The Road to Passover

As we heard in the sermon, the sermonette passed over just a few days away, and I'm sure for many of us, we've begun to turn our minds toward that event and began to prepare ourselves for that very most solemn occasion of the year where we take the symbols of the bread and wine of Jesus Christ. Today, I want to take us through my version of the road to Passover and give you five steps to consider in preparing your mind and your heart and your approach to God for this affair, this renewal of our covenant, our relationship with God, and some points for us all to think about. They're general and yet they're specific because they all relate to the life that God has called us to live, and I think that they are steps that are important for each one of us to consider. So let me just jump right into them. It will take the remainder of the time to go through my five steps to Passover and give us something to think about and to prepare for. In our hearts and minds, I go through every year of my own particular routine. You may have yours, and I wonder exactly what it is that I need to say to us as a congregation that hits the mark, hits the needs, hits the spot, fits the bill for whatever has been happening in our lives through the year. In some ways, you can hit specific things to cover episodes in our lives and other things that I don't always know what's meant the most to us, what's impacted us most in every case as we go through the year. But I think that these particular steps are general enough to catch us all and specific enough to give us something to consider and to think about. The first step to Passover in my road is that of conversion. It is a time to consider and to think the level, the depth of the life that we have that is called a life of conversion or a life of the Spirit. Turn over to Romans 8. Romans 8.

Beginning in verse 5.

Romans 8 and verse 5 tells us, Tells us, If we are totally tuned into this world, to the physical, material aspects of life only, and that's what dominates all aspects of our life, to the exclusion of the spiritual, then there's no question we're walking according to the physical. Obviously, this physical is going to dominate our life so much. But if it does to the exclusion of matter spiritual, then all of us would be falling into this category of walking according to the flesh.

The question for us to ask ourselves is, are we walking according to the flesh or according to the Spirit in our life? This is really what Paul is saying right here in this question. Life is engineered to keep us focused on the physical. We get up each morning, we're hungry, or we're thirsty. We have breakfast.

We go to work. We drive to work, go through traffic. Some of us have a short drive to work. Others of us have a long drive to work. Or school. Or whatever it is that consumes our day. All day long, we pursue things, ideas, and activities that are physical. We have to use our hands and our mind. They're time consuming. They're fatiguing. They're stressful. If we're not tired enough from that, when we get off work, some of us may go to a gym and work out.

Because we have to keep the ticker going, or keep ourselves in shape, or do we just enjoy it? We'll play some basketball, or some other activity, golf in the weather that permits it, or whatever. Then we get tired, we eat some more, and eventually we go to sleep, and it starts all over again. The next day.

In between all of that, we worry about jobs, we worry about retirement, especially with recent events on the stock market. We worry about money. We may worry about people, their problems, and those problems intrude upon us. And they take our time. Our own fears and our own problems get in the way.

Life is so often, so much, full of the physical. Which raises the question, where is the room for the spiritual? Where do we make room for the spiritual? That's the challenge. That's the challenge for every one of us. And that takes commitment. We don't always connect to the things of the spirit in our everyday life. Dwelling on spiritual matters, the fruits of the Holy Spirit, for instance, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, patience, and all the fruits of the Spirit.

That takes work even to do that. It takes a conscious effort to think about the things of the Spirit. It's easy to think about the things of the flesh, but it takes a conscious effort, I find, to think about the things of the Spirit. And to focus on those. To focus our minds on prayer, and in prayer, when we're even there in prayer. To engage God in our thoughts takes commitment. And that commitment flows from a need that is every bit as great as the need for water, food, and sleep. Asking God for our daily bread means we ask for the spiritual bread we need to engage the world around us, the world we meet.

I've mentioned lately the question of how often do we really see God, and sense God, guiding us, guiding our actions, guiding our plans. How confident are we that the actions we decide upon that we ultimately take, the decisions we make, and all decisions, remember, all actions have consequences.

How confident are we that they are being led by God, blessed by God, inspired by God, that indeed we are walking with God when we make those decisions. How confident are we on those major, major areas of our life, and see and want God to be involved, and feel that He is guiding our steps. You see, when it says here that we are to walk according to the spirit, we have to seek those things. To live according to the spirit, we seek the things of the spirit. That's how God wants us to walk. And that is the point that I come to, is it takes work.

But if we discipline ourselves to do that, I have confidence that we can come to a point where we can be reasonably certain that God is leading us and is involved in our lives on a regular basis. Maybe not every day, because we all have our good days and our bad days. But if we don't have certain levels of confidence that God is working with us, and indeed He is behind our decisions, by time, by fruits, and all, then we have to ask ourselves, how closely are we walking by the spirit?

Debbie and I get an opportunity every, about once a year, to travel with our good friends Robin and Susan Weber. And these thoughts have been things that we have discussed over the years. Usually in connection with the World News and Prophecy Seminar, we'll take an extra day or two, as we did in January, and go up in South Texas. We'll see what's around there, whether it's been here in the Midwest, or South Texas, or California on occasions. And we'll take an extra day or two and travel and spend some time together. And we have developed a little routine. We will start each day with just a very short prayer.

A group prayer. Not that that's our only prayer, but it's at least a short group prayer. And if we're not quite sure on our itinerary and where we're going to wind up, what we're going to see, we'll just come to the conclusion, well, let's just play it by heart. That's become kind of our own little phrase. Instead of playing it by ear, we say, let's play it by heart. Which is our code for, let's let God surprise us. Let's let God surprise us around some corner, or up one street, or in a particular place. And it's our way of trying to live the experience with the perspective of God's Spirit. Now, we make our decisions, and we're practical, pragmatic people.

We realize that we get hungry, we're going to stop in the nearest place. We want a cup of coffee, we're going to make a decision. But more often than not, over the years of our trips, we kind of look back and we've learned to tune in, if you will, to the spiritual aspect of things, and to recognize that, hey, you know, maybe this is where we're supposed to have been. Maybe this is why this happened, and maybe this is why that particular situation came before us, and the person we met, the conversation we had.

And we try to live our lives like that, on a trip like that. And I've remembered that and try to focus on that. It's my way, along with many other aspects of my life, that I've come to learn and think about, in terms of living by God's Spirit, living according to the things of the Spirit, trying to do that more than the things of the flesh.

Now, I have my moments, just like all of us do, where I get fatigued, I get irritable, and I know when I'm walking by the flesh. And I think you do, too, when you get to that point in your life. But more often than not, it's important to be sure that you can frame some moments in your mind, in your mind's eye, and know that, hey, that was a moment that I'll thank God for.

That was a moment that I will say a prayer about and recognize that was something for God to see. Let me tell you... I didn't intend to tell you this, but let me tell you one that I had back last summer. I was coming back from my trip to the Grand Canyon, and I was flying from Las Vegas into Atlanta Airport, through Delta Airlines. You fly Delta, you've got to always go through Atlanta, on Delta Airlines.

And it was summer afternoon, and as so often happens, when these summer thunderstorms start rolling around the south, and as we were beginning our descent into Atlanta, the captain came on and said, we're going to go through a major cell system, buckle your seat belts, it's going to be a rough ride. And you begin to think, oh no, at least I do, that's when I break out in panic and think, oh, we're going to crash, and you know, all of that.

Well, you know, I just always, as I do, I have my routine on the airplane, and I just start praying. And you know what? We went right through it. Two systems, and it was just a few bumps, not too bad. And I was waiting to catch my hop up to Indianapolis, and I happened to sit in the lounge area in front of this big glass window looking out over the airport there at Atlanta.

And these systems were not done. And I mean, a monster black thundercloud system started moving across the airport. I mean, this was a big one. You've seen them sometimes rolling around here. I had a bird's eye view of it all. And it started rolling across, and you can see airplanes starting to come in, and they were all trying to get down before this hit.

And it eventually just enveloped the entire airport in darkness. They had to shut the whole airport down. All the workers had to come in off the tarmac, and all flights were shut down. The airport was shut down probably about 40 minutes until this system moved on. And I was safe and sound inside the airport terminal watching this. And, you know, a thunderstorm to me is not a very pleasant experience. And you can read all kinds of things. I was grateful. I was glad we got down before that thunderstorm hit. I didn't want to be going through that one. And when it passed, the most beautiful rainbow came out, as so often happens.

And because of what, you know, goes through your life, what you're going into, I watched that. I watched the thunderstorm move across. And then I saw the rainbow. And I remember what God said about the rainbows in the Bible. The rainbow is a promise of God's presence. And the particular promise that He made there to Noah and to all flesh on the earth. But it is a part of God's promise.

And I'd watched this big thunderstorm go across. And then I'd seen the promise of God's rainbow. And I took that to mean things are going to be tough. It's not going to be easy. But I'm going to be with you. I'm going to be with you.

And I wrote that down in my journal. And that has stayed with me. It's an example of, I guess, some things that I've tended to learn to look to and look at. About life and about what happens. You can think, well, it's just a summer afternoon thunderstorm. Mac, Nealey. And yeah, it was. But it came at a particular point in time that, as I was going through a passage, and beginning to embark on responsibilities, and I took it as a sign from God. You have your signs, I've got my signs. My point is, learn to walk by the Spirit and less by the flesh. And see God and seek God and ask God to guide us in our lives. And that is a lesson in conversion in the life God has called us to. The second step here is in Hebrews 11. And it deals with the step of faith. Hebrews 11.

The faith chapter. The faith chapter. It says in verse 6 that, without faith it's impossible to please Him. For He who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. And then it goes on into the chapter to talk about the examples of faith. Without faith it's impossible to please God. Down in verse 23 we read about Moses. We're told a little bit of detail about Moses here in these verses, which are very interesting and pertain to us as we observe the Passover. There's a little bit of a sketch of Moses' life right here in verses 23-29. That helps to teach us something about faith as we step toward the Passover.

It says in verse 23, By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents because they saw he was a beautiful child, and they were not afraid of the king's command. Remember, the king's command was that the male children of the Israelites were to be killed. You know the story because you've seen the movie, right? So you know all of this. By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, the seeming the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who was invisible. By faith he kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn, should touch them. And by faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians, attempting to do so, were drowned. And so there in a nutshell is the story of Moses, his family, and their faith. When you look at what is described here, you see that Moses and his family made choices. They made decisions along the way, and those decisions set them, the family, and Moses on the course to the Passover. Look at verse 23. They decided not to fear the king. They didn't fear the king, and so they put Moses in a reed boat and put him out on the water, and Pharaoh's daughter found him. And you know that part of the story, but they had no fear of the king. They had to come to that decision and come to that realization. Second, in verse 24, it says that Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Moses made a decision to refuse wealth and status.

Now that's a powerful decision, because those are the idols that really drive us today. In ancient Egypt, you think of the idols that they had, the cat gods and the beetle gods, and Pharaoh was worshipped as a god, and all those idols are pretty well-defined. Today, our idols are a little different. We worship money, status, power, celebrity.

But this was at the heart of Moses' decision, because he was the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He was raised in the court. He had privilege. He had wealth. He had status. He wasn't out working as a peasant in the fields and the marshes of Egypt. He wasn't working on some great monumental project. You saw the movie. He was directing it being done, according to the movie. But he had wealth and status, and his life was made. He had hit the lottery, and then he walked away from it. How many of us wish we'd hit the lottery? Yeah, we do, don't we? Life's lottery.

Well, I don't know if anyone in this room has hit literally the life's lottery, but we do think about it. Kind of like Tevye, in Fiddler on the Roof. It wouldn't hurt to be a wealthy man, Lord! Moses had it, and he made a decision, and that decision drove the rest of his life. In verse 25, he chose to suffer affliction with the people of God, then to enjoy the pleasures of sin.

He chose to throw his lot in with the underclass. To leave the upper class and join the underclass. And an underclass that was an enslaved class. Affliction with the people of God at that particular point in his life, rather than the passing pleasures that were afforded to him and in front of him. Do you think he may have had cause at various times to regret that and to wonder, maybe I shouldn't have been so hasty?

I think he did. I think there were moments that he thought, I could have had it easy. My 401 would have been just padded. The pension would have never run out here in this land.

Fourthly, verse 26 tells us that he also chose the reproach of Christ as greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. For he looked to the reward. Does it ever strike you in looking at verse 26 of what it is really saying, Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ greater. How could he have esteemed the reproach of Christ?

He didn't even hear of Christ. This was Moses, that legalistic, law-giving, Old Testament, Old Covenant guy. You've heard about him? And yet, the writer here, Paul, tells us that he esteemed the reproach of Christ as greater. How did that happen? How do you reconcile that? It is because of the decision that he made. He looked to the reward. One day, as you know the story, he was out in the desert.

He saw this big burning bush. He probably saw it from off in a far distance. It was probably a pretty big burning bush. He walked over to it, and there he had his encounter with God. That set him on the course of life. We know, because we've read the rest of the story, that the God that he dealt with was the one who became Jesus Christ.

But he had a New Testament experience in his decision to choose to live with and to suffer the life that comes through obedience and submission to Jesus Christ. And then, fifthly, here in verse 27, it says, He foresook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. He saw what could not be seen. He saw a reward. He saw a future. He saw a promise.

And he made decisions based on that. No different than you and I. We hear of a reward. We hear of a promise. We hear of the kingdom of God. We hear of eternal life. We have made decisions. We have chosen affliction. We have refused wealth and status. We don't fear those who revile us for what we've done. And we have chosen to walk this way of life and to live, if you will, in the footsteps of Christ and to deal with the reproach that he might have. Because we see what we are able to see what could not be seen, which is the essence of faith.

And think about one more thing in this. Moses did all of this 1500 years before Christ. 3500 years ago, roughly from our day right now. He did all of that without the threat of end-time prophecy. The lake of fire. The tribulation. Or being late to see it.

He did all that he did without knowing anything about that. All because he had an encounter with a God who spoke in a bush. Think about it. What drives us? What are our decisions? It shouldn't be tied to some threat that's hanging out there that we think that we got to know about or get all buggy-eyed about. It's because of what we see. It's because of faith. It's because of the promises. And those are prophetic enough in their own.

But by faith, just like Moses, we do all of these in our approach to the Passover. Step number three. The Bible talks about taking up a daily cross. In Luke 9. Beginning in verse 23. Christ said to them all, then He said to them all, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.

For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and is himself destroyed or lost? For whosoever is ashamed of Me in My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in his own glory and in his fathers and of the holy angels. Pretty strong statement. If you desire to come after Me, deny yourself and take up the cross daily and follow Me.

This follows in line of what we'd read about Moses. You see, Moses lived each day of his life with the consequences of his decisions. What we have to deal with, what we endure, what we enjoy. The joy of our life, the problems of our life, the hope of our life, the struggles of our life, the good of our life, the bad of our life, all of it. The total package is, in a sense, what Christ here says as Luke records it, of taking up our cross on a daily basis. What we endure and what we enjoy reminds us that we have a personal calling. This is what this is really referring to.

It's not to get caught up so much in the concept of a cross or a stake or whatever. It reminds us of the personal calling because he says, if you desire to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. We have a cross. We have a responsibility. We are responsible for ourselves.

You don't take up your neighbor's cross. The fact that Christ had to carry his own cross to the hill was to emphasize the personal responsibility, the personal calling that we have.

That's what he is saying here. We have a cross and it is ours. There are times that we have to come down to the fact that realize that you can't carry your neighbors. You can't carry your husbands. You can't carry your wives. You can't carry your best friend. You can't carry anyone else. You have to carry yours. You can pray for them. You can encourage. We can counsel. We can help. We can do what we can. But on this matter of this spiritual relationship with God, when it comes right down to our relationship with Jesus Christ, when we come to the Passover, we are coming on our own. It's nobody else. And we have to do that, in a sense, on a daily basis when we recognize that we have consequences to the decisions of our life.

They bear fruit. Sometimes good. Sometimes not so good. We live by the flesh or we live by the Spirit. But our daily decisions, the daily burden, the daily opportunities, are our daily cross that we have to make, we have to do. And we judge and we examine ourselves and not others.

As much as we forgive others and make sure that we have cleared up whatever we can clear up, as we come to the Passover and learn that particular responsibility, ultimately, we have to recognize that at some point we have to just basically focus on ourselves and everybody else has got their own decision to make.

We judge and examine ourselves, not others. This is a very, very key thought as we prepare ourselves and examine ourselves for the Passover. You know, just as an aside, and the fact that we're talking here about the cross, I think we all recognize that how the cross has become, through the generations and centuries, a symbol of Christianity. There's a cross in this window behind us, which you all know, and we cover it up every week because we don't worship a cross. We don't look to a cross as a symbol that we need to wear, bow down to, or look to, in that sense, as a symbol of Christianity and Jesus Christ. When we first moved into this building a number of years ago, we didn't put a curtain across that window because most of us did not bother us. But we had one or two people, as visitors, come in and they were offended by it and they left. I remember one gentleman, he had a particular background, and to him that was just something he couldn't do. And so he left. And so we realized, well, it's better not to cause a fence. So we had that made and that was put up there. There it is. Now the Adventists leave it there all the time because they meet here on Sunday morning and the sun comes in here and they don't like that. So I think it's up there just about all the time from now on. But, as you know, there's a cross back there. But that's not what we wear. We don't go around with them on our neck and dangling from our ear and hanging on the walls of our homes. We don't run in fear of them either. I mean, a few years ago we had a conference, a ministers conference, over here by St. Louis at a Catholic retreat center. And every guest room in the retreat center had a crucifix on the wall. Well, I didn't think we hung anything over, did we? Oh, that's right. Debbie took it down. She did. So it bothered her. So I tended not to be bothered by it, but she did take it down. We made sure we put it back up before we left. But, you know, that's personal in that sense. We could do a whole Bible study on this subject, and I thought about doing that this year. I don't know if I'll get to it yet or not. But there are many reasons from the Bible and from history and all that we don't, the Christian in the church of God, we don't use a cross and don't look to a cross. Even though it's mentioned in this particular verse, we know the spiritual meaning of it. But just one point is to understand it. The cross and what Christ died on is a reminder of what we leave behind at baptism.

Number one, that's a reminder of what you leave behind at baptism, which is sin, yourself, the debt. If you look in Colossians 2 and verse 14, this verse tells us also something for us to understand. It talks about what has been wiped out in Colossians 2 and verse 14. We're dead in our trespasses and the uncircumcision of flesh, and He has bathed alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses. Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. The handwriting of requirements or ordinances was the debt of sin that was required because of the transgression of God's law. That's what is the handwriting of ordinances or requirements of this verse. Paul says that that was taken out of the way. He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. The debt of our sins were nailed to the cross, forgiven. We accept that at baptism. We go under the water. We bury that. It's behind us. There's nothing in the Bible that would lead us to think that that's the symbol of what we want to take as this life that we are now to live.

Do you know what the real symbol of a Christian life is in the Bible? It's not the cross. The real symbol is the resurrection. That's the symbol of our new life. When we come up out of that water, we could go through a number of scriptures. Maybe another time I will do that to show that to you. But that's the symbol of our life. How do you wear that around your neck? Put it on a wall. You don't. You live it. You live it every day when you take up your cross on a daily basis. The life of Christ within us. That's the symbol of the Christian life. It's not the cross. That's what bore the sins. That's what we want to leave behind. The world has it all backwards. For several hundred years, the Christians didn't even use the symbol of a cross. That's something that came much later. That's another part of the story. Step number four is in Galatians 6.

Verse 1, Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you be tempted. Bear one another's burdens. Verse 2, And so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks himself to be something when he's nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone and not in another. For each one shall bear his own load. Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches. And then verse 7, Paul writes, Many of us can't wait to get into the garden, sow some seed this spring. I started shopping for grass seed yesterday. I said, I'll wait another few days. But I can't wait to sow some grass seed. I can't wait to put some tomato plants out. Many of you that have raised a garden, you know what it means. On a small scale, those that have done any farming know the importance of it on a large scale. The Bible talks about sowing the seed of the gospel of the kingdom in Matthew 13. And where that seed falls, good ground or bad ground. You reap, but you sow. If you don't sow anything in the spring, you're not going to have anything to reap in the fall.

If we sow dead seed, it's not going to come up.

We sow good actions, we'll reap good actions, good fruits in most cases. If we sow bad actions, bad judgments, we'll suffer the consequences. It says, God is not mocked. Don't deceive yourselves. We can't live our lives thinking we can hide from God, that there are not consequences for our actions. We want those consequences to be good at consequences, but that's not always going to happen, is it? And one of the biggest lessons that we learn when we grow up, when we come to maturity, we stop hitting ourselves ahead against the wall, is to realize that we reap what we sow. Or to put it another way from the book of Numbers, our sins will find us out.

Our sins will find us out. Every once in a while I run across a situation, been a person's life in the church as it comes to my attention, and you have to get into it and deal with it. And you realize there's such suffering, there is such sin. You start to unwind it, peel it back, look here, examine that, and you realize when it's all said and done, you realize there is so much sin here, I don't know where to start. I don't know who's right or who's wrong. All parties are probably guilty to some degree or the other. And over the years there are a few that they just, finally you come to the point and you realize God is not mocked.

We can't mock God in our life. What we sow, we will reap. You can't claim to be a Christian, you can't come to church and hit all the Sabbaths and the Holy Days and go on all the exotic feecights and live a corrupt life inside without it catching up to you. Your marriage, your personal life, it'll catch up to you. It happens. God is not mocked. And ultimately there will be an accountability. It might be a divorce.

The solution of a relationship, that at the heart and core of it, there is just filth and evil.

That people choose to tolerate or to get close to or to engage in. Too much sowing to the flesh.

Too much desire for status for money, the things that it buys, and wealth, and exotica.

And if that's not done with the right spirit, with the right approach, if that's not sowing righteousness within a spirit-led life, it'll be rotten at the core and it will ultimately be exposed because God is not mocked. And there will be a day of accountability. There will be a day of accountability. And sometimes that accountability is tough. It is tough. And it produces tears and anguish for a family, for a congregation, for a people. And we say, oh, it's tough. That's bad. Yes, it is. And sometimes I just have to put it all down and sit back and say, God is not mocked. That is the only answer for some situations that I've come across and have had to deal with. And all I'd say is, God is not mocked. What you sow, you will reap.

And there will be a day of accountability. Sometimes sooner and sometimes later. There was a very interesting story that I ran across in a column by Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal last week. I liked Peggy Noonan. She was Ronald Reagan's chief speech writer. She wrote the Challenger speech that he gave when the Challenger shuttle blew up. She wrote his D-Day speech when he went to the beaches of Normandy as well. She writes a weekly column for the Wall Street Journal. Last weekend she wrote this about... She was talking in the context of commenting about her current economic political scene. But she referenced an incident of a situation with the United States Marine Corps in December, this past December. I'll read how she wrote about a crash that took place in San Diego of a naval fighter jet, a marine jet. And the conclusions that came out of it, because they just released a study. The Marines did a study of what happened, and they released it and prompted her to write this column. She goes back and she says, it's December 8, 2008, 11.11 a.m. And a young marine pilot takes off from an aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, on a routine training flight. The carrier is maybe 90 miles southwest of San Diego. Lt. Dan Neubauer is flying an F-18 Hornet. Minutes into the flight, he notices low oil pressure in one of the two engines. He shuts it down. Then the light shows low fuel for the other engine. There's only two.

He's talking to air traffic control and given options and suggestions on where to make an emergency landing. He can go to the Naval Air Station at North Island, which is in San Diego Harbor, the route to which takes him over San Diego Bay. Or he can go to the Marine Air Station at Miramar, with which he is more familiar, but which takes him over heavily populated land. He goes from Miramar. The second engine flames out. About three miles from the runway, the electrical system dies. Lt. Neubauer tries to aim the jet toward a canyon, and he ejects at what all seem to agree is the last possible moment. The jet crashed, nose down in the University City neighborhood of San Diego, hitting two homes and damaging three. Four people. All members of a Korean immigrant family were killed. 36-year-old Young Mi Lee, her daughter's Grace, 15 months, and Rachel, 2 months. And her 60-year-old mother, Seokim Kim. Four people. Two infants, two adults. The Marines launched an investigation of themselves. Wednesday a week ago, the results were announced. They could not have been tougher or more damning. The crash, said Major General Randolph Alice, the assistant wing commander for the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, was, quote, clearly avoidable, the result of, quote, a chain of wrong decisions. Mechanics had known since July of a glitch in the jet fuel transfer system. The F-18 should have been removed from service and fixed and was not. The young pilot failed to read the safety checklist. He relied on guidance from Marines at Miramar, who did not have complete knowledge or understanding of his situation. He should have been ordered to land at North Island. He took an unusual approach to Miramar, taking a long left loop instead of a shorter turn to the right, which ate up time and fuel. Twelve Marines were disciplined. Four senior officers, including the squadron commander, were removed from duty. Their military careers are essentially over. The pilot is grounded while a board reviews his future.

Peggy Noonan goes on to quote another Naval aviator's reaction to the judgments.

That Naval aviator found himself wondering if the Marines had been, quote, too hard on themselves, but they are, after all, he said, Marines. The Marines investigated themselves, and they came down hard on their own. Heads rolled, in other words. Careers ended because decisions were made, judgments were made, and people died. And it was their responsibility. They accepted it, and they held men and lives and families and children accountable. You reap what you sow. You reap what you sow. I gained a little measure of respect for the Marines reading this.

A lot of times mistakes are made, and it gets swept under the carpet. In business, in government, personal lives, you know it, I know it. But after all, they're Marines, and they have a high code, and they have a high honor. Just an aside to this, I watched a movie that I would highly recommend for any of you this week. It's on HBO. I don't know if you have HBO. It's currently being run there about hours now. It's called Taking Chance. Taking Chance. It's a true story of a Marine that dies in Iraq, and the journey from Dover Air Force Base, where they take all the bodies from the Middle East, prepare them from Dover to the boys' hometown in Dubois, Wyoming, near Jackson Hole. Kevin Bacon stars in the movie. He is the Marine officer who asks to accompany the body home, because a soldier accompanies every body from Dover back to the burial spot, every step along the way. And that body is never, never left alone. I learned a lot about their customs in watching this movie. The most powerful movie I've ever seen in one sense, and most of it is silent. There's not a whole lot of dialogue, but you can't help but watch something like that and be moved. To show the dignity and the honor they afford the body of a fallen Marine from those who prepare that body to the officer who takes it along the way. And as they show this, everybody along the way paid honor to that fallen soldier.

Accountability. It's a serious thing about adult life. Our sins have to be accounted for. They've been accounted for by Jesus Christ in a sacrifice. We have to accept responsibility. What we sow, we will reap. And God is not mocked. Something to think about as we take up that cross every single day. The fifth step is 2 Corinthians 13. 2 Corinthians 13 and verse 5.

This is the big question. This is the one we want to be sure that we answer every year.

This is the one we want to be sure that when we come to take the Passover, this is what we know. There's no shadow of doubt, no equivocation, no fear, because we want to be like Moses. We want to take the Passover in faith. Examine yourselves, verse 5, as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you unless indeed you are disqualified? That's it. That's the big question. To really settle in our minds, in our hearts, as we come up to the Passover. Whether or not Christ is actually dwelling in our hearts through faith. Whether or not our heart is indeed the Holy of Holies, the place where God dwells, where Jesus Christ dwells. Christ is in us. Or we are disqualified. That's the question to answer.

Take these five steps.

Take a few half steps or some of your own side steps that you might come in with from your own experience. I am confident, brethren, that all of us, when we come to the night when we take the Passover, will be able to say, as Paul does here in verse 6, that I trust that you will know that you are not disqualified.