Prepare to Participate in the Passover

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We're beginning a new annual festival season. God's seven annual festivals will begin very, very soon now. And He describes His festivals in Leviticus 23 and verse 1 as being very, very important. He said to Moses, Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, the feasts of the Lord. When God creates something, it is good.

These are God's feasts, and they are feasts that have been developed with depth and meaning and breath and future, and very, very important. You shall proclaim them to be holy convocations. These are my feasts. The word translated holy convocations means a sacred assembly, a meeting, or a rehearsal. Interesting word, a rehearsal. So it's a commanded assembly that is also very sacred, very important, and it is a rehearsal.

It's interesting how the faithful come together at these feasts of God and actively participate. We come and we are involved, and there are symbols. And as we go through the festival season, we partake of symbols, we get involved in the feasts, and we rehearse what they portray, even as the Sabbath that we're keeping right now. The Sabbath God made holy. It's the first feast in verse 3. Six days shall work be done, but you'll participate in a different way on the seventh day. You will rest. You'll change what you're thinking, change what you're doing. You'll have an assembly. You'll come together.

You'll prepare for that. You'll prepare for the day. You'll participate with one another in various things, various serving opportunities, and everybody will sing together. There's probably food. And we rehearse God's plan of salvation in that Jesus Christ will return and He will reign. And this is a day of peace and togetherness and unity. Participating in these feasts shows our faith in the plan of salvation that they represent, our trust in God that we ultimately are heading for the kingdom of God.

In verse 4, these are the feasts of the Lord. Proclaim them. Holy convocations, gatherings, and in a sense, rehearsals, sacred meetings. He says, proclaim them at their appointed times. The first one of the annual festivals in verse 5 is on the 14th day of the first month at twilight is the Lord's Passover. The first festival is an awesome festival. It's a wonderful festival.

It is not in any way intended to be negative or bring any sort of discouragement or anything like that. It's the awesomeness of the festival that opens the plan of salvation for humanity, for all humanity, which systematically every feast will take us through, that plan of salvation for everyone. It's the grand opening. It is sober in that God in the Old Testament came as a human and lived and went through so much in order to make that gateway open, in order to make that opportunity available to humans. The focus of this sermon is that first feast, the one that's coming up, the Passover.

And I'd like us to ask a question. As we prepare for the Passover, what can you and I plan to bring to participate in the Passover? What can you and I contribute to this year's Passover service? You and I need to be involved. It's a participatory. It's something that we do together. We do together with God and Jesus Christ. We come together for the Passover.

What can we do to prepare for that? The title of the sermon today is, Prepare for Participating in the Passover. Prepare to Participate in the Passover. Things that we can do in preparation for that, first of all, is to prepare to revere Jesus Christ as the Passover Lamb. This is something that we have to get in our minds.

We have to start putting there and beginning to appreciate. We have to just walk into the Passover and say, oh, oh, yeah, what's this day about? No. We need to prepare to revere Jesus Christ as the Passover Lamb. In advance of the original Passovers in the Sinai Covenant, that Lamb was chosen days in advance. It was selected carefully. It had meaning. You did certain things with that. You took it somewhere. You got involved with a priest, and you got involved with a sprinkling of blood at the temple or at the tabernacle.

Then you got involved in its roasting, its eating, and sharing it with your family and perhaps another family. So what can we do? This festival is the awesome memorial of the greatest event in the history of the physical universe. There's nothing that is like it. Nothing at all. Christ's sacrifice for those who repent is so magnanimous, it's hard for you and me to even grasp what it was. We've never been a God-being sitting in heaven with glowing, burning majesty that with a voice can create the universe and everything in it in detail, including human beings in the image and likeness of God.

We've never been there. We don't understand what it's like to divest yourself of that incredible top-level authority and power and personal composition and come down to being a fertilized embryo that grew in Mary's womb and would become a baby and ultimately go through what he did. To consider who he was and then consider how he was treated and that his life had to be ended in a way that would represent the worst combination of all the worst sins by all the satanic minds that could ever exist. It's just incomprehensible. And yet, the Passover is our annual reminder of that level of sacrifice and love and service to us.

To help us begin to prepare to honor that great, awesome gift that Jesus did with all of its magnitude, we kind of need some help, don't we? We can go to the heavenly realm and see how they honor it. Let's go to Revelation 4 and verse 2. I find this as a helpful tutor or instruction to see how others do it.

Those, not just humans, but those who are at the head, at the top, at the headquarters, the very highest of the high. How do they honor Jesus Christ's sacrifice? We see in verse 4 that we're coming here, a throne set in heaven and one sitting on the throne. You have God the Father. In verse 4, around this throne, we see the royalty of heaven. Around the throne, verse 4, were 24 thrones. Again, we're talking here about the high elevated leadership in the kingdom of God currently.

And on the thrones I saw 24 elders sitting clothed in white robes, and they had crowns of gold on their heads. And in the midst of the throne and around the throne were four living creatures full of eyes in front and back. If you can imagine this scene, let's go to chapter 5 and verse 6. And I looked and behold, and in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, in the midst of those elders stood a lamb as though it had been slain.

Hmm. Verse 8, breaking into the verse, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb, each having a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. There's some involvement here. In verse 9, and they sang a new song, as we do at Passover, they sang a new song, saying, You are worthy to take the scroll and open its seals, for you were slain, and you have redeemed them to God by your blood, out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

And then I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne. The living creatures and the elders and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands. I'm not a mathematician, but I think that's millions. A lot. And they were all saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. See, Jesus Christ's sacrifice was that awesome, recognized in that arena by those individuals. It's the starting point of our salvation. It's why the physical universe exists and everything in it.

What the Holy Days that follow it will picture is the process by which the Passover allows us to proceed to eternal life, to ultimately will be at that throne. Ultimately will be with the kingdom of God. Jesus Christ's Passover sets the foundation for all the events that are portrayed in the annual festivals that follow it. Some of the festivals we tend to like because of various reasons. For instance, this time of year people are saying, where are you going to the feast?

You know, the feast. Because we like what those festivals portray and that one portrays a wonderful time in the kingdom of God when there's harmony and blessings from God and people are living and obeying God. But this feast is the memorial of what enables humanity to ultimately be in the kingdom of God. It's the grand opening to the path of life. You and I can now prepare to heartily, heartily participate, to heartily praise Jesus Christ and God the Father who gave his only begotten Son. We can be awed by the gravity of his service, of his sacrifice, if we think about it.

And then we can rejoice in the gift of his liberation to all humans who have been enslaved by sin and Satan in a wrong mindset. And they couldn't get away from it, just as the Israelites were trapped there in Egypt. And through the death of the firstborn, which was a tragic event throughout Egypt, it was grueling. It was tough for the Egyptians. The Israelites could rejoice and go out with a high hand towards their kingdom, towards the physical kingdom, the promised land of Canaan. We can also in advance examine and reconfirm our new covenant with God. This is a time for us to say Jesus Christ committed himself fully to the new covenant.

He has given all that he possibly could. The Father has given all that he possibly could. How about you and me? How have we responded to the new covenant in his blood? He made a covenant with you and me. Let's go to Hebrews 9 and verse 15.

Hebrews 9 and verse 15. Because of his sacrifice, then, it says, therefore... Oh, sorry. Hebrews 9 and 15.

And for this reason, he is the mediator of the new covenant by means of death. Let's fix it in our minds that this new covenant, which gives us the relationship to become the first fruits with him, be the bride of Christ, it is through means of his death. For the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant that those who are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance. So his death wasn't about his death. The Passover isn't just about, oh, Jesus died a horrible death. Jesus's death was horrible and solemn, and we acknowledge it because he is so committed, as it says here, to receive the promise of eternal inheritance. That's more than eternal life. That's inheritance with him, all that he is, as his bride, as his personal family. He is the owner, the inheritor of all things, and he will share that with us.

In verse 28, Christ was offered once to bear the sins of Midi. To those who eagerly wait for him, he will appear a second time apart from sin for salvation. So we then engage with him in this process of conversion, we call it, of development into being Christ-like and being part of his body. And we do that for salvation, and we eagerly wait for that. These all go together. You can't just separate one from the other. And so if we renew our zeal in this covenant on our part, it provides us more of an engagement at the Passover and the festivals that follow. Notice in Hebrews 10 and verse 26 a bit of a warning if we default on the covenant. If we say, ah, you know, he died, I'm saved, I don't have to do anything, I don't have to do my part, I don't have to walk with him out of Egypt, I don't have to travel with him, or I'm just kind of bored with it, I think I'll do something else. Well, just notice here in chapter 10 and verse 26 to make sure we're not defaulting on the covenant. Because if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin. But a certain fearful expectation of judgment or condemnation and a fiery indignation that will devour the adversaries. So there is that lake of fire. Verse 29, of how much worse punishment do you suppose will a person be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot and, notice, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified as a common thing.

This plays right into the symbols of the Passover. Paul was after the Corinthians because they, having a strong Greek background, had a culture that was very hedonistic, very self-engaging, and all types of sinful behavior. And they had to come out of that. And so when we come to the symbols of the Passover, it's important that we do not count the blood of the covenant, and the symbols in the Passover is some common thing.

So next we need to respect these symbols of foot-washing, the bread and the wine. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 21, was speaking to a group of people. You have to kind of put it in context here with 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, and an allusion to him coming back or writing another epistle. He was very corrective of them because they were not really always of the faith, as it were.

So he talks here about taking the Passover in an unworthy manner. I just want to point out that the Greek word for unworthy manner, a single word, Strong's 371, is an adverb that means irreverently, not with reverence. They took it irreverently. So here we see in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 21, Paul saying, You come to the Passover and one is hungry and another is drunk.

So they're seeing the Passover's symbols, or elements of the Passover, as food, and gluttony, and drunkenness. What? He says, verse 22, Do you not have houses to eat and drink in, or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you. So a little heads up here from the Apostle Paul. If you're seeing appetizers at the Passover, there's going to be a consequence. If that's your view, if you don't see the symbols of the Passover with respect and honor and what they are as the Lord's body and what He went through, then verse 27, Therefore then, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an irreverent manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

We're not supposed to come to Passover guilty, but if we do it in an irreverent manner, then there's a consequence. Verse 29, For he who eats and drinks in an irreverent manner eats and drinks condemnation to himself, notice, not discerning the Lord's body. The word discerning in the Greek can mean discriminating. Discriminating between what this glass of wine is and what this bread is versus what it is symbolizing in the Passover service. Now Paul explains how to change that view in verse 28. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of the cup.

So we have time before the Passover is the whole point that I'm trying to make to look at these symbols and appreciate what they are. And when we're going to take them at the Passover to have a deep conviction that Jesus Christ really had his sacrifice of his physical body and his blood poured out for you and me. Verse 26, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. That's what they're for.

So we're going to come to the Passover, and we're going to see those in a way that is reverent. So let's think about those things. Let's prepare, then, to bring reverence to the Passover. And that brings us to preparing a deep appreciation for Jesus's sacrifice itself. He paid the eternal death penalty for all humanity that will repent.

We need to reflect at the Passover about what he went through. His life. He was a lamb. He was pure. He was sinless. And yet he endured trials and agony and suffering and extreme pain. And he endured this for you and me. Again, to suffer the worst consequences, as it were, typify them for the worst type of sin. So here in 1 Corinthians 11, we see the Apostle Paul saying in verse 24, Jesus, on the same night in which he betrayed, verse 23, and on verse 24, and when he had given thanks, he broke the bread, or he tore the bread.

If you study back into how the Jews have, for instance, made a Passover unleavened bread, historically it was a bread that was soft and torn. In later centuries, it's become kind of hard and more like what we would call a cracker in this country. But however you look at it, it was as a minister will take that at Passover, it's whole. It's intact. And after praying over it, as a symbol, then we begin to break it, or if it's a softer bread, we'll start to tear it.

And I'll tell you, in the mind of the minister, it is a huge event. And I'm sure it is for those in the audience, because you are symbolizing what happened to his body. And he says going on, This is my body which is broken or torn for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Now we know his bones weren't broken, so his body actually wasn't crushed up. But it was ripped apart so much that in Isaiah 53, it says that his visage was so marred that it was more than any man.

You probably couldn't even recognize who he was. And some doctors have read through that and said, you know, I don't think most humans could have survived to actually be crucified after something like that. So what does he say about that? He said, This is my body which is torn for you. When we come to the Passover, what are we supposed to do?

Do this in remembrance of me. That's why we're coming, to remember him. Don't get something else in mind about the Passover. This is a huge event from the Great God, and we are doing this in remembrance of me. And we see again in verse 25, In the same manner he took the cup after supper, he was in anguish on the stake and went through much, and at some point he bled to death.

He said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, that covenant that you and I are part of, we've agreed to, we're committed to, we're working through with him. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. So the Passover is this great memorial of remembering what Jesus did.

Think about Jesus and what he went through in his life. We see in, for instance, Matthew 16 verse 21. Matthew chapter 16 verse 21. What was going on mentally as that Passover approached? Matthew 16 verse 21. From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised the third day. Part of the Passover is this death which atones and pays for the sins of the repentant.

But notice the context. Jesus is saying, I'm going to go and go through this and be raised the third day. Our sins are forgiven by his death, but we receive eternal life through his life, through him living in us. We develop that fruit for the harvest of the following feasts with him being alive and being raised. The next thing we can prepare for is to remove the self from the Passover. Remove the me from the Passover. I don't know about you, but it's pretty easy to think about the Passover as a negative thing.

Oh, no. It's the Passover. I'm a sinner. I sinned. Jesus had to die. We can get the me in there. It becomes all about me. I've suffered with that for way too many years and actually looked at the Passover as like, the Passover. Kind of a negative thing. But is that really what it's about when he says, do this in remembrance of me?

He didn't say, do it in remembrance of you. I want you to remember how bad you are. I want you to remember all your sins. Pack them up. Package them up. Bring them. Cart them in a truck. No. You shouldn't have any sins when you come to the Passover, honestly. You should be forgiven of your sins daily, every day. It's part of the model prayer outline. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who trespass against us. Passover is not a memorial for how bad you've been.

It's not an annual forgiveness event. Don't think of the Passover as, oh, I better grow the Passover once a year. That one time I'm going to go to church so I can be forgiven. It's not what it's for. It's a memorial of the event that provides forgiveness every second of the day to all who repent.

Passover is not the annual shame event. I'm so bad. Look how Jesus had to suffer. I'm so bad. I'm shamed. No? Let's go to John chapter 3 and verse 16, one of the beautiful, beautiful passages that God inspired Jesus to say and the Apostle John to write. John chapter 3 and verse 16. For God so loved the world, agape'd the world, he so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, all he had. He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. This is the event that we celebrate that at. Just to clarify that it's not a shaming guilt event, verse 17. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. If you're still not convinced, verse 18, he who believes in him is not condemned. We need to trust, as we'll mention in a minute, we need to trust that our sins are really forgiven. They're really set aside. God is not putting those in his mind. What God wants is for us to pursue through the festival, season, types of the plan of salvation, to live it, to celebrate it, to be involved in it. And use those as annual reminders of this covenant that we have and that he will have with all the world in time.

You know, your sins did not require Jesus's death. Sometimes we have to be careful with our wording. Some to all my sins required his death. Actually, Ezekiel 18 and verse 20, the person who sins shall die.

The righteous of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. My sins required my death. Right? All the humanity's sins require our death. It's Jesus Christ who came along to save us from that penalty.

My sins, your sins, require our death. They don't require his death. You can't walk up to Jesus Christ and say, I want you to come down from heaven. I want you to live and die. We're going to really treat you badly. We're going to do this to you so you'll forgive our sins. That's ridiculous.

What then did require the death of Jesus Christ was just read, our life requires his death. And that's a very positive thing. He died so that we could live, so that we could have everlasting life. Without his death, we would just die. Period. We would be in the lake of fire, and that's the penalty for our sins.

In 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 9, we find that God did not appoint us to burn in the lake of fire, often referred to as God's wrath. 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 9, For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us. Whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. That's why he died. Verse 11, Therefore comfort each other. This is supposed to be comforting, reassuring. His massive gift that he gave and his payment for our sins should be reassuring to us. Give us confidence and hope that he died for us. Verse 10, That whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Jesus said, in case you think you killed him, or somebody, you know, just arbitrarily killed him, He said, I lay down my own life, and no one takes it from me. But I lay it down. He gave that. He determined to give that. When the Israelites were in Egypt, they didn't know God. You and I didn't know God. We didn't know God until he loved us and opened our minds and brought us to this. That's the wonderful gift.

In 1 John chapter 3 and verse 16, we just read John 3.16. If we go back to 1 John 3.16, which says something very similar. By this we know Agape love, because he laid down his life for us. See, we didn't require it of him. He laid down his life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Wow! Now we start to become a little engaged with what he did, don't we? He laid down his life for us. So don't come to the Passover with a, oh, guilty me, mindset. Repent! Now's the time to repent. Every day is the time to repent. To be forgiven, cleaned, purified, justified, sanctified. And when you think you're all clean, just go to, I don't know, what is it? 1 John 3. He who says he has no sin, deceives himself. Yes, we're not fully perfect, but it also says, but he is just to forgive us of our sins, right? If we repent. So prepare to instead come to Passover with we. Get the me out and come with the we. This really is an all-body experience, an all-body of Christ experience. We are one in the body of Christ, one with the God family. We have oneness together, possible through this sacrifice.

Jesus Christ living in us allows us to be part of his body, of the temple, of the Holy Spirit. So prepare to participate in his Passover memorial. Let it be done with you, starting with preparing how you'll arrive. Come dressed to honor his sacrifice. Come at the right time for the sacrifice. Bring your basin, your towel, whatever is needed at that particular location. And then in the service, wash one another's feet. Wash a brother. Wash a sister's feet. Participate in that. Think about how Jesus did it at the first Passover of the New Covenant. And then say, like him, I'm looking up, I'm exalting a brother or sister in the faith. I'm taking the servant to my fellow brethren in the body.

1 John 3, 16, again, we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren serving one another. We have what Christ did for us represented, but also what Christ is doing with us. We take the bread, the bread of life, and we recognize that bread is unleavened. We recognize what he did in service to us. And then as John 3, 16 says, we then should respond likewise in service to the brethren. We eat that bread, and it's symbolic of taking Jesus in, and we will follow that all through the next seven-day festival, eating bread to be like Jesus Christ. The two symbols work really well with Jesus Christ now living in us. It's a very positive process that the Passover opens to us. Another thing we can do is prepare to attend the Passover as a Holy Saint. Participate in the Passover as a Holy Saint. One called, one chosen, one cleaned, and one that is involved in the New Covenant process. In Ephesians 5, verse 1, it says, This is how you come to the Passover. As imitators of God as dear children. That's how we are in God's eyes. That's how we should see ourselves altogether. Verse 2, That's who we are. Come to the Passover as who you are.

The memorial is solemn. It is huge. By Him we were forgiven. In Titus chapter 2 and verse 14, we see something about that.

Titus chapter 2 and verse 14, Our Savior Jesus Christ, verse 13, So here's our Savior Jesus Christ. We're there at the Passover memorializing His great gift, who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself, His own special people, zealous for good works.

His own special people. We have been redeemed, we've been cleansed, and we are a people zealous for good works. That's why we're at the Passover. That's why we keep the Holy Days as the annual reminders and the annual things that we rehearse with the symbols that are so meaningful. Jesus is now your friend as you come to the Passover.

He's building you into His body. Let's go to 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 5. 1 Peter 2 and verse 5. Do we have some work to do? Oh, absolutely we do. In fact, if you stop and think about it, putting leaven out isn't of your dwellings, is not required until after the Passover, the end of the Passover. So it's almost as if, yes, we still have imperfections, but we need the Passover. We need His sacrifice. And then with purity, we can go into the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And guess what? You're not supposed to put leaven out anymore. You're supposed to eat unleavened bread. You're supposed to be unleavened, right? As Paul said, you are unleavened. It's through Christ's sacrifice that we can be unleavened. So in, let's see, we're in 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 5. You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. And we come to the Passover doing that. Before the Passover, we're already doing these things. Verse 9, but you are a chosen generation. You have been chosen now, at this time, this is your timing of choosing to be in the covenant, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who were once not a people but are now the people of God, who have not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. He will do that for the physical twelve tribes of Israel in the future, but now, as the Israel of God and his church, that is what he is doing now. That is who we are. So don't let the Passover morph into something negative, but rather, let's be seeing it as something very positive. One of the great liberations of what we celebrate at Passover is the unburdening of ourself of sin, the forgiveness of sin, the ability to say, that doesn't matter anymore. God just doesn't think about what you used to do. It doesn't really help anyway because it's only who you are that's of any value. What you were is of no value to you or anybody else. What you will be is a hope, but what you are now is what's important. Sometimes you might look at your life and say, yeah, but I did this. I was that. You'll tote this along. You'll tote along guilt, which you're not guilty of anymore, but you'll maybe tote along some of the consequences of sin that keeps kind of hitting. Some of those consequences last a long time, and you're liable to say, yeah, but I'm just this way or that way. Well, you can't imagine yourself as bad as the Apostle Paul could because the Apostle Paul, unlike you, used to go kill church members. He used to go into congregations like this one and that one and round them up and haul them off and have them killed. And he knew that. He talked about that. But in Philippians chapter 3 and verse 12, the Apostle Paul shares something with us that's very, very positive.

He says, look, I'm not perfect. You and I aren't perfect. We know that. Don't give yourself just carte blanche to say, I don't need to think about anything because I'm perfect. No. But, he says, not that I've already attained or am already perfected, but I press on. See? Here's who I am. And I'm pressing on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do for getting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead. We have to do that. And if you're stuck in some repetitive cycle of, I don't know, sin, well, repent of that. Break out of that. Find ways to break free from that. But if you're not, forget those things which are behind and reach forward to the things which are ahead. More righteousness and ultimately the kingdom of God. I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, as many as are mature, let us have this mind. So you see where God wants us to be? He wants us to think positively. He wants us to say, yes, thank you. You forgave me. Great. I'm here to celebrate the event that created that. But that's history. That's in the past. And we are moving forward. The next thing we can really then do is really believe that Jesus's sacrifice did forgive you. Sometimes we humans have a problem with that. Yeah, well, you know, yes, he died, but I'm not sure because I'm, you know, mine was known. You know, we can kind of rationalize that maybe, maybe not. Do you know what that would say to the God who existed and came down and went through all he did and blood and died and was resurrected for us to say, I don't think you did enough. I don't think your sacrifice is really all that good because I've still got some feelings here. We need to believe that. We need to have faith that your sins are already forgiven, already gone. In 1 John chapter 1 and verse 7, let's notice 1 John chapter 1 and verse 7. You can see in the Bible that other people have wrestled with this. And they've had to work through this and then have written to us how we should approach these things. It says 1 John chapter 1 verse 7, if we walk in the light as He is in the light, anybody here walking in the light as Jesus is in the light? We're following Him. We're moving forward. He is that light coming out of Egypt by night, going through the Red Sea, the miraculous light. We have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. Believe it. You are cleansed from all sin in advance of the Passover. If we say we have no sin, well, there we go. We deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, not a Passover daily, every time we recognize we sin and we say, Oh, Father, I'm sorry. Forgive me of that sin. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You've got to believe that. You have to have faith in that. You have to trust that. All these other notions and feelings you have. Get rid of them. Feelings are just emotions. They're not reality. If you confess your sins, God is faithful. You've got to trust that He is absolutely faithful. And He is just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Again, Passover is not your forgiveness event.

It is your annual appreciation for having been forgiven. And now being the betrothed bride of Christ through the New Covenant, you are betrothed. You are married in the sense that it would take a divorce. It would take somebody having to leave in order to break that.

1 John 2, verse 12, I write to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake.

You know, when you look in Romans 6, I won't turn away. I won't turn there. But Romans 6, that whole chapter speaks about us being connected with Christ's death in baptism. And then for us to come up and walk in a newness of life like Him, be like Him, freed from sin, and slaves, as it were, to righteousness, that the body of sin would be done away with. A new man is now living. Verse 7, for he who has died in baptism has been freed from sin. We can read many passages like that. So again, let's ask ourselves, am I preparing to step into the Passover and participate, focused on what those symbols are about, and focused on my fellow brethren, giving honor and glory and reverence to Jesus Christ for what He has done? I need to also realize that the Passover forgiveness is kind of like a boomerang. You have the boomerang coming to you from Jesus Christ, but it's also to go out to others and keep cycling. It never stops.

In Ephesians 4, verse 22, he says, And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. So this forgiveness now comes with the responsibility to be forgiving others. In Colossians chapter 3 and verse 13, the same writer, the Apostle Paul, says to the church at Colossae that we are to be bearing with one another. You know, Christ bears with us. We are bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against one another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.

So we come now to the Passover not to just think, Oh, thank you for forgiving my sins. We come as the body. Thank you for giving us our sins as we forgive each other, and you continue to forgive our sins. And we continue to forgive each other, and we'll wash one another's feet, and we'll rejoice in being part of the potential firstfruits. And lastly, we can prepare to observe the Passover with our husband, Jesus Christ.

Ever think of coming to the Passover to celebrate it with your husband, the one you honor, the one you admire? The one that the Passover really engaged you to each other through in baptism, that forgiveness of sin, the receiving of Jesus living in you. Let's go to Ephesians chapter 5 and be reminded of this loving relationship that we share together. And this relationship is one of continual cleansing and continual growth and continual love and continual right. Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 25 says, Husbands, love your wives.

Now, wives don't probably know this, but husbands think their wives are really cool. You know, we just... Wow! They're just amazing. They're just really, really amazing. And you just can never figure them out totally or how amazing they are, but they are amazing, right?

And so a husband, if he really loves his wife, he will love his wife. Really love her. So husbands, love your wife just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. You see why Jesus died? He loved us so much that he gave himself for her. Verse 30, For we are members of his body and flesh of his bones.

Hmm. See, in that oneness that we have, it's not like he's over there and we're over here. We are members of his body, flesh of his bones. Verse 26, He gave himself that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of the water of the Word. It's all about being clean. Verse 27, That he might present her to himself a glorious church, a beautiful bride, not having spot, wrinkle, or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.

That's who we are in his eyes, and that's how he sees us. In conclusion, let's prepare to participate in the Passover with the whole body of Christ, knit and joined together with the Father, the Son, everybody contributing their part in righteousness, striving for God's mindset in agape love. Let's conclude with Ephesians chapter 2 beginning in verse 1. This is what it's all about.

Ephesians 2 and verse 1, And you, he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the Spirit which now works in the sons of disobedience, we were all in our Egypt, among whom we also once conducted ourselves in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh, like the Corinthians, like the Americans, like the Greeks, like every human.

And we're by nature children of wrath, heading for the lake of fire, just as others. But God, verse 4, who is rich in mercy because of his great love, with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, and raised us up together and made us sit in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Jesus Christ. Let's look at the first festival of the annual feasts of God with great, awesome wonder and appreciation.

And let's prepare to come and participate in it together, in rejoicing in God's wonderful plan of salvation that's opened up by the sacrifice and the life of Jesus Christ.