[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agopic Baptist Church in George South Africa.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good morning church.
[SPEAKER_01]: You would please turn with me to Exodus chapter 12, Exodus 12.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're joining us for the first time this morning, or continuing our study through the book of Exodus, so you might have to do some listening to previous sermons to catch up later.
[SPEAKER_01]: But right now, we're in Exodus 12.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna begin reading in verse 14 through 28.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're in the middle of the Passover, or the instructions for the Passover.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord is preparing his people for what He is about to do through the Passover.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've seen that the Passover is a depiction of how the whole world stands guilty before God, deserving of death, but granted a way of escape.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what the Passover depicts.
[SPEAKER_01]: Last week, we focused on how the way of escape that God offered to Israel was the death of an animal to temporarily cover sins, putting off the wrath of God, granting all who believed and obeyed the opportunity to live at peace with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: The death of an animal served two purposes.
[SPEAKER_01]: First, it's a substitution.
[SPEAKER_01]: animal died in the sinner's place.
[SPEAKER_01]: Substitution in our place.
[SPEAKER_01]: Second, it's serve the purpose of propitiation.
[SPEAKER_01]: It died as the required payment for peace.
[SPEAKER_01]: Propitiation, think payment or the required payment to God to have peace with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Propitiation.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as the New Testament later reveals, the blood of animals cannot take away sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a temporary covering.
[SPEAKER_01]: The blood of animals cannot take away sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: Animals are not sufficient as substitutes or as propitiation for the sins of the image bearers of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's you and me, human beings.
[SPEAKER_01]: Animals cannot take away our sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: that blood of animals was a shadow only of the one who had come to take away the sins of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, the Passover is a shadow calling God's people to remember their salvation.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what we've seen already in our study through Exodus in Exodus 12 specifically.
[SPEAKER_01]: Passover is a shadow calling God's people to remember their salvation, remember.
[SPEAKER_01]: But our passage today will show how the Passover also calls God's people to remember to be sanctified, remember your sanctification.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's look at the passage together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exodus 12, I begin reading in verse 14.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord says to Moses and Aaron, this day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Seven days, you shall eat unleavened bread.
[SPEAKER_01]: On the first day, you shall remove leavened out of your houses.
[SPEAKER_01]: If anyone eats what is leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.
[SPEAKER_01]: On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly.
[SPEAKER_01]: No works shall be done on those days, but what everyone needs to eat that alone may be prepared by you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you shall observe the Feast of Unloven Bread for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a statute forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the first month, from the 14th day of the month at evening, you shall eat Unloven Bread until the 21st day of the month at evening.
[SPEAKER_01]: for seven days, no love and is to be found in your houses.
[SPEAKER_01]: If anyone eats what is love in that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land.
[SPEAKER_01]: You shall eat nothing, love, and in all your dwelling places, you shall eat, unloved, bread.
[SPEAKER_01]: 21.
[SPEAKER_01]: then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans and kill the Passover lamb.
[SPEAKER_01]: Take a bunch of hisop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin and touch the lint on the duped two door posts with the blood that is in the basin.
[SPEAKER_01]: None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lentil and on the two door posts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You shall observe this right as a statute for you and for your sons forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when your children say to you, what do you mean by this service, you shall say, it is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians, but spared our houses.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the people about their heads and worshiped.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the people of Israel went and did so.
[SPEAKER_01]: As the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did until there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's stop there and go to the Lord and pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, I ask that you would bless this gathering, this congregation.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are a small congregation, Lord, yet I know that by your spirit and by your word, if we are bold and we have faith and we are obedient, that you can be glorified in a great way in our community.
[SPEAKER_01]: that your church will be built.
[SPEAKER_01]: It will be because of your spirit and your word being proclaimed by weak vessels.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I ask Lord that you give us great boldness as we remember our salvation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as we remember how we were sanctified.
[SPEAKER_01]: that it would give us hope and joy and peace to go out even though we are broken and sinful.
[SPEAKER_01]: It will give us courage and confidence to speak about our great God who is our Savior and Redeemer.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's in Jesus name I ask all of these things Amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: So remember, that's the point of the Passover.
[SPEAKER_01]: In 1st, the Passover Lamb is the points to remember your salvation, remember how the Lord conquered the most powerful and numerous gods in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember how he passed over Israel, showing the mercy, remember how he brought them out from slavery and into the Promised Land, remember your salvation, that's the point.
[SPEAKER_01]: Imagine living through this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every year, each family selected their best lamb and kept it in their homes with them for four days.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the adults were supposed to gather the children around and kill this lamb in front of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: smearing the blood that dripped out of the animal's throat onto the lintel and the door posts of their home.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you imagine doing this in front of our children today?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you remember?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you imagine?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I put a injured frog out of its misery the other day as an act of mercy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it caused the tears to flow at my house, a frog.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can only imagine that a semi-pet lamb, because that's what happens when you keep it in the house for four days, and the children want to start naming it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a semi-pet lamb being killed, can you imagine, I can imagine that it caused some feelings in the home.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it raised some questions in the minds of the children.
[SPEAKER_01]: Moses anticipates these feelings and questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the point, that's the point.
[SPEAKER_01]: In verse 26 he says, and when your children say to you, when they say to you,
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you mean by this service, which means a work of worship?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what the word service means, a work of worship?
[SPEAKER_01]: When they ask you, what do you mean by this work of worship?
[SPEAKER_01]: You shall say, it is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians, but spared our houses.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, that's the point.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, throughout your generations, don't forget the Lord, your wonderful, merciful Savior.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the point.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Israel failed to remember.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the rest of the Old Testament.
[SPEAKER_01]: Israel failed to remember and they did it for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Father, stop keeping the Passover and worshiped other gods.
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead of reminding their children about the Passover land through this annual feast and celebration and sacrifice, instead of doing that, instead of teaching their children through this shadow of remembrance, instead of that, men burned their children in the fire as sacrifices to moly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for these abominations, God eventually, after pleading with them, for generation, after generation, God eventually swept Israel and Judah out of the Promised Land.
[SPEAKER_01]: They went into exile.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then, when they were brought back by the grace and mercy of God, after the exile, and began following God's laws again, they went into another ditch,
[SPEAKER_01]: I think this is where God wants you to live on the highway, following Him, following Him on the road to holiness, first they went to the ditch of worshiping other gods, and then when they came back from exile, they got back on the highway and eventually after generations they fell into another ditch on the other side of the highway.
[SPEAKER_01]: They fell into the ditch of believing that keeping the religious rules was all that was important.
[SPEAKER_01]: Keeping religious rules as a people they became experts at religious observances like the Passover.
[SPEAKER_01]: They became experts about the Passover that their hearts were far from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And both of these errors are happening in our society today, both of these errors.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are young men and women who are choosing not to remember the Lord, who was the redeemer of their parents, but they're choosing, I don't, I don't think I'm going to hand this off to my children.
[SPEAKER_01]: For whatever reason, families where fathers do not read the Scriptures to the children or gather their family with the saints of God as commanded.
[SPEAKER_01]: Parents who have cast off the word of God as their authority, and have pursued other gods.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, well, pause, Daniel.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a lot about idol worship going on in our circles.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not really worshiping other gods.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're just saying, we don't want to have a god.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want to be our own God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's not idolatry to worship yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I would argue there are gods among us that people are worshiping every single day as they rush off to work.
[SPEAKER_01]: The gods of wealth, the god of pleasure, the god of the weakened, do not people not sit around and worship the weakened in their mind during the week?
[SPEAKER_01]: Think if I can only get to the weakened, it will be my joy, the god of nature.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was saying, there isn't a God, but they'll go out into the countryside and they'll see a beautiful sunrise and they'll say, thank you nature for this sunrise.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've heard people say things like that, the God of nature or the mountain, if I can just get to the mountain, then I will have joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: but there's a more subtle, it equally damning ditch, that our society is also being overcome by.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ditch of keeping religious ceremonies while having a heart that is far from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are people who have an appreciation for the 10 commandments, maybe, who might drop their children off at Sunday's school, or who maybe even go religiously to a church, but they do not love God as their Savior.
[SPEAKER_01]: They do not love Him as their Savior because they do not believe that they need a Savior.
[SPEAKER_01]: And why would they need a Savior to keep all the rules?
[SPEAKER_01]: If I keep all the rules, then the cross has no purpose for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm keeping all the rules.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't need a Savior.
[SPEAKER_01]: How can you love a Savior?
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't need.
[SPEAKER_01]: It only takes one generation of men and women who fail to remember, who fail to remember.
[SPEAKER_01]: It only takes one generation for the faith and a family line to end in paganism or dead religion.
[SPEAKER_01]: We each have a great responsibility and joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is also a joy to hand off the faith to the next generation.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a massive responsibility and great joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: The calling of God in this generation to hand off the faith to the next generation coming behind us.
[SPEAKER_01]: The killing of the Passover Lamb was intended
[SPEAKER_01]: to hand off their faith to the next generation, by reminding them of their salvation, and then reminding them to teach it to their children, teach them how they were saved.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember the Lord, our God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember your salvation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is the point of the Passover, but our practice, but in our passage, there's another ceremony that Israel was to keep during this week.
[SPEAKER_01]: In verse 17, it's called the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
[SPEAKER_01]: These celebrations happen at the same time, Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
[SPEAKER_01]: They happen at the same time, because they call Israel to remember two complementing truths, two things.
[SPEAKER_01]: First, the Passover Lamb reminds Israel of their salvation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which we've seen?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then second, the Feast of 11 Bread reminds Israel to be sanctified, to be sanctified.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Hebrew word for 11 simply means sour.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can think of it as yeast, almost.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is slightly different, but pretty much it's yeast, the rising agent.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but it means 11 means sour in the Hebrew.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Jews were very likely used to eating a primitive version of our sourdough bread, sourdough bread, as that rising effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this leaven is this naturally occurring yeast which creates air pockets in dough as it begs, giving it that nice fluffy texture.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we all know the difference between a loaf that's just kind of, it didn't rise properly and it's dense, it's kind of hard to eat that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if it rises nicely, it has those air pockets, and we're like, wow, this is so amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so nice, especially with butter.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you don't add the lemon to dough, then dough comes out flat in dins.
[SPEAKER_01]: It never gets that fluffy texture, and you lose the sourdough flavor.
[SPEAKER_01]: So God instructs the Israelites to eat this kind of unleavened bread for one whole week as a feast of remembrance.
[SPEAKER_01]: So two feasts, two things, the remembering, the past of her lamb was killed to remind Israel that a substitute was necessary to make payment for their sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the eating that unleavened bread reminded Israel that they went out of Egypt in haste, so much haste that they left the leaven of Egypt behind them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exodus 12 39 will tell us this, we'll get there, but it says this, and they begged 11 cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt for it was not leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves, they went out in haste and they left the leaven of Egypt behind them.
[SPEAKER_01]: This historical event of leaving the 11 of Egypt behind was intended as a reminder to Israel that God had sanctified them.
[SPEAKER_01]: God had sanctified them, which means that God had called them out of Egypt unto Himself as a people that are to be holy or set apart.
[SPEAKER_01]: their gods, their values, their fears.
[SPEAKER_01]: God called his people out of Egypt, and as they came out into the wilderness to follow their God, they were to leave behind them the sinful ways of the Egyptians.
[SPEAKER_01]: Leave it in Egypt.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't bring it with.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the picture of the Leaven.
[SPEAKER_01]: The seemingly small influences of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't need a lot of yeast.
[SPEAKER_01]: to make dough rise.
[SPEAKER_01]: It spreads throughout the yeast.
[SPEAKER_01]: As soon as you add it and you leave it and especially if you get some heat throughout the whole dough, infecting the whole lump of dough.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is the picture of the leaven, the seemingly small influences of the world, which in a short time will multiply and transform every part of the heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: To reinforce the analogy, God will later forbid anything leaven to be sacrificed or burnt as an offering to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you cannot bring sourdough bread and burn it as an offering to the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: They couldn't do it, couldn't be burnt on his altar.
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be waived over as a wave offering, and then handed to one of the priests to eat, but you could not burn it to God on the altar.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, we might wonder, like I did when I was 10 and reading through the Old Testament, you might wonder, is there something evil in eating soft?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yummy bread?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there something wrong with that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it evil?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or does God not like the taste or smell of sourdough bread?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is this he not like it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are we somehow more holy if we eat nothing but cardboard?
[SPEAKER_01]: there are some religions that say that it's funny to us it really is, but there are many religions that say that if you are enjoying the physical things of life you are less holy.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are there are groups among Christians that still think that they have the label of Christianity at least.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's put it that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they say if you enjoy this life you are less close to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: you're not as holy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So is that what God is getting at?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is he saying you must eat cardboard in order to be holy?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, no, the scriptures are very clear.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is not true.
[SPEAKER_01]: This feast and sacrificial law were always meant to teach a lesson about our hearts.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our hearts is what God cares about, not 11, not yeast, not whether you prefer sourdough or crackers, it's not what God cares about.
[SPEAKER_01]: He cares about your hearts.
[SPEAKER_01]: God is called as people out of the world unto himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has sanctified us, now we are to live sanctified lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: Leave a ways of the world behind, offer to God a pure heart that is undefiled by the corruption that is in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do not permit even a little bit of love and into your hearts.
[SPEAKER_01]: It will corrupt your heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sweep it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: In 1 Corinthians 5, 6 through 8,
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Old Testament hints at it, and we see pictures, and shadows, and then in the New Testament, it's made clear.
[SPEAKER_01]: The veil is lifted, and we see the purpose.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says in 1 Corinthians 5, verse 6, do you not know that a little 11 levens the whole lump?
[SPEAKER_01]: Clins out the old 11 that you may be a new lump,
[SPEAKER_01]: For Christ, our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old Levin, the Levin of Malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's the picture explaining for us clearly in the New Testament.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Paul is pointing out an essential spiritual reality in this passage.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you haven't already turned to 1 Corinthians 5, you might want to turn there, just so that you can see what Paul is getting at, 1 Corinthians 5 or 6 through 8.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says in this passage that Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is our salvation.
[SPEAKER_01]: as the required payment for our sins, propriciation, granting peace with God for all those who believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christ, our past of our land, has been sacrificed.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then, then he says something else that is essential for our joy and hope and peace as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: In verse 7, he calls Christians to cleanse out the old-leaven and live in a holy manner.
[SPEAKER_01]: because they are already unloved.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like what?
[SPEAKER_01]: Which comes first, the horse or the cart?
[SPEAKER_01]: He is saying, they are already unloved.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are already holy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the foundation for why they're to live a holy life.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're like what?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not the way we normally reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this is what he's claiming.
[SPEAKER_01]: For every born again Christian, God has declared something unchangeable about you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's unchangeable.
[SPEAKER_01]: The blood of Jesus Christ has cleansed you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Past his.
[SPEAKER_01]: The blood of Jesus has cleansed you and made you holy in God's sight.
[SPEAKER_01]: God has declared us, pastens, God has declared us holy, clean, set apart, able to enter into His presence.
[SPEAKER_01]: A beloved member of His family, we are already sanctified.
[SPEAKER_01]: the rest of the New Testament confirms this understanding of God's posture towards us, how He sees us, what He's declared about us, how He feels about us as Christians.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of the 21 occurrences of the word sanctify or sanctification in the New Testament, which means to make holy
[SPEAKER_01]: Most occurrences emphasize that we have already been sanctified by the blood of Christ, Jesus, our Passover land.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have already been sanctified.
[SPEAKER_01]: Passages like Hebrews 10, verse 10.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is one example.
[SPEAKER_01]: And by God's will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the blood of Jesus Christ once for all.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have been sanctified.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have been made holy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what that word means.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a beautiful truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you wrestle with and bury deep within your heart, it will grant you great strength to endure and overcome your temptations,
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you fail in this life, it will give you hope and assurance that you can quickly come for forgiveness.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have already been declared holy.
[SPEAKER_01]: This will give you great strength to endure, temptations and quickly repent of failures.
[SPEAKER_01]: God has already sanctified all those who are washed by the blood of Jesus through faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: because of God's unmarried and favor alone.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is the point.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because of God's grace alone, believers belong in God's holy home.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like there are so many Christians today that that is what they're missing in their Christian walk with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: They understand?
[SPEAKER_01]: enough about the gospel to be born again and they have they have repented of their sins and they're seeking to follow the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: They love Jesus Christ the Redeemer, but they are so discouraged as Christians because they are so weak and so easily tempted by sin like the rest of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: and they don't know how to handle or how to overcome this weakness in this life.
[SPEAKER_01]: But God gives us these truths to give us hope and joy, encourage and endurance.
[SPEAKER_01]: That it's God's grace alone that has brought you into his holy home.
[SPEAKER_01]: We must first receive by faith this essential truth before our calling in this life becomes possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: The calling of God to now live holy lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: God has declared you holy and He says you belong in my home.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's before you begin doing anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: by grace, that's what that means.
[SPEAKER_01]: You belong to me and you belong in my holy home.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, what does God do?
[SPEAKER_01]: He calls us to live holy lives now.
[SPEAKER_01]: God has picked us up out of the gutter, washed us, clothed us and adopted us as his own sons and daughters, granting us everything we need for life and godliness and now he calls to us to be sanctified, which is to be more and more holy, becoming more and more holy,
[SPEAKER_01]: Hebrews 10, verse 14, helps us understand this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's think about the author of Hebrews words here.
[SPEAKER_01]: He argues that this, for by a single offering Christ has perfected for all time.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's done.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is finished for by a single offering Christ has perfected for all time
[SPEAKER_01]: Those who are being sanctified, you see that both of these truths are essential for your faith and hope and joy in confidence and Christ, though you are weak and a sinner and so am I.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has perfected for all time, those who are being sanctified.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as with many truths and scripture, there is an already not yet reality to our sanctification.
[SPEAKER_01]: By his blood, Christ has sanctified those who are being sanctified.
[SPEAKER_01]: Already finished.
[SPEAKER_01]: You die today in faith with the Lord, holy in His presence.
[SPEAKER_01]: You belong in His holy home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not because of anything you did.
[SPEAKER_01]: because of God's grace alone through faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: You belong to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: You belong in His holy home.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not because you are righteous, but because Christ is righteous.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the old ready reality for each born and again believer right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: You belong in a holy home.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the not yet reality,
[SPEAKER_01]: said I'm not living that way moment by moment right now in the flesh.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the not yet partner.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, you belong.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I want you to live like it more and more every day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you feel some of the weight of Christian righteousness and be perfect as I am perfect that command?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you feel some of that weight being lifted off your shoulders right now?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the point of it of bringing this up of showing you this in the word of God is that the weight of the impossible of being perfect that weight being lifted off your shoulders.
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead, in its place,
[SPEAKER_01]: being filled with hope in the promise of God that he has already finished it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are holy in my sight, now live daily, more and more like it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's supposed to give us such joy and peace to go out of here and to strive for holiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is already accomplished.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now we just get to live in it, more and more.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we fail, he is given us a way to be restored.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called repentance, confession, repentance.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dear God, I am wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have sinned against you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please wash and clean again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wash me clean of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, I will every time you belong in my home.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are mine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Christ has sanctified those that are being sanctified.
[SPEAKER_01]: The death of Christ has purchased everything you and I need for our past, present, and future.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's already purchased it, it is done.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now he calls to you Christian to live according to the holiness that he has purchased.
[SPEAKER_01]: When the Jews were preparing for the feast of 11 bread,
[SPEAKER_01]: They would get rid of everything leavened out of the house.
[SPEAKER_01]: The children would even go on a scavenger hunt on told for anything leavened.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a great fun they would have.
[SPEAKER_01]: Seeing if anyone could find any leavened in the house.
[SPEAKER_01]: At our house, we send the children out into the yard to go find anything that the dog left behind them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if they find anything, they get a marshmallow.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can imagine these kind of scavenger hunts could get fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure you can make it a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: The family would do what we call spring cleaning.
[SPEAKER_01]: They'd move furniture around, roll up carpets.
[SPEAKER_01]: They get out their brooms.
[SPEAKER_01]: They give their house a clean sweep.
[SPEAKER_01]: In preparation for this feast of remembrance.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's make sure there's no lev in in our house.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a shadow.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a shadow.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a shadow of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: When the Lord said, eat and drink as meal and remembrance of me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once a month, our church holds a meal of remembrance.
[SPEAKER_01]: We call it the Lord's supper or communion.
[SPEAKER_01]: In this meal, we drink the cup and eat the bread and remembrance of our passive or lamb that was slain, who has promised to return and glory and final victory.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think most of us realize that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure if you've noticed though, that the bread we share together, each month, is unleavened bread.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's flat.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like one of those dry crackers.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has no leavening in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just like the bread that Jesus would have eaten with His disciples during the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread in the upper room.
[SPEAKER_01]: With his disciples, we celebrate the Lord's table with unleavened bread.
[SPEAKER_01]: The unleavened bread should remind us each time we partake to make sure we are living unleavened lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: Holy lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: Constantly cleaning out the leaven of the world that would infiltrate our lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the call of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Live with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: in a way where your heart is not filled with the leaven of this world.
[SPEAKER_01]: As Paul said, let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how we're to live our lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't tolerate even the dust of leaven in your home.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has an incredible ability to multiply and to corrupt and to infect your heart, even the smallest amount of leaven.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wherever you draw the line as an individual on sin, wherever you draw the line and say, no, that's too far.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wherever you draw that line is where you are going to fight the battle.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can draw the line when sins are tiny.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or you can wait to draw the line once they are full blown monsters that will overcome you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is hard to fight against monsters.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we feed them.
[SPEAKER_01]: We feed them with little bits.
[SPEAKER_01]: We think it's cute, it's small, it can't hurt anybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: The little puppies turn into massive monsters if you just keep feeding them, feeding them, feeding them monsters that might turn on you and devour you one day.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so in the name of Jesus, I plead with you with each one of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: fight against what might seem like tiny sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the command of Scripture.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is consistent in Scripture.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fight against what our Christian culture might call tiny sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because that's where you will do battle.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fight with them when they are small.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do not let them become monsters.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fight with poor attitudes.
[SPEAKER_01]: when you feel a poor attitude coming on, identify it, repent of it, crucify it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fight against small grudges, fight against raised voices, insulting facial expressions, road rage, gossip, mindless scrolling on social media,
[SPEAKER_01]: Delighting into seductive scenes and movies, pity parties, sitting around just saying, woe is me, woe is me, and never coming out of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: In gratitude, grumbling and complaining, outbursts of anger.
[SPEAKER_01]: We might think of these as tiny sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they have the tendency to be like yeast.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you allow, just a little bit of it to hang around in your heart, it grows and grows in the heat of the difficulties of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like love and just like yeast.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the next thing you know it will transform you into something that looks very different than what God had intended for you in the Christian life.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I give you a personal testimony, there have been many times that I've let love and hang around in my own heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tiny things, I'll deal with it later.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe when I'm older, it's not gonna hurt anybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: but then by the grace of God in His Word, by His Spirit, or by a preacher standing up and proclaiming the righteousness of God and calling me to live a holy life, I experienced a time where I stopped.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I made a clean sweep of my own heart and home in remembrance of my Redeemer, because my Redeemer lives, and he is coming again
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to make a clean sweep of something in my heart, or my mind, or something I've led into my home.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a tiny sin, but because of Christ, my Redeemer, I'm going to sweep it out the front door and never let it back in again.
[SPEAKER_01]: of the joy and peace of holiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please understand me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not preaching a holiness movement where we can become perfect in this life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, the scriptures do not teach that and I am not teaching that, but I am saying that if for the glory of God and because you remembered your redeemer, you say, I am going to get rid of that, whatever it might be.
[SPEAKER_01]: My experience is that God has filled me with the peace and joy of knowing that I'm walking rightly with Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can't explain what that feels like, but it is a deep knowing and feeling that you are His.
[SPEAKER_01]: that you belong to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He fills you with peace and joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't, I have to think again about what it feels like for a six-year-old to know he's right with his dad.
[SPEAKER_01]: He just gets to knock on his door, run in, jump in his lap, and give him a big hug, and they get to wrestle and laugh.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's just nothing to be ashamed of.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no lies hiding in the closet.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no dirty brought in the house, swept under the carpet.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just right with my father.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I get to live with and daily without me shame or guilt.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because he has made me holy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I am right now in this moment in every way that I know of.
[SPEAKER_01]: walking with him and he gives me a taste of holiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: The joy of living as I already am in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could have tasted it, it glimps of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And once you've tasted that, you want to keep it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you walk into sin, you miss it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're like if only I can get back to walking with the Lord of living as I already am in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these are the words of Paul in this regard in first Thessalonians 5, as he's closing out this letter to the churches.
[SPEAKER_01]: First, Thessalonians 5, 23, I'm gonna leave you with this as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: The already and the not yet reality of our sanctification.
[SPEAKER_01]: Paul puts it this way in a bidded diction.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now may the God of peace, himself sanctify you completely,
[SPEAKER_01]: May he do it, and completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: He who calls you is faithful, He will surely do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's both truths.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is faithful.
[SPEAKER_01]: He will do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: May He do it as we seek Him more and more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Already, not yet, He has sanctified you by the blood of Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be sanctified, live holy lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, thank you for your work.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we would only believe it and live it, I believe
[SPEAKER_01]: Our joy is not only waiting for us in the life to come.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as we believe your word and we pursue you in faith, there is so much joy to be had in this life also while we wait for the coming of our King.
[SPEAKER_01]: So much peace, so much knowledge of belonging.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, we all struggle at times
[SPEAKER_01]: feeling like an outcast in a failure of thinking there is no way that you are Lord and our God could love us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that would be true, Father, if you had left us to ourselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I thank you, Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, in the name of Jesus, I thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: that you have declared us holy, and you have adopted us into your holy home.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now we get to live as your children.
[SPEAKER_01]: with the peace knowing that you have made us holy and now we can strive after you please Lord, I ask that each one here, my heart included that we would think on this, do I'll deeply on this, that it would crush our boasting and self-righteousness, Lord, forgive me for give us, for boasting of something that was a gift, our sanctification, please forgive us, Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: And may you give us a true eternal kind of joy, a joy of knowing that you have done it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is finished.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now we get to live, live in the reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now while we wait for Jesus to come back, come Lord Jesus come, we love you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.