What's On God's Mind Today?

So, special thanks to Cleveland Correll for very inspiring music on this first day of Unleavened Bread. The other day I was thinking about meditating about how long B.J. and I have known Mr. and Mrs. Watson. It's almost 50 years that we've known each other. Many years ago, in the early 70s, Mr. Watson and I were in the same folksmen's club together, had the same director, so now you know who to blame. And we were also in a band together, a dance band that that church had at the time, called the Notables.

So we do go way back. Well, once again, good afternoon and welcome. Have you ever wondered what's on God's mind? I know that's a pretty broad question, but I believe that some things are so important to God that He wanted them to be remembered. He wanted them to be remembered by His children. And so today, I would like to explore three things that God revealed in Scripture that were important for Him, so important for Him that He said, I want this to be remembered and I want something special done with this article or this item so that the people will remember. And I'd like to explore three things that God revealed in Scriptures that should also be important to us to remember and how they are connected to the days of Unleavened Bread.

Let's find out what these three things are. If you turn with me to Hebrews, chapter 9, beginning in verse 1. This is the author of the book of Hebrews talking about some of the articles that were in the original tabernacle. Picking up in verse 1, verse 1, then indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and an earthly sanctuary, for a tabernacle was prepared in the first part, in which was a lampstand, and a table, and a showbread, which is called the sanctuary, and behind the second veil.

This was the area known as the Holy of Holies. The part of the tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all, verse 4, which had the golden censer and the Ark of the Covenant overlaid on all sides with gold. So there was a box that was called the Ark of the Covenant, in which, so inside of this very sacred box, in which, where the golden pot that had the manna, errands robbed and butted, and the tables of the Covenant, and above it, where the caribim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat, of these things we cannot now speak in detail.

So the author didn't have time to give more details about what those things represented and how important they are. The author of the book of Hebrews tells us that there were these three things in the Ark of the Covenant that was part of the original tabernacle. They were a golden pot that had manna in it, errands original rod that butted. We'll take a look at that story today, and of course, the tablets of the Covenant, what we call the Ten Commandments, today. What I'd like to do is explain why these three things were in the Ark of the Covenant and their symbolism for us today.

Some things for us to think about on this first day of Unleavened Bread this year. The book of Exodus gives detailed instruction on how the Ark was to be constructed, and it was shaped like a box. It was to be two and a half cubits long, one and a half cubits wide, and one and a half cubits in length. Now, that doesn't tell us a whole lot since we use English measurements, but it was approximately 52 inches long and 31 inches high and 31 inches wide.

To give you some perspective, this podium is 46 inches wide, so the Ark of the Covenant was about 6 inches wider than this podium, as you see it. As far as how high it was, 31 inches from the stage is about up to the top of that seal that you see on the podium.

That gives you a little bit of idea of the kind of size that it was. The Ark of the Covenant had a gold lid on top of it, and that gold lid was called the Mercy Seat. Attached to the top of the Mercy Seat were two golden cariboum on each end, and they were facing each other.

Between them was the space in which God would speak to Moses. We'll see that in just a few minutes. The heart and core of God's very presence was believed to be within that Ark of the Covenant. As we'll see, these three things that were instructed by God Himself to be placed inside of it would be considered very important. Only three things were ever told or instructed to the people to be placed inside of the Ark of the Covenant.

It would be fair to say that these things were on God's mind. A lot of things are on God's mind, obviously, but these three things were so important to Him in the lessons so profound for the people that He personally instructed, as we'll see in each case, that I want this inside of the Ark. He wanted His people to remember what they represented or pictured. So let's see what they were in more detail and how they can relate to our celebration of these days of Unleavened. We'll start with number one.

The first item that was placed inside the Ark has many names. It's called the Testimony, called the Tablets of the Covenant, the term that we use most often, that Mr. Hendricks talked about a little bit in his fine first split today. We call them the Ten Commandments. Let's go to Exodus chapter 25 and verse 16. Exodus chapter 25 and verse 16.

This was an instruction that God gave directly to Moses. And you shall put into the Ark the testimony which I will give you. The word testimony is a Hebrew word, duth, and it means to witness or an agreement to something. You shall make a mercy seat out of pure gold. Two and a half cubits shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its width. And you shall make two carob of gold with hammered work.

You shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat. Again, remember, this is that lid that's set on top of the Ark of the Covenant itself. Verse 19, make one carob at one end and the other carob at the other end. And you shall make the carob at the two ends of it one piece. In other words, this was all to be made from a single plate of gold.

God is one. He's unified. It wasn't to be one carob made out of one piece of gold. The other carob made out of another piece of gold. And somehow they would be attached to the lid. God said, no, that's not good enough. I'm one God. I'm unified. I want this to all be literally one piece. So let's continue here. Verse 20, the carob boom shall stretch out their wings above, covering the mercy seat with their wings.

And they shall face each other. The faces of the carob boom shall be toward the mercy seat. And you shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark. And in the ark you shall put the testimony that I will give you. Again, this testimony will be the two tablets written with God's very finger that we know of as the Ten Commandments. Verse 22, and I will meet with you and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat from between the two carob boom, which are on the ark of the testimony about everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel.

So again, this was all representative of the fact that the ark of the covenant represented the very mind of God, the heart and core of who and what God is. Moses would even receive audible instruction from the ark of the covenant. Let's quickly put a couple of puzzle pieces together.

Go to chapter 31, if you will turn with me, and verse 18. We'll just read one verse here. Chapter 31 and verse 18. It says, and when he had made an end of speaking with him, that's Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave Moses two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God. These literally, again, are what we term today most commonly the Ten Commandments. One more scripture quickly, chapter 40 and verse 20.

We're going to see that Moses was obedient and did what God told him to do with those tablets. Chapter 40, verse 20, it says, he took the testimony and put it into the ark, inserted the poles through the rings of the ark, and put the mercy seat on top of the ark. So God instructed him to take the law, those tablets of the covenant, also called the testimony, the Ten Commandments, and put them inside of the ark.

Now, interestingly enough, in contrast, when the law of Moses was rewritten in the book of Deuteronomy, and when it was completed, it was placed beside the ark of the covenant on the outside. As it's mentioned in Deuteronomy, chapter 31 and verse 26. Again, that's Deuteronomy, chapter 31 and verse 26. Why was it placed beside the ark on the outside while the Ten Commandments were on the inside? Well, the book of Moses, there, Deuteronomy itself, which was called the second law, or the rewriting of the law, it was the law of Moses.

It was temporary. It was for a specific people, a specific nation, a specific time, and it would be replaced by a new covenant with better promises that would be available to everyone on earth, not just to people of a particular lineage or heritage. So why were the two tablets of the testimony, also called the tablets of the covenant in the book of Hebrews, we've read that a few minutes ago, why was that placed inside of the ark of the covenant? It's because what we call the Ten Commandments are God's value system.

They are the core of any covenant that God would make with anyone because they reflect and represent who and what he is. It's his template that is part of any agreement or covenant that God will make. They provide understanding on how to love and properly respect God. They provide love and understanding for us through its teachings on how to care for our neighbors, the others whom God has created in the image of God.

So it can rightly be called the law of love because it reinforces and teaches us what God's value system is. Matthew 5 and verse 16, if you'll turn there with me. Again, Matthew 5 and verse 16. We'll see here, of course, that Jesus Christ himself supported the law of God, supported the Ten Commandments.

That shouldn't surprise us because Jesus Christ was the very God in the Old Testament who had given those commandments to Moses, later on, emptied himself of his glory, and humbly came to earth as a human being, as a man, so that he could live a perfect life and die for our sins. Matthew 5 and verse 16, he said, Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

Do not think that I've come to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For assuredly I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law until all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of God.

By the way, it doesn't say that they'll even be there, just as they'll be called least by those who are there, but they'll be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Verse 20, for I say unto you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. And then Jesus goes on for the rest of this chapter, magnifying the commandments and revealing God's original intent, what we call the spiritual application of the commandments. For example, originally God didn't intend for divorce to occur, but he allowed it, and Jesus came to give us further instruction on what God's original spiritual intent was regarding a marriage.

Later on, we can see that Jesus likens lust as the same thing as literally committing adultery. He likens hate as literally the same thing as murdering, killing someone.

He emphasizes the fact that we're not to be like other people. Anyone can love their friends and hate their enemies. We are to love our enemies.

When we have God's Spirit in us, the same Spirit the Father and Son share, we can begin to deeply respect and appreciate and develop ourselves through the power of the Holy Spirit so that we come to love God's law.

So we come and begin to transform our lives to become more like God.

When we have the same Spirit that the Father and Son share, by the way, the righteousness of Jesus Christ in us exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, because their righteousness was strictly by the letter of the law.

It wasn't according to attitude or a heart.

Let's now take a look at Matthew 19, if you'll go back just a few chapters with me. Matthew 19 and verse 16.

Again, we're talking about the Ten Commandments and why they are so very important to God. They reflect who and what God is. They are part of His value system, the law of love, loving Him and loving the others whom God has created in His image. We call them our neighbors.

Matthew 19 and verse 16.

One of them came to Him and said, Good teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? So He said to Him, Why do you call me good? No one is good but one.

Young men didn't acknowledge Him as the Christ as they should have. They just acknowledged Him as a common rabbi.

But if you want to enter into life, Jesus says, Keep the commandments. And He said to Him, Which ones? Now here's something that most of us don't pick up.

Jesus knows, because He can read the human heart, that this young man has a problem, His problem is coveting. This young man is wealthy. He's got lots of stuff and He doesn't want to part ways with it.

Jesus can read the human heart, just like He told this American woman how many times she had been married. And she was stunned that He could read her heart. And He knew that about her.

So, He's going to, Jesus is going to mention a number of the Ten Commandments and He's purposely going to leave out coveting to see how the young man will reply.

So here's Jesus said, You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and your mother and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

And the young man said, All these things I've kept from my youth, what do I still lack?

This one commandment Jesus didn't mention in that group. And that's coveting.

That's the 10th commandment of Jesus said to Him, If you want to be perfect, go sell what you have and give it to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come and follow me. Give away everything you have and become my disciple.

But when the young man heard that saying, He went away sorrowful, for He had great possessions. He wouldn't give it up.

Notice what Jesus said. He said here that living by the 10 commandments, God's value system, was a key to enter eternal life. Why?

Well, when you learn to love and live by God's law, you are transformed over a period of time to become more like God.

It's His law of love, what James calls the royal law in James 2 and verse 8, that represents how God thinks and what God values and what He thinks and what He values has the core of love in every statute, in every rule, in every law that God has ever instituted. So the first item placed inside of the Ark of the Covenant was the testimony, or the 10 commandments of God, reminding us to get sin out of our lives.

Sin is defined as breaking any of these laws. We've taken 11 out of our homes before these holy days began as a reminder to reject sin. Now we need to replace that void by loving God's commandments.

By living God's commandments, not just the letter of the law, the spirit of the law, how we think, our attitudes, our thoughts. Of course, we only will change that if we begin to daily challenge our self-talk and not accept as okay the things that we say to ourselves.

So it's very important that we understand why the very first thing put into the Ark of the Covenant which represents the mind of God was His very law. You know, some Protestants abolish the 10 commandments. They say the 10 commandments are done away. The 10 commandments have been abolished.

And what they do is they magically, because it's really the Sabbath they don't want to keep, they magically restore 9 out of the 10 and they say, oh, this is the law of Christ. A phrase that Paul used in Galatians 6 and verse 2. And of course, that's ridiculous. I want you to think of this. If you had a problem with a finger, would you cut off all 10 of your fingers and then reattach 9 out of the 10 to take care of that problem?

Well, of course not. That would be ridiculous. And the law of Christ is the law of God. It's the same thing as the 10 commandments. It was the one, the very being, who later would become Christ, who gave the 10 commandments to Moses himself.

So some will go to incredible distortions in order to try to do away with the Sabbath and to observe only 9 out of the 10. I guess instead of the 10 commandments, they become the 9 suggestions.

So that was number one. That was in the Ark of the Covenant and those, of course, were the tablets, the law of God. We can see why that was the very first thing in there. If you want to know how God thinks, if you want to know what proper love and respect is, then you appreciate God's law.

Here's the second thing that was in there. Aaron's rod that budded. You know, over the years God gave miraculous qualities to the staff that Aaron used.

And it was used in instrumental ways to initiate some of the plagues in ancient Egypt. You can read about that. If you'll please turn to number 17, I'll give you a little bit of background. Numbers 17 beginning in verse 1.

Aaron's rod, or his staff, was a dead tree branch that God gave miraculous ability at times to do some powerful things.

Leading up to chapter 17, there had been a series of leadership challenges against Moses and Aaron. At one point, three individuals had led 250 leaders to accuse Aaron and Moses of a power grab.

Why, you guys have assumed all this power yourselves. We're equal to you, and you shouldn't be doing these things. You shouldn't be in a leadership position, they said.

Well, God punished these individuals severely. The ringleaders were swallowed up in the earth, and the rest were incinerated instantaneously, the 250, when they presented to God unholy incense.

So it was not a very positive episode or a positive scene.

After that, the rest of the tribes condemned Moses and Aaron for the deaths of their countrymen. They said, this isn't fair.

They also began to suffer God's wrath, a plague, and Aaron spared them when he made atonement for them. But the plague cost 14,700 lives of those who complained and condemned Moses and Aaron for those events.

So God wanted to reinforce to them that he is in authority. What God says is, stop worrying about human beings and who is in charge. God says you want to know who's in charge every day? I am. Period.

That is the message that God wants them to understand. God says, I will choose who represents me. I am the authority, the only authority, and I will choose those individuals throughout human history who will be my leaders, people whom I will work with, people who will represent me. So to emphasize this, he wanted to give them a particular experience, and we'll read about that beginning in Numbers 17, verse 1.

Thus, I will rid myself of the complaints of the children of Israel, which they make against me. Picking it up here in verse 6. So Moses spoke to the children of Israel, and each of their leaders gave him a rod of peace. For each leader, according to their fathers' houses, twelve rods, and the rod of Aaron was among their rods. And Moses placed the rods before the Lord in the tabernacle of witness. Now it came to pass on the next day that Moses went into the tabernacle of witness, and behold, the rod of Aaron, that staff that Aaron had carried, of the house of Levi had sprouted, and put forth buds, had produced blossoms, and yielded ripe almonds. Do you realize what a miracle this was? All three seasons on the same branch. Now, sure, you can put a piece of a, like a hibiscus in water, and a few weeks later, leaves will sprout out of it. But what will not happen naturally are blossoms, leaves, and totally ripened fruit occurring at the same time on the same piece of wood. Verse 9, then Moses brought out all the rods from before the Lord to all the children of Israel, and they looked, and each man took his rod, and the Lord said to Moses, bring Aaron's rod back before the testimony to be kept as a sign against the rebels, that you may put their complaints away from me, lest they die. Thus did Moses, just as the Lord had commanded him, so he did. So what's the message? Now we can learn from these verses that we looked at today. Well, all of these rods were dead wood. They had been severed from a living tree.

Aaron's rod was miraculous in that it showed the three stages of growth all at the same time. In nature, again, you don't get buds, blossoms, and ripened fruit on the same piece of wood at the same time, from the same tree or the same bush. The almond tree was the harbinger of spring. The almond tree bloomed in Israel around January. It was one of the earliest things that began to blossom and show life.

So obviously the main point that God had here is that he chooses whom he wills to fulfill his desire. He is in authority, and he alone chooses who will represent him.

And this leads to your precious calling. Because when God called you, he said, this is a leader whom I am choosing to serve in my kingdom.

You see, God is in the process of creating a transformation in your life. He's transforming us from dead works into living, fruitful children.

God called you, and he chose you to blossom as a sate in verse 5, and it shall be that the rod of the man whom I choose will blossom.

How's your life blossoming? As we ponder this during the days of Unleavened Bread, God specifically called you in the 21st century because you have been chosen to blossom.

God is using the gift of his Holy Spirit. Let's see what Paul said about God's promises and how much into the future God can look.

And when God looks at our lives, how he looks at us. Let's go to Romans chapter 4 and verse 16.

Very beautiful scripture that oftentimes we don't totally get or appreciate the meaning of. Paul is emphasizing how it was the living faith of Abraham that caused God to give him blessings. Abraham certainly was obedient.

He obeyed what God instructed him to do, but Paul here is commending him on his faith and the grace of God.

So it says, therefore, it is a faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, not only to Jewish individuals who had the good fortune of growing up understanding the Ten Commandments and the Law of Moses and the Torah, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the Father of us all. Remember, he's writing the Gentiles here. This is called the Book of Romans.

As it is written, I have made you a father of many nations in the presence of him whom he believed. And here's the key scripture I want to emphasize.

God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did.

God has given you life and been life. We were spiritually dead. We were enslaved to the God of this world, Satan the devil. And of course, we understand all that beautiful symbolism of ancient Israel coming out of Egypt and we being called and coming out of the ways of this world.

God has given us life and we were spiritually dead. And when God looks at us, he doesn't see us as merely the limited, struggling people we are today.

He sees us as we shall be, as we can be within his family.

I'm going to read verse 17 from the new Revised Standard Version. It says, I have made you the father of many nations in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

The Brethren, God looks at us in a positive way, in an encouraging way, and he doesn't see us just merely as sinners, as carnal human beings struggling with our flaws and foibles, and struggling with who and what we are.

He looks at us and he sees the future. And he sees us in it. He calls into existence things that do not yet exist.

Before we were called and accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior with a firm belief in the living faith, we were spiritually dead. We were condemned for violating God's law.

But by God's grace, he doesn't see us as the limited people we are today. Again, he looks into the future and sees us as we shall be.

As Paul wrote in chapter 12 of this very epistle, verse 2, and I believe this was read earlier today, And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed, that's the Greek word metamorphu, from which we get the word metamorphosis, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is good and acceptable and perfect to God.

During these days of Unleavened Bread is another opportunity for us, beginning with that Passover service that we were able to participate in, renewing our minds, coming to the throne of God and saying, Father, forgive me. Father, I renew the original commitment and covenant I made at my baptism.

I come here to partake of the bread and wine, and I ask that my sins continue to be forgiven, and that I continue to be a loyal and faithful disciple.

Let's go to John, chapter 15, beginning in verse 1, thinking of that story we read about Aaron's rod and the other rods, who had all been disconnected from living trees and were, frankly, dead pieces of wood and needed God's intervention, and God certainly intervened on Aaron's rod that butted.

Again, John, chapter 15, verse 1, Jesus said, and this was read during the Passover service, I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, He takes away, and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes.

That it may bear more fruit. You are already gleaned because of the word in which I have spoken to you.

You abide in me, and I in you, and the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine.

Neither can you unless you abide in me.

I am the vine, you are the branch, as He who abides in me.

He who is connected to the vine is living, is alive, is being transformed.

He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing.

You may not have counted it before, but in John, chapter 15, Jesus uses the word fruit eight times in just the fifteenth chapter.

So do you think this is important to the Father and the Son? Fruit? Bearing fruit? Becoming living fruit?

Aaron's rod or staff was shaped from a tree branch. It was miraculously transformed from a dead severed branch to a living branch that blossomed and also bore fruit.

And that's our calling today, as the leaders whom God has chosen and is training and is working with for His kingdom.

This is so important to God that the Master Gardener will even prune us. Have you been going through some trials, some health, or relationship, or particular issues or trials, maybe the last few months?

It's because God loves you. Because as a Master Gardener, He prunes those whom He loves. He allows us to experience trials and afflictions so that through those experiences, through that wounding, we can even bear more fruit.

Just like a skilled Master Gardener will prune a rose bush or prune some other ornamental plant so that it produces more, so that it's even more beautiful, more abundant, more shapely.

That's what God does in our lives.

So again, the second thing that was inside of the Ark of the Covenant was Aaron's rod that budded.

The third thing was a jar of manna, which was bred from the Lord.

Let's turn to Exodus 16 in this case. Again, I'll give you some background.

The Israelites had complained of a lack of meat and bread.

God stated in verse 4 that, I will rain bread from heaven for you, and I'm going to use it as a test to see if you will obey my Sabbath or not. And indeed, God did provide manna. He kept his promise.

We're going to pick it up here in Exodus 16, beginning in verse 29.

See, for the Lord has given you this Sabbath. Therefore, he gives you on the sixth today bread for two days.

Let every man remain in his place. Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day, and the house of Israel called its name manna.

And it was like white coriander seed, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.

Then Moses said, This is the thing which the Lord has commanded.

Fill an omer, now that's about nine and a half cups of dry weight of what we would do today. Fill an omer with it to be kept for your generations, that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.

Verse 33, Moses said to Aaron, Take the pot and put an omer of manna in it and lay it up before the Lord to be kept for your generations.

And the Lord commanded Moses, and so Aaron laid it up before the testimony, those two tablets that we talked about earlier, to be kept.

And again, it was one of the three things mentioned in Hebrews 9 and verse 4, the first scripture we read today.

And the children of Israel ate manna forty years until they came to an inhabited land.

They ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.

So what's the message that we can learn from these scriptures, from these particular verses?

Well, of course, the manna was given by Yahweh, by the very being who later would empty himself of his glory and come to earth and become Jesus Christ, the very God who would do that.

Israel was physically saved as a people by eating manna, and it physically saved them.

But it's more important, we are spiritually saved because Jesus Christ is the bread of life.

Let's allow him to tell us this in no uncertain terms. John 6 and verse 48.

If you'll turn there with me. John 6 and verse 48. Jesus has a very powerful message here to the Jews, and it's a powerful message for us because we just observed the Passover, and symbolically in that Passover we drank his blood and we ate of his flesh through those symbols to say that we are part of the family of God. That we have been called, that we have received his spirit, and we have that part. We are friends of God. John 6 and verse 48.

Jesus said, I am, this is one of the seven I am statements in John, referring back to what he told Moses in Exodus 3, I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead.

So it was just temporary. Yes, it got them through those 40 years, but they still all grew old and they all died. And they're all waiting and hoping for a resurrection, or they'll never live again.

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 of this bread, he will live forever.

And the bread that I shall give him is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. Then the Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

And Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say unto you, In other words, without question, I want to emphasize this again. Jesus says, Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

And again, later on, Jesus taught his disciples, through the Passover, the beautiful meaning, the symbolism of his very words and how they relate to those two symbols that we share together as God's people during the Passover.

Verse 54, Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, he who feeds on me will live because of me.

Think of the symbolism of the unleavened bread as we eat it for the next seven days, and the picturing of the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

The fact that every time we eat that, in essence, we are saying, Christ, I want you to be in my life. I want your righteousness. I want your values. I want to be a faithful brother and sister.

Think like you think, and live and act like you act.

So again, And he who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers ate the manna and are dead.

He who eats this bread will live forever.

So again, during the days of unleavened bread, we're going to be picturing putting the righteousness of Jesus Christ in us symbolically as we eat unleavened bread.

We acknowledge Christ Jesus as our living bread of life.

Have you ever thought about the fact that there's a reason these are called the days of unleavened bread rather than the days of deleavening?

The reason they're called the days of unleavened bread is because the primary focus is now on putting something in rather than taking something out.

Before the holy days began, we put something out. We looked in our homes and we moved the leaven from our homes.

But beginning with the days of unleavened bread, the focus is on putting something in.

We take Jesus Christ. We feed on Him the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

And we do this for the next seven days.

In the Bible, of course, seven numbers, completion, represents completion.

The symbol of taking in of His life and His nature for seven days says to God, I want you to complete the work that you began in me.

That time passed when you called me and I made that commitment at baptism.

I look forward to you completing the work that you have begun in my life.

So as we eat unleavened bread, we declare that we desire for Him to abide in us, to give us eternal life and for His righteousness to dwell in us through the Holy Spirit, that same Spirit that we share with the Father and the Son.

Let's go to Romans, actually, the last scripture we have that we'll look at together today.

Romans chapter 8 and verse 10.

Paul wrote again to that congregation in Rome, that Gentile congregation, Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin.

And though we're forgiven and though we have the Spirit of God, we are aging.

Every time I look into the mirror, I realize that I'm getting older.

I've told people before that I'm to the point where I comb my hair and I take the hair out of my comb and I lay it back in place.

So we're all getting older. Our body, physical tabernacle that we have, is getting older and eventually will die.

But the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you, and we will be resurrected, immortal, spiritual.

And we can look forward to that time at the Second Coming and the return of Jesus Christ.

Remember how we mentioned earlier that Aaron's rod was dead.

God not only brought it back to life, but He made it vigorous.

He made it fruitful in a similar way.

Our physical bodies will sometime age and die, but because Christ is in us, the bread of life, He will resurrect us into a new creation because His Spirit dwells in us.

As Paul stated in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 30, But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, that as it is written, He who glories, let Him glory in the Lord.

All of those things are possible because we understand that we need to put Jesus Christ in.

And that's represented during the days of unleavened bread by the unleavened bread that we eat.

So in conclusion, today we have looked at three things that are on God's mind.

At least the three things that we discovered were inside of the Ark of the Covenant, that God Himself instructed to be there, to be put inside of that Ark.

Let's remember what these three things are. Number one, we've been called to love God's commandments and to live by them, and that's why those commandments were placed inside something that represented the very mind of God.

It's important to Him. It represents who and what God is, how He thinks, and it should represent who and what we are.

Secondly, that God is transforming the leaders whom He has specifically called and chosen for His Kingdom.

He wants us to blossom and bear fruit, just like Aaron's rod represented.

And we are the leaders whom God has called today in the 21st century to prepare to serve in His Kingdom.

And number three, Jesus is the ultimate bread of life, who lived and died and was resurrected so that we can have eternal life as part of the family of God.

Let me conclude the sermon by emphasizing why I think this is so important and maybe give you the rest of the story.

Please, let's not be like Israel.

What I discussed today were three items that we saw clearly from Scripture that were placed in the Ark of the Covenant when it was part of a tabernacle.

A time came about 400-500 years later when a temple was built, and they brought the Ark of the Covenant to that temple.

And it's recorded in 2 Chronicles chapter 5 and verse 10.

And when they opened up the Ark of the Covenant, Aaron's rod that budded was gone, and the jar of manna was gone.

Only the tablets remained, and it's kind of a mystery.

No one knows who removed them. Perhaps it was when the Ark was captured by the Philistines at a period of time, but no one really knows.

But we understand what God originally laid out in his word.

Those three items have very significant meaning to God. That's why he instructed them to be put inside of the Ark of the Covenant.

And I hope, as God's people, that we will not forget what those three items represented.

So I wish all of you a wonderful day of unleavened bread. All of the days of unleavened bread.

I pray that God will richly bless you, and I thank you for coming here today and fellowshiping all of God's people together.

What a delight and what a joy it has been. And I pray that God will bless all of you richly.

Have a wonderful Holy Day season.