A Special Precious Gift From God

Brethren, man's life, as we know, has a great purpose. God has designed us to be his sons and his daughters and his kingdom. And that requires a precious gift from God to us. Now, that alone is a gift for us to be His children. But on top of that, it requires to give us something so special, or a number of things that are so special, for us to be able to be His sons and daughters in His kingdom. In Ephesians, puts it in a very nice way, what it says, He's blessed us with every spiritual blessing from heavenly places.

You know, there are many blessings that God has given us, many gifts. And today I want to talk about a very special gift that God has given us, and very facets of that gift, which is the gift of Christ's suffering and death.

And how we need to look at a few points related to that, as we celebrate the anniversary of His suffering and death, and then do it in a worthy manner.

You know, in Hebrews 2, verses 6-10, it says that Christ is the author, as it puts it there, in Hebrews 2, is the author of our salvation. Let's look at exactly how it's worded.

It says He's the captain of our salvation. Another version says, author of our salvation, and He's made perfect through sufferings.

You know, it is interesting when the Israelites sacrificed animals like lamb, goats, cattle, all pointed to Christ.

The actual act of killing those animals always done in the most merciful way, that they would feel the least amount of pain and the least suffering.

And Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of those sacrifices.

But Christ had to suffer. Animals don't have to suffer, but Christ had to suffer before His death.

And so, we have not only His death, the blood, but we also have His suffering, which is symbolized by the bread.

I always get a little frustrated when some people giving a story about, well, the Passover must be after Christ's death, because it must be after, you know, after He died. But no, it's not just death, it's His suffering. It's His suffering that is also included, and His act of service. So there are three important symbols in the Passover ceremony. It's not just the wine. But the point here is that Christ was prepared to give, and He has the gift to give His eternal life to come to earth and to suffer for us, so that you and I could be redeemed from sure death, because we know the wages of sin is death, Romans 6.23.

And we all basically are condemned to death. We are basically on the death sentence. But Christ redeemed us, buys us back from death so we can have life again.

And the amazing thing that quite often we, or at least Christianity in general, does not understand it, is that the Father and the Son had all this plan from the beginning. All this plan. I mean, look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Let's look at verses 8 and 9.

1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 8 and 9. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, and putting on the breastplate of faith and love and as an element of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

He appointed us to have salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation is through Christ.

And then we know in 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 9, when it says, when it's talking about the power of God's Holy Spirit, and a little later in verse 9 says, that power has saved and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which is given. Again, this is a gift is given to us in or through Christ Jesus before time began.

Now, people don't fully understand what it means before time began. How do you and I measure time? With the movement of the earth around the sun and the movement of the moon around the earth and the rotation of the earth. And that's what gives us time. 24 hours a day, that gives us a day, gives us a month, gives us the years. That's what gives us time.

So, before time began means before God created the sun, the moon and the stars that give us time. So it's before the creation. So, God had all this planned before the beginning of time as we understand it and had it all planned through Jesus Christ, through Jesus Christ. But look at verse 10. But now, that's 2nd Timothy chapter 1 verse 10. But now, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ.

So, what does it mean? That means this plan is now understood or revealed to those that God has chosen to reveal at this time. But God has revealed to us.

And by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life, life eternal, eternal life and immortality to light through the Gospel.

To light means brought to the surface, brought to our understanding, brought us to be able to comprehend it. So, Christ came and within the Gospel, the Good News, now is becoming self-evident and clear of what God is doing. And that understanding was not before really understood by the general Jewish-speaking nation or Jewish people. So, that was what brought to light. And so, we know that God has given us something very special. His only Son has given us so that we who believe is only begotten Son. And we read that in John 3 16. So, who will believe may have eternal life? Now, believe on what? Well, believe who Christ is, that what he has done is really giving of his life so that you and I can be brought back. But it's also the message that he brought us. We believe the message that he is giving us the way, the truth and life towards the Kingdom. So, it's only through Christ that he is the way. What he is speaking is the truth. It's not what you and I hear in this media of ours, which is full of dirt and tholph and things like that. It's just lies left, right and center, whichever side you look at it. But he is given as the way, the truth and eternal life. That is the way and he is true and that's the way to eternal life. That is a wonderful gift. That is a wonderful gift. So again, brethren, today I'm talking about different angles of this gift to enable us to reach eternal life. And I'm attempting to try and bring our mindset to one that we can fully understand what Christ and God are doing so that you and I can celebrate in a positive manner the possible.

Now, I mean that in a positive manner because yes, the Passover is a solemn occasion. Yes, it is. Basically by solemn, I mean, there is a holy convocation. I'm not saying it's a holy day, but I'm saying it's a convocation that is calling us to be present. So it's got to be of respect like the Sabbath is a holy convocation. We are to come to the Sabbath with respect. We don't come dressed in whatever as if we're going for a soccer match or whatever it is. We come to respect before the King and we also come with a proper respectful attitude. But for the Passover on top of it, it's a solemn occasion. So we come even with greater solemnity and respect. But we come with joy as well because it's so easy. And in the past, we have focused a lot. And I'm not saying it was wrong, but I'm just saying we're focused a lot on, yeah, we got to look at ourselves. We've got to examine ourselves. Yes, we do. But quite often we beat ourselves down to a pulp just because we are bad. And we are. But we need to look at it from another additional angle. That is, it's a gift. It's a gift. God wants to give you and I eternal life for what Christ is doing. And so, yes, it is a solemn occasion, but it is also a time of inner joy and inner peace because of what Christ has done for us under the instruction of the Father and what that is enabling us.

And so there is a great purpose that God is working out. God decided right from the beginning that Christ would have to suffer and die for us because he knew we would sooner or later sin because we have free moral agency. And God did it. He sent us his beloved son and he suffered and died. Not just died, but he suffered and died because of our sins. And so he promised, he committed, and he did. He's faithful. The rest that he needs to do, it's like saying it's just a piece of cake compared to giving his life. I mean, it's not a process to come and it's going to do a lot of other things that are going to bring us peace to the sick world, which is yours and my only hope. Really, it's only hope. And I believe that day is soon, Bre So my question is, how do you and I respond? What is our responsibility? How do we likewise commit? Now, obviously, we commit by being baptized. Right. And that means we believe. We believe that Christ is done. We believe that he's going to give us eternal life. And we repent. We repent. Quite often, I mention quite clearly, not only of what we've done, but we repent of what we are. In other words, we've got to put away that old man. That's what we are. And then we've got to commit by trusting him to help us to do the rest.

Now, that act of commitment is nothing else than baptism. And we know very well when Peter gave his sermon on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2. And I want to look at it very briefly, because I'm going to bring it in with Romans as well.

And I'm going to highlight something that sometimes we don't fully grasp. But it is important for us to understand, because the truth, the gospel, the understanding is like when you go to certain doctors and they say, your health is like, your treatment is like an onion. You treat the part that requires no street in first. And then you peel that and then you treat the next layer. But the truth is the same thing. It goes in layers. That's why we often refer to prophecy being dual, because it's like two layers.

And many times, there are even more than two layers. So, like for instance, physical and spiritual. And so, we've got to look at this a little bit deeper. Now, in Acts chapter 2, verse 36-38, we see this is the day of Pentecost. And then Peter is giving them a lecture, and they are all understanding it, because God enabled them all through this gift of their understanding different languages, and enabled them all to be able to understand, to grasp, because they came from different countries. And so, or from different regions that spoke different languages. So, they all understood what Peter was saying. And then Peter, then verse 36, by expounding a few facts before, made them realize that Christ, whom they had crucified, was both Lord and the Messiah.

Now, this hit them like a ton of bricks in their head. That's in verse 37. When they realized, what have we done? We have killed the Messiah, and we killed our Lord. And then, in verse 38, Peter says, we've got to repent. We've got to change. And we've got to be baptized. Now, it is important that we need to understand what baptism is. Now, we all know, baptism is of immersion, that you immerse in the water. But it's not immersion, per se, in the water, that washes you. It's the symbolism behind what it is. Because that immersion is showing you, it's like signing a contract for a commitment, that your old man, what you are, is going to die. And you can read that. And we'll look at it in a moment, which is described in Romans 6. We'll look at that in a moment. But it also means that we're going to come out of that water, and we're going to make a commitment to live a new man. But it's more than the water. Because you're immersed, yes, in water. But you're immersed into the spiritual body of Christ. You see, quite often we only think about the physical baptism. You're not immersed in the water. But we are baptized into the body of Christ. And the body of Christ is the spiritual body of Christ, which is the Church of God. So we are immersed into Christ's body. We are put into that body. And I quite often use the analogy, like saying, if I go to a person and I say, well, there is a company there, let's use the name of a company, like, for instance, Microsoft. Or AT&T, or whatever it is. I can't come around and say, well, you now are an employee of Microsoft. Or I can't go around and say, well, you now are an employee of AT&T. I have to be a duly authorized representative or manager with that right authority from the HR department of AT&T or Microsoft to put you into that organization. Now, I'm not talking about a physical organization, but the principle is the same. There has to be an authority, an authorized, delegated authority from Christ to put you into the body of Christ.

And as you put into the body of Christ, your sins are washed because Christ has no sins. Right? That is the spiritual meaning of this. And now you made a commitment. You come out like living a new life, like a new person being a follower of Christ. And so that's what it says here. Quite often in verse study, like we don't read it, it says, and let every one of you baptized, be baptized. What does that mean? Being immersed. Immersed in what? Well, it doesn't tell you in this verse, but you are immersed into this spiritual body of Christ. And then it says, in the name of Jesus Christ. That means by the authority of Jesus Christ. It's Jesus Christ that gives a minister, a duly authorized minister of God of Christ to do that baptism and to put you into that spiritual body. And the purpose of that is that your sins will be, remission of your sins will be forgiven. And then you are to receive the gift. Yeah, now it's talking again about a gift, a gift of the Holy Spirit. So we can see the gift of Christ, and then there is a process of a few steps that we have to go through. And then we receive the gift of God's Holy Spirit. Let's just look at that in a little bit more detail. Yeah, in Romans 6, verse 3 and 4. Romans 6, verse 3 and 4, when it's talking about baptism. And then in verse 3 it says, So do you not know that as many of us as we're baptized into Christ Jesus. We baptized into Christ Jesus. So we baptized into His body, spiritual body, of course. So we are part of His spiritual body, and like His body had to die, and then He resurrected. Our old man has to die, and we got resurrects. That's the whole symbolism. Therefore, verse 4, we were buried within, why? Because you and I are part of that spiritual organism. We die with Christ through baptism into death. That just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, it was by God's power. Even so, we also should now walk in newness of life. We are then to walk in a new life. So what do we have? We have here a whole process that then after that we've got laying on our vans, and we receive God's Holy Spirit. So we've got a whole process that Christ, or the Father, gave us His beloved Son. Christ gave His life. So we got the gift of life.

Then we got the gift that for no reason except that you've committed and that you repented, that you are made right with God freely, and you are given God's righteousness, which is another gift. And then you are given God's Holy Spirit to help you in this process.

Yeah, we've looked very briefly at four important points in this process. One is a gift of Christ's life, of dying for us, redeeming us of our sins, gratis, and that is symbolized by the Passover.

In Romans 3 verse 28, it says, Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the Lord.

Now I know that maybe we're a little shy in the past about saying this, but it is Scripture.

You and I have been made right with God because God is trusting you, and you only trust our trusting God. The whole trusting relationship from faith to faith. Faith is basically Godly trust, right? So we have that, and we are made right because we are committing, and Christ gave us his life. He also trusted in the Father. There's a whole complete trusting relationship. And therefore we are made right with God by faith apart from the deeds of the Lord.

Now immediately people say, whoa, whoa, whoa, where is George going yet?

Well, I'm going to go to verse 31 in a moment. But the point is, you and I are made right with God.

Not because you and I have done something right. You and I are made right with God freely, gratis.

Because he loves you and I, provided you say, I am sorry, and I don't want to do it again, and I want to live a new life. And he's going to trust you. And he is able to do that because Christ himself trusted in the Father that the Father would resurrect him. And therefore he gave his life knowing that the Father would resurrect him. In other words, he didn't doubt. So there's a whole trust faith, which is a building block here, a really building block. And so you and I are justified freely. You and I are made right with God by faith as a gift.

So we have the gift of Christ's life, number one. And now we got the gift of being made right with God freely.

Now, this does not mean that you and I are now allowed to sin because in verse 31 says, do we then make or avoid the law through faith? No. On the contrary, we establish the law because now that you have been forgiven gratis, now your job and my job is to commit, to obey. And what is the symbolism? It's the days of unleavened rain. It's to de-leaven.

You see, so we have the Passover that comes first, gratis, forgives us. Now we have to commit immediately afterwards. So that's on the 14th, immediately afterwards, the 15th. We are living your life. That's what we read in Romans 6. You know, to walk in the newness of life. We now establish the law. The law did not forgive us. The law only shows us where our sins are and where we've got to walk the right way.

But what forgives us is Christ's gratis. And so that's why I'm emphasizing, there are a number of wonderful, precious blessings from God, which are gifts that He's giving us. He's made us right with Him. So you and I now have back a relationship with Him. You see, our sins separate us from God. But He passes over, Passover, passes over our sins, gratis, by that blood, symbolically, look at the time of Israel, the blood on the doorposts, you know. So He passes over our sins, gratis.

So it's a gift. It's a gift. And then we get on to a third important point.

And the third important point is that now you and I are righteous. Yes, we made right with God, justified. But now we are considered righteous.

Look at Romans chapter 4 verse 3. He says, for what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, he trusted God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Was credited. Think about it. You have a bank account. Your bank account is in red. Right? I mean, you owe a lot of money and you can't get it right. And God just says, after credit did you know bank account, a lot of positive stuff. Now you are good. You are in a positive account.

In other words, yes, credit us gratis. Our bank account is now, in spiritual terms, righteous.

Not in the red. It's righteous. And look at it, verse 4. Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. So if you had worked for it, and God was crediting you righteous, it was just a billion-year salary, because you worked for it and you deserved for it. But it's not the case. It's not your income. It's not your salary because you've done anything good, because you and I have done nothing good. Our righteous is as good as rags. If I remember correctly, Jeremiah 17, verse 9, right? Our righteous is good as rags, but he's imputed us, or he's credited us, or he's accounted us as righteous gratis. And look now at verse 5. He says, But to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. And so it's not because in the past we've done goody-goody things that we are forgiven and we made right with God. No. It's because we trusted him and we made a commitment, but we still unclean, quote-unquote. But he is washing us, and he's justifying us, and he's now making righteous. He's accounted us as righteous. Verse 6, just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works.

You and I are given Christ's life gratis. You didn't deserve it. God did it for you and I. You and I have been given the relationship back with God by being justified freely. And you and I have been credited as righteous people.

Wow! Free gratis! He says, blessed, verse 7, are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. That's you and I. Our lawless deeds and our sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. This is a great blessedness. That's why in Ephesians it says there are so many blessings from heavenly that God gives us. Many blessings that God gives us from heaven. Spiritual blessings.

So, think about it. You all know the sermon on the Mount and you know about the Beatitudes.

The attitude starts being humble, then mourn, which means repent in the sense, then you are meek, teachable, malleable. And what is the next one? Hunger and thirst for righteousness.

It can't be my righteousness or your righteousness because then you won't be hungering and thirsting for it because you will have it. It's God's righteousness. And so we need to always be striving to say, God, continue to give me your righteousness. In other words, we need to keep walking in faith and trust. And then He imputes on us Nelson, as we read here in verses 7 and 8 of Romans 4. And then that's a blessing. That is a great blessing.

So how is that righteousness in us?

Well, look at John 6, verse 32-35.

John 6, verse 32-35. It says, So it's the bread of God.

Now, Christ is the bread of life.

In other words, we have Christ in us. Christ lives in us. Now, has Christ got any sin? No. Is Christ righteous? Of course. So that imputing of righteousness in us is Christ living in us, symbolically.

And how does Christ live in us, symbolically? By us, having symbolically that bread of life. Now, what do we do during the days of Unleavened Bread? Just not delavening. But it's also every day we ought to eat Unleavened Bread. The symbolism is that you and I need to have Christ living in us every day.

For seven days, during the days of Unleavened Bread, which is complete, which basically symbolically means we have to have Christ living in us every day of our lives. And if Christ is living in us and Christ is in us, we have God's righteousness.

You see, brethren, we need to have a zeal for God, but with understanding. You know, Paul described this in Romans chapter 10, because he's talking in Romans about the Jews and the Israelites in Romans 10. And he says, my desire is that they all would understand. He says, because in verse 1, he says, Romans 10, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. All right. In the context of that time, that is applicable to the Israelites and the Jews. But look at it in the context of this time. If I were to put it into today's context, and if Paul was here, you would probably say something like this.

Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Christians, quote unquote, so-called Christians, right, is that they may be saved. And then this, for I bear them witness, I bear these so-called Christians out in the world that they have a zeal for God. I mean, you cannot deny that some Christians out there, so-called Christians, they have a zeal for Christ, for God.

They do. But he says, but not according to knowledge. They don't fully understand because God hasn't called them. Just like the Israelites, God hadn't called them. God hasn't called Christianity, so-called Christianity in the world. Verse 3, for they be ignorant of God's righteousness. You see, God's righteousness. It's not my righteousness, your righteousness, any person's righteousness is God's righteousness. And seeking to establish their own righteousness. Oh, aren't people trying to, oh, even though they say, well, the law is abolished or this or that, but they're trying to be so nice, some people do.

And they're genuine. I'm not saying because he's saying, I'm not saying they're not because he says, yeah, they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. They're trying to establish their own righteousness. But, it says, yeah, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. You see, God's righteousness is imputed upon us when we truly receive Christ.

We truly commit to his ways. We truly baptize into his body by his authority, by one of his delegated ministers of God. And then they have a relationship being fully justified. And then that righteousness is imputed upon them. So there's a whole process here of God giving and giving and giving things to us. And then we continue in verse 4. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Oh, how they twist that. They say, oh, well, therefore Christ is the end of the law. So there's no more law. Christ is the end of the law. No, Christ is the purpose, is the example, is the standard of how we, you and I should not keep the law to be like him. In other words, to have God's righteousness. We should have Christ living in us because he is the end, is the ultimate end result, fulfillment of what the law is all about for us to become like Christ.

And it was for us to be truly righteousness, but God's righteousness, not self-righteousness, not our own righteousness. You see, Brevard, it's so beautiful when we look at this this way. You see, we read, for instance, in Matthew 5, 17 and 18, that Christ came to fulfill the law and the prophets. He came to obey it and he came to fulfill the prophetic symbolisms of the law because the law pointed to a sacrifice, which was Christ, and the law pointed to a Passover land, which is Christ, and he fulfilled those spiritual meanings. So Christ fulfilled the law, not only by obeying it, but by completing the prophetic understanding of what some of those prophetic statements are.

Now, they're not all completed yet because some of them, the law and the prophets, pointed to Christ's Second Coming. And so Christ is the fulfillment of the law. In the First Coming, he fulfilled part of it, and in the Second Coming, he fulfilled the other part.

But he is for us. He is the answer. That's why in Romans 4 verse 25, Romans 4 verse 25, we have, it says, let me read from verse 23 because it's the beginning of the sentence. Now, it was not written for his cycle now that it was imputed to him, but also for us. You see, what was written about Abram, that God's righteous was imputed to him, was not just for Abram alone, but it's for us. It's a meaning for us.

For us who believe in him, who raised up Jesus, our Lord from the dead. So the Father raised Christ from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses. And it was Christ who was delivered to die, to sacrifice, to be our sacrifice, to suffer because of our offenses. And was raised, Christ was raised because of our justification.

You see, our justification is not just him dying, but our justification is him being raised as well. Why?

Because he's now in heaven as our high priest, intervening for you and I. And when Satan accuses us, he as our high priest intervenes for us and says, Well, George said that, or he shouldn't have said that, and put your name there. And therefore, and he's repented, therefore his sons are forgiven. And that's what it talks in Hebrews 10. You look at Hebrews 10. Let's go there quickly in Hebrews 10.

Hebrews 10, when it's talking here, for by one offering, verse 14, for by one offering, that's Christ's one single offering. He does not have to die Christ every, you know, year or whatever. By one offering, once, he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. You know, you and I are in the process of sanctification. We are in the process of overcoming. You see, being baptized is not the end of the road.

Being baptized is only the beginning. It's only the beginning. Now you and I got to work through it day after day after day, year after year after year, and come to a point where we are faithful till the end.

And then, yes, we'll receive the reward and we'll be changed to spirit beings. But he, by one offering, he has perfected. That one offering is the complete job, let's call it, of making us perfect, provided we are being sanctified. The process of sanctification involves the very thing that is the fourth part of this gift, which is God's early spirit.

Because why do you and I receive God's early spirit?

We receive God's early spirit for sanctification. Read 1 Peter 1, verse 2. 1 Peter 1, verse 2.

1 Peter 1, verse 2. 1 Peter, verse 2. 1 Peter, verse 2. 1 Peter, verse 2. 1 Peter, verse 2. 1 Peter, verse 2. 1 Peter, verse 2. 1 Peter, verse 2. The eyes be the hearts of Christ, writing to the pilgrims. And then he says elect, according to the far knowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the spirit. We are called and chosen in sanctification of the spirit. The spirit is what helps us to be sanctified. Why? Because he's our helper. Because God's early spirit pricks our conscience. God's early spirit renews our mind for obedience. You see, in sanctification for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Christ.

You see, Christ has died for us. He's paid for our sin. The blood paid for us. Now Christ is resurrected. He's our eye priest at the throne of God.

You know, we have received God's early spirit, which is, let's call it, God's DNA. God's way of thinking. God's essence. God's power. God's mind. And it's working with us, pricking our conscience. That's still small voice.

And so, when you and I do something wrong, Christ, in heaven, as our eye priest, as our defense advocate, He then says, when you and I pray, and it says, we come to His throne in a new and living way. You can see that back in Hebrews chapter 10. And we get through to the heavenly, to the Holy of Holies, which is the Father, through His body and through the blood of Christ. We have access to that when we pray. And now, after you're baptized, you slip up. One finger, yeah, and we all slip up. You know, one finger, another, yeah.

We get on our knees and we come to God. And then, through Christ, because we get to the throne, through Christ, through His body, through the veil that was torn, right? You read that in Hebrews 10. And then, you have an advocate, a defense advocate, which is Christ. He intervenes for you. And he says, okay, forgive George, forgiven. He is sanctifying us. It's both the work of God's Holy Spirit sanctifying us and is the sprinkling of His blood, because now He sprinkles.

Not immersed. Now He's not immersed. He's sprinkling, because you've already been washed. It's like now it's just a foot, you know, it's just sprinkling and bang! You're back in a justified righteous status. It's just so beautiful. And we read in other scriptures that the Holy Spirit is a helper. You read in John 14, verses 16 through 27, that the Holy Spirit is a helper. And so what does that symbolize? Pentecost. And so when we look at these four facets of gifts from God, spiritual blessings from God, which they all tie with Christ's first coming, because even Pentecost is counted from the wave-sheaf, which is the period of Christ's first coming.

All of these are tied to Christ's first coming. So it's Christ's life. It's as being made right with God freely. It's a gift. It's God's righteous being imputed upon us as a gift by us having the leavened bread in us every day during days of leavened bread, symbolically. And fourthly, as receiving the gift of God's Holy Spirit, which is the sanctification for obedience. And so we have the apostles, the leavening, eating unleavened bread, and Pentecost. Those four beautiful analogies that all tie together, which show God's grace towards us and they're all tied to Christ's first coming.

And so, brethren, as we approach the Passover, and we're told in 1 Corinthians 11 to examine ourselves, we ought to examine ourselves so that we've got to discern the Lord's body. Right? You're reading 1 Corinthians 11. That says discern the Lord's body. So again, look at it in two layers. You discern the physical body. In other words, you understand what Christ has done for us. You discern that. But you discern the spiritual body, which is the church as well. So let's go to 1 Corinthians 11 to see that, because it's nice when you read it in the Scriptures.

1 Corinthians 11. And we're going to read just this section here about examining ourselves. 1 Corinthians 11 verse 28. I mean, we should read the whole section, but it's talking about verse 28. Obviously, verse 27 says, celebrating in a manner which is worthy. It was the approach, not that any one of us is worthy. None of us is worthy. But the manner, how we do it, how? By examining ourselves, by looking at ourselves, and then, and so letting the bread and drink the cup. Let him eat the bread. At the Passover, we take the bread, which symbolizes Christ's body, and we take the wine, which symbolizes Christ's sacrifice to the blood.

And we do that because we examine ourselves. You know, examine. And it says, well, we're doing that in a manner which is solemn, which is respectful, which is understanding, is therefore a manner which is worthy, which is very respectful. Not saying that you and I are worthy because it doesn't say, well, examine yourself, because you're so bad, therefore don't do it.

It says, examine yourself, therefore do it, by doing it in a proper and godly and solemn manner. And it says in verse 29 at the end of verse 29, it says, because for he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner, drinks judgment to himself. Why? Because he's not considering this wonderful series of God's gift and what it triggers beyond the commitment and receiving God's early Spirit, all these facets of God's gifts, spiritual gifts.

We're going to do it in a respectful way. Because if we don't do it, we're not discerning the Lord's body. And that's what I say. Look at it physically in spiritual. Number one, we're discerning what Christ has done, but we're also discerning what His physical body has done. But we're also discerning what we are now baptized into His body. And we are part of that body. That's the spiritual body, which is the church.

And verse 30 is specifically there because we're looking at the spiritual body, which is the church. Because it says, for this reason many are weak and seek among you and many sleep. You see, because some of us may have not discerned properly the church, the brethren. And so we have caused hurts and offenses in the church. We have caused division and lacks of sensitivity in the church. And we've got to be careful.

We've got to be loving and kind, discerning the Lord's body. It's not being an autocrat, a dictator. We've got to do it in a loving and kind way with brethren. And if we discern ourselves, that says that in verse 31, if we will judge ourselves, if we discern ourselves, we would not be discerned by God. It was God would not have to punish us or correct us, you see. But when we are corrected by God, it's because God loves us so that we're not condemned of the world.

You see, brethren, many people are going through a lot of stress. There's a lot of difficulties. But as we approach the Passover, let us look at it and examine it in a that we partake of the Passover in a manner of deep respect, holy conduct, solemn. Because we were reflecting Christ's suffering, but also looking at the gifts that come through that. Christ's death has been made right with God, as having Christ in us, and as having God's Holy Spirit that helps us to ultimately be sanctified.

And Christ being resurrected, sprinkling us and acting as our High Priest with God's Holy Spirit, making us, therefore, clean so that you and I can be at the end, stand with Christ at the end.

You see, brethren, God has a great purpose for you and I. But to achieve that great purpose, God is giving us precious blessings from heaven, including his own Son, including free justification, including us being imputed righteousness, God's righteousness, and his own mind and spirit to help us overcome. So therefore, brethren, let us prepare for the Passover and Days of 11 bread now, not only physically, and I'm not saying don't do it physically, but look at also spiritually from these angles, because it is not just a sad occasion. It is an encouraging, uplifting occasion, because we have such a great gift and we have such a great hope.