes His suffering and the shame that Jesus Christ had to go through.

Point number four. The bread that we eat on Passover, this is very important, pictures the unity of the body of Christ. The unity of the body of Christ. Now let's go over to one particular verse over here in 1 Corinthians 10. 1 Corinthians 10 over here.

1 Corinthians 10 and verse 16. Notice here, just two verses it will read. But it says, the cup of the blessing. Talking about, again, the Passover that we observe, which we bless. Is it not the common communion of the blood of Christ? You know, when we partake of that wine, the word communion is used. I hope we all understand the word communion is a combination of two words. The word common and the word union.

That's where communion comes from. The common union, when we drink that wine on Passover night, it means we're one. We're supposed to be one with each other. And then he says, the bread which we break. Is it not the communion of the body of Christ? Verse 17, for we, though many, are one bread. Here it says, some translations say one loaf. One loaf. We're one big loaf, brethren.

And one body, for we all partake of the one bread. You see, we are welded together through the bread and through the wine at Passover. We're union or we're unified, made in unity, one with another. And of course, we need to have love for one another. One loaf symbolizes the oneness of God's people. I think it's good to remember all of our scattered brethren when we partake of the bread and pray for God to unite us. And these days, brethren, to a large degree, it's reunite God's people. You know, one of the people over in the Hawaiian area had been with the worldwide Church of God years and years ago when they were very young.

And many are still being reunited with the church. And we need to pray about that, that God will do that. And pursuing unity must be a product of all of our efforts, brethren. Let's go to Ephesians 4, Ephesians 4. We begin to wind this message down, but in Ephesians 4, we begin in verse 1 over here, Paul says, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you've been called.

You ever think about that, brethren? Are you walking worthy of the calling that God has given to you?

The awesome calling. Sometimes we give sermons about how special our calling is. Why do we do that?

It's because sometimes we tend to not realize what exactly God has done in our lives. But he said, we're the other calling with which you've been called, with all loneliness. So here, the importance of loneliness or humility and gentleness. You know, we're not raucous with one another. We're not harsh with each other, but we're gentle with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. And with long suffering, we're patient with each other, bearing with one another in love, having this agape love for one another, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Some have not always wanted to do that. You know, oftentimes vanity causes people to want to be in charge, who frankly are not in charge. They were not given that responsibility.

But it says, there is one body, one Spirit, just as you are called in one hope of your calling. So here Paul sort of alliterates all the things that are one, meaning the conclusion should be, we should be unified, right? Isn't that what that means? Would you use the word one all the time? It means would he be unified.

And it says, one Lord, not two Lords, one faith, one baptism, not two kinds of baptisms. All of us are baptized the same way. And one God and the Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you. So naturally we should be unified, shouldn't we be? So that needs to be a part, brethren, of what we're doing in our own lives. Let's drop down to verse 16. It says, from whom the whole body 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 of itself and love. You know, you've got this well-oiled machine that comes about and the body just does the work. It does the work. You know, I want to tell you about this. It's sort of been burning my mind for a long time, but you may or may not have heard of Francis Crick. Francis Crick unraveled the DNA back in 1953. He received the Nobel Prize, in fact, for what he did.

And, you know, he said, in fact, the odds of human beings finding the DNA was one or ten with 260 zeros after it. Now, think about that. In terms of atoms in the universe, it's probably ten to the 60th power.

He made the statement. He says, it was no accident we found the DNA. Because the odds were too great.

You know, when you go above ten to the 60th power, it can't be an accident. It has to have been something that was planned that God gave Adam and Eve that DNA in the Garden of Eden when he created man. But another thing that was very interesting about Francis Crick, he said that if you were to unravel the DNA, it's about two meters long. But in a human body, there are trillions upon trillions of cells. And every cell has DNA. He said, if you put the DNA that's like two meters long, if you put it one into the other, then it would extend, he said, 125 billion miles. That's just one human being. 125 billion miles. An even more astounding thing that he said.

He said, looking at the DNA is that only about five percent of the DNA was necessary to make a human body, the mind, the consciousness, and all the things that cause a human body to actually exist. And he said 95 percent of it, scientists call it junk DNA. Now think about that.

95 percent junk DNA? I think that there's a whole lot more to that 95 percent.

You know, that Jesus Christ, God the Father, I think that God the Father is involved in that 95 percent.

We got the five here. We walk around on this planet. Imagine when all of this machinery of of the DNA is activated, what kind of people we're going to be.

God's people are going to be incredible, and that's why we're going to be a part of the God family.

It's amazing how little difference there is between, you know, in terms of the mind, at least, between a Mozart and a chimpanzee. Think about that. What if God activated that on all of his children? You know, to me, it just shows how great our God is, how tremendous it is, and how we need to respect and love our God, our great Creator. So, you know, when all of that is working together, though, you know, in the kingdom of God, it's going to be incredible what we're going to be able to do.

But right now, we're physical human beings. We were operating on that five percent, but we can grow and develop because we're unified with one another, and we're edifying within the body of Christ based upon the love that we show for each other.

In verse 17, he says, this I say, therefore. You know, whenever you see the word therefore, be good to underline that word because the word therefore helps us to realize that the words that were previous, we ought to put that all together. And then he says here, therefore, you know, because we want to become unified and grow to the measure and stature of Jesus Christ, therefore, and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk in the rest of the Gentiles walk. You know, we shouldn't walk as the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind because they don't have God in the picture.

No, we shouldn't do that at all, should we? We should be looking to God, and we should use our efforts and cooperation with one another to grow and to be able to grow to the measure and the stature of Jesus Christ. We need to again live by God's law and promote unity in the church.

Now, I'm sure Paul saw contention among brethren. It was one of the many lessons that no doubt that Paul learned, and the days of unloved bread again show that we need to be unified there as well, not just the Passover. Let's go down to verse 30, verse 31 here, verse 31 of the same chapter.

It says, let all bitterness, wrath, anger, and clamor, and evil speaking but put away from you.

Just put that away. Ask God to rebuke that, because that's satanic.

If we got that kind of thinking, and he says with all malice and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as the sermonette was bringing about, forgiving one another, even as God and Christ forgave you. You know, God is forgiven us, brethren. We ought to be kind to each other. Here's that word, therefore, again in verse 1 of chapter 5, therefore, it says, be imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.

We need to walk the way Christ walked. Follow his example. And we know that Jesus Christ humbled himself and came in the form of a servant and willingly gave himself, and he died for our sake on the stake. Christ mentality must be in us. One of the last acts that Jesus Christ ever did before he was arrested was to take a towel and then kneel down, and he washed every one of the disciples' feet. Now, that was something that only the loneliest servant in the house would do, but Jesus Christ did that for us. And the foot-washing service, brethren, should set the whole humble, mental tone for the whole Passover for us. And, in fact, not just the Passover, but the days of Unleavened Bread and the year ahead. It reminds us, when we kneel down and wash somebody's feet, you know, some have, of course, beautiful feet, not very many, because oftentimes some people can have gnarly feet. You know, some that, you know, maybe haven't been to a podidarist or somebody that even had clippers for a long, long time. But it reminds us of the humble, serving attitude that Jesus Christ had. And we must develop towards each other all year long.

Humility and a serving attitude are necessary to have unity.

You know, it's amazing how some people can be around for years and years, and seemingly they never offend us solitary. And yet, some people can be around about two minutes and they've offended everybody. See, there's something to learn there, right?

With God's help, any of us can overcome, any of us can change, but it takes humility to maintain that serving attitude and to have the unity that God wants us to have in the church.

So, brethren, when we partake of the bread on pastor overnight, we acknowledge Jesus Christ is the source of eternal life. We acknowledge our relationship with God the Father is through Jesus Christ when we eat of that bread. We acknowledge that, like Christ, our willingness to suffer, even if we have to go through shame for the sake of righteousness, we're willing to do it.

And, brethren, we acknowledge that that bread means that we are going to have to work at being unified. We all have an individual responsibility to work to be together as one. When we partake of the bread of the Passover ceremony, it is one very small piece of bread with a very high hidden meaning.

We must be sure to be ready, brethren, to eat and drink in a worthy manner, realizing how important the sacrifice of Christ was. As a result of that, we discern the Lord's body, which is symbolized both by the bread and by the wine. So, let's think about these things, brethren, as we approach the Passover, and certainly when we actually take those emblems on Passover evening, that we know again what it pictures. And especially, we know what that bread pictures. It pictures more than just a piece of bread. It's much more than that.

But let's think about these things, brethren, very deeply as we approach the Passover.