Jesus Christ, Our Passover

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

1 view

0 comments

00:03
If you have your Bibles with you, make your way to Paul's letter, 1 Corinthians, in the 5th chapter.
00:23
The most important aim of human beings is to know God.
00:31
However, because of our sin, we are unable to bring ourselves to God.
00:39
We are unable by our own efforts to earn our salvation.
00:44
What a testimony to God's love for us that He has provided the only means of salvation.
00:54
God has provided His Son, Jesus Christ, as our Savior.
00:59
Jesus Christ was born of a virgin.
01:02
He fully and completely lived a sinless life.
01:06
He was without sin.
01:08
He was without blame.
01:10
When He went to the cross, He paid the penalty for sin that He did not owe.
01:15
The righteousness that Jesus earned is applied to those who believe that He paid the penalty for their sins.
01:26
These great truths are proclaimed in Scripture in several different places.
01:31
Yet, there are times when we need symbols to help us more fully grasp the meaning of His work.
01:39
Not surprisingly, the Bible is filled with symbols that help us to understand what Jesus Christ accomplished for His people.
01:47
And one of the most noted of these symbols is the Passover.
01:52
However, a fair question to ask is, does this symbol have any meaning for us today in our cultural situation? I mean, the first Passover occurred over 3,000 years ago.
02:05
A few years ago, I remember hearing a song sung by a Christian group that asked whether writing songs that answer questions that no one is even asking anymore is worth the time.
02:19
That is the same question we just asked, does this symbol have any meaning for us today? When pondering that question, the thought occurred to me that God purposed to put the Passover and its relationship to Jesus Christ in the Scripture.
02:36
God put it in His Word.
02:38
If God put it in His Word, then studying the event and the principles that it teaches is certainly worth our time.
02:52
This morning, we're going to study the Passover.
02:56
The Passover was instituted by God right before the Israelites left Egypt.
03:02
The Passover was the last of the plagues that God brought upon Egypt, the one that finally caused Pharaoh to relent and let the Israelites leave Egypt.
03:15
The night of the Passover was when the firstborn of each household, not marked with the blood of a lamb, was killed.
03:22
The Passover is an amazing picture of Christ and His work on behalf of His people.
03:30
Certainly, studying such a symbol, such a picture of Christ's work in our behalf, is worth our time.
03:39
Yes, it happened in the Old Testament, but the New Testament tells us that it is a picture of Christ and His work.
03:49
Our text comes from a book that we normally would not associate with the Passover, Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.
03:57
Paul wrote this letter to address several different problems in the church, including observance of the Lord's table, biblical marriage, the need for church discipline, the fact that we are to follow Jesus Christ and not sinful men, the correct use of spiritual gifts, among other things.
04:16
Each of these issues is of considerable importance, yet in the midst of discussing these issues, Paul slips in a very small statement that appears at first just to be an aside in this letter.
04:31
However, this aside is important because it demonstrates why believers should strive to live moral, God-honoring lives.
04:40
You see, we are not to do good works or think godly thoughts or be moral people just because it is good to do so, but because of what Jesus Christ has done for us.
04:53
We do not strive to be godly to earn God's favor or love, because we can't, we can't earn it, but rather we should strive to be godly out of gratitude to God for sending His Son to redeem us from our sins.
05:10
The Passover is an amazing picture of what Jesus Christ has done for each of His people.
05:17
And no, we have not yet looked at the text for the morning, but here is one of the chief applications, I think.
05:26
The Passover helps us better understand the Gospel, and that is my goal for our time together this morning, that we acquire a better understanding of the Gospel.
05:38
So I would ask that you would please stand and let's read our text together.
05:42
From 1 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 7.
06:06
Let's pray.
06:10
Father, thank You for bringing us to this place to fellowship one with another, to open Your Word, to study it, to discuss it.
06:23
And Father, I hope that our time together this morning is fruitful and honoring unto You.
06:28
I pray that You would open the hearts and minds of each of us that are here and give us understanding.
06:35
And Father, I pray that You would give me the words I need to proclaim Your truth.
06:41
And whatever is in error, I would ask that those here would forget and not remember.
06:48
But they remember only what is true.
06:50
In the name of Jesus, we pray.
06:52
Amen.
06:54
Have a seat, please.
06:54
To find out why Paul makes this statement, we need to go back and see the context in which the statement was made.
07:08
Despite all the issues Paul addresses in this letter, he leaves no doubt regarding the importance of the Gospel.
07:17
In chapter 1 and verse 23, Paul writes, but we preach Christ crucified.
07:25
He's not preaching man's works.
07:27
He's not preaching man's prayers or man's decisions.
07:31
He's preaching the work of Christ and the work of Christ alone.
07:35
In chapter 2, just a few verses down, he says the following, And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God, for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
07:53
I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
08:11
Notice Paul's statement that he determined to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
08:18
That is his focus, the work of Christ.
08:20
Again, not our works, but his work and his alone.
08:25
As that is his focus, he wants it to be our focus as well.
08:30
From the letter of 1 Corinthians, it is clear that Paul believes that these issues that the church was facing, they are a distraction to the proclamation of the gospel, and therefore these issues need to be corrected.
08:43
How we observe the Lord's table, how we see spiritual gifts, marriage, all of these things, they have to be in order, so that the proclamation of the gospel goes forth and is not hindered.
08:58
Look back in chapter 1, because Paul addresses the very first thing, that they were dividing themselves into groups.
09:10
Look in the 12th verse, Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ.
09:20
Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? Turn the page to chapter 3, because in verse 4 he writes, For when one says, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are you not mere men? What then is Apollos, and what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one.
09:45
I plant, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.
09:49
So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God causes the growth.
09:56
The divisions that they were having in this church, they're distractions from the proclamation of the gospel.
10:02
It's not about who Apollos was or who Paul was, it's about what Christ did.
10:07
God is to be the focus of our preaching and our actions.
10:10
They should not be a distraction from this message.
10:14
After addressing the matter of divisions, the next issue he addresses is marriage.
10:20
A rather atrocious situation had arisen in which a man in this church had his father's wife.
10:28
Look in chapter 5, verse 1.
10:33
It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles that someone has his father's wife.
10:43
Wow.
10:47
That's going to be a distraction.
10:50
I'm sorry.
10:51
I don't know any other way to describe it.
10:52
It's going to be a distraction from the preaching of the gospel.
10:58
Yeah.
10:59
A distraction.
11:00
I don't know any other way to say it.
11:04
The church had not even taken steps to correct it.
11:07
Look in verse 2.
11:09
You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead so that one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.
11:16
They hadn't even addressed the matter.
11:20
And he says, For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this as though I were present.
11:29
In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you were assembled, and I with you in spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of Lord Jesus.
11:46
See, even though the church had not corrected the matter, in Paul's mind, he had already administered discipline to this individual even though he was not present at Corinth.
11:56
He's encouraging them to take steps to rectify this.
12:00
And the issue is not, please understand this very well, the issue is not that this guy was any worse of a sinner than anyone else.
12:09
But when we sin, we are a distraction to the proclamation of the gospel.
12:17
And the church is called to be the pillar in support of the truth.
12:27
In verse 6, Paul uses leaven as a metaphor to warn them about the danger of tolerating sin.
12:38
As only a small amount of leaven is necessary to leaven an entire lump of dough, so sins that begin with just one or two people in a church can have a very negative impact upon a congregation.
12:52
He's going to continue the metaphor in verse 7, admonishing the Corinthians to clean out the old leaven.
12:58
See, look here in the text, verse 6, Your boasting is not good.
13:02
Do you know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven, so that you may be a new lump, just as you were in fact, are in fact, unleavened.
13:14
We're going to see that this reference to leaven really is a reference back to the Passover.
13:21
But that's in a few moments.
13:23
Instructing the Corinthians to clean out the old leaven means they are to remove the sin from their midst.
13:28
He then states the reason why they are to clean out the old leaven.
13:32
Because Jesus Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed.
13:38
See, look in the text, it's what he says.
13:40
For Christ, our Passover, also has been sacrificed.
13:46
And that brings us to our topic of discussion this morning.
13:49
If Jesus being the Passover is the reason we should remove the old leaven from our midst, that is, remove sin from our own lives, as well as encourage those around us to remove it from theirs, then it is imperative that we gain understanding of what it means for Jesus to be the Passover.
14:08
So if you would, please take your Bibles and go back to the book of Exodus.
14:15
Exodus chapter 12.
14:16
We're going to read several verses together.
14:29
We read this first part of our call to worship earlier.
14:34
Beginning in verse 1 of chapter 12, Now the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, This month shall be the beginning of months for you.
14:43
It is to be the first month of the year to you.
14:45
Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, On the tenth of this month, they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their father's households, a lamb for each household.
14:56
Now if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor nearest to his house are to take one according to the number of persons in them.
15:05
According to what each man should eat, you are to divide the lamb.
15:09
Your lamb shall be an unblemished male, a year old.
15:12
You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
15:15
You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month.
15:18
Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight.
15:23
Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.
15:29
They shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
15:35
Do not eat any of it raw or boiled at all with water, but rather roast it with fire, both its head and its legs, along with its entrails.
15:43
And you shall not leave any of it over until morning, but whatever is left of it until morning you shall burn with fire.
15:50
Now you shall eat it in this manner, with your loins girded and your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste.
15:58
It is the Lord's Passover.
16:01
For it will go to the land of Egypt on that night.
16:04
I will go to the land of Egypt on that night and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast.
16:10
And against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments.
16:13
I am the Lord.
16:15
The blood shall be assigned for you on the houses where you live.
16:18
And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
16:29
In verse 5, we see that the lamb is to be unblemished and a year old.
16:34
In verse 7, that the blood from the lamb is to be placed on the doorposts and on the lintel of the house in which the lamb was eaten.
16:42
In verse 13, the blood was assigned that God was to pass over the house and not take the life of the firstborn in the house.
16:54
Move down to the 42nd verse in Exodus 12.
17:02
Scripture says, It is a night to be observed for the Lord, for having brought them out of the land of Egypt, this night is for the Lord to be observed by all the sons of Israel throughout their generations.
17:13
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the Passover.
17:17
No foreigner is to eat of it.
17:19
But every man slave purchased with money after you have circumcised him, then he may eat of it.
17:25
A sojourner or a hired servant shall not eat of it.
17:27
It is to be eaten in a single house.
17:30
You are not to bring forth any of the flesh outside of the house, nor are you to break any bone of it.
17:35
All the congregation of Israel are to celebrate this.
17:38
But if a stranger sojourns with you and celebrates the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised and then let him come near to celebrate it, and he shall be like a native of the land, but no uncircumcised person may eat of it.
17:53
The same law shall apply to the native as to the stranger who sojourns among you.
18:03
As we already noted, this was to be the last of the plagues.
18:07
The one that finally caused Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt.
18:13
Now some things I want you to note from that last passage.
18:16
Look in verse 44.
18:17
It says a slave who had been circumcised could partake in the Passover.
18:23
In verse 46 we read that no bone of the lamb was to be broken.
18:28
We're going to come back to that in a few moments.
18:31
In verse 48, if a stranger wants to partake in the Passover, all of the males in his household had to be circumcised.
18:38
And in verse 49, the same law shall apply to the native and to the sojourner regarding the Passover.
18:48
There's only one gospel, isn't there? And that gospel applies to Jew and Gentile alike.
18:56
See, verse 49 just kind of leaked out at me.
19:00
The same law shall apply to the native as to the sojourner.
19:06
That was one rule for Jew and Gentile.
19:11
See, the only way the sojourner could participate was if he were to become circumcised first.
19:19
And if he did, then he could partake.
19:28
Again, this was the last of the plagues.
19:33
It would be the one that would finally deliver the Israelites from captivity.
19:38
They were going to be free to leave the land of their enslavement and move to a new place that God had set aside for them, the Promised Land, the land of Canaan.
19:48
All of the families whose doorposts and lentils were covered with blood were spared God's wrath.
19:58
Now, I know it's perhaps not pleasant, but we need to mention the meaning of the act of circumcision.
20:08
Abraham received the sign of circumcision in Genesis 17.
20:13
This was after God had declared him righteous through faith.
20:20
God's declaration of Abraham's righteousness is in Genesis 15.
20:26
Abraham had saving faith before he received the sign of circumcision.
20:31
And this is very important because it isn't the circumcision that made you righteous.
20:38
He was already declared righteous before it happened.
20:42
And the circumcision is supposed to be a picture of God transforming the heart.
20:48
And this is mentioned several times in the Old Testament.
20:51
In Leviticus chapter 26, beginning in verse 40.
20:55
If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their forefathers and their unfaithfulness, which they committed against me, and also in their acting with hostility against me, I also was acting with hostility against them to bring them into the land of their enemies.
21:09
Or if their uncircumcised heart becomes humbled, so that they then make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob.
21:19
And I will remember also my covenant with Isaac.
21:23
And my covenant with Abraham as well.
21:24
I will remember the land.
21:29
Deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 14.
21:31
Behold to the Lord your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it.
21:37
Yet on your fathers did the Lord set his affection to love them, and he chose their descendants after them.
21:43
Even you above all peoples as it is this day.
21:46
So circumcise your hearts and stiffen your neck no longer.
21:51
For the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who does not show partiality or take a bribe.
22:02
Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 6.
22:04
Moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the heart of your descendants to love the Lord your God with all your hearts and with all your soul, so that you may live.
22:14
What ended up happening is that the Jews thought that because they had the sign of circumcision that that made them righteous.
22:23
And they had it backwards.
22:27
Circumcision was to be the sign that the heart had been transformed.
22:35
The Apostle Paul makes this very plain in Romans chapter 2.
22:40
He says in verse 28, For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh.
22:50
But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter.
22:58
And his praise is not from men, but from God.
23:04
See it is not one's physical lineage that is important in determining whether or not you are saved.
23:11
But rather whether one's heart has been converted by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the Gospel.
23:20
I want you to begin to notice the parallels between the Passover and salvation.
23:27
In Exodus 12 and verse 48 we read that any circumcised individual, native or sojourner, could share the Passover meal.
23:37
Since circumcision is a picture of the transformed heart, we see its relevance concerning the Gospel.
23:47
You see those who were circumcised could partake in the Passover.
23:51
Those whose hearts have been transformed by the work of the Holy Spirit are partakers in the salvation that Christ accomplished.
23:59
The Passover marks the transition of the Israelites from slaves to a free people.
24:05
The salvation that Jesus accomplished results in His people no longer being slaves of sin, but free from the penalty of sin.
24:13
The blood of the Passover lamb protected the Israelites from the wrath of God.
24:18
The work of Jesus Christ on the cross protects the redeemed from spending eternity as objects of God's wrath.
24:29
We see in our text here in 1 Corinthians also a reference to sanctification that would make the process of becoming more like Christ.
24:40
We mentioned earlier the cleaning out of the lamb.
24:45
And I told you that this is also a reference to the Passover.
24:49
There was a part in Exodus 12 that we did not read, and very quickly I want you to hear this.
24:53
Verse 14, Now this day will be of a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations.
25:01
You are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance.
25:04
Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses, for whoever eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.
25:22
When Paul made the reference in 1 Corinthians 5 to removing the leaven, I think he's coming back here to Exodus chapter 12, where they were told, clean all the leaven out of your house.
25:36
For seven days there is to be no leaven in the house, none.
25:43
And what was Paul's admonition in 1 Corinthians 5? Remove the leaven.
25:49
Remove the sin.
25:53
The first day that's referred to here in Exodus 12, the feast of unleavened bread, I think it lasted about seven days.
26:04
The first day, though, was the Passover.
26:06
And we see this in the Gospel of Mark.
26:09
Mark writes in chapter 14, verse 12, on the first day of unleavened bread, which is when the Passover lamb was being sacrificed.
26:18
See, the first day of this feast is when the Passover was being conserved.
26:23
This is when the leaven was removed from the house, and the house was to remain leaven-free for seven days.
26:28
And in the original, Paul uses the imperative and commands the Corinthians to clean out the old leaven.
26:34
He is commanding them to remove the sin from their midst.
26:39
The reality that we all know, though, that this process is lifelong for the Christian.
26:44
We daily fight the battle of sin.
26:48
See, remember the context that Paul is addressing.
26:52
He's addressing the issue specifically in chapter 5 of marriage in this very atrocious event that is taking place in the life of this church.
27:00
He was commanding to deal with it.
27:02
Remove the leaven.
27:03
Remove the sin.
27:05
The reality, though, is that that process of removing sin is lifelong.
27:11
And as long as we are this side of glory, we will not stop fighting the battle of sin.
27:17
I also want you to see that Paul is not the only New Testament writer that refers to Jesus as the Passover lamb.
27:26
John's Gospel contains two references by John the Baptist calling Jesus the Lamb of God.
27:32
In chapter 1 in verse 29 of John's Gospel, read, The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
27:41
Later in the same chapter, verse 35, And again the next day John was standing with two of his disciples and he looked at Jesus as he walked and said, Behold the Lamb of God.
27:54
If Jesus is not the Passover lamb, then what's the point of these two references? There's one other reference in John's Gospel to Jesus being the Passover lamb.
28:09
Exodus 12, 46 says that the Passover lamb was to have no broken bones at all.
28:18
And in Psalm 34, beginning in the 19th verse, we find a reference to Christ.
28:29
Psalm 34, verse 19 says, Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers Him.
28:38
See, the righteous is one person here.
28:40
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers Him out of them all.
28:46
He teeps all His bones, not one of them is broken.
28:49
Evil shall slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
28:53
The Lord redeems the soul of His servants, and none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned.
29:03
Psalm 34 is referring to the work of Christ.
29:06
But in John's Gospel, in the 19th chapter, and in verse 36, John makes this statement after Jesus has given up the ghosts, and He has passed.
29:18
John writes, For these things came to pass to fulfill the Scripture, not a bone of Him shall be broken.
29:25
Remember, after the three had been up on the cross for a while, the soldiers came and they started breaking the legs of the individuals who were on the cross.
29:33
But when they came to Jesus, they found that He was already dead.
29:36
And they didn't break His legs.
29:42
The only reason John could make a statement like this is if he concludes that Psalm 34 applies to Jesus.
29:50
That not a bone of His shall be broken.
29:52
And what's the point in making the reference if He's not the Passover Lamb? The Apostle John, just like the Apostle Paul, believed that Jesus fulfilled the Passover.
30:07
That Jesus is the true Passover Lamb.
30:10
Jesus' death, His blood, covers the sins of His people, whereby they are not subject to spending eternity as objects of God's wrath.
30:19
He has caused them to move from slavery to sin through the law.
30:25
Sorry.
30:25
He has caused them to move from slavery to sin in the law to being free.
30:32
To salvation.
30:34
This is why Paul wrote to the Corinthians to remove the old leaven from their midst.
30:39
The true Passover Lamb had been sacrificed.
30:43
The once for all sacrifice.
30:46
His sacrifice had brought salvation to His people.
30:49
You see, our sins dishonor Him.
30:51
Christians need to clean out the leaven from their lives.
30:55
We need to encourage and admonish one another in this.
31:01
This is why it's important that when we sin and when we mess up, we're not so judgmental and pointing fingers because we all suffer from this.
31:15
We need to help one another and encourage one another because our conduct should not be a distraction from proclaiming the Gospel.
31:26
As we begin to close, I want us to remember that we regularly celebrate that Jesus Christ is the Passover Lamb.
31:35
Each week, we observe the Lord's Table, which Jesus instituted at the Last Supper He ate with His disciples.
31:43
This Last Supper occurred on the night the Passover was observed.
31:48
Jesus told the disciples that night that His blood was the basis for the New Covenant.
31:55
He is the Passover Lamb.
31:58
The Lord's Table is a picture of Christ's work.
32:01
The Passover is a picture of Christ's work.
32:05
These pictures, these symbols, are for the purpose of helping us understand Christ's work for us.
32:17
And that's the Gospel.
32:20
That when He went to the cross, He was fully and completely righteous.
32:27
He had no sin.
32:31
Even the human court...
32:34
Remember Pilate washed his hands, said, I am innocent of this man's blood.
32:42
Because Pilate found no fault in Him.
32:44
Even the human courts indicated He had no sin.
32:54
But He went to the cross to fulfill God's plan so that God would be able to have fellowship with His people.
33:04
We would be able to have fellowship with Him.
33:08
Because based upon the complete and finished work of Christ, God could declare us to be righteous.
33:18
No work of our own could accomplish that.
33:21
None.
33:23
And the question then becomes, How do you know that His work applies to you? The Bible tells us.
33:37
The answer is faith.
33:40
Because faith is God's work in us.
33:43
And God's work cannot be undone.
33:47
And if you have the faith in Christ that He paid the penalty for you, you have the faith because God gave it to you.
33:55
Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8, For by grace are you saved through faith and not of thyselves.
34:01
It is the gift of God.
34:12
Be ever mindful of this great truth.
34:15
As Paul reminded the Corinthians.
34:18
It might appear to be just a small aside in the text, but what a crucial truth it proclaims.
34:27
Jesus is our Passover.
34:32
His blood covers our sins and frees us from the penalty we earned.
34:40
May He be praised.
34:42
And may we always remember His sacrifice for us.
34:52
Lord God, Thank You for Your Word.
34:58
Thank You for proclaiming to us the truth of the work of Your Son.
35:03
Thank You that You loved us so much that You sent Him to pay the penalty for our sin.
35:08
We thank You for His righteousness.
35:10
We thank You for His work, that it was perfect and complete.
35:19
Father, help us to understand it just a little bit better.
35:25
Help us to proclaim it more boldly.
35:31
And Father, for those who respond to the call of the Gospel, help us to disciple them, that Your kingdom would grow, Your truth would be proclaimed, and Your name be lifted up.
35:48
In Jesus' name we pray.