The Spring Holy Days as Observed by the Early New Testament Church

In just a few weeks, we are going to be celebrating the Spring Holy Day season for the year 2015. And I want to emphasize the fact that we are going to be observing God's Holy Days and worship in the same way as the New Testament Church did. We observe the New Covenant Holy Days.

We will not be at a temple. We will not be sacrificing animals.

We won't be performing rituals with Levites or watching them perform rituals in that way. Instead, we'll be celebrating the Spring Holy Days in a similar way as the Apostle Paul did himself.

And in a similar way that the Apostle Paul wrote about. This is one of the things that amazed me early on when I learned the truth of God, because here's what I was taught as a small child.

I was taught that when Jesus Christ died that anything regarding Jews or Hebrews were done away.

The Ten Commandments were done away. The Holy Days, the Sabbath, with anything regarding Jew was done away and that suddenly was bad.

And that it was replaced by a New Covenant. But when I began to look into the Bible, when I began to look at some books that Paul wrote that were written long, after Jesus Christ died and was resurrected like 25 years later, I saw Paul teaching the New Covenant Holy Days. And it stunned me, because it's something that had never been mentioned to me before by the pastors of the Methodist Church I had attended as a child or anywhere else I had been. It just opened up my eyes to see that you've got to ask questions and you just can't assume that the church that you attend, though it may be 2000 years old, that the church that you attend has the correct doctrines or is even concerned about looking into the Bible and saying, how did the early church do something? That's the way we should do it. Or why did the early church do something? So what I'd like to do today is I'd like to talk about the Holy Days as they were observed in the early New Testament church. And I hope by doing that that we can understand and appreciate what the Apostle Paul wrote, primarily to one of his congregations.

And that congregation that he wrote to, in which he's going to mention the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread together, different chapters, but in the same book, is what we refer to as the Ring Holy Days. We're going to see that the Apostle Paul believed them. He taught them that they should observe these days and even told them how to do it in a new way, from the perspective of the new covenant, not simply doing it the way it had been done under the old covenant. So to give us a little background while you're turning to 1 Corinthians chapter 12, if you'll turn there, I'd just like to give you a little bit of an idea of the date of when this book was written, because this is really important, the date that 1 Corinthians was written. I'm going to read to you a quote from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Here's what it says about when this book was written, as you're turning to 1 Corinthians 12 chapter 1. It says, after a sojourn of 18 months in Corinth, it says, in this fruitful field, Paul departed most probably in the year 52, that means he departed after visiting Corinth, and having visited Jerusalem and returned to Asia Minor, established himself for a period of between two and three years in Ephesus. It was during his stay there that his epistle was written either in the spring of the year in which he left 55 A.D., or if that does not give sufficient interval for a visit and a letter to Corinth, which there is considerable ground for believing intervening between 1 Corinthians and the departure from Ephesus, then the spring of the preceding year 54. So what the Bible Encyclopedia is saying in a way that encyclopedias have to have long sentences and make things complicated, but what this Bible Encyclopedia is saying, as is confirmed by many Bible scholars, is that the book of 1 Corinthians was written about 55 A.D. Please don't take my word on it. Go home tonight and Google 1 Corinthians, and you will see that the overwhelming majority of scholars, biblical scholars of any faith, Catholic, Protestant, whatever, will all confirm that Paul wrote this book approximately 55. Some may say 54 A.D., some may say 56. That's fine. But the point is, is that Jesus Christ died around 31 A.D. So we're talking about something that was written 25 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Something else also happened in those intervening years. If you go to Acts 15, you will see that in 49 A.D., or six years before this book is written, they had a ministerial conference in Jerusalem. And in that conference, they had an argument over whether circumcision would be required for Gentiles to be saved. And, again, brought up in a Protestant background what I was taught was that that conference decided that everything Jewish was unnecessary. Circumcision wasn't necessary. The Ten Commandments were done away. The Sabbath, the Holy Days, everything regarding the Old Testament, everything regarding mentioning part of the Old Covenant was completely abolished and done away. So this book we're going to look at in 1 Corinthians was written six years after the ministerial conference that Paul attended and participated in. All right? So that's the context. That's the date of the epistle. Let's take a look now and see who the audience is.

Because this is very important. 1 Corinthians 12, verses 1 and 2. Now concerning spiritual gifts, and they were blessed with a lot of spiritual gifts.

Brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant. You know that you were Gentiles carried away to these dumb idols however you were led. So Paul is telling us who the audience is in this church. The audience that he's writing this epistle to are not Jewish believers. They're not people who came out of Judaism and were perverted. These were people who were Gentiles. They worshiped dumb idols. They had no understanding of the Old Testament, no understanding of anything Hebrew or Jewish. And that's a very important part that I want to emphasize. Paul states here that the Corinthian church was a Gentile congregation before they were called. They were part of the Gentile world without any understanding of the Old Testament. Paul wrote this letter because his church was suffering a lot of problems. And if you read through the entire letter, you say, wow, what a mess these people are. You really do. It makes me appreciate God's people today in the 21st century compared to the problems they had because they were struggling with immoral behavior, including incest in their congregation. They were struggling with fornication. They were worshiping the wrong way, distorted public worship. They had self-centered attitudes. They had a superiority complex. They thought they were superior to other congregations because they were very talented. And they had confusions about the resurrection. They just had lots of problems. And when some people who had visited Corinth came back and told Paul, what's going on in Corinth, that's what inspired him to write these letters. Let's take a look back now in 1 Corinthians, chapter 11, and go back to verse 17. 1 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 17.

He says, now, in giving these instructions, he's going to give them instructions about a particular ceremony and how it should be done right, he says, now, in giving these instructions, I do not praise you since you come together not for the better but for the worse. He says, even when you come together to worship, it's a mess. And it leads to confusion. It leads to problems. Verse 18, for first of all, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you and in part I believe it. For there must be factions, that's the Greek word heresy, by the way, heresies, which means disunion or having a party spirit, having your own agenda. For there must be factions among you that those who are approved may be recognized among you. I'm going to read that last verse from the New Century version. It is necessary to have differences among you so that it may be clear which of you really have God's approval. So why are there occasional splits in the Church of God? Why is there sometimes disunity? Why are there problems? Because God is sifting and sorting things. He's sifting the wheat from the chaff, the good stuff that he's working with from the other stuff that's just occupying a seat or trying to cause trouble, or in it for themselves, and not really in it for God's way of life. He's saying, again, that these are sometimes necessary so that you can find out who really has God's approval. Then in verse 20, he begins talking about what you and I would refer to as the annual Passover. Verse 20 says, therefore when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord's supper. Now, if you go back to John 13, which we will in a little bit, you will see that when Jesus instituted the new covenant Passover, that first they had supper together. They had the traditional Jewish meal together with lamb and bitter herbs and all that stuff. And then after they had that supper together, then he instituted the new symbols of the bread and the wine. Great! And apparently, they were attempting to do the same thing, but they had gotten all out of whack, and now the emphasis had become on this feast, this big supper they were having, with little emphasis on the power behind those beautiful symbols of partaking of the bread and the wine on the Passover.

So Paul now begins to discuss the annual ceremony of the Passover, and it's evident, as we'll get down to verses 22 and 23. And he brings this up because this gentile congregation was distorting the way the Passover should be kept. All the emphasis was on snorkeling down large quantities of food and drink with little emphasis on the power behind the symbols of the bread and the wine. So again, before they shared the Passover symbols together, they had a large supper, again, much like Jesus and the original disciples do in John chapter 13. However, this had gotten way out of control, and let's see how it had gotten out of control. Verse 21, for an eating. Each one takes his own supper ahead of others. So some people aren't even waiting for the whole congregation to arrive. They're showing up with their little smorgasbord, and they're beginning to eat before other people even get there. And one is hungry, and another is drunk. So you've got wealthy brethren who are coming with all kinds of food and having a feast. You've got some brethren who are poor. They're coming hungry, and they have very little to eat. And then you've got other people who are coming up, and they're toasted.

They're skunked. They've been drinking too much on the Passover eve, of all things. He says, what do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? If you know your brother has very little, and he comes to this supper hungry, how could you sit there and gobble down all this food and not even offer him something to eat?

What's wrong with you, Paul is saying? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you. And then he gets into the details of what's really important about the Passover. It's not the supper, and that's one reason we don't really have a supper today, the way we observe the Passover here in the 21st century. We don't have a supper before the emblems, and because it's the symbols of the emblems that should be emphasized and are the most important part. He says, For I receive from the Lord that which I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which he was betrayed, no question about the context here, that's the Passover that Jesus Christ observed with his disciples. On the same night he was betrayed, took bread.

What he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take eat. This is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same manner, he also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. This, do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

So Paul is saying the big deal shouldn't be about this supper, and that's why he says, You have not come to eat the Lord's supper. The emphasis should be on the symbols of the actual Passover itself. So if there's any doubt about what Paul is speaking about here, in context, he makes it clear. He's discussing the annual Passover observance. He says, The very night Jesus was betrayed, the annual Passover observance and the sharing of the new covenant emblems of bread and wine. And this solemn observance is a remembrance of the Lord's death. We are here because he was the ultimate Lamb of God. We are here because he shed his blood for the remission of our sins. That makes what makes it possible for us to have a relationship with the Father, to be part of the family of God. So it's a very solemn, a very beautiful ceremony that we participate in. Again, he said at the end of verse 26, You proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. He shed his blood for our sins, and we are forgiven because of his sacrifice. Verse 27, Therefore whoever eats this bread and drinks of the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. In context, he's saying, So don't come here to eat like a glutton and allow your brother to be hungry. Don't come here drunk. Don't come here with an emphasis on the smorgasbord and think about the Passover emblems as an afterthought. That's misappropriation, Paul says. Verse 28, But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. And that's why we emphasize for all of us as we prepare for the Passover and Spring Holy Days that we examine our lives. We look into our hearts. How are we doing with our Christian walk? And if, like yours truly, you say, I fall short and I need to improve and I need to do more, then the beautiful thing about the Passover, it's a reaffirmation of our baptism. We will take those symbols that represent the body and the shed blood of Jesus Christ, and we will share those together as a congregation in the Passover night. And it gives us a chance to rededicate ourselves, to redouble our efforts to develop the mind of Christ and be his disciples.

Verse 30, he says, For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep, because they were not discerning the Lord's body. Verse 31, For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged, but when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world. What Paul is saying is, if we examine ourselves, then God doesn't have to condemn us. If we examine ourselves and we repent, we realize we need to continue to grow and we need to rededicate ourselves to God's way of life, then we don't need to be chastened by God. And we don't need to face the same condemnation that the world will face when Jesus Christ returns. So that's a good reason to examine ourselves, to take a good look at our own hearts in our own lives. Verse 33, Therefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. But if anyone is hungry, let them eat at home, lest you come together for judgment. And the rest I will set in order when I come. So he's saying, whatever you do, don't come to the Passover hungry. You shouldn't be ravenous. You know, eat at home or do something, but don't come hungry. So we're encouraged here to have a candid self-examination and to judge ourselves, not our spouses, not the neighbor down the road, not the person sitting in the back of the hall. He encouraged everyone to examine him or herself, not someone else. And if we're willing to do this, we do not need to be chastened by God or condemned along with this world. And if you find you have sin in your life and your examination is a little uncomfortable, well, that's a good thing.

Because maybe it will encourage you, prod you, inspire you, to take a good look at those areas of our lives where we still have a little bit of leaven. We still have some secret sin that we haven't confronted yet, that we haven't gotten out of our lives. So we take the Passover to rededicate our life as a disciple of Jesus. We alone are unworthy. I'm sometimes asked, since the Scripture says, he who drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself. And a lot of times I have people say to me, well, I examine myself and I'm just a scumbag. I'm not worthy to take the Passover. And the response to that is, none of us are worthy to take the Passover. Jesus Christ in you makes you worthy to take the Passover. So if you discover things that you don't like about yourself, repent of them and take the Passover. Participate in the Passover, because it's Jesus Christ ultimately that makes us worthy, not anything that we can do ourselves. Let's now go, if you would, to John chapter 13 and verse 1. Paul doesn't mention this in 1 Corinthians, but I will mention it because it's a very important part of our Passover service that we have every year.

John chapter 13 and verse 1. We have John to thank for this because Matthew, Mark, and Luke do not mention the foot washing.

John said, now before the peace of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come, that he should depart from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. And supper being ended, remember how I mentioned earlier that they had a supper before the symbols, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, he rose from supper, he laid aside his garments, he took off his robe, he took a towel, and he girded himself, and after that he poured water into a basin, and he began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. And then he came to Simon Peter, and Peter said to him, Lord, are you washing my feet? And Jesus said to them, what I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.

Jesus was trying to teach them to have an attitude of a humble servant, and that in their ministry, for the rest of their lives, they would need to be humble servants. Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet. And Jesus answered it, if I do not wash you, you have no part with me. Jesus is saying, if I don't forgive you of your sins, if I don't cleanse you of your iniquity, then you cannot be my disciple. You cannot be part of what I'm all about. You have to allow me and my shed blood to cleanse you and wash you clean. Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. And Jesus said to him, he who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not all of you. Of course, he's referring to the disciple who would betray him. For he knew that he who would betray him. Therefore, he said you were not all clean. So when he had washed their feet and taken his garments, he sat down again and he said to them, you know what I've done to you? You call me teacher and Lord, and you say, well, for so I am. If I then your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

How many churches have you ever been associated with where people washed each other's feet on the Passover? It's not easy. And if you've ever if you've never done that before, your first time is quite an experience because it's an act of humiliation. It's being humble, like a servant in the traditional Jewish household. It was the lowliest servant in the household who would wash the feet of a guest as they came in. And of course, their feet would get really dusty walking on those roads, dirt roads. They weren't paved, and your feet would get dirty and dusty. And the lowest servant in the household was the one who was usually given the assignment to wash a guest feet. None of the disciples volunteered to do that. They all would get in an argument in another account about who would be greatest in the kingdom of God. They all had time for that, but they didn't have time to serve and to say, I will act as the lowliest servant and wash everyone's feet. Jesus said, you also ought to wash one another's feet, for I have given you an example. That's verse 15. I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you.

So sure enough, following the example of the New Covenant Passover, during the Passover service this year on Thursday, April 2nd at 8 o'clock, when we'll begin, Mr. Graham will be assisting me in the service. We'll be following the example of Jesus Christ, and we'll be washing one another's feet before we partake of the symbols. And we'll separate all the men, we'll go into one room, wash each other's feet. All the women will go into another room and wash each other's feet. As an example of humility, of having an attitude of a servant and realizing that we are simply servants, disciples, that is learners of Jesus Christ. And that's a very important thing that we involve ourselves in in the Passover. And after we wash one another's feet, we will come back into the main hall here, where we will start the service. And we'll have a very simple but beautiful service, where we will share the bread and the wine and talk about their rich meaning and the emblems of the bread and the wine, the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of our sins. And we'll conclude the service by reading some things that Jesus said in the book of John, just before he was arrested. And those who are baptized are invited to participate in the actual Passover service. Anyone can come as an observer, but this is something that is involved. Those who have accepted and are part of God's new covenant, those who have been baptized and receive his Spirit, are those who should partake of the bread and of the wine.

Take a look at the time. So what we saw here is 25 years after the birth, after the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it's about 31 A.D. Paul is instructing this Gentile group of people to keep the Passover and keep it in the right way. Now how would they have known about the Passover?

They were Gentiles. He taught them. How would they know about the meanings of the bread and the wine, the broken body, and the shed blood of Jesus Christ? He taught them. The church that I grew up in as a child, we didn't keep the Passover. We kept something called Easter, but the Passover, we felt, was done away. 25 years after Jesus Christ was resurrected, Paul is teaching a Gentile congregation to keep the Passover. Yet what does the world do today? It observes everything but the Passover, because it's Jewish. So you certainly can't do that. Well, let's take a look at another example of what Paul says to this Gentile congregation, 1 Corinthians chapter 5 in verse 1, and he's dealing with another issue, and then he's going to get to his point, and he's going to instruct them to do something else. 1 Corinthians chapter 5 in verse 1, he says, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality is not even named among the Gentiles that a man has his father. This is so embarrassing! Even Gentiles don't do this kind of stuff. A man was committing incest with his stepmother. Now, this is a family church, so I'm not going to go into any more details than that.

I'm not going to go into any more details than to say that that obviously is an act of incest, and it's something that Paul was stunned when it got back to him that this very tolerant, open-minded church didn't see a problem with this going on. He says, and you are puffed up!

He says, you know, you think you're just so tolerant, you're so superior, you're beyond propriety, you're beyond what's right and wrong, you'll just endure stuff going on that you should never endure in the church of God. And have not rather mourned that he who has done this act might be taken away from among you, for indeed as absent in body but president spirit, I, this is Paul speaking, president spirit, have already judged as though I were present him who has done this deed.

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you were gathered together along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan. What does he mean by this phrase? He says, send him packing, saying you cannot fellowship with us, you need to go back out into the world where you belong. I'm sorry we love you, but you cannot bring that kind of perversion into the congregation of God. If you're going to live that kind of lifestyle, you need to go back out to the world where you belong, and when you get kicked around a little bit by the world and you realize what you're doing is wrong and you repent, then we want you to come back home.

But until that time, you shouldn't be here. You're toxic in our belief system, you're toxic in our congregation. So he says, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that is, through physical trials. And, you know, when you go out into the world and you deal with the world, you get your teeth kicked in like the world tends to do it through trials and problems and tribulations, through the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Do all that, not because you hate him, not because you despise him, but because he needs to learn to repent. He needs to learn to accept that what he did is sin and it's wrong and he needs to repent. And if he does that, then he'll be saved. Ultimately, it'll come out all right. So we see here that Paul is discussing sin that's in the congregation and is being accepted as appropriate. And Paul tells the leaders to remove the individual from the fellowship of the church until he repents of this sin.

So since this is the springtime when this book was written, and I read that earlier from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. They said it was written in the spring, and that comes from internal evidence in the book. Since it was springtime when the book was written, Paul wisely ties together the fact that the congregation needs to get sin out of it with something else that is about to happen in the congregation.

Let's see what he says. We're going to pick it up here in verse 6. Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us.

Therefore let us keep the feast. Not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Who's Paul writing to? Gentiles. How long has it been after the death of Jesus Christ? 25 years. How long has it been since the ministerial conference of 49 A.D.

when supposedly everything was done away, that was ever done away, could be done away, or thought of being done away? Six years. And Paul tells this group of Gentiles, let us keep the feast. Doesn't say anything about Easter bunnies. Doesn't say anything about Lent. But what he does tell them to do is they need to keep the feast. How in the world would they know what being unleavened means? They were Gentiles. He taught them. How would they understand the symbolism that leaven represents sin, and you get it out of your house because it represents the hidden sin in your life. And by removing it from our homes, it gives us time to think about that I have an opportunity to grow and change here by also getting the hidden secret sins out of my life.

How would they even know any of that makes any sense? They weren't Jewish. They never read Leviticus 23 that we'll get to in a minute because Paul taught them these meanings. He taught them the symbolism. He tells them, Gentiles, let us keep the feast. But in a new way, again, I want to reread. Verses 8, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. It's not about sacrificial animals anymore.

It's not about Levites. It's not about going to some temple or tabernacle to perform rituals. He says, this comes from the heart. We keep it from the heart. Jesus Christ is our Passover, sacrificed for us by taking leaven out of our homes. It's an annual reminder of our need to continue to grow in sanctification, continue to be set apart, continue to grow, continue to become a new creature in Jesus Christ, and not to stop, and not to sit in our laurels, and not to just be happy with the way things are.

Verse 9 again, but I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. So he ties together with what's going on a problem in the congregation, and he ties it together with the fact that they were observing or preparing to observe, it was springtime, the days of unleavened bread. So I want to recap what I've said here.

I want you to notice what Paul is telling these gentile Christians 25 years after the death of Christ, six years after the ministerial conference in Acts 15. How can they keep the feast? I've had a lot of critics over the years say, oh Greg, you can't keep those Jewish holy days? Why, you needed to go to Jerusalem? You needed to have Levites? You needed to sacrifice animals at a temple or a tavern? You need, if you're doing all these things, then you're not keeping the old covenant holy days.

And I see you're exactly right. I'm not. I'm keeping the new covenant holy days. And it's not about animals and Levites and temples. It's not about any of those things. It's about change of heart. It's about sincerity and truth. It's about the change that is supposed to go on inside of us as we become new creatures in Christ. So even though there's no temple or Levites or approved older to sacrifice animals, they kept the feast in a new covenant way surrounding it with an understanding of the meaning of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the fact that leaven represents getting sin out of our lives.

And we're going to do the same thing as God's people. We're going to remove leaven products from our homes during the days of unleavened bread. We'll do this because leaven represents sin and it represents hypocrisy. It represents the hidden evil in our hearts and minds. And some of us don't even want to acknowledge is there. Removing the leaven reminds us of our need to become sanctified, our need to continue to grow as new creatures in Christ. Our mission is mature growth and commitment.

And we'll do something else during these days. We will eat unleavened bread. Not only will we take leaven out of our homes, but we will eat unleavened bread because it pictures and reminds for us our need for Jesus Christ, the bread of life to dwell inside of us. That's why we will eat unleavened bread. Let's go to Leviticus now.

Leviticus 23. I wanted to take a look at the Scripture last because I wanted to prove to all of you that we keep the New Covenant Holy Days not because of Leviticus 23, but because of the example of the Apostle Paul, because of the example of the New Testament Church, the New Covenant. But they didn't keep the Holy Days because there was some vacuum. They kept the Holy Days because obviously they were instructed in God's book we call the Old Testament. And here's what God instructed ancient Israel regarding his Holy Days, Leviticus 23, verses 1-8.

Then he continues with the annual Holy Days. Verse 6.

On the first day you shall have a holy convocation. That's a holy convention. And sure enough, we will gather together and we will worship and celebrate the first day of unleavened bread together. It's in your bulletin. And you shall do no customary work on it. You know, the workday can wait, but you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord for seven days. That's one of those things that are not part of the New Covenant observance of the Holy Days. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation and you shall do no customary work on it.

So there we are. Long before I got to Leviticus 23 and went to the Old Testament, I showed you very clearly how in the New Testament, many, many years after Jesus Christ died, decades after he died and resurrected, that there are church members who are keeping the Passover and keeping the days of unleavened bread. Paul understood that these Holy Days and the reason they continue to be observed are all about Jesus Christ. They're all about what he has done, what he's now doing, and what he will yet do for all humanity. Every one of God's annual Holy Days point to something about Jesus Christ, our Savior, our Lord.

Let's take a look at one final scripture in our sermon today, John chapter 6 and verse 47.

And again, as in past years and following the example of the Apostle Paul and what he taught, and which he obviously got from the book of Leviticus, we will also be removing leavened bread products from our homes for seven days. It doesn't make us righteous. It doesn't mean we're saved. We've never made that claim. It's simply a symbol. It's something that reminds us of our need to get leaven out of our lives. And during the feast, there's something else that you do.

I want you to notice on Leviticus 23, I will reread verse 6. It says, Seven days you must eat unleavened bread. Here's what Jesus said in John chapter 6. Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life.

Your fathers ate the man in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I give, I shall give, is my flesh which I shall give for the life of the world. So during the feast, we will eat matzo or unleavened bread or sometimes it tastes like cardboard, whatever excites you about eating during the days of unleavened bread. Some of those unleavened products are absolutely terrible.

And I think that's part, maybe part of the challenge. But we will eat unleavened bread because it reminds us that Jesus Christ is the bread of life. And we need to partake of Jesus Christ. We need him inside of us. We need him guiding our lives. We need him as our partner, teaching us, helping us as disciples to go forward, to grow, to change. And we need to acknowledge Jesus Christ as the bread of life. So let's begin to look at our hearts. Let's begin to examine ourselves and prepare for a very enriching Holy Day season. Our Savior, the Passover Lamb of God and the bread of life invites you to celebrate and worship him during special appointed times that will begin in about two weeks. I encourage you to participate with your whole heart, as Paul would say, therefore, let us keep the feast.