WWUTT 1491 Celebrate the Feast with Unleavened Bread (1 Corinthians 5:8)

Paul tells the church in Corinth to cleanse out the old leaven. Now there's nothing inherently bad about leaven, but what he's making reference to is the story of the

Passover in Exodus, when we understand the text. This is when we understand the text, studying

God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Thank you for subscribing, and if this has ministered to you, please let others know about our program.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study in 1 Corinthians chapter 5.

Still with half the chapter to finish up, and we'll do that this week, but I'm going to start off by reading the whole thing again, all 13 verses out of the

Legacy Standard Bible the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and sexual immorality such a kind as does not exist even among the

Gentiles, that someone has his father's wife, and you have become puffed up, and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.

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.

In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our

Lord Jesus, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the

Lord. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

Clean out the old leaven, so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened.

For Christ, our Passover Lamb, also was sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate 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 letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. I did not at all mean the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the greedy and swindlers or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world.

But now I am writing to you, not to associate with any so -called brother, if he is a sexually immoral person, or greedy, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler.

Not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders?

Are you not to judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside,

God will judge. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.

Where we finished up last week, we made it through verses 1 through 7. We would be up to verse 8 today, where Paul says, therefore, let us celebrate the feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Now I included this in the lesson last week on Wednesday, because it goes so well with verse 7. So we're even going to come back to verse 7 here and include it with verse 8.

Paul says, clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump. Now, refreshing your memory once again, what is leaven?

What are we talking about when we make this reference to leaven? Well, we would commonly know it as yeast.

It's what makes bread rise. The reference here is to the Passover story in Exodus chapter 12.

You have Paul talking about Christ, our Passover lamb, and let us celebrate the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

It's in Exodus 12 that we read about the Passover lamb and the feast of unleavened bread.

Now if you'll remember, God had brought 10 plagues upon Egypt for enslaving his people, the

Israelites. Pharaoh's heart was hardened. He was stubborn. He would not let the people of Israel go, and it wouldn't be until that 10th plague would come upon them when the firstborn of Egypt would be killed.

The Lord would pass through Egypt and he would strike down the firstborn, but he gave instructions to Israel how everybody in the house would be protected.

Now these plagues so far that have been brought against Egypt, none of the other nine afflicted Israel, but this one would afflict

Israel if they did not follow God's instructions. So he said that this was going to be the night, this was going to be the last plague, and they needed to be ready to go, because as soon as the

Lord passed through Egypt and as soon as the firstborn would be killed, and as it says in Exodus, there was not a single household where somebody was not dead in all the land of Egypt, not among the

Israelites, but among the Egyptians. And so after the Lord passed through, Pharaoh would finally say, get out, get out of my sight.

And the Egyptians would even be of an attitude like, get them out as quickly as possible, or we're all going to be killed.

And so God gives the Israelites instructions on how they were to prepare their lamb, the blood they were to put over the doorposts of the house.

It was going to be on the two doorposts on either sides and over the top as well. And the house that had blood on the door,

God would pass over, and whoever dwelled in that house, the firstborn sons would be saved.

The lamb that they were to prepare had to meet very specific qualifications. It had to be a male lamb.

It had to be a year old. It had to be blemishless. They were to prepare it a certain way, and then they were to eat it.

And verse 11 says, now you shall eat it in this manner with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste.

It is the Lord's Passover. God goes on to say in verse 12, for I will go through the land of Egypt on that night and I will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast.

And against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgments. I am the Lord. I am

Yahweh. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live. 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. That concludes the instructions regarding the preparation and the consumption of the

Passover lamb. Then in verse 14 and onward, you have the instruction of the bread and the feast of unleavened bread.

Now this day will be a memorial to you, God says, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to Yahweh throughout your generations.

You are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.

That's bread that hasn't risen. It doesn't have any yeast in it. You've probably had this unleavened bread before, possibly at communion.

You know, it's kind of a dry, flaky wafer. Doesn't have the fluffy consistency that bread does.

So God says 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.

This is how serious this was. And it's not that leaven has anything sinful about it.

You know, there's there's no sinful property in leaven that makes your bread wicked if you use or if you eat bread with yeast in it.

The point is that the people need to be ready to go. Right. Remember the instructions regarding how they were to eat the lamb.

They were to have their their sandals on their belt on. They were to have staff in hand. They are ready to go and they're eating their lamb in haste because the moment that Pharaoh says get out of my sight, get out of my presence, they were to up and go.

They were going to bolt. They were out of there. And even later on, it says that when that Pharaoh had finally released them, had let them go, said get out of my sight.

They grabbed everything that they had and they're fleeing Egypt and they grabbed their bowls with bread in it that had not risen because it had not the time to rise.

So it was unleavened bread. It didn't have any yeast in it. They didn't have time to let it rise. They're just fleeing with their unleavened bread and they're going to be eating that unleavened bread for a while while they're on the run.

So therefore you have the feast of unleavened bread in which they're going to be eating unleavened bread for seven days and there's not to be found any leaven in their houses on the first day.

They're supposed to get rid of all leaven. They can't eat anything with leaven in it. They're not supposed to have any leaven.

And anyone in Israel who is found to have leaven in their houses would be cut off from Israel.

Israel is being consecrated here to belong to the Lord and to belong to God. You have to be holy.

God is holy. You must be holy. Now we have the Passover lamb.

We have Christ whose blood has been shed for us. And because Christ has laid himself down as an atoning sacrifice for us, gave up his life for us, took the wrath of God upon himself with his death on the cross and he was raised for our justification, as it says in Romans 4 .25,

because Christ did this for us. He is our Passover lamb. Our sins are forgiven and we've been consecrated before God.

So we've been made holy by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The righteousness of Christ has been imputed to us.

Second Corinthians 5 .21 is often the verse that goes along with this. For our sake, he became sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

As it says in Romans 3, we have a righteousness that is not of our own, but it is given to us by faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ. It is the righteousness of God to all who believe. So in this way, we're covered by the blood of the

Passover lamb. We've been consecrated. We've been made holy that we may have fellowship with God.

For Israel to have fellowship with God, they needed to be consecrated. They needed to be made holy.

Now it's God who makes them holy, but they're demonstrating their commitment unto the

Lord by obeying his commands. Remember what Jesus said to his disciples in John 14 .15.

As many times I've quoted this, if you've been listening to the podcast, you should know this one by now, right? Memorize it.

Underline it in your Bible. John 14 .15. Jesus said to his disciples, you will show me that you love me when you obey my commandments.

So Israel is showing that they love God when they obey everything that God has told them to do.

That they pick the right lamb, a year old, male, spotless, sacrificing it in a certain way, putting the blood over the doorpost, eating the lamb with staff in hand, ready to go as soon as the word is given.

They have bread that has not had leaven added to it because they wouldn't be able to wait around for it to rise anyway.

So they're eating unleavened bread and they're remembering the instruction of the Lord. They remember what God did for them.

They commemorate that day whenever they celebrate the feast of unleavened bread.

If they celebrate that feast with leaven in it, then they're disobeying God. They're actually not worshiping

God the way that God has said that he deserves to be worshiped. God has done this for them.

He has freed them from slavery in Egypt. And so they are to obey God in purity and in holiness, following the instructions that he has given to them.

Because he alone is worthy of our worship and he gets to dictate how he is to be worshiped.

And so this is an act of worship that Israel commits unto the Lord, this feast of unleavened bread, this seven days that they eat bread without leaven in it.

So this same instruction that God has given to Exodus 12,

Paul is bringing that into the way that the church needs to deal with this man that has committed this evil in their midst.

Now, when I say that Paul is pulling Exodus 12 into that, I'm not saying that he's telling them, hey, you need to go sacrifice a lamb and you need to start eating unleavened bread.

But we see that Exodus 12 was a type and a shadow. Even the lamb itself was a type.

It was a shadow of the things that were to come that were fulfilled in Christ. Christ is the spotless lamb who takes away the sin of the world, as John the

Baptist said of Jesus Christ. He is our Passover lamb, as Paul says here in first Corinthians five, seven.

So since our Passover lamb has been sacrificed and we have been justified, then we must walk in sanctification.

If you've been justified, then God is also sanctifying you. And that's what the bread represents.

The reference to the unleavened bread is that we need to be holy again. There's nothing sinful, nothing evil about leaven.

It's not wicked because you eat bread that's got leaven in it. It's what this symbolizes.

Going back to the story in Exodus chapter 12, we must eat the feast and it's not seven days.

We do this all the time. Christ, our Passover lamb, having been sacrificed. He did this once for all, but we live in the peace of God that surpasses all understanding because of what

Christ has done for us. We have peace with God every single day. We are enjoying and celebrating that Passover because we know our sins are forgiven by faith in Jesus.

And so every day also we need to be partaking in the feast of unleavened bread. That's what

Paul is drawing out of this here for the Corinthians, that they may live every day this way, seven days a week.

You know, Israel was supposed to eat the feast of unleavened bread for seven days. Well, seven is the number of completeness in scripture.

So it's a complete week for us. It's seven days a week, but 52 weeks a year, and then do it again next year.

Every single day we are to live like this. Live in what way? Holy, consecrated, pursuing godliness, walking in righteousness, being sanctified, made into the image of Christ.

This is how we are to be every single day as Christians. We celebrate the feast every day.

Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the feast.

We were once in slavery. We were in slavery to our sin. Christ purchased us just as God redeemed

Israel out of slavery in Egypt and consecrated for himself a people.

Jesus has done the same for us. As we read in Titus 2, 13,

Jesus Christ gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all lawlessness.

He redeemed us from slavery to our sin and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works.

And so as God had done this for Israel, so Christ has done this for us.

Even Israel was a type in a shadow here. Israel was not faithful. Christ was.

Christ is faithful Israel and everybody who is in Christ is the people of God.

So as we see types and shadows of the Old Testament that have been fulfilled in Christ.

So now we who are who have been forgiven our sins because Christ, our

Passover lamb has been sacrificed. We must celebrate the feast as God has told us to be holy as he is holy, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness of hatred toward one another and of self -interest going after what we want in our own flesh, malice and wickedness.

We are not to have that kind of leaven in us. These unholy ways, the pride that we were in, the rebellion against God when we were going our own way and were enslaved to the passions of our flesh.

But we are to have the unleavened bread of sincerity, meaning faithfulness unto

God, that we are genuinely his and we demonstrate that we are his children when we do what the father has told us to do.

And we do so with joy. Paul says, celebrate the feast. Don't go begrudgingly into the fee.

Oh, OK. I'm going. I'm going to go celebrate a feast. No, you celebrate a feast, right?

You enjoy it. You love it. We don't go begrudgingly into the submission that we give to God.

We rejoice that we've been set free from our sin and the wages of sin, which is death.

The wrath of God that was going to be poured out upon us because of our rebellion. We celebrate that Christ has set us free from that and has made us fellow heirs with him of his eternal kingdom.

We celebrate with the unleavened bread. All the worldliness that has been cleansed out from us by the

Holy Spirit. We celebrate with the unleavened bread of sincerity, faithfulness unto

God, genuineness in our faith. And truth is the next part. The unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, meaning that we worship

God the way that he says he is to be worshiped, knowing God for who he says he is.

According to his word, the Bible, Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well in John chapter four, the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth.

And so if we are holy as God is holy, we will live in sincerity, faithfulness unto the

Lord and truth, knowing what he has said, according to his word.

Paul says, Christ, our Passover lamb was sacrificed. Our sins are forgiven by faith in Jesus Christ.

His blood has atoned for our sins. Therefore, let us celebrate that Christ has purchased us, that he has redeemed us from lawlessness, from sin and the wages of sin and has given us a kingdom, an inheritance.

So let us celebrate the feast, not with the old leaven, the ways that we once were, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness.

Our selfishness, our pride are going our own way. This is who we were when we were in rebellion against God.

But we must celebrate with the unleavened bread, the recipe that God has given us to enjoy, to eat in sincerity and in truth, in the holiness and righteousness of God that we've been given by Christ.

That means that there must not be any sexual immorality among us.

There must not be greed, idolatry, reviling, hating one another, in other words, slandering each other.

We must not be drunkards or going after substances that dull our minds or give us fleshly pleasure instead of being filled with the

Holy Spirit. The contrast that Paul gives in Ephesians chapter five, don't be filled with wine that leads to drunkenness, but be filled with the

Holy Spirit, not something temporary, but something permanent. We must not be swindlers, cheating one another that we may advantage or benefit ourselves.

Paul says, do not even eat with such a one when we get to verse 11. So this is what leaven looks like.

If leaven is in the bread, it looks like these sins. It looks like this kind of wickedness, who we were before we came to Christ.

We must put all of that away and we must be holy as God is holy, not just individually.

Of course, that applies. You must be holy. I must be holy. But Paul is talking to a church and the church is to be encouraging and admonishing one another in love, according to God's word, as Paul also says in Colossians 3, 16.

So we're checking each other. We are keeping one another accountable. We are growing one another in sanctification.

We're making sure that our brothers and sisters in the Lord are on the path of righteousness and doing this in love.

As Paul says in second Thessalonians three, not regarding him as an enemy, but regarding him as a brother.

That's as far as we get today where we understand the conviction, the calling upon us to be holy as God is holy and to desire his church to be holy.

And then we'll go on from there tomorrow as we pick up in verse nine. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for sending your son who would redeem us from all lawlessness, who would purify us, a people for himself, for his own possession, that we would be zealous for good works, and may we desire those good works, the good righteous works of God that please our father who is in heaven.

And we don't hesitate to obey just as Israel was not to hesitate. So we are obedient now.

We are imitators of Christ as we grow in holiness and righteousness. Perfect us in these things as we continue in this life until the day that we come into glory with God.

Forgive us our sins. Convict our hearts. If any of these ways, this wickedness, the leaven that we've read about here in 1

Corinthians 5, if any of this is in us, help us to put it away. We know about it.

The awareness of it has been brought to our minds because of what we've read here. And now we desire to have nothing to do with it, that we may be holy as God is holy because we love you and we worship you.