Spiritually “deleavening”

Passover and Unleavened Bread will be yah before you and I know it. I was just looking at the calendar. It's basically seven weeks to go. It's around the corner.

And we know Passover on the 14th this year. It's on a Monday, but we do the ceremony the night before, the night that our Lord was betrayed. So it will be on a Sunday.

By the way, we found a venue. I think there will be announcements for that later, but we found a venue for us. So we're really grateful for that. We signed a contract for that venue for us. But anyway, Passover would be on Sunday night and the Days of Unleavened Bread for seven days. So it's around the corner. It's around the corner. And you and I know the scriptures clearly say that we need to be completely de-leavened by sunset at the end of the 14th day. It was before the 15th. It was at the end of the Passover before the first Day of Unleavened Bread.

So now, leaven is to be in our homes, at least in the area that you have control. I know some of the brethren, some of them, they've got marriage situations. It's only one spouse in the church, so it's in the areas where you have control. And I do remember how much time we used to spend de-leavening well before Passover. You know, we really went through it like going through like a tooth comb, you know. We'll take the curtains down and wash the curtains and wash the windows. It was a complete spring cleaning besides de-leavening. You had to go through the pockets, or I went through the pockets of my suit in case I put any bread in my pockets, making sure there's no crumbs. I'm sure many of you did that as well. You look at your toaster and you clean the toaster, clean the toaster, unpack it in such a way that afterwards you could not assemble it. Then you had to throw it away. You know, it's just, okay, maybe after that we learned not to have a toaster. But anyway, maybe we went too far, I'm not sure. But whichever way. And then we did have, some of them are right here, young children. We had five. And you never know where they're going to put the sandwiches that we gave them to take to school. Because sometimes they would not eat the sandwiches.

And I happened to find some when I had to take the back car seat off. And we found sandwiches and other things hidden underneath the back car seat. So we had quite a job to the 11th. And you couldn't do that five minutes before the 15th. So it did take time. It did take time. And my wife and I, while we did that, we prayed and we would ask God to help us in looking at our hidden faults. Because in the end, the important is the spiritual delirning. Because the physical delirning is important, but the spiritual intent to teach us a lesson is even more important. And so it was quite a busy time. Not to mention, my wife, I don't want to embarrass her, but she used to bake different varieties of unleavened cookies to give to the widows. And so we would have production of different varieties and different plates mixing up. And then on the first day of a leavened bread, you know, we'd bring them to all the widows and things like that. So today we just don't have the energy to do that anymore. But, you know, that was all part of the joy. And it was a joy to serve and to give. It was a joy. But the point is the physical shows us a spiritual lesson.

So we must not neglect the spiritual delavening.

And really, that's what I want to talk about today. The spiritual delavening. The spiritual delavening. And look at some biblical examples and extract some lessons from that.

Now let's start in 1 Corinthians chapter 11. 1 Corinthians chapter 11. And we're going to read first in verse 27. Because we want to look at a very important point here. 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 27. Therefore, whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, now note, does not say that you are unworthy.

Because indeed, we all are not worthy. None of us is worthy. But it's talking about in an unworthy manner. We'll be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. We want to really understand beyond the pure physical what is the body of the Lord. We need to understand that clearly. And then in verse 28 it says, but let a man examine himself. And the eye is the point. Examining yourself is, let me put it this way, spiritually delavening yourself.

It's spiritually delavening yourself. It's examining yourself and looking at yourself, at myself, and ourselves, and see where must I change? Where must you change? Where must we change to become more like God, like Christ? Is he so let a man examine himself and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup? I've come across that sometimes people examine themselves and then they come to the conclusion, I'm not good enough to take the passover. And then they do not take the passover. Brethren, that's not what it says here. It says, examine yourself so that you and I change. None of us is worthy, but you want to do it, you want to keep the passover in a worthy manner. And then he says, and so let him eat. Doesn't say, and so let him not eat. You see, so let him eat. So you and I are not examining ourselves to say, oh well because I've examined myself therefore I'm not going to take the passover. That is the wrong outcome. The right outcome is you and I examine ourselves to say, okay, how do I spiritually delaven myself a little bit better this year? Granted, none of us will ever be perfect, but let's do it a little bit better this year, spiritually speaking, than last year or the year before. You see, and then let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. And then, in other words, and then let him take the passover.

Verse 29, for he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner, again, it's an unworthy manner, was the approach, was the way you do it, was incorrectly.

He eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. You see, what is the Lord's body?

Now, the Lord's body, of course, was Christ's physical body. Of course, nobody's questioning that. And you and I have to discern and understand what Christ did for us. Nobody's questioning that. But when you and I examine ourselves to discern the Lord's body, isn't the Church of God the Lord's body? Aren't we all the Lord's body? Are we discerning one another? How we talk to one another? How we maybe don't reconcile with one another? How we hold the garages towards one another? How we may be not sensitive to the other person's sensitivities?

And maybe we all have to look, am I maybe being overly sensitive as well? So we gotta discern the Lord's body about physically Christ, what he did for us, and spiritually the Church, the brethren, how we talk and care for one another. And then he says, in verse 30, for this reason many are weak and seek among you, and many sleep. For this reason, because some of us have done things not discerning our brothers and sisters and offending others, some have gotten ill because they got all stressed, and you know stress is a killer, anxiety is a killer, and all this has created health issues, and some people even died. I know of one elder in South Africa that died when there was a church split, some whatever that was run about 2010, when there was a church split, and because of that, this elder was so disenchanted and discouraged and hurt that he actually ended up, I think it was a heart attack, and he died because of that. So it says how we treat one another can affect our health and the Church's health. You see, the brethren in Corinth, they were not united. You know that. You just have to read Corinthians. You know they had a few little issues, just to put it mildly, and it says, look at verse 17 of the same chapter, 1 Corinthians 11. It says, now I'm giving these instructions that do not praise you, since you come together not for the bearer but for the worse. You come to church, and in this case he was talking about the Passover, but let's say you come to church, and there's not a spirit of love and unity.

And that hurts, because you and I come to church to be uplifted. You and I come to church, you and I have enough problems out there in the world. Tell me which one of you don't have problems out there. We all have enough headaches and problems and health issues and disappointments, and whatever it is, six days of the week, we come to church to hear God's word and to be encouraged and to be uplifted. Isn't that why we come to church? We want God's spirit to be with us, and we want to be encouraged. And it's not just the message, it's not just the service itself. It's the Christian fellowship before and after services that can be very encouraging to you and I, that some brethren talk to you, ask, they say something that it just uplifts you. That's our job.

And Paul is saying, I don't praise you, because you don't come together for the better, but for the worse. Well, imagine you come to church so that when you leave church, you go back home and you're all discouraged.

That's not why we come to church. We come to be spiritually uplifted and encouraged by God's outgoing concern, which comes through the brethren in actions and in words.

And then he's talking about, in verse 18, because when you come together as a church, there are divisions amongst you. You see, they were not discerning the Lord's body, and so they were pulling in different directions.

And then he says, therefore, as you come together into one place, it's not to eat the Lord's supper. Brethren, this is an interesting point. Maybe you have not noticed, but we do not keep cedar, the Jewish cedar. We do not keep the Lord's supper. We keep the new covenant, Passover, the bread and wine. And so these people having a big eating party. You can read that in verse 21 and 22. And there were some of them that were starving, and they weren't even sharing the food. I mean, it wasn't really a potluck, because in a potluck, we all eat and we all share, right? This was kind of a selfish eating thing. And he says, hey, eat around. And when you come to the new covenant, Passover, you come to remind ourselves of the symbols. And so the question is, can we draw some specific areas to examine ourselves?

And I'm going to draw four areas to examine ourselves from, or pulling them out, from Exodus 12. So let's go to Exodus 12, and we start in verse 5, and we're going to go through to verse 13. Exodus 12 verse 5. Exodus 12 verse 5. And let me just get to it, and then I can read.

All right, there it is. Your lamb, so he's talking about the Passover preparation, your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. So on the tenth day, they were to take the lamb. And on the fourteenth, as soon as the fourteenth day came to be, as you know, it's after sunset, as soon at the beginning of the fourteenth day, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it, kill the lamb, at twilight. Twilight is when the sun sets, and it's not yet dark. So it's that period of time, the twilight, where the sun has set, it's darkening, but it's not yet dark. So that is at the beginning of the fourteenth, so they were to kill it. So the first thing is about, the first lesson that I'm going to extract points is about the lamb, the Passover lamb, what the Passover lamb was. So that's the first lesson. Then, which I'll go to in more detail, I'm just highlighting these four points. The second one is in verse 7, which it says, then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. So after they killed the lamb, they were to take that blood and put it in the doorposts of their own house. And so I'm going to draw the examples because it is part of our own house. It's something you did in your own house. So we'll look at looking at ourselves, which is our house, the house of the Holy Spirit. We're looking at ourselves. So the first one we're going to look at is a little bit about the Passover lamb. Then we're going to look at analyzing ourselves. Then let's go on to verse 8. Then they shall eat the flesh on that night, roasted in fire with a leavened bread and with bitter herbs. They shall eat it.

And I'm going to focus on two points here, which is roasted in a fire and with bitter herbs.

You see, because roasting, that means as we examine ourselves with a leavened bread, that means as we examine ourselves without sin, our lives go through a little bit of a roasting, you know, a little bit of different challenges in our life. And this stuff, when we go through these things, it's not sweet like honey. It's bitter. That's why it says it's like bitter herbs. When you and I go through some trials, it's bitter. So we go through trials. So the third point that I'm going to draw out of this is as we go through some trials, and that is not easy.

So I'll go through that as well. And last, the fourth one, is in verse 11. And it says, And you shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning, you shall burn with fire. And then in verse 11, it says, a big apart, and I read verse 10. I should have read verse 11. And thus you shall eat it with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your stuff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste.

Now, eat it in haste. And it thus says it is with unleavened bread. You know, it is with unleavened bread. So you'll eat it in haste. What do you mean eating it in haste? Now, the word haste there in Hebrew, and my apologies because I don't speak Hebrew, so Sam, please forgive me if my pronunciation of the word is not perfect, but I tried to pronounce it as well as I could, because please forgive me, is chípazón.

So maybe I'm just accent is not good. It's a real South African, Portuguese, whatever. But it's a word that means in haste, but also of trepidation and fear. You see, so as we eat unleavened bread, and we have that in a level of haste, but also with deep respect, because that unleavened bread represents Christ in us, and we need to eat that with that respect, but in haste because time is short. Time is short.

You and I don't know when it is. And so these are the four points based out of this section of Exodus 12 that I want to drill in a little deeper. So the first one is that Christ is our Passover lamb. So 1 Corinthians 5 verse 7. 1 Corinthians 5 verse 7. There we read that Christ is our Passover lamb. So let me just turn to 1 Corinthians 5. Verse 7 says, therefore purge out all leaven. So Yahya is talking about when he wrote this letter to the Corinthians, it was during the days of unleavened bread, and it says, therefore purge out the old leaven.

That means take out that old man out of your life, take out that old man, that you may be a new lump, that you may be a new man, a new person. So take out the old man. So really it's talking about spiritually delivering ourselves, that you may be a... since you are, since you truly are unleavened. Why?

Because this was during the days of physical unleavened bread. So yes, you are unleavened physically, but spiritually purge out the old man so that you may be a new person, a new lump. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.

Christ is our Passover. So as we meditate about the symbols of the Passover ceremony and all that goes along with it, we've got to understand that this symbology in the Old Testament pointed to Christ. Christ is our Passover. And brethren, that is a gift to you and I. That Christ gave of his life for you and I, so that you and I can have our sins redeemed, forgiven. We can be brought back from death and resurrected. That is a gift. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews chapter 10. And we're going to read verse 10. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 10. Yeah, we read, by that will, this is talking about the will of the Father, that Christ came to do the will. You read earlier on, it's showing you that God did not want sacrifice and offering, but God prepared a body for Christ. And then Christ said, Be all I've come to do your will, to give my life.

I came to do your will. And then in verse 10 he says, By that will, we, that you and I, have been sanctified. That means you and I have been set aside through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

You know, Christ does not have to come back, quote unquote, year after year, to die again. It's one sacrifice, once for all, and it's sufficient. It's once for all.

You know, we all individually are members of the body of Christ. You can read that in 1 Corinthians 12 verse 27. I'm not going to turn there, but you know, 1 Corinthians says, we're a body and we all are individual members in that body. In other words, you and I, in that symbol of a body, you and I may be a finger, somebody else may be an eye, somebody else may be a ear, somebody else may be a liver, somebody else may be whatever, a cell in the body. And we all, all the organs of this body, all the members of this physical body of ours, works together for us as a body to function. If, for instance, you have a member of your body, like one of the brethren, have pancreatic cancer, that affects the body. The person can't function at full efficiency. It's not well. It affects the whole body. So if one of us is suffering, we all suffer, and we need to help one another, encourage. The biggest thing we can do for others is encouragement.

I mean, you and I cannot heal other people. We can pray for it and ask God if that is his will, but we can encourage. We all go through trials and the figlages and show compassion, encouragement, and that uplifts one another. And so we're all part of that one body.

And just like Christ's body, that's what it means discerning the body of Christ, Christ's body died for us.

We, you and I, as members of that body, we have to lay down our lives for the Church, for God, of course, for Christ, for one another.

And so it is a big responsibility.

And it is one of these things that sometimes you and I can do things that offend and you don't see it and I don't see it. Did you know that?

I mean, you can go around with all the good intent and say something that you thought it was encouraging, but the other person perceives it as discouraging.

Look at Psalm. Keep your finger down, Hebrews, because we're going to come back to it in a moment. But I just want you to look at Psalms 90 verse 8. Psalm 90 verse 8. And towards the end of the day it says, you have set your iniqueness before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance. You and I have secret sins.

Now, you may say, well, I have secret sins that other people don't know about it.

But you know what? We have secret sins that you and I don't even know ourselves.

In other words, this is what I call blind spots. I have blind spots in my life. I think I'm doing good, but I can't see my own blind spot, my own secret sin. Look at Jeremiah chapter 10.

Jeremiah chapter 10 verse 23. Jeremiah chapter 10 verse 23. Oh, Lord, I know the way that of man is not in himself. That means I just can't see myself. It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps. I can't see it. I have character flaws that I can't see. And I think we all have. We all have. You have. I have. We all have character flaws that we can't see it. And that's why it says, Lord, correct me. God, show me these secret faults. Secret to myself. In other words, my own personal blind spots that I can't see. Oh, it's easy to say, well, my spouse got these blind spots, but it's not saying examine her or examine somebody else. It says, examine yourself.

And it says, correct me, but of justice.

Justice, doing something with justice. It's doing it in a loving and kind way, which has mercy in it. And we ask God to correct us with justice, but behind that, it actually also means with mercy. You see, you don't go to God and say, please show me all my faults today because I want to change everything today.

I think you and I need to ask God, please show me my faults, but please, a little bit at a time, please just a little bit today, but not everything, because otherwise it's too much and I'll be discouraged and I'll throw in the towel.

And so we ask God, we pray and fast before Passover, to examine ourselves and ask God to help us to see ourselves so that we can be of the same mind, the same love as Christ is.

And going back, therefore, to Hebrews chapter 10, let's just see now verse 12. That is such, verse 12 and verse 14, which I'm going to cover now, are such powerful scriptures.

But this man, verse 12, after he had offered one sacrifice, four sins forever, has sat down at the right hand of God. So he's done all that is needed. In other words, he's sacrificed and has done whatever is needed to forgive our sins forever.

He has done more than enough. He does not have to do it again. And so that's why in verse 14 says, for by one offering, he, Christ, has perfected forever.

But we're going to read the next sentence that says, those who are being sanctified are in the process of sanctification. In other words, God has done everything that ultimately you and I will be just before God and will be in the kingdom of God. But we have to go through this process of sanctification now. We have God's Holy Spirit and of God's Holy Spirit, we are being sanctified. And that's what it means. Christ is given his life for us. He's a perfect lamb. But the blood is on our houses, on our selves. We are being sanctified. We are being changed. We are, through his blood, we are being changed and with the help of God's Holy Spirit. To what? Look in Philippians chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2.

Let's read first verse 5. Philippians chapter 2 verse 5.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. The outcome that God wants from this is that your mind becomes like Christ's mind. Now, what was Christ's mind? Well, just go back a couple of verses. Let's read verse 2 and 3. In Philippians chapter 2 verse 2, he says, Forfull my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, and being of one accord and of one mind.

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. And so the mind of Christ is one of outgoing concern for one another, of love, of humility, of service to one another. And you and I can spend time meditating these verses as you and I examine ourselves, or put in other words, spiritually deliver ourselves before Passover and look at ourselves to see where I need to change and where you need to change.

And typically brethren, before Passover there's a lot of trials. It seems to be it just gets more difficult. There's more trials. And so maybe God is allowing it so that we are more careful examining ourselves. And so we've got to look at do we have envy? Do we have strife?

Do we have different problems like that? We need to examine ourselves. Do we have any of that? And that's why in 1 Corinthians 11 verse 29 it says, let us discern the body of Christ, which is the church, which is ourselves.

We need to examine ourselves. And the main area, the main area, not the only area, but a main area where we need to examine ourselves, I think, is in the relationships. How do we treat one another?

How do we treat one another? And that's what it means, discerning the body, how we treat one another.

Bear with one another, forgive one another, and keep the Passover together in peace.

For instance, is there a situation where as we kind of do the Passover and work ourselves out towards the foot washing, you're kind of working, I'm not going to go this way, I'm not going to go this way, I'm going to go the other way, because I don't want to wash that person's feet.

Has that ever crossed your mind? I have heard it has crossed some people's minds.

And that is not what we should be doing. We should be prepared to wash every one another's feet. And so, as we now look a little bit further about we going through difficulties and trials being roasted with bitter herbs, look at Romans 12 verse 1. Romans 12 verse 1. In Romans 12 verse 1, we read, I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.

That is being roasted in a fire, but it's not dying, it's going through it, and living it, and changing, and becoming a better person.

Being holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

It's not, hey, you got a super badge, super man, no, it's your reasonable service. It's kind of like saying that's what you should do as a bare minimum. And look at James chapter 1. James chapter 1 verse 2 and 4. James chapter 1 verse 2 and 4. He says, my brethren, count on all joy when you fall into various trials. Brethren, these trials are bitter herbs. I mean, they are bitter herbs, but it says, count on all joy. Knowing that the outcome, the testing of your faith, produces patience, upamone, perseverance.

That you may be perfect through the spacious and complete, lacking nothing.

And so brethren, these are the bitter herbs that we got to go through. We got to go through this roast, roasting in the fire with trials, with difficulties. And that's our reasonable service.

And that's why the Passover symbolically had to be roasted with bitter herbs and with an even bread because we got to do it without sin.

And in John chapter 6 verse 48, John chapter 6 verse 48, we read, I am the bread of life. Christ is the bread of life. And then he says, you know, your fathers ate a manna, but you and I have to eat symbolically, symbolically, the 11 bread during Passover, but not only during Passover, during our life, during, completely during our life, which is symbolized by the seven days of eating unleavened bread. It does say, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days. It does not say, you shall eat unleavened bread during those seven days if you feel like.

And so you should consciously do that. Why? Because there's a spiritual symbol behind it, because it means Christ in us, through God's Holy Spirit, needs to be in our lives daily, every day, completely. And that is the symbolism. We must eat the unleavened bread.

That's why in a Passover says, you eat it in haste so that you may live.

So that means we've got to imitate Christ, and in haste, meaning that that word is of certain trepidation with a certain feeling of urgency. Because we have Christ in us. We have God's Holy Spirit in us. What if we kind of treat it casually? We shouldn't, right? Because it's Christ's life in us. It's God's Holy Spirit. It's God's power in us. And God's power in us is what God's given us to overcome so that you and I may be sanctified at the end of this race, which is symbolized by Christ's Second Coming, which we believe is symbolized by today of trumpets.

So we've got to do it with trepidation because it's Christ's life. It's God's Holy Spirit.

It's God's helper. And if you and I quote-unquote, blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, in other words, we don't treat it with the right respect, which is God's help to help us overcome. Overcome?

That's serious. Reading Hebrews 6 and I think Hebrews 4 as well. I might just be wrong there, but anyway, it says, you know, that could be towards the importantable sin. No, not Hebrews 4. I think it's Hebrews 9. So we've got to be careful with trepidation.

And we eat it in haste because, you know, your clock and my clock is running out.

I mean, I think of it like a little hourglass, you know, where you have these little games that you have an hourglass and, okay, now it's your turn. Then you turn the little hourglass and you see the little sand going down. You and I have an hourglass with a certain number of years, and some of us, those grains of sand are getting less and less. You and I don't know when those grains of sand, it's your end of your grains of sand. You don't know, but you're going to do it in haste and trepidation. In other words, you and I must have a sense of urgency.

You and I must have a sense of urgency. And so brethren, they are just using Exodus 12, using those points. I try to draw some spiritual examples from the Passover service and those actions they did on that day which they killed the lamb on that original Passover. Just like the Passover lamb had to die and be killed, we have to lay down our lives. The Passover blood had to be around their doorposts.

It needs to be around our lives. We need to look at it by examining our interpersonal relationships with one another in the church. And we all are roasted with a leavened bread that is without sin by going through different trials. And that is a bitter experience. It's not sweet. But we have to go through it because we gotta remember that the final outcome is well worth it.

And last but not least, we ought to eat that unleavened bread daily, in haste, in trepidation, with a sense of urgency and respect so that you and I may have eternal life with the help of God's Spirit, so that you and I may be in the kingdom of God. So please, brethren, as we are only a few weeks before Passover, let us use this time to focus in carefully examining ourselves through prayer and fasting to quote-unquote spiritually deliver ourselves before this upcoming festival season.