Remember This Day

Please, Sabbath day. And I know this morning as I woke up, I was very grateful to have a Sabbath day, the holy day, to be able to just sort of sit back and relax and reflect on what had just gone on over the last week. And I'm sure all of you feel that way because, you know, as we lead up to the days of Unleavened Bread and Passover, it's a very busy time. You know, we're doing some self-examination, and that takes effort in itself.

It takes prayer, some meditation, it takes some real getting to know ourselves and getting ourselves in line with God. And, of course, as we prepare our homes to be unleavened, that takes a lot of effort and a lot of time as well. And we probably come into the days of Unleavened Bread and Passover, and, you know, it's just kind of nice to have that behind us.

And so today, as we rest, we have time to reflect on what we've done, what we've learned, what we've learned, what we've been through the last few days and weeks as we've done that. And hopefully all of you took some time to do that and realized that this is a time that God wants us annually to be remembering who we are, where we are, where we've got yet to go, and what we need to have happen with us.

You know, often I find myself thinking, what was it like back at the time that Jesus Christ and His disciples left, and even at the time of ancient Israel? And I think back to 31 A.D. and think about the disciples that were gathered there that day, just the day before Jesus Christ died. He was crucified. He was put into the tomb right before sunset on the night to be the beginning of the days of Unleavened Bread. So as they woke up on this 15th of Abib, the day that we begin the days of Unleavened Bread, they were confused.

They were dazed. If we think we've been through a lot, think what they were through. And they needed that day to kind of reflect and to just realize what had gone on. And they didn't even realize that day what had gone on. They weren't going to realize until later when Jesus Christ was resurrected during the days of Unleavened Bread, what had transpired.

And through the rest of the time of their lives, they understood more and more what God and Jesus Christ had done for them, for us, and the words that He spoke to them that night. And it all began to make sense to them. Back in ancient Israel, you know, on this day, on the 15th of Abib, they went out from Egypt. They had seen tremendous things happen in Egypt. They had gone through the Ten Plagues, and just on the Passover night, they knew that with the blood that they placed over the doorpost, that God passed over them, and death didn't hit their homes.

And as they were out of Egypt on the 15th, after they made haste to get out of Egypt, and they were out of Egypt free and clear of the oppression and the slavery they'd been in on that day, God had them rest. And they were thinking about things. And as we mentioned last night, the night to be much observed, they realized, God is watching over us. God is watching over us, and we all realize that too.

God is watching over us. He had a plan, and we can reflect on His plan, a plan for all of mankind. And these first two steps in God's plan, we reflect on here today, the Passover, of course, without Jesus Christ's willingness to be born His flesh, live, die, go through what He did, so that our sins could be forgiven, there would be no rest of the plan. He was willing to do that for us first before we ever loved Him. And though it's our part, as we begin the days of Unleavened Bread, if we accept His sacrifice and understand and believe in Him, then we must do our part. If we want what He offers, then we have to change, and we have to turn from our old way and turn to the new way of life that God has called us to.

There's no other way to salvation except through Jesus Christ, and no other way to salvation except by following what He said and the example that He set for us. And by living by every word of the Bible that you have in front of you. You know, back in the Corinthians Church, you can be turning over to 1 Corinthians 5, some 20 years after Jesus Christ was resurrected and He was ascended into heaven, the New Testament Church, as it was expanding around the area there in Asia Minor, They were being taught to keep the things of the Old Testament and the holy days of God, or what they would have seen in the Torah there.

And Paul, who was an apostle of God, just like Peter and James and the others were to Judea, they were being taught the same things you and I are taught. They were taught, these are the holy days of God. There is a method. There is something that God wants us to do as an annual reminder of who we are and what His plan is.

And He has us go through these days every year and be reminded. You know, Paul was able to present to a Gentile group of people in Corinth and explain to them and draw the analogy of what ancient Israel went through and apply it to their modern-day lives, or their modern-day lives. And then the same thing that we would do today as we look at the example in the Bible and as we see what Jesus Christ did and observed and commanded us to keep.

And we see the example here in 1 Corinthians 5. I know we've read this here within the last few weeks, but let's read it again in 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 6. Paul is drawing the analogy and helping them to see, you know, these days of unleavened bread that you read about back in the Torah, back in the Old Testament times. They have meaning for us today. When we go through the process of de-leavening our homes, for Israel it was a physical exercise.

For us it's physical, but much more spiritual. We do both and we learn something. In the latter part of verse 6 there he says, Don't you know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Well, he wasn't talking about just spiritually there. He knew that they knew what leavening was. They may know more of what leavening was back then than we know today. That you had to have leavening in bread, and when you had leavening in bread it rose, it puffed up, and it became all these things that God doesn't want us to be. But when you left the leavening out, it was flat. It was, by comparison, maybe tasteless. God wants us to be flat, humble creatures before Him that He would write His script on. He says, Don't you know that little leaven leavens the whole lump? You need to become unleavened is what He's saying, because just a little leaven in a loaf of bread puffs that whole bread up. And He's telling them, as He would tell us, your goal is that all the leaven is out. Just like you work hard to get the leaven out of your houses, we have to work hard over the course of our lives to get the leaven out of our lives. And He makes the analogy there, and Jesus Christ certainly made the analogy of leaven. If anyone doesn't know that leaven is in the New Testament, Jesus Christ made it crystal clear that leaven is equal to sin.

You know, He talked about the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and He says back in Matthew, the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees is their doctrine. It's a false doctrine. He talks about the leaven of the Pharisees being hypocrisy, saying one thing and doing another. He makes it clear that leaven, and takes that analogy that the Jews knew exactly what He was talking about. When they heard the word leaven, they thought right back to the days of unleavened bread, and He was teaching them, when you hear leaven, think of sin. Though everything that leavening does to a bread, it does to us as well. Our job is with God's Holy Spirit in us, after we accept, after we are baptized, when we receive the Holy Spirit, and with that power, that the leavening is removed from us, because it is unleavened people that God is looking for. So in verse 6, they knew exactly what Paul was talking about, or he is painting to the church here, that this festival, these days of unleavened bread, you need to be keeping as well. There's a major lesson in it for us here. And then he goes into verse 7 and says exactly what we've gone through. He says, therefore purge out the old leaven. You're putting it out of your homes. You need to be putting it out of your lives. The leaven of the Pharisees, the leaven of Herod, the leaven of your lives, the pride, the sin, the weaknesses, the faults, all the things that are different, that separate you from God. You need to put those out of your life. Those need to come out, and we don't learn them all, do we? In one year, we learn them over the course of our lifetimes. So he says, therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump. And we can think back to the time when we were baptized, when God forgave our sins, and we came up out of the waters of baptism, and in his eyes we were a new creation. Brand new. A new lump.

Therefore, purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed, Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. And he makes the analogy for the New Testament Church. Christ was our Passover lamb. We no longer have to sacrifice a live lamb and eat it on Passover. Jesus Christ was that sacrificial lamb.

He is our Passover lamb. So we keep Passover today just as they did in ancient Israel, but not with the same way of doing it, right? Jesus Christ set that standard, what we do now, that has the meaning for us. Washed each other's fate. Of the symbol of servitude to each other. Of humility to one another. Of being teachable and yielded to God. Of having that humility that we would, that we esteem each more highly than we do ourselves.

And in verse 8 he says, therefore, let's keep the feast. Let's go ahead, let's keep these days of unleavened bread. Not with the old leaven, not the stuff that you've thrown out of your house, not the stuff that's always defined you, but with, or with the leaven of malice and wickedness. There he draws the analogy. It's sin. Of malice and wickedness and all those things that used to define us. But let's keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Be whole people who are completely committed to God. In your heart, minds, and soul. No cracks, no hypocrisy. None of those things if it, but be committed to God totally and wholly. And keep the feast with the unleavened bread of truth. And we know what truth is. Jesus Christ told us, your word is truth. Live by this truth. And he gives them these three verses, really the lessons of the days of unleavened bread.

Jesus Christ made the same analogy, too, as I mentioned, when he talked about leavening and the leaven of the Pharisees and whatever. So we know in New Testament times there's lessons to be learned from these days. God intended that we would learn the lessons of this time because it's a part of his plan. It's a part that we make the part of. Jesus Christ did it first for us. He sacrificed his life, but now it's our time to sacrifice our lives to him, to give our lives to him and let him change us. And with his Holy Spirit, bring to our attention the things that need to be put out of our lives. Let's go back with that in mind and knowing that we have to understand and pay very close attention to the spiritual aspect of these days. The same attention, well more attention even, than we put into cleaning out our homes and putting the leavening out. Let's go back and look at God's command here in Leviticus 23. Leviticus 23. Of course, Leviticus 23 talks about appointed times. The Hebrew word moed there, m-o-e-d, relating right back to Genesis 1, verse 14, when he created the lights in the sky that they would be for times. And Leviticus 23, he recounts what those appointed times are. The appointments that God has with us. The appointments that he expects us to keep with him. If we really believe, if we really are committed to him, if we really want to do the things he says, and if we really believe that he will return and give us eternal life if we follow him. Leviticus 23, verse 4, it says, these are the feasts, that's the Hebrew word moed, these are the moed of the eternal. Holy convocations gather together before me. I want you in my presence on those days. These are the feasts of the Lord. Holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. On the 14th day of the first month at twilight is the Lord's Passover. Those who were baptized, members, were here a couple nights ago at twilight, right after sunset, to keep his Passover. And on the 15th day of the same month, that's today, the 15th of Abib, in God's calendar. And on the 15th day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Eternal. Seven days you must eat unleavened bread. I looked up that word, and that word must is not a suggestion. That word must is not something that it would be nice to do. Seven days you must eat unleavened bread. There's something that God wants us to learn from eating that unleavened bread. And while we bite into that hard substance every day during the days of unleavened bread, there's something we should be thinking of and mindful of. Verse 7 on the first day, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it. And here we are on that day today. And the last part of verse 8 says, the seventh day, that's next Friday, April 6th, the seventh day shall be a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it. In accordance with God's pronouncements, we're here today. We'll be here next Friday. We'll be here on the other holy days, the other appointed times, which are listed in Leviticus 23, which includes the weekly Sabbath, which is a holy convocation before God, an appointed time, an appointment He has with you and me. And just like your boss expects you to be at those appointments, God expects us to be at those appointments. Let's go back. Let's go back and look at some more detail about these days of unleavened bread that we find in Exodus.

Exodus 12. And as we go through these, we'll look at the physical things that Israel was going to do, but I want you to think about the spiritual analogy that we have today, because before the Passover, that fateful Passover in Egypt, God told them they were going to be keeping seven days of unleavened bread, and then He reformed them again after the Passover that it was going to be there.

So let's look at Exodus 12 and see what we learn here from Exodus 12. He's speaking of the Passover that night. That night when they would kill the Passover lamb, they would put the blood on the doorposts, and when God saw that blood on their doorposts, on their homes, then He would pass over that and death wouldn't come to their firstborn of animal and human. Exodus 12, verse 12.

God speaking through Moses, He says, For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Eternal. Now the blood shall be assigned for you on the hoses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. Now the other night at Passover, we washed feet, we ate the unleavened bread that symbolized Christ's body, and we drank the wine that symbolized His blood. In Jesus Christ we read His words, Take and drink of this cup. This is my new covenant with you, and I will give you blood shed for you. Drink it. Make it part of you. Remember what else we read that night? In the closing statements that Jesus Christ had in John 15, He said several times in there, If you love me, keep my commandments. And in John 15, He said, Abide in me. Live in me, and I'll live in you. And if you keep my commandments, if you do what I say, come, He and God the Father, and we will live in you. We will make our home in you. When we see the unleavened bread, when we see the blood in you, when we see your accepting that spiritually, and that that's part of your life, that this becomes part of your being, just like it is when we eat that unleavened bread, and it becomes part of our body, just when we drink that wine, and it becomes part of who we are, that blood that it symbolizes when I see that blood, I'll pass over you. I'll spare you. Because I know you are mine. I know you are committed to me. It's much more than just taking the wine and never doing anything with it. God is looking for something that we would yield to Him. He wants to make His home with all of us, in each of us.

He's willing. He will. But the choice is ours.

Because we show God through our choices, through our actions, through the way we live our lives on a daily basis, whether we want Him living with us or not, whether we want His blood part of our body, whether we want His unleavened bread part of our body. Because if we truly do, we'll make mistakes along the way, but we'll repent of those mistakes. We will always have the goal in front of us of the Kingdom, and the perfection that God wants in us, and that He is working with us to purge out the old leaven, to put it out throughout the course of our lives, and year by year we grow a little closer to what His example is, a little closer to the perfection that He wants for all of us.

And in this lifetime we won't attain that, but every year He's watching. He sees the progress that you and I make. He's heartened by that progress when we bear much fruit, as He says we should do and that He wants us to do. And when He sees that blood, when He sees that blood, just like He did in ancient Israel, He'll be our Savior. Salvation comes only through Jesus Christ. Salvation comes only through the ways that He said to do things.

Salvation comes only by spiritual eating the unleavened bread and drinking the blood of Christ, and having that attitude of humility and servitude that He wants us to have. So, I'll read verse 13 again. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. And the plague shall not be on you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt, the world around you that isn't living my way, that you have come out of, and that God certainly brought them out of back then and brings us out of now.

So, verse 14 for us, so this day shall be to you a memorial. I want you to think about those things on this day when you observe this annually. This day shall be to you a memorial, and you shall keep it as a feast to the eternal throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance. Everlasting ordinance. It is the Greek word, the Hebrew word, olam.

O-L-A-M. Some people say it's only in existence while the Old Covenant was there. No. Olam, you can look it up in the concordance. It has to do with the future as long as there's heaven and earth. As long as there's heaven and earth. It says it's equated almost to eternity, but not quite eternity, but as long as there's heaven and earth and human beings, God said, you keep this ordinance.

Not just until the time of Christ, but until and as long as there is heaven and earth. And the Corinthian church, they were keeping that. And they were being taught that. And they were being taught that in Ephesus, in Colossae, in Thessalonica, and in all the churches, and in God's church today, the same thing that Jesus Christ taught, that they were taught in the early Testament church, we observe, as an ordinance before Him forever. Verse 15, seven days you shall eat on leavened bread.

On the first day, that would be yesterday, being the Passover, the day after it was the Egyptian or the Israelites were packing to leave up. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.

That person shall be cut off from Israel. Now, God intended that when someone was cut off, that that was a major thing that was going to occur. And yet, I am amazed sometimes when people cut themselves off. And I think, are you thinking? God said, if you don't obey me, I'll cut you off. But it doesn't cut us off when we do those things because He wants us gone forever. He wants us to repent and realize and come back to Him and repent, just as the example in 1 Corinthians 5 that we've talked about before, with the man who had to be cut off for a while.

That he would repent. That he would come back, and he did. Well, God had intended that as something that would get people's attention.

Verse 16, on the first day, there will be a holy convocation. And on the seventh day, there will be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them, but that which everyone must eat, that only may be prepared by you. We don't do on the holy days or the Sabbath the things we do the other six days of the week. The way we live our lives, the way we conduct ourselves, the entertainment, all those things that God says, the things we do the other six days of the week, we don't do on the Sabbath. The Sabbath is separate. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, in the holy days to keep them holy. That means separate. Keep them separate. They're not like Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. They're separate. And what we do on those days is we honor God. It's His time. And we honor Him and not try to mix the two. Verse 17, so you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day, I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Well, this was written before that Passover day, as you read through Exodus 12. And He says, you know, on that day, on that 15th of Abib, you are going to be brought out of the land of Egypt. You're not going to be there anymore. And in Numbers 33, verse 3, it tells us that on that 15th day of Abib, Israel left Egypt, exactly as God had said they would, and exactly as we are observing today.

And remembering that God brought them out, and God brings us out. So you shall observe the day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day, I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance. The same thing He said a few verses before. To impress on them, this is something you will keep forever. There's meaning in this back at the time of Israel. There's meaning in this during Christ's time. There's meaning in this during the time that we live in. There's meaning in this during the millennium when this feast will be kept when Jesus Christ is on earth as well. Verse 18, in the first month, on the 14th day of the month, at evening, and that word evening there is the Hebrew word, ereb. It means at sunset. When you see that written that way, you see 15th day, you know what we're on. When you see sunset, we know that days end at sunset. A new day begins at sunset, but one day ends at sunset. So this is referring to at the end of the 14th day, at evening, when that day has come to the end, when you see evening in ereb, it's the end of the day. From the end of that day, you shall eat unleavened bread until the 21st day of the month, at evening. So those seven days, you keep the feast of unleavened bread. For seven days, no leavened shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he's a stranger or a native of the land. It's giving pretty specific orders here. You shall eat nothing leavened. In all your dwellings, you shall not eat, or you shall eat unleavened bread. That's pretty clear what he wants them to do. He was telling them ahead of time that that's what he wanted them to do. And then, you see in the rest of this chapter, Moses went out and instructed them exactly what God had said to do. And they went out and they found the Passover land. They kept the Passover, did the blood on their houses exactly as God had said. When we come over to chapter 13, we find God again through Moses, reminding them about what they're going to enter into now. Now the Passover had passed. Now they had been passed over. Death didn't come to their homes. In chapter 13 and verse 3, Moses said to the people, Remember this day in which you went out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, for by strength of hand the Eternal brought you out of this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten. The key word in that verse, and a key word in the days of unleavened bread, remember. Remember. As you go through this each year, remember this day. You think back on the things that happened on this day. For Israel, it was you remember that I brought you out of Egypt. You remember that it wasn't by your hand or your strength or your might or your will or your craftiness or your plans. It was God who brought you out. Jesus Christ used the same word, remember, when He was in this day as well. We read it the other night on several occasions when He said, when you drink of this cup or when you eat of this bread, do this in remembrance of Me.

When you eat that bread, you think about what I did for you. Because you know what? There's a lot of power in the word remember. There's a lot of power in the word remembrance. There's a lot of power in the word memorial. And there's a lot of reason that God tells us on these days, you remember what happened.

You remember what happened in Israel. You also remember what Jesus Christ did for you. You remember what He went through. You remember what He was willing to sacrifice. You remember that He did it for you. It wasn't because you asked. It wasn't because you loved Him. It wasn't because you were great people. Even when we were enemies, Romans 3 tells us, He did it for us. You remember what He went through. Let's go back and look. We'll come back to Exodus 13 here in a minute. Let's go to John 14. We remember Christ's words when He said, Do this in remembrance of Me. Eat the bread. Take of this bread. Do this in remembrance of Me. Drink of the cup. Do this in remembrance of Me. And in John 14, and throughout that last discourse of Christ, He uses the word remember or remembrance a few times.

Because it's an important concept for us to do. If we ever forget, if we ever forget, if we just let it become commonplace or mundane or so routine to us that it really has no effect on us at all when we remember and go through these annual reminders of these holy days of what Jesus Christ did, we're in spiritual danger. We're in spiritual danger if it means so little to us and it doesn't affect us in any way. Here in John 14, in verse 26, as He's talking to the disciples, He tells them, I'm going to send, I'm going to go away and I'm going to send the Holy Spirit to you. Verse 26, What the Helper, He says, the Holy Spirit, which the Father will send in My name, it will teach you all things and it will bring to your remembrance all things I said to you.

You'll remember...

Something in the Bible will trigger your mind and you'll remember a verse and you'll think, oh, that's the way I need to go. That's the way I need to handle this. This is what I have to do because I remember those words. And the Holy Spirit brings those things to mind. Remembering. Chapter 15, verse 20. After Jesus Christ is talking about, abide in me and I'll abide in you. In chapter 15, verse 20, He says, Remember the word that I said to you. Remember this, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they'll persecute you. If they kept My word, they'll keep yours also.

Remember, I said this, a servant is not greater than his master. You keep the humility, you keep that attitude of service in front of you through the whole time that you're alive. Remember that word. Chapter 16, verse 4. These things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. I'm telling you, the Holy Spirit will help you remember that I said these things, and they will have meaning to you. Remembering is a large part of this Holy Day that God commands us. Remember. You know, it's not just in this Holy Day either. But He says, you know, you remember. You remember how you were.

The fourth commandment says, remember the Sabbath day. He could have simply said, keep the Sabbath day holy. We would have done it, but He said, remember. Remember the Sabbath day. Remember what it pictured, and remember what it pictures. A time when man was at perfect peace with God and creation.

Remember what it pictures. A time coming when the whole world will be at peace with God again and creation and people and God will be in unison.

Turn back to Psalm 51. You should remember that. Keep that in front of you. And when you keep the Sabbath day, remember those things. Remember why we keep the Sabbath day. Remember what it pictures.

In Psalm 51, the prayer of repentance, which doubtless we've all looked at over the last week, to see if we have the same spirit that was in David when he recognized his sin and wanted it purged from him. He wanted that leavening out of his life. You know, David says something very wise here in verse 3.

I acknowledge my transgressions. I admit. I admit what I've done. I've got that weakness in me. You know, so many times in the world and so many times when you're dealing with people outside the church, they just won't even acknowledge that they have any weakness at all. It's always someone else's fault. It's always something else that's going on. I acknowledge my transgressions, he says, and my sin is always before me.

I remember what I was like. You know, David, for the rest of his life, he remembered what he was like. When the Holy Spirit was, he felt it waning from him and he felt separate from God. He knew what type of man he was. And all of us know what type of person we would be without God's Holy Spirit. We have an idea, an inkling of the type of person we were before, whether we were raised in the church or not. And sometimes we see that come about, and that old man, and I'm sure when David looked at it, he said, no, no, I need to come back too close to God. I need to repent. Restore to me, he would say, the joy of your salvation, God. Don't take your Holy Spirit away from me.

He knew. He remembered. He wasn't depressed over it. He recognized that God forgave him, but he also knew that without God's Holy Spirit, what type of person he could go back to be, he didn't forget. Now, the old saying is, he who doesn't remember history is doomed to repeat it. That's the same way with us. If we don't remember what we were like, if we just let ourselves kind of take a back seat, and kind of pat ourselves on the back and become lax in what we do, those old patterns, those old ideas, those old behaviors, those old attitudes can find themselves rising to the surface. And all of a sudden, we look and act differently. And things that aren't as important to us as we grieve God's Holy Spirit. And it's no longer there because we aren't in active process of remembering what God has called us to. Let's turn over to Ephesians 2. You know, that's a concept there from David, but Paul, when he's writing to the church at Ephesus, he tells them the same thing.

In Ephesians 2, in verse 11, you know, as he leads up to this chapter here, he's talking about we are Christ's workmen. We've given ourselves to Him. We are letting Him work in us, what His will is to become who He wants us to be. In Ephesians 2, he writes, And strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, now without God in the world. You remember what it was like when you knew nothing about what you knew, what you know and know.

You remember what it's like to have no real purpose in your life, no real meaning in your life. And you be grateful to God, and you thank Him for the fact that He has called you and opened your minds to see these things and understand these things. And to know the path to salvation, and to believe truly in Jesus Christ, and to know that it means that we have to change and that He gives us the Holy Spirit and His power to change.

You remember what it was like. And you remember what it was like when you first found the truth. You remember what it was like, how zealous and how excited you were, how you could hardly put the Bible down when you wanted to learn new things over and over and over.

Remember those times! You know, Jesus Christ speaking to the churches in Revelation. He says those very things back in Revelation 2. Revelation 2 and verse 1. He says to the angel of the church of Ephesus, right, These things, says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands. I know your works. I know your labor, your patience. I know that you cannot bear those who are evil, and you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars.

All those things are good, because I know you do those things, and you've persevered, and you have patience, and you have labored, but for my namesake, and you have not become weary. Nevertheless, there's something missing, he says. Nevertheless, I have this against you that you have left your first love. You've left it. It's great that you're doing all these things. It's great that you're participating in this. It's great that you do this and this and this and this and this, but there's something missing that I'm looking for.

You've lost your first love. You've gotten old. It's become commonplace to you. It's become routine. It doesn't excite you the way it did before. You're drifting through life. You're not growing in the way that you should. You're not improving the way that you should. You're not developing in the way you should. You're not developing or bearing fruit in the way that you should. You've lost your first love. And he says in verse 5, Remember, think back. Take the time when you feel that distance. Take that time. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen. Think back. Do you have the same zeal that you had before?

Do you have the same commitment that you had before? Do you have the same energy that you did before? Do you have the same loyalty that you had before? Did you have the same hunger for righteousness that you did before? Remember, from where you have fallen. And then he tells us a very unleavened, these unleavened bread message, Repent and do the first works. Go back. It's great that you're doing all these things. Go back and do the first works. Go back. And remember, there's a spiritual aspect, and not just a physical aspect, not just doing, not just participating, not just organizing, but a spiritual thing that I'm looking for that isn't there, that you're growing and you're becoming more and more like me.

Doing all those things, because every joint is called, and the joints all fit closely together, that God is looking for, than just physical things. Remember where you have fallen. Repent and do the first works. And he gives a pretty dire message, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from the place.

Unless you repent. Unless you get back to that place. Remember, he says, what it was like. You know, when we remember, and God says, remember, it's not just, okay, this is the 15th of Abib, God brought the armies out of Egypt that day, this is the day that after Jesus Christ was crucified, he delivered us from bondage through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and therefore now we live a new life in it, and we go through the process, but we don't find ourselves motivated, maybe, by the days of Unleavened Bread.

We don't find ourselves as zealous. You know what? There's power in remembering. Remembering, truly remembering. It can motivate us. It can restore the zeal. It can restore the energy. It can restore the commitment. You know what? It can lift us out of depression. If you find yourselves depressed, if you find yourself kind of morose, and things just aren't going well, remember. Remember, truly remember, not just by clicking off a date in your mind, but sitting back and meditating and remembering what God did and what He promises He will do. Because He wants to give it to every single one in this room, and every single one.

But He won't force it. We have to show Him by our actions, by our choices, by the way we live our lives, that we want it. Because He watches what we do, just like we may watch ourselves if we really look at it and say, what am I telling God? Am I telling God I'm really alive for His work? Am I telling God when I do this, that this, yes, I'm really committed to you?

If we really sit back and think about some of the things that we do, we realize we may be telling God a different message than what we hope we're telling Him.

Because He gets the message loud and clear. He knows our minds and He holds our heart. And He says, you know, stir up the Spirit. There's ways we can do that. Prayer, fasting, meditation, reading the Bible, immersing ourselves from it, divorcing ourselves from the world for a period of time, making sure that we are in fellowship with one another and that we're growing in that bond with one another. We can do that by remembering. Remembering from where we've fallen, striving and asking God to give us that back, because that's what He wants to give us back if He sees we really want it.

And if we ask in His name with the right attitude and not just saying the words, powerful word remembering, let's go back to Exodus 13. Exodus 13. We were in verse 3. Let's drop it down to verse 6. God is telling them, you know, as the time they live in the wilderness, He will have been feeding them.

And so when they get to the Promised Land, they need to be keeping this. They need to be keeping this festival. They need to remember what happened. In verse 6, He says, On the seventh day there will be a feast of the eternal. On leavened bread, He reminds them again and again, On leavened bread shall be eaten seven days, And no leavened bread shall be seen among you, Nor shall leaven be seen among you in all your quarters.

It's to be out. Your homes are to be clean of that. And then He says in verse 8, And you shall tell your Son in that day.

One, because of what the Lord did for me when I came up from Egypt. You tell your children this. When they ask, well, how come we can't have that wonder bread during this week? Don't just tell them, the church says we've got to not eat this for seven days. Tell them why. There's more than just not eating wonder bread or whatever the bread is you eat on a normal basis. There's more than that. There's a spiritual reason behind it. It's a moral understanding that they have to have. Otherwise, why would they ever keep it when they grow up if they just think, what's the point? They need to know, He says. You tell them that. Verse 9, It shall be as a sign to you on your hand, and as a memorial between your eyes. When you ask and when you think and you're doing these things, it'll be what guides your hands. It'll be between your eyes what you think about that the Lord's law may be in your mouth. That what you're eating represents more than just a piece of dry, unleavened bread, but that you're putting within you the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. You're eating that because we are what we eat physically, and we are what we eat spiritually. If our diet is comprised spiritually of TV for four hours and five hours a day, if it's comprised of internet and surfing the net for multiple hours of the day, and very little of our diet is really the things of God, then we know what we're going to get. It's no mystery. It's no mystery that we would be lacking in spiritual depth, or that we might find these things not important. If that's what our children's diet is all the time, it's no mystery why they might not find these things important. If their diet at home and speaking with you has very little to do with God, but everything to do with everything that's going on during the day and what they want to do, and the phones they need to have, and the computers they need to have, and the entertainment they want to do, you know, it's no mystery why they may grow up and not find the things of God interesting or even appealing. Because they've grown up on a diet that's very addicted to the world. Can't blame them as parents, but we can blame ourselves and be judicious in what we do. And God says here, tell your son, let him know. Let him know why you do the things you do.

Good reminders for us when we explain it to someone else. And when someone at work asks, why do you do that? It's good to let them know why and what it means. Let's keep your fingers there in Exodus 13 again. Let's go back to Psalm 78. Psalm 78, David, I guess it's Asaph, who's contemplating and recounting Israel and their faults and what they did as they came out of Egypt. In Psalm 78 and verse 1, of course, under inspiration of God, it says in Psalm 78 verse 1, Give ear, my people, to my law. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of God, and his strength and his wonderful works that he has done. For he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them, the children who would be born, that they may arise and declare them to their children, that they may set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, that they will remember those works. And the way they're going to remember them is if you remind them annually around on love and bread, and you remind ourselves as well, that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but they will keep his commandments, and may not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not set its heart aright, and whose spirit was not faithful to God.

Part of this day, he said, you remember what this day means. You remember what I did. You remember who you are. You remember who you were. You remember where I'm taking you, where I promise to take you. And you remember to teach them to your children that they know too what I've done, that they know too, and can have the same hope that you have, the same hope that should be burning bright in our lives.

There's a lot in the days of unleavened bread. We've passed the time where we've been putting the leaven out of our lives. By sunset yesterday, our homes should have been clean. That part of the days of unleavened bread is done. Doesn't mean that when you open your freezer or you find a cracker in a drawer someplace that you should just let it be, you still put it out.

But that part's done. Now we're in the days of unleavened bread. Now God says, you eat that unleavened bread. You have to put it out. If you're going to follow me, you need to put your sin, that sin, out of your life. But you've got to put me in. You've got to eat the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. You and your family. And he makes the analogy very clear with us. He spoke of the bread in the Old Testament. It talks about unleavened bread. Jesus Christ talks about the same thing back in John 6. He talks about bread and makes the analogy perfectly clear for anyone who's watching that the unleavened bread symbolically represents Him.

The example following Him and believing Him in John 6 and verse 32. John 6 and verse 32. As Jesus Christ is speaking to the people that are gathered there today that are looking to Him for some physical food, He says, That's the true bread. That's the bread He's talking about. The spiritual bread. Down to verse 40. He says, That's what God's will is. And I will raise Him up, Christ says, at the last day. Verse 48. He says, If you want eternal life, if you want meaning, hope, purpose, joy, peace, if you want the Spirit of God that will lead you to His kingdom, the Spirit that will keep us from stumbling along the way and going back to the way we were, if you want that, you have to eat the bread of life. We have to put the old out. We have to put the new in. And more and more each year. Eating that. Not just for seven days, but for the rest of our lives, eating that unleavened bread that represents Jesus Christ, that represents Him. He says, I am the way. I'm the truth. I'm the life. You have to do that. There's no other way. Because if you eat the wrong bread, it's going to lead to death. Eat the wrong stuff. You're done. You have to eat of the right stuff.

Paul spoke of the same concept, too. To the churches that he was ministering to years, decades after Jesus Christ ascended into heaven. And the words are here for us today. Colossians 3.

And verse 1. If then you were raised with Christ, if we are part of Him, if we've given ourselves to Him, and we've come up out of the waters of baptism, yielding ourselves to Him, putting away the old, washing them away in the waters of baptism, coming up as a new creation. If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above. Keep your eyes on the future. You keep the things that are of God, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth. Quit eating the diet of the world. Start eating the diet of God. Keep your eyes on that. For you died. You were baptized. You told God, I don't want this life anymore. You died. And your life is hidden with Christ in God. He's given you the life.

When Christ, who is our life, appears, you will also appear with Him in glory, just as Jesus Christ said. Father, my will is that they will be with me when I return. That you will see the glory and that you will glorify them as well.

Verse 5 there says, therefore put to death. Put it out of your life. Put the old leaven out. Put to death your members which are on the earth. Fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry.

Put all that leaven out of your life. Do it physically, and as you're doing it physically, understand what you need to be doing spiritually. All those things need to be part of your past. Put them out of your house. Put them out of you.

Because of these things, the wrath is coming upon the sons of disobedience.

Verse 7, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. You used to be that way. That used to mark you. But if you truly put the leaven out, you're not that way anymore.

But now you yourselves are to put off all these. Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Don't lie to one another since you've put off the old man with his deeds.

That's gone. That was part of the leaven you threw out when you committed to God.

And you've put on. Now you're eating the unleavened bread. You've been baptized. You came up a new creation. And now you're putting on the new man. Now you're eating the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

And now you've put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Christ who created us.

Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is in all, is all, and in all.

No more partiality. God sees all of us is one way, and how we should be seeing each other as well.

Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, you start eating these things, and you continue to eat these things.

Put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering.

Bear with one another. Forgive one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.

Christ forgave plenty. He says you forgive too. There is nothing that anyone has done to us that we shouldn't be able to forgive.

But above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection.

Jesus Christ defined what love is. First John tells us God is love.

Love, Jesus Christ said, if you love me, do my will. Follow my way.

Because if you don't do that, then you don't love me. He said, plain and simple, do it and do it the way I say, because there's just one way. Just one way to salvation. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body.

Because when we eat of that same bread, there's the unity that it pictures.

And be thankful. And when we remember, when we keep these days, when we're mindful of them, we cannot be anything but thankful. Because we realize God did it all for us. We didn't deserve any of it.

Let the Word of Christ dwell in you. Eat that unleavened bread that He said. He is the bread of life.

Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, in hymns, in spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Give thanks to Him. Be grateful for Him for what He has done. And show Him you are grateful by the way you live your life.

As we go through the next seven days, I guess now six days left in the days of unleavened bread, let's keep the feast the way that God asked us to do. Let's remember the things that He would ask us to do.

And have a reminder every single day when you bite into that unleavened bread of what God wants for us to do, that we are living His way, that we are participating in His way, that we are doing the things and ingesting into us the things that will satisfy Him.

That we are becoming the people that He wants us to become. Let us be committed to be people of humility, people who are loyal and committed and zealous and repentant when things come to our attention through God or through other people that we need to repent of.

That we are committed to allowing Him to purge, continue through the rest of our lives, purge out the leaven.

But we do our part in eating the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, and we make sure we are doing the things that help us to be spiritually healthy.

We'll have a very good feast. And God, if we do what He says, just as Jesus Christ said, He will give us eternal life.