The Power and Passion of Passover

Well, in preparation for the Passover this year, I would like to discuss two important facets of the annual Passover observance. Personally, this will be my 39th Passover celebration that I will experience this year, the Feast of the Passover, my 39th, very meaningful to me personally, and I'm sure it is to you. I would like to discuss two important facets of the Passover, the power and the passion of the Passover.

I'm going to look at the Passover from those two perspectives, the power behind the Passover service, the passion behind the Passover service, and then I would like to give us a few things to meditate on during the next 30 hours or so until we partake of the Passover service this year. First, I would like to discuss the power of the Passover. If you would turn with me to 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 23. 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 23. Paul wrote to the Corinthian congregation, For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which he was betrayed, he took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take, eat! This is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same manner, he also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. Therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.

But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this reason, many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. I'd like to read verses 28 through 31 from the New Century Version. It says, Look into your own hearts before you eat the bread and drink the cup, because all who eat the bread and drink the cup without recognizing the body eat and drink judgment against themselves.

So that is why many in your group are sick and weak, and many have died. But if we judged ourselves in the right way, God would not judge us. What Paul is saying here is that we should examine our hearts in preparation to take the Passover.

I should examine my heart, not your heart. You should examine your own heart, not your spouse's heart, not your neighbor's heart, not anyone else's heart. When someone partakes of the Passover, it is a relationship between them and Jesus Christ. And tomorrow night I believe that we will have some people show up for the Passover who do not fellowship with us on a regular basis. And my job is to be a shepherd, not to be a control freak. When someone comes in to take the Passover, that is between them and Jesus Christ. It is not my job to interfere with a person's relationship with Jesus Christ.

So if folks show up tomorrow night and they're not of our fellowship and there's someone you don't recognize, welcome them. Because they've examined their own hearts, that's their job. My job is to examine my heart and allow them to come in and participate with God's people and to share the Passover with them. Paul, again, is saying that we should examine our own hearts in preparation to take the Passover. Jesus Christ gave up his life because we are sinners, each and every one of us.

And we're in need of the cleansing of the shed blood of Jesus Christ in our hearts and in our minds. And if we recognize that we are nothing without Christ, and we truly are, we are nothing without God, and we humbly approach the throne of grace. God has no need to judge us. So it all starts with that examination by saying to ourselves, Father, you are everything, I am nothing without you. I am weak and I am pitiful. And we'll read a scripture in which says God has pity on us and that word is used.

I am pitiful, I am weak, I am in need of the atoning and forgiving blood of Jesus Christ. That's something that we need to do in examining our own hearts and minds and not examining other people. Unfortunately, as human beings, we have a tendency over time to take people and to take things for granted.

And then what happens? When they're almost taken away from us, then we panic. When they're gone, then we regret that the people are the things that we had that were given to us that have been taken away. That's when we say, wow, I wish that I hadn't taken it for granted. I wish I hadn't assumed it would just last forever.

That that person would last forever or that thing would last forever. We have a tendency to take people and things for granted. And over time, we can take our respect and our awe for God for granted. The awe that we had when God first called us. The awe of being part of His family. Of being called out of this world and being given an opportunity to have His Holy Spirit. And our respect for God and our awe for God can wane because we begin to take everything around us for granted. We can take our church members for granted. We can take Bible study for granted.

We can take prayer for granted. And we can begin to get within ourselves so tightly with our own problems and our own concerns, our own anxieties and our own worries that we forget where the priority is. And the priority is about God and putting God first in our lives. Let's go to Psalm 51 beginning in verse 1. Psalm 51 beginning in verse 1. Now this isn't a prayer that we would need to pray every day, but it's certainly a good one to think about before the Passover. This in context was David finally coming to a repentance over the many sins around his adultery with Bathsheba.

He not only, of course, committed adultery, he had an innocent man murdered. And it had to be stark reality when he realized that a Gentile like Uriah the Hittite had more character than King David. He was a classier man and a better man than King David. And when David realized that he was a murderer and an adulterer, that he was a deceiver, that he had taken God for granted, that he had taken his relationship as King for granted, God said to him later on, you know, if you would have needed something else, you should have just told me and I would have given it to you.

But that's human nature. That's a problem that we all fall into and why the Passover is so important for us annually to do over and over again because it helps us to reorient where our thinking should be. David committed a grave sin and he would have to pay for his sin because a child that he produced would die as a result of his sin because his conduct blasphemed God.

And here's how David reacts to this and it's good for us to think about as we prepare for the Passover. Psalm 51 beginning in verse 1, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your lovingkindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions. And each and every one of us in this room, we have transgressions that need to be blotted out. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Each and every one of us in this room need the shed blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse us from our sins.

Verse 3, Notice the attitude, I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is always before me. Sometimes, even though our sins are forgiven, we remember them a long, long time, don't we? Long after they've been forgiven by Jesus Christ, sometimes long after a person we offended, we've reconciled with them. Sometimes the hurt of that lasts a long, long time. My sin is always before me. He says in verse 4, Against you, you only have I sinned and done evil in your sight, that you may be found just when you speak and blameless when you judge.

So God is fair. He's the God of justice. Verse 5, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me. That doesn't mean his mother was sexually promiscuous. It means that he was born a carnal human being, prone with a tendency like we were all born to sin, to be selfish, to be self-centered, to be self-absorbed. That's how we came out of the womb.

Our knees were foremost, weren't they? We were a little uncomfortable in our pants and what to... Right? We were a little hungry. And, you know, some of us 40, 50 years later.

It may not be over a diaper or over mama, but it's sometimes over other things that we want, and we want it right now. And that's something that David came to understand in himself. Verse 6, Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts. And that is so important. You know, I knew an evangelist once who could get up there and give the most stirring sermons and condemnation of adultery, but the man had a lifelong problem with adultery. Not one time a lifelong pattern of adultery in his entire life. And I learned the lesson that sometimes people can say all the right words, but their insides are corrupt. They can look good, they can sound good, they can say all the right things, but what is on the inside of their hearts is foul and corrupt. And he says, Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts. Not just the right words at the right time, not being glib, not dressing well, you know, all the physical things that men look at in this world, but truth in the inward parts. That comes through examining ourselves. And in the hidden part, you will make me to know wisdom, purge me with hyssop. And in the Bible study or the sermon last week, we mentioned that hyssop was a medicinal plant used as a brush, and the ancient Israelites used hyssop to paint the blood on the lentil and the door post on the evening of the death of the firstborn. They used that medicinal plant because it represented cleansing. He says, Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Now it's getting more positive. Purge me, he says, clean me, wash me, and the result will be, I will be whiter than snow, meaning all of my sins and all of my transgressions and all the stupid things I've done for a lifetime and for the last year and for the last week and even yesterday, okay, since noon, that all of those things will be forgiven. And as far as you are, God, I will be whiter than snow.

Make me hear joy and gladness. He says, Restore me. Reboot my life and restore our relationship over again. So I have gladness and joy and contentment, and that's what the Passover can do for us. Make me hear joy and gladness that the bones you have broken may rejoice. So when Christ is our Savior, our worst sins, our worst transgressions can be forgiven. Even when we sin against other people, do you realize that we ultimately sin against God? If we offend someone that we love, or we say something to our spouse that's hurtful or unkind, we certainly should apologize and we should make up for those things. But ultimately, it's God's law that we violated. It's offending something that God created that ultimately we're sinning against God, no matter what we do to another human being. It's ultimately going back to sinning against God. In the middle verses of what we just read can appear hopeless, can appear discouraging in some of the things that David said.

But when we see ourselves as we really are, we can feel crushed and we can feel shattered. We can feel disgusted with ourselves, ashamed of ourselves. And God desires at the Passover again to reboot, to wipe the slate clean, and to give us forgiveness and spiritual healing and joy.

We all too often leave out the joy part, which after all is one of the fruits of God's Holy Spirit.

That's what God wants to restore in our hearts and in our minds is a feeling of contentment and inner peace and joy. Let's go to Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 11. Hebrews chapter 9 verse 11. Paul wrote to the congregation in the book of Hebrews, but Christ came as high priest of the good things to come with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is not of this creation, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood. And we will picture that when we partake of the wine during the Passover, the shed blood of Jesus Christ. But with His own blood, He entered into the Most Holy Place once for all. He only had to do it. He only had to die and sacrifice His life once. And you know He did it for all. He did it for you. He did it for the spiritually blind bum who's walking on the streets of Berea today. He did it for people that lived their whole lifetimes in Asia and never heard the name of Christ. He did it for the unborn. He died once and for all of us. According and depending on one, God opens our minds up at what age at one time, whatever time He chooses, so that we can accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, having obtained eternal redemption, not for a week, not just for a little while, but eternal redemption. Verse 13, for if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, if those mere animal sacrifices in the Old Testament made it possible for those people to have a relationship with God, verse 14, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? I'd like to read verse 14 from the translation God's word for today. It says, the blood of Christ, who had no defect, does even more. Through the eternal Spirit, He offered Himself to God and cleansed our consciences from the useless things we had done. Now we can serve the living God.

So, brethren, in preparation for the Passover, if we examine ourselves, which is what we're encouraged to do, and acknowledge our sins and our weaknesses, we have the right to live with a clear conscience. When we repent of our sins and who and what we are, and we renew our vow of baptism during the Passover, we have the right to live with a clear conscience.

No one even has a right, no one in the faith, to throw something in our face that we did a year ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, because that is contrary to what the Passover is all about. No matter how we've sinned, no matter how vile, how disgusting we have been, we have the right, through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, to live with a clear conscience.

And what holds some of us back is that over and over again throughout our lifetimes, we've allowed experiences from our youth or previous mistakes to keep us guilty, to keep us in a sense of shame, to keep us feeling inferior or not good enough. We have not understood or appreciated the power of the shed blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse our consciences from useless things, things that have no value. So why relive an event that occurred a year ago over and over again in your mind? It just makes you aggravated and it makes you angry all over again. What's the purpose of that? It serves no purpose. And if it's someone that was within the faith, when we come to the Passover tomorrow night, no matter how much I had been offended, no matter how much you had been offended, we should have examined ourselves and come here and say, Lord, I want you to forgive me, and I'm going to forgive my brothers or sisters, no matter what organization, no matter where they're at or what they're doing or how much I've been hurt, I'm taking this Passover in the way in which it is intended. Let's go focus in on this, Matthew 6 and verse 12. We may not like the thought that Jesus said that forgiveness can be conditional.

Some people may not like that concept theologically, that forgiveness can be conditional, but this is what Jesus is saying here in Matthew chapter 6. He's saying you'll be forgiven of everything, everything you've ever done. This slate is wiped clean. Your life is as pure as the driven snow. Everything is fine with God. Your conscience can be cleared. There's no reason to feel guilt or shame, but there's one little thing you have to do. Jesus says you have to follow my example. Let's see what it is. Matthew chapter 6 and verse 12. He says, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one for yours as the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will the Father forgive your trespasses. It's conditional. When we come to the Passover tomorrow night and we ask God to forgive me, and as we acknowledge what the power of that shed blood means in the broken body of Jesus Christ, we need to realize that we need to forgive everyone and anyone who has ever heard us or offended us that's caused pain in our lives. Because that's the true meaning of the Passover, my friends. Jesus is saying there's a condition, the forgiveness, we have to be like He was and is. He willingly forgave those who beat Him.

Now, I've been deeply offended in my lifetime, but no one literally has ever beat me to within an inch of my life. There have been some who wished they could beat me within an inch of my life, but no matter how I have been offended, it's never been as deep as the fact that He forgave those who beat Him. Jesus Christ forgave those who whipped Him with pieces of leather tied with bone and metal, that every time they would hit His flesh, it would tear a chunk of flesh out of His body. And I can tell you that I've been hurt and I've been offended, but I've never been hurt and offended to the point that large chunks of my flesh were torn out of my body.

He forgave those who spit on Him. And yes, I've been hurt and I've been offended, but no one in the faith has ever literally spit on me. He forgave those who mocked Him.

He forgave those who put nails, hammered nails, through His flesh. And I can tell you that I've been offended pretty deeply at times, and I'm sure you have, but I don't know anybody here. I've never seen scars in any of your hands where anyone put a stake through your hands or your feet.

But He forgave them. He forgave those who stabbed Him. He forgave His twelve disciples who abandoned Him, who He invested three and a half years of His life. And when the chips were down and they needed Him the most, they're all running like scared rabbits. Surprisingly, it was the women who stood by the cross and supported Him and gave Him encouragement. Where were the He-men?

Hiding. But He forgave them all, each and every one of them. He said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. And that's from Luke chapter 23 and verse 34. He died to pay the price for our sins and our offenses. And if we want the forgiveness of the Father for our sins, we must be willing to forgive others who have enraged us, angered us, offended us to the core, to the deepest marrow of our bones. That's the condition that Jesus says is required to get the full, rich and true meaning of what the Passover is really all about. Now I would like to discuss the passion of the Passover. If you'll turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 17.

Paul writes again to the Corinthian congregation. He says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them. The fact that we have God's Spirit and we annually renew that beautiful ceremony of the Passover means that God does not impute our trespasses to us. They're forgiven. God looks at us and he says, forgiven, blessed, a person under grace, a person loved by God, favored and special in the sight of God Almighty.

But before we can have a healthy relationship with each other, it has to begin with our relationship with God. And again, that's what the Passover is all about. It's about the right kind of relationship with God. And if we do that, then our relationships with others get easy. But it all starts with reconciling with God. Jesus Christ willingly became sin for us and his righteousness begins the process. Let's go in verse 20 now then. We are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us. Who's he pleading to? He's pleading to the world through our lives and our commitment. What kind of example are we setting? He says, we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. That's where it all begins. And that's what the Passover is all about.

Renewing our commitment, our level of zeal and dedication to God Almighty. Verse 21, For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that is Jesus Christ, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Again, I've said this many times and I will say it again, that we are righteous in God's eyes not because of anything we do. We are obedient because of the fruits of God's Holy Spirit. We are righteous in God's eyes because Jesus Christ fills the gap. Where we fall short, where we sin, where we struggle, Jesus Christ in his righteousness fills that gap. And it's for that reason that we are righteous in the sight of God.

Brother, in the same way that we became a new creation at baptism, at Passover, we rekindle that original vow and commitment we made at that time to be a faithful disciple. Once again, all things can become new and all things can be freshened. Our lives can be reinvented. But before we can have a healthy relationship with each other, it all begins with our relationship with God. Jesus Christ willingly became sin for us and his righteousness begins the process of reconciliation. So think about that when you come to the Passover tomorrow, how it's about reconciliation. It's about rekindling, renewing our commitment to Jesus Christ. Because God knows the way we are as carnal human beings. He knows we take things for granted.

You get a new suit of clothes. Oh wow, I got a new suit of clothes. Wow. Three months later, this old thing, we get a brand new car. Oh, that new car. Six months later, boy, I can't wait until I trade this clunker in. Why? Because we just tend to take things for granted. That is the way that we are. It's the dark side of human nature. And God knew that. And that's why he has the Passover and he has annual festivals to remind us of where we need to align ourselves with again, and where our hearts and minds need to be, and where our priorities need to be. So how are we doing as ambassadors for the kingdom of God? Are our lives so zealous and so positive and joyful that other people want what we have? That's a pretty tough question to ask. In other words, our lives as ambassadors. Have you ever seen an ambassador in television, a political ambassador? What's he do? He paints his government in the most positive light as possible. He supports his government. He's there for his rulers. He's positive about the nation that he represents.

Is that how we come across other people? Want to ask us questions about our faith, about the Church of God? Or are we carrying around this 20 years of baggage from every hurt and pain and guilt and mistake ever made by people or organizations or anything else? Are we dragging these around with us spiritually? So when someone asks us a question, we kind of dump on them all of the stuff that's been acquired for so many years. What kind of ambassadors are we?

Let's go to Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 20. Something else to consider about passion.

Passion is about zeal. It's about being new and clean. It's about being free. The excitement that comes from freedom, from sin and shame. Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 20.

Paul says to the congregation that Ephesus, But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard him and been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off concerning your former conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to deceitful lust and be renewed by the spirit of your mind, that you put on the new man which was created according to God, the true righteousness and holiness. He was talking to a group of people that were converted and had God's Holy Spirit, just like I'm talking to all of us today. Do you know that we still struggle with the old man? I certainly do. And that old man, as I get older, isn't getting any better. He's just getting older.

He's getting crankier. He's getting more carnal because that's what we struggle with in our lives. And he says, put off that carnal part of ourselves. Shove it aside. Struggle against it. Use God's Spirit as a shield against those passions and those evil thoughts and the things that were stupid things that we say and do that hurt other people. Put those things off, he says. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Again, the Passover is all about renewal.

And that's why we're going to partake of it tomorrow night. That you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. Not that we are righteous or we are holy of ourselves. We know that it's because of Jesus Christ that we can qualify for those things.

You know, most of us have been learning about Christ and His teachings for decades. I look out among you and I see people that have been around 20, 30, 40 years, a long, long time. But we still struggle with our carnal emotions and conduct, don't we? I do. I can tell you that I certainly do. But the Passover is a reminder of our need to put off that carnal behavior and to be renewed. I'd like to give you an analogy about my computer. I may have used this before, but I use something called Microsoft Windows and probably would appreciate your prayers about that.

And right now I have Windows 7 on my computer. But computers have limited resources. They have memories. Literally called memory. And they have limited resources. And what happens is if I leave that computer on for two or three weeks and I never turn it off and on again, every time I open a program and close it, it leaves a little junk behind in that memory. And over a period of time, I'm looking on the Internet, I'm opening up Word, I'm doing Excel, I'm doing all these things. And every time I close these programs over a period of time, more and more of the resources of that computer are drained, are burdened to the point that it slows down that computer. And then after a while, I even have some programs that because two or three times they were energized previously, there are residual parts of the memory, they won't even be up come up anymore. So what do I have to do? I have to turn the computer off, I have to reboot it. And that refreshes the memory.

The rebooting process takes all of that junk, all the residual slop out of the memory, so that when the computer comes up and reboots again, its operating system is fresh and new and clean.

And that's how the Passover can be for us. It's a chance to reboot who and what we are, and to stop having our emotional resources drained and siphoned off by other things in life that aren't important. People's agendas or our own problems or struggling with this issue in life or that issue or this problem or that problem. It's a chance to wipe the slate clean and have our lives renewed.

And that, my friends and my brethren, is very, very important. We too need to reboot and to clear our minds of the residual and negative stuff that we've acquired since the last Passover.

Now, in the conclusion of this sermon, and we're certainly going to end early today, I'd just like to give you some meditational thoughts to help all of us to prepare for the Passover. The next 30 hours or so, we'll be thinking. Some of us will be having a little private time. We'll be doing some prayer and Bible study. We'll be thinking about the beauty, the power, and the passion of the Passover. I'd like to take a look at some scriptures and make some comments. Again, I call them meditational thoughts about the Passover. Let's first go to 1 Peter, chapter 5 and verse 6. 1 Peter, chapter 5 and verse 6. I think one of the problems that we struggle with in the church and as God's people is we don't hear a whole lot about Satan anymore.

Maybe it's because we're so modern. We have science. We can explain all that. We can explain every illness today, and we have a diagnosis for everything, but we don't hear a whole lot about Satan anymore. Certainly not as much as the church used to talk about Satan 30-40 years ago. I can assure you that from my personal experience. But here's what Peter reminds us. 1 Peter, chapter 5, he says, therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. That's certainly very powerful to think about before the Passover. That he may exalt you in due time. When is due time? It's when God thinks it's right. And we live in a world where everyone wants to force God's hand. You know, people in the world are power-hungry at work. They all want the promotions. They stab each other in the back. They gossip about each other. And they do anything they can to get ahead of someone else.

They want to be exalted now. And there are similar problems that occur in the Church of God for periods of time. But what he says here is humble yourselves and God, when the time is right, God will exalt you. You don't need to play politics. You don't need to crave titles or power or anything else. When the time is right, God will bless you and he will exalt you at his time. Verse 7, casting all your cares upon him, for he cares for you. God loves us in spite of who and what we are. In spite of our flaws and weaknesses, he cares for us.

Verse 8, be sober. Be vigilant. Because you're adversary, the devil walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And again, this is being written to church, brethren. This isn't talking about all those poor, blind people in the world.

He wants to devour us. Did Pharaoh want the ancient Israelites to leave Egypt?

He had to be pounded ten times with plagues before he would even let them start. And then he went after him again. He did not want to let God's people go. And I can assure you that Satan does not want to let you go. He thinks he owns you. After all he did at one time, he believes he owns you, seeking whom he may devour. Verse 9, resist him steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.

So anywhere God's people are, where are God's people? God's people are those that God has given his Holy Spirit to. Those are my brothers and sisters, and they're in many different organizations.

After all, that's between them and God. They're in many areas of the world. Some speak Chinese.

Some live in Africa and have dark skin. Some live all over the world in Europe in areas of the world that we would think are rather wastelands. But anywhere that God gives a person his Holy Spirit, he knows who they are. The shepherd knows his sheep, and they recognize the call of the shepherd. And you know what? All of them have the same problems that you and I do. They all struggle with the same carnality, the same temptations, the same works of the flesh they fight against. What we have as individuals are unique to us. The problems that we go through are shared by brethren, everywhere around the world. That's why he says knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world, but may the God of all grace, that's favor and pardon, forgiveness, all grace, who called us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus after you have suffered a while.

And we all suffer, we all go through trials, two reasons for trials. One, God may decide to give us a trial to teach us something to take our lives from here to up here where it should be. Many times our trials are self-created. We bring problems and trials and grief upon ourselves. And oftentimes even when we do that, God will say, well great, this is a great opportunity for me to use what they brought upon themselves to take them from here to up here where they should be. But those are the two reasons. Either God may give us a trial test, or we may create our own problems and trials. But we will suffer because we go through that. And that's okay because he says, after you have suffered for a while, if our attitude was right, our heart was right, and we've repented, and we've accepted the teaching, we've accepted what God wanted us to learn, if you have suffered a while, here's what he will make you. Perfect, establish, strengthen, you'll be stronger, and here's the best part. Settle you, give you peace and calmness and take away the anxiety that is within you. To him be the glory and dominion forever and ever.

Well, looking at 1 Peter chapter 5, I'd just like to encourage you not to underestimate the power of Satan in this world. Like Pharaoh of ancient Egypt, Satan wants us back. He wants us to accept him as sovereign in our lives. After all, at one time he was sovereign in our lives. He knows our individual weaknesses, he knows our flaws, he knows your Achilles heel, he knows where you are particularly weak and susceptible to having your mind warped and distorted. That's how well he knows us. And he is relentless in getting us to abandon the faith. He'll never give up his claim or his desire to have us abandon faith or for him to be the spiritual Pharaoh that keeps us in slavery.

Brethren, don't give him an inch, because if you give him an inch, trust me, he'll claim a yard. He'll grab a yard out of your heart and out of your mind.

So don't underestimate the power of Satan in the world. Satan is still very active in the world. He's very active in the church, trying to, A, destroy the church, and B, destroy us as individuals as part of the members in the flock of Jesus Christ. Now let's go to another scripture, Matthew 22 and verse 35. Matthew 22 and verse 35.

Another thing that the Passover can remind us about that we need to meditate on is where our priority is in life. If you're like myself and you can work, and if you have hobbies, if you are involved in different things, they all have a pull on your life. Don't you think of all the things that are pulling on your time every day that are pulling at you. Give me attention, you know, this hobby. Give me attention, your job. Give me attention, that broken thing in your house. Give me attention, everything just tugging and pulling on us. Matthew 22 and verse 35. In one of them, a lawyer asked him a question, testing him and saying, Teacher, what is the great commandment in the law? And Jesus said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. Brethren, God wants to be first in our lives. He doesn't want to be second place. He doesn't want to be relegated to a back room in the corner of our mind. He doesn't want to be on the back burner. He wants to be there in the forefront, first and foremost, first in our thoughts, first in our priorities. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 6, seek you first the kingdom of God. And you know what he said? If you do that, all the material things that you desire will eventually be given to you. If you want a nice home, if you want nice clothes, you want a car, you want all these things, get your priorities in order. He says, and I will bless you for doing that. So God wants to be first in our lives. And the Passover is a good time for us to meditate and say to ourselves, am I loving the Lord my God with all my heart and my soul and my mind? And how can you determine that? How do we spend most of our free time?

In my consulting practice, I give people particular tests. And depending on what they tell me they do with their free time, I know what their values are. All I have to do is see where they're spending their free time, because that tells me what's most important in their lives, is what they're doing during their free time. That doesn't mean we should enjoy hobbies. We should enjoy hobbies. And we should spend time with people we love. And we should spend adequate time for recreation and all the things that enrich life. But if we're doing those things and, oh, I didn't get Bible study in again this month. Well, I haven't prayed since Tuesday.

If we're doing all those other things and we're not making God the priority in our lives, that's a problem. So we need to meditate on that. Remember that God wants to be first in our lives. Now let's go to Revelation chapter 2 and verse 1. Revelation chapter 2 and verse 1. This is a message the angel gives to the Church at Ephesus. Ephesus was one of the seven churches that existed all at the same time when this was written. To the Church of the, to the Angel of the Church at Ephesus, write these things, says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks and admits to the seven golden lampstands, I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they're apostles and are not and have found them liars. And you have persevered and have patience and have labored for my namesake and have not become weary. All those are positive traits. Those are good things.

He says in verse 4, nevertheless, I have this against you that you have left your first love.

Remember therefore from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. Oh brethren, we can come to the Passover and should come to the Passover with a repentant heart. And of course, repentance means not just being sorry for our sins and our evil and the corrupt way that we are, and we oftentimes think, but it means saying, all right, that's enough. Yes, the slate is wiped clean, but I'm going to start going in another direction. I'm going to change these problems and these attitudes and this direction that I've been heading in, and I'm going to turn around, and I'm going to go God's way. We need to reclaim our first love. Remember the simple and beautiful things that brought you to God in the first place? How exciting it was to receive a book, receive a booklet in the mail and read it? Your first Sabbath service, all the energy and people of like my, the excitement you had when you came. Hey, there are other people who believe in the Sabbath and holy days just like I've come to see them. And the excitement that existed when you walked into a room and there were actually a bunch of people walking around. The excitement you had when you first opened your Bible and you could understand something. The excitement you had when you first talked to God and realized that you could have a personal relationship with Him. It's those beautiful things that brought us to God in the first place. Prayer and Bible study, a thirst for knowledge, wanting to know more about Jesus Christ and live like He did. Fellowship, all of those beautiful things that we experienced. What happens? We begin to take them for granted.

We get offended or it isn't new and shiny anymore and we begin to take it for granted and we lose that first love. And Jesus is saying here to this particular church in Revelation 2 that you have left your first love. He says, I have this against you.

You don't have that enthusiasm and zeal from my way of life anymore. Christianity, being my disciple, has become ho-hum to you and not an exciting journey. He says, and you need to fix that, is what He tells this particular church. So think about our first love and think about what you can do to restore that first love in your personal life. Let's go to Psalm 103 and verse 8. Psalm 103 and verse 8. Some beautiful qualities about the character of our God.

The Lord is merciful and gracious. He gives us abundantly of His grace, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. Sure, when we do something wrong, He's going to spank our little bottoms, because that's what a loving Father does. And we're going to do things in our life, and it's going to come back in our heads, and God is going to allow us to have our little bottoms spanked and spanked hard. But He says, He will not strive, always strive with us, nor keep His anger forever. He'll let us learn lessons. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. How do we know that? Because we're still breathing. If He dealt with us according to our sins, if He gave me what I deserved, I would collapse on the floor now and be dead.

But because He is merciful and gracious and slow to anger and abounding in mercy, He doesn't punish us according to our iniquities. Verse 11, for as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy towards those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Wow! They're gone in God's eyes. And tomorrow, when we come to the Passover and we eat those Passover symbols and we reflect on Christ, except the mercy and the grace of God, there's no reason to live in the past. There's no reason to live in the past year or past 10 years or past 20 years of mistakes and shame or guilt. Brethren, we need to allow the blood of Jesus Christ to offer complete healing and cleansing and forgiveness, and it is complete.

Meditate on that as you prepare for the Passover. Let's go to 2 Corinthians 11, beginning in verse 2. 2 Corinthians 11, verse 2. Paul, speaking to the congregation that he gave so much of his personal energy and resources to, he said, For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin of Christ. But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it. He says, I am so concerned about you because you are so gullible. You are so easy to be manipulated and used, he says.

And, brethren, allow this Passover and meditate on getting back the basics. You know, Christianity is a very simple way of life. It really is. It is centered around faith, forgiveness, obedience, fruits. That's what it's centered about. But sadly, every generation of the church, and I have studied history and I've lived through it for 40 years, every generation of the church has Pharisees who distort the faith to support their own personal agenda. They create dozens of doctrines of men, all centered around giving them power or manipulating people. Don't fall for it.

Tell God that you're only interested in what His agenda is. Come to the Passover and say, Father, I'm only interested in what your agenda is, and here it is. 2 Peter 3, 18, Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.

So allow this Passover to inspire you to get back to the basics. Don't be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ that Paul talks about here. Now let's go to John chapter 15 and verse 12. John chapter 15 and verse 12. This is our final scripture today, John chapter 15 and verse 12. A scripture that will be read on the Passover evening itself. The words of Christ.

It says, This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this than to lay down one's life for his friends. You were my friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends. For all things that I heard from my father I have made known to you, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain. What does he mean that your fruit should remain? He means not just the fruit that you had during your first love when you were on fire for God's way and you couldn't wait to read a new booklet that came out or you looked forward to Bible study every morning or you got down on your knees and you prayed innocent prayers without being complicated and without worrying about too many things. It was a simple, pure and beautiful faith. He says, that's good, but I want fruit that you have grown for a lifetime. Not just our first love, but five years, ten years, twenty years, forty years, fifty years, sixty years. Fruit that remains. You know, my journey through the church, I've seen a lot of men who were supernovas. Oh, they had everything. They were charismatic. They were gifted. They were good-looking. The right words came out of their mouths and they went and burst across the sky in their splendor and glory and fell to earth and it all went dark. They disappeared. They're gone. I can't even tell you where most of them are today. They probably don't even know where they are today. So there have been a lot of supernovas, but brethren, what God wants are fruits that last for a lifetime. I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give you. So the final thing I'd like to give you to meditate on is that the Passover reminds us of our earthly mission. Our friend, our Savior, and our God has given you a special appointment and that's go and bear fruit. Take all that you've learned, including your mistakes, because if we learned the right things from our mistakes, we learned, I'm not going to do that again, right? So take your life experiences and go and bear fruit.

Not just for a season, but for a lifetime. And if you want to know what kind of fruit He means, we can find them listed in Galatians chapter 5. We won't go there today.

Well, tomorrow evening is the Passover and we still have some time to reflect on some of the things I mentioned in the sermon today. I encourage you to meditate and think about what our Savior, Jesus Christ, did for us, what He did for you, what He did for me.

And again, I want you to think about the fact that if you were the only one who had ever been born, He would have been willing to die for you alone. That's how much He loves you. That's how much He loves all of us. Brethren, we've been through a difficult year and the painful emotions that we've all been through can hurt and they can run very deep. But it's the Passover. Let the healing begin. Let's accept the promise of the Passover. Let's forgive others. Let's forgive ourselves.

And as new creatures in Christ, let's promise ourselves and make the commitment that we are moving forward. That we're taking the fullness of the Passover in the way that it was intended. Have a wonderful Sabbath.