Preparing for the Passover

Amazingly, the Passover is just two weeks from tomorrow. We're approaching what we all look forward to and what we all should be preparing for at this time as we approach the Spring Holy Days and as we begin the preparation that's necessary to have a very special observance. And I'm going to mention that regarding the Passover because it is a very special observance. And each of us has a special responsibility as we prepare to eat the Passover because our relationship with God, my relationship and your individual and personal relationship with God is very much a part of what the Passover is all about. And as you know, this observance that we do on an annual basis, and some of you have done that for many decades. I was trying to think back. I think I've observed the Passover for 45 years. This will be the 45th time, going back to the time when I was in college where I began after having been baptized. I began observing the Passover.

This observance can be viewed as very sobering because we often talk about what Jesus went through, talk about the sacrifice that he gave and certainly the cruelty with which he was treated, and the disrespect and ultimately the insane actions of not only the Jewish leaders, but of the Roman soldiers who put him to death. But of course, as we know, it wasn't just them. His death was necessary for me. It was necessary for you, necessary for our sins to be forgiven. So, in many ways, we can look at this observance of the Passover as very sobering, and yet, it should also be exhilarating. It should be uplifting.

It can be looked at as convicting, which in many ways it should be, because we ought to be thinking about how much we need, how much we are thankful for, how much we are excited about the fact that God planned away for me to be relieved of the burden and the guilt of my sins. That was a part of the plan of God from the very beginning, a part of what he and the Word discussed, a part of what they thought about, a part of what was going to take place even from the foundation of the world. They knew what they were going to do to redeem us. And so that love is what the Passover is really all about, the love of God. But as I said, it's sobering but uplifting. It can be convicting, and yet it ought to be empowering. It ought to be empowering to us, because we have a very special blessing of being able to celebrate the Passover. And I think we should be so very thankful that God made a way within His plan, within His design, within His structure, as we, of course, realize we observe Holy Days throughout the year. Holy Days that have tremendous meaning. And yet, in a sense, that whole system begins and focuses on Jesus Christ. It focuses on the Lamb of God. It focuses on how this whole project of reclaiming us, or as Ken has mentioned, bringing us out of the salvage pile. He's bringing us off the junk heap and offering eternal life, offering us the opportunity to be a part of the divine family.

So, in thinking about the Passover that is coming up, I want us to be able to simply follow what the Word of God says, because it's a wonderful blessing to not only know, but then to follow what God tells us to do in preparation for the Passover.

And I know it's often puzzled me when some have said, and I would imagine some of you may have heard this as well, if they come to understand that, well, you're not celebrating Christmas, and you're not celebrating Easter, and you're not celebrating other common, what they would say, Christian holidays.

Well, since you don't do that, then you must not believe in Jesus Christ. You must not believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

And yet, nothing could be further from the truth. You know, the central part of our lives, the Redeemer for every one of us, the Savior, that we desire to follow, and that we trust, and that we come to relate to, and that we yearn to draw closer to, is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

And so, I think it's exciting, as we look toward the Holy Days, as we look toward the Passover, to realize that there is a special relationship that God wants us to have.

He wants us to have that, and He makes that possible through Jesus Christ. He makes it possible through Jesus Christ working in our lives. And actually, as we know, we have been drawn by the Father to whom? Well, to Jesus Christ. That's whom we were drawn to. We were drawn to Jesus Christ. And we are now a part of the body of Christ, a part of the Church of God. And so, that all came about by our relationship, our appreciation, and our gratitude for what Jesus Christ has done for us. I'd like for us to look in 1 Corinthians 11, because you see, amazingly, you find in Matthew and Mark and Luke three different accounts of what Jesus directly told His disciples right before He would be taken.

And then later that same day, put to death. That day, the next day, He was doing this in the evening time, which of course is the time when we also celebrate the Passover. We celebrate the Passover at the exact same time.

That Jesus said that His disciples should celebrate the Passover. And you find in the book of John, in chapter 13, an entirely different activity that He also included in the Passover service, which involved a foot-washing ceremony, or a willingness to serve, a willingness to give of our lives, a willingness to see ourselves for what we are.

That we need to have humility, and we need to be in subjection to God. Here in 1 Corinthians, you find Paul verifying what it was that Jesus had inspired him to come to understand. See, now, it would appear that Jesus was directly talking to Paul at some point in his life, as he said, for three years, taught and trained by Jesus Christ.

Now, exactly how he did that, I'm not exactly sure, but I know that what he says is that I received this in verse 23, I received from the Lord. What I'm now handing on to you that the Lord Jesus, on the night when He was betrayed, took a loaf of bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it. And He said, This is my body that is for you. It's broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And in the same way, He took the cup also after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this 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 until He comes. See, we're doing this in following what Jesus said to do. We're doing this in following what Paul directed the Corinthian church to do. And what the church of God was doing at that time, and what we desire to do today, to directly follow what Jesus said. And of course, the symbols that He established are extremely important to us because they have such great meaning. But He says, as you're doing this, you're proclaiming the Lord's death.

It's a memorial, a memorial of the death of Jesus Christ, a memorial of what He went through. And we can read in the latter part of each of the Gospels exactly what Jesus went through in order to be the Lamb of God, who was going to offer Himself as a sacrifice for our sins.

So we see the specifics as Paul gave them here in verse 23 through verse 26. We see what it was that Jesus tells us to do. But I want to point out in verse 27, because Paul mentions how serious the Passover service is.

He says, And if we drop down to verse 29, it says, So in a sense, He puts a serious tome to the keeping of the Passover. And I know even the wording of verse 27 where it says, That sometimes has been, I think, maybe misunderstood or a little bit confusing to us because who among us is really worthy? Who among us is really worthy to take the Passover? Because all of us are sinners.

See, a right understanding of this, I believe, and even one of the translations that I read makes this a little more clear. It says, That's really, I think, conveying a better understanding.

See, we don't want to just haphazardly or without thinking about it or without preparing for it or without realizing the seriousness of it. We want to come before Jesus Christ and before God the Father in a reverent manner. We want to come where we are respectful, where we are grateful for what it is that Jesus has done in helping us be relieved of our sins.

And so, you know, it tells us in this same section how we can eat the Passover correctly. It gives us somewhat of a warning, but if we understand that correctly, I think we will see that, well, it definitely is something I need. It's definitely something He wants us to do, but He wants us to prepare. He wants us to take a look at ourselves as verse 28 says, it says, Examine yourself, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. And down in verse 31, He says, If we judge ourselves, then we would not be judged.

See, here He points out how it is that we can properly prepare. How it is that we can come before, and I certainly want to come to the Passover. I want to come to the Passover and not feel like I'm beat up, or that I'm worn down, or that I'm torn down. I want to come very, very thankful. Thankful and exciting that God makes a way whereby I can be forgiven.

And I hope that all of you can do the same thing, because that's what He tells us to do. He says, Examine yourself. And so, it involves, and the right emphasis here, is placed on a personal evaluation. Maybe a reflective inventory, or a respect for the Word of God, or a self-analysis regarding sin in my life.

And that, of course, is what each one of us are asked to do. We have time. We've got several weeks here, again, before the Passover service. It's something we ought to just make a point to go through an inventory. Think about how am I respecting the Word of God?

How am I observing the Law of God as I do that? But even beyond what we see as the Ten Commandments and the sins that are described in breaking those commandments, there's far more to that, as we know, because it involves our actions. It involves our words. It involves even our thoughts, as Jesus described, because He said, the thoughts of hatred and anger, or the thoughts of lust, are the same as adultery and murder. He described how it is, and we, I believe, we understand that in many ways, but actually we probably are even coming to understand that better.

I hope that all of us are coming to understand that better, and that we should be growing in our understanding of the plan of God that has been set in place in order to extend salvation to us. That's what we ought to know more about this year. You know, I think back, and I find it hard to even remember, what did I know? Well, I basically knew I needed to be there.

I needed the Passover. I needed to be forgiven. I needed a relationship with God. And yet, after decades or after many years, you still need that. You still need even a more intense closeness and relationship with Jesus Christ, because ultimately, you know, we're never going to be too close to Jesus Christ. So, as it tells us here in verse 28, examine ourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. See, that's your responsibility. That's my responsibility. That's what each of us are asked to do.

And so, how are we to eat the Passover with reverence? How are we to do that with respect? Well, I think we should think about maybe how it is that we have been preparing, how you have been preparing over the last few weeks. I know my wife and I have been struggling with her illness here for about five weeks, and we've had time.

And I could say I've had time. I should have been able to think about it more, but in many ways, I've been occupied. I've been thinking of other things, or I've been distracted. And I know certainly at times with some of the pain that she has had, she's very distracted. And yet, if you think about it, God has provided a great deal of information for each and every one of us.

He's actually made available through the Church. Our understanding of the meaning of the Passover should be enhanced. I will just say that because I know all of us have had access to numerous of the Bible studies that have been leading up to the steps that were leading to the Passover. I don't recall us doing that in the past. Maybe we have. Maybe that's just my memory. I don't remember. It's always good to be reminded. But see, what these Bible studies that we have had available to us, and again, I know we've mentioned them.

I hope you've taken advantage of them, because I have to tell you, some of the things that are covered in these Bible studies are things that I really feel are giving us better understanding, giving us even a deeper understanding of what a walk with God is all about, of what Jesus Christ should mean to each one of us. And of course, if you have any kind of computer capacity, you're able to access those, able to watch those even now if you have not watched most of them. I've watched most of them. And of course, one is yet to be of the six that they plan to give.

But I think it was really remarkable and very revealing to have the Bible studies available to us that we have had over the last several, I guess almost couple of months now, because they were scattered every other week.

And yet they covered material that is essential. Essential and clearly biblical. And I know one of the things that I noticed regarding Steve Myers and Darris McNeely and Gary Petty, our presenters on the Breon Today program, they mentioned in each one of their presentations, and each of them are doing two of those, they mentioned something that I thought stood out tremendously, because I think in each one of them, they start, in their opening prayer, with asking God to help us more deeply understand the Word of God.

They start out thanking God for His Word, thanking Him for providing an understanding of that Word, and thanking Him for helping us grow in a respect for the Word of God, so that that Word can actually transform. That Word can transform and change us. And so I'd like for us to think back through these Bible studies that we've gone over, and then be reminded of some very special things that we have been told.

And the first one was just directly about Jesus as our Passover, and I know all of us certainly know that. We can read that very easily, but I don't know that I've ever really heard it stated in the way. I guess that's what stood out to me in each of these Bible studies. Things were stated in a way that I had never heard before. Things that you can read, pretty obvious, this is it. It's right here in the Bible. But that first one mentioned how Jesus is our Passover. And of course, whenever you think of the Passover, you can think of it in the Old Testament context.

We could go back to Exodus 12, and I'm not wanting to read a lot of these verses, because, again, you are familiar with all of these, and you can clearly go back and study them if you wish.

But in Exodus 12, where God instituted the Passover, you find some very clear instructions about what the Israelites were to do. Now, amazingly, you find many types as you read through illustrations in the Old Testament that have become applicable to us in the New Covenant in our relationship with Jesus Christ. And here in chapter 12 of Exodus, it says in verse 3, tell the whole congregation of Israel on the tenth day of the month there to take a lamb.

Take a lamb for each family. And they were given instructions about how to go about doing that. It says in verse 5, a lamb should be without blemish. A year old male, you will take it from the sheep or goats. In verse 6, you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the month, and when the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight.

And they shall take, in verse 7, some of the blood and put it on the doorposts and the littles of the house in which they eat it. And then in verse 8, see, this was in a sense in preparation for asking God's protection, asking God to pass over their homes. Egypt was going to suffer a tremendous plague, a tremendous disadvantage in that their firstborn would die. And that was going to affect almost all the families of Egypt.

It was going to be a massive interaction with God, where He would pull Israel out of Egypt. He would pull them out of slavery. And yet a part of the plan was that a lamb, a lamb would be in each of the homes. And that lamb would have great significance to that family, because that lamb and the blood of that lamb would actually spare them, spare their firstborn from death.

And in verse 8, it says, They shall eat the lamb that same night, and they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs. See, that was the instruction that they had in the Old Testament. That was what they followed whenever they did observe the Passover. It wasn't that they always actually did observe the Passover. There were many times when they didn't, and the nation was far enough from God that they weren't really respecting God's Word.

But see, is this what we do today? Well, of course not. This is what they were asked to do. They were asked to eat the lamb. The blood of the lamb was going to secure them or protect them, but they were going to then eat the lamb. And what we find whenever we come to the New Testament is when we come to our relationship with God, and we find here in 1 Corinthians 5. You see, in 1 Corinthians 5, in verse 7 it says, Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new match, as you really are unleavened.

For our Paschal lamb, our Passover lamb, Jesus Christ, has been sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Now, Paul is talking about the days of unleavened bread. He's talking about the observance of the festival. He says, celebrate the feast, which we obviously will do. But he says Jesus Christ is our Passover. He is the one that enables us to relate to the Father.

He's the one who allows us to live the lives of gratitude, the lives of thankfulness, the lives of service, the lives of love. Those are the type of lives that he wants us to be living. It's through Jesus Christ as our Passover. And of course, we are told here in John 6, just as some of this can really be remarkable when you put this all together, the lamb that was to be eaten in each of the households, they were to eat that lamb, and that was going to allow them a certain security and be able to have God's protection.

We see that Jesus is our Passover, and of course, he is the Lamb of God who offered his blood for our lives. But here in John 6, you see Jesus talking about who he was at that time, who he is today, who he will always be. He is the bread of life. He is the Lamb of God. He is the one who gave his blood in order for us to be forgiven. And so he tells us, beginning here in verse 51, now I'm not going through the entirety of this section, but verse 51 says, I am the living bread that came down from heaven, and whoever eats of this bread will live forever.

And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. He says, I offer myself as a sacrifice for the sins of each of you. And he says in verse 53, barely I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and unless you drink his blood, that you have no life in you.

Those who eat my flesh and who drink my blood have eternal life. And I will raise them up on the last day, for my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. And those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I abide in them. See, how important is it that we eat the bread and that we drink the wine that represents the sacrifice that Jesus Christ gave for us? Well, it's what enables us to have eternal life.

Now, it's not that we just do that at a given time during the year, and then we act any way we want the rest. It's really a focus of our lives, that we relate to the Father through the Lamb of God. We relate to the Father through our Passover Jesus Christ. And, of course, we covered a lot of material on that in the Bible study, and I'm only wanting to mention some of the significant things that I think, that I just found astounding to be able to think through all of these different aspects of preparation for the Passover, and that if I haven't remembered or thought of them before, they can bring them to your mind again.

But, you know, this is extremely important for us as we think of the preparation, as we examine ourselves, as we understand what it was that Jesus made possible. The second Bible study was about Jesus as the second Adam, and I don't believe I've ever heard any information about that in any way. Maybe I'm way behind all the rest of you. And yet, when you read 1 Corinthians 15, when you read what it says here in 1 Corinthians 15, which is where this statement about the first Adam and the second Adam, or the last Adam, is mentioned here, it's mentioned in relationship to the resurrection of the dead.

That's what we primarily usually think of at 1 Corinthians 15. It's called the resurrection chapter. And yet, here in 1 Corinthians 15, starting in verse 45, it's written, the first man Adam became a living being, and the second or last Adam became a life-giving spirit. Verse 46, it's not the spiritual that is first, but the physical and then the spiritual. How important is it for us to be physical now and then spiritual later? Well, we want to have a spiritual aspect to our life, but we're living a physical life.

We're enduring a certain level of suffering. We're enduring and looking forward to what Jesus said we should all look forward to. But He says in verse 47, the first man, talking about Adam, was from the earth. He was a man of dust, and yet the second man is from heaven. And as was the man of dust, so were those who were of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so were those who were of the heavens.

Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven. See, as was explained in our Bible study on this topic, Satan had quickly gotten to Adam, he quickly got to Adam and deceived them and lied to them and stole the dominion that God had given them here on the earth. And so this world becomes Satan's world. It becomes his system. Now, it looks normal to most anyone who grows up in this world. And yet, we've come to see that, well, and of course what Jesus was when He came, is that He as a man, as the Son of Man, and taking on the form of men, He overthrew Satan.

He overruled Satan's dominion, and He showed that it is a man's ability, or it is an ability that it can be given to men to be able to overthrow and overcome Satan's terrible deception in this world. See, that's the part about the second Adam that I don't really remember recalling before, but He did. And certainly that's what Jesus did whenever He was here, whenever He was here on earth. He was living in a human form. He had given up the God-kind and taken on the humankind, and yet He was so close to the Father, He related to the Father, and was able to depend on the Father enough, or at all times, to be completely successful in everything He did.

Now, we don't find that our diligence is quite the same. We fall, we fail, we need forgiveness and justification. We need to be close to God. But, of course, Jesus was simply constantly close to the Father. And so, it's good to see that aspect as well. We had a Bible study about Jesus and reconciliation. And, of course, Romans 5 has a section here that, again, we are familiar with, where it says in verse 8, But God proves His love for us, in that while we still were sinners, Christ died for us.

And much more surely then, now that we have been justified by His blood, we will be saved through Him from the wrath of God. So, our salvation is going to come through Jesus Christ. In verse 10, for if while we were sinners or enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by His life?

For more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

See, reconciliation with the Father is only possible through Jesus Christ. These all tie into the Passover. They all tie into what He means to us, or how significant Jesus Christ is to each and every one of us. And, of course, you can read this about being reconciled to God. You can read other verses about not only should we be reconciled to God, but we should be reconciled to one another. We have an obligation to not only be reconciled, but to be a reconciler. And that's what we find back here in 1 John. 1 John 4. This is talking about the love of God and about how it is that He has extended to us through Jesus Christ His forgiveness and mercy, but how He extends a nature, a divine nature to us that enables us, empowers us, maybe implores us to be reconciled to one another, and not to have broken relationships. Here in 1 John 4, it says in verse 19 that we love because He first loved us.

We come to understand the love of God because He extends His love to us. And in verse 20, those who say that I love God, and yet who hate their brothers, brothers are sisters, they are liars. For those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, they cannot love God whom they have not seen.

The commandment we have from Him is that those who love God must love their brethren as well. See, that's a responsibility for all of us, a responsibility to not only be reconciled to God through Jesus, but to be reconciling between one another and to not have broken relationships and not have false relationships, but to be true in our love and our concern for one another. Another step, or Bible study, went through the bread and wine. I think we played that here in services, so I'm pretty sure most of you saw that that day. And yet, amazingly, as simple as that can be, and even as commonly understood as it might be, clearly, the symbols are somewhat common. An understanding of the depth of them is not. Here in Matthew 26, starting in verse 26, it says, While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it, He broke it and gave it to His disciples, and He said, Take, eat, this is My body. And so He gave them these symbols as a representation of what He wanted us to think about, what He wanted us to relate to and be connected to Him with. And it says, He took a cup in verse 27, and after giving thanks, He gave it to them, and He said, Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the covenant, of the new covenant, which is poured out for many, for the forgiveness of sin. He said, Eating the lamb, eating unleavened bread and bitter herbs is not what I'm going to continue to require.

I'm going to ask you to eat the bread and to drink the wine that is emblematic of My body and of My blood. And He says, I tell you, I'll never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom.

See, where was Jesus' focus? Well, it was on the kingdom of God. It was on the family that God is developing. It is on the people who will listen to His words and who will do what He says. And of course, He was doing this, as we said earlier, on the eve of when He would be taken and then crucified the next day.

And so, the significance of the bread and wine, we can talk about that a considerable amount, but it was Jesus who appointed those symbols to represent His body and blood. He was the one who set that up. He was the one who directed His disciples to do that, and that Paul was telling the church that you should do that. This is what Jesus told us to do. Just the other day, we had a Bible study regarding the foot-washing service. See, that again is an uncommon service. It's not one that's commonly done, even by churches in many ways. It is done by the church of God. It is done by all of us. It has tremendous meaning.

And yet, it even has more meaning than what I thought, even as we learned the other night. You know, it's not simply about being humble. It's not simply about serving other people, both of which are certainly the right thing to do and what we want to encourage and what we need to internalize.

But when you go to John 13 and you see the perfect example that Jesus set in John 13, you see, and this is the only place you read about this in the New Testament, and in this particular Gospel you find John writing about an aspect of the Passover service where he was going to tell his disciples that you are to love one another.

You are not just to do that on the surface, and you're not just to do that in a minimal way. You are to do that like I love you. He was telling them, I'm the perfect example.

And of course, when you read through this, in verse 4, he got up from the table. He took off his outer robe and tied a towel around himself, and he poured water into a basin.

In verse 5, he began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with a towel that was tied around him.

See, that was significant. The significance of that was because normally, water was provided for people to wash their own feet.

This is what you find in illustrations in the Old Testament, as well as what customarily was done here in Palestine at this time, around the area where Jesus was. This was common practice that people would be going to a home, and they would have water provided. They'd wash their own feet.

And yet, Jesus was going way beyond that. He was willing to wash the feet of the people that he was the creator of, that he was the potter, and they were the clay. He was willing to humble himself. And of course, the exchange you have in verse 6 with Peter, Peter says, Lord, you're going to wash my feet. And Jesus said, well, you don't know what I'm doing right now, but later you're going to understand. You don't realize the significance of what I'm telling you to do, because, of course, he's going to later tell them.

In verse 15, I have set you an example that you ought to do toward one another. You ought to wash one another's feet. You ought to be willing to be a humble servant as I am toward you. But even more importantly, as we read in verse 8, Peter, after hearing this from Jesus, said, well, you're never going to wash my feet.

Bad move. Bad move. Because, see, Peter didn't know what he was talking about. He didn't have any idea what he was talking about. He was way off base. He was pretty much on his own. He was going to learn. In many ways, he learned the hard way. And yet what we see was Jesus answering and saying, unless I wash you, then you have no part with me. You have no share with me. And of course, Peter said, well, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and head. And Jesus said, one who is vague does not need to wash except his feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though, not all of you, talking about Judas and knowing, even as he was watching the feet of Judas, that he would betray him. This was a part of the plan, a part of what he knew would come to pass, a part of how he still had love for those disciples and even for Judas, who hated him. Judas, at this point, was deceived by the devil to the point to where he hated Jesus. He was going to betray him. He was going to turn him in. And yet Jesus made the statement to Peter, as we see in verse 8, "'Unless I wash you, then you have no part with me.'" See, brethren, how significant is that? How meaningful is that? How needful is the Passover service, but also even the foot-washing service? Because ultimately what he said is that I'm the one who has to wash you. See, we have to be washed by the water of the Word of God. We find that in Ephesians chapter 5. And the only way that we can truly be cleansed of our sins is with an understanding of the bread and the wine, the blood and the flesh that was given for us, but also to know that it's through Jesus Christ continuing to cleanse us. Here in Ephesians 5, you find this. Ephesians chapter 5, it's in a section dealing with husbands and their responsibility toward their wives. Verse 25, husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church. In verse 26, Ephesians 5, 26, in order to make her holy, by cleansing her with the washing of water by the Word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor without a spot or wrinkle or anything of this kind, yes, so that she might be holy and without blemish. The only way that I'm ever going to be holy or without blemish is because of the cleansing that comes from Jesus Christ. And I would say that that would be the only way any of us can possibly be fully cleansed is through the work that Jesus Christ does in our lives as He lives in us, as He transforms us, as we feed on His words.

You know, we cover the Word of God almost every Sabbath, I mean almost every Sabbath, in the sermonette, in the sermon we go over the Bible. And of course, you read the Bible on a daily basis or on a weekly... However you come across the Bible in your day-to-day life, you are growing in a relationship with God through studying the Word of God.

And yet it tells us that we should be cleansed by the water of the Word. See, that cleansing comes by not only being baptized, which all of us were baptized, and we were baptized and we were cleansed through that watery grave. And yet we continue to grow in an understanding of the Word of God, an understanding of how it is that Christ has got to live in us. And of course, this next Bible study that I'm sure many of you will watch here in the next week or two, whenever it comes up, is regarding the resurrection, regarding the fact that Jesus was in the grave three days and three nights and rose from the dead, and now is able to live in us. And there are numerous verses that we could go that would discuss that as well. And as Paul said, he says, I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. See, how significant is that? How significant is the Passover? How meaningful should the Passover be? How much should it not only be a time that we prepare for, but a time that we look forward to and that we are excited about and that we are thankful for and that we are blessed in really being able to relate to the One who is able to fully cleanse us, the One who is able to completely empower us and enable us toward eternal life. That's what the Passover actually means. Those are the many different aspects. There's a lot of information that we could cover, and yet, you know, I simply cover this in order to keep you in mind of what it says here in 1 Corinthians 11, where we started.

Because in respect to the Passover, in respect to taking the bread, symbolizing His body, and taking the cup or the wine, symbolizing His blood, it says, whoever eats the bread, in verse 27, and drinks the cup of the Lord in an irreverent manner, will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. So we want to do that reverently. We want to do that out of respect and out of joy and out of gratitude, because we do what He says in verse 28. He says, simply examine yourself. Have that inventory, that analysis, take place in your life and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. We have to judge our own actions, our own words, our own thoughts, our own interactions with others. We have to make an assessment of that. And as we do, then we'll see where we fail. It's not that we're going to find, oh, well, I'm a perfect individual. We're going to find that we have flaws.

But as we do, that enables us to see how much we need God. See how much I need Jesus Christ living in me. And the more I recognize that, the more I see that, the more I know that, the more I'm going to be able to draw close to Jesus Christ and close to God the Father. So I encourage all of us to examine ourselves and then eat the Passover. Eat the Passover with reverence. Look forward to a Passover that can be uplifting and inspiring, the one that we have properly prepared for by following the Word of God and actually doing exactly what our Savior, Jesus Christ, commands us to do.