Kingdom: Passover

[0:00] If you would open your Bibles to Exodus chapter 12, Exodus chapter 12, we'll begin reading verse 21. Exodus chapter 12, beginning in verse 21, hear the word of the Lord.

[0:19] Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, go and take for yourselves lambs according to your families and slay the Passover lamb. You shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood which is in the basin and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lentil and the two doorposts.

[0:39] And none of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning. For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians. And when he sees the blood on the lentil and the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come in to your house to smite you.

[0:56] Skipping down to verse 28. Then the sons of Israel went and did so, just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did. Now it came about at midnight that the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle.

[1:19] Pharaoh arose in the night, he and his servants and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no home where there was not someone dead.

[1:34] Let's pray. Father, you are an awesome and terrible God. A God who does not clear the guilty.

[1:51] A God who is holy and righteous and just. And Lord, I pray that you would help our hearts to fear you.

[2:06] That you would help our hearts to recognize your power, your strength. And from that place of seeing your holiness, we would be able to relish and delight in your compassion.

[2:29] Help us to see exactly who you are. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.

[2:41] One of my favorite verses. It's a verse that I enjoy a lot. It's from Hebrews chapter 12, verse 3. I enjoy the verse because it's one of those verses that helps you understand how can we persevere in the faith.

[3:01] How can we not grow weary? How can we not lose heart? Those are the words it even says. And listen to what it says. For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

[3:21] The antidote to growing weary and losing heart in the Christian faith is to return to the cross. And to think about what Christ has done.

[3:35] And one of the reasons that we have been on this particular series is so that we can see the cross. We want to encounter God.

[3:45] We want to hear God's word. We want to see who he is. We want to understand the cross. Because there's so much teaching, preaching in this world that hides the cross, even though it talks about the cross.

[4:00] Because it doesn't give us the big picture. It doesn't give us that trail of story and that plot line from Genesis all the way. And so I wanted to preach through this series so that we could understand that this God, who is the creator of all things, doing all things for his own glory, did so knowing that we would fall into sin and he would be sending his son.

[4:26] And so everything that he does points to his son. Jesus Christ is the center of everything. And as Israel is trapped and in bondage in Egypt, and as God by his powerful hand is rescuing them with plague after plague after plague, he comes to the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn, and in the Passover, we get to see something of a glimpse of the goodness and the glory and the joy of the death of Jesus that ought to be still in our backbones, joy in our hearts and encouragement to our souls.

[5:20] I really just want you to walk out of here today happy in Jesus for what he's done. But I want you to be happy because you understand it.

[5:32] That it just overwhelms you. And I do think that there's several parts of all of this that I think to myself that if that doesn't light your fire, something is wrong.

[5:44] So I'm not saying you have to be one of these fake people, and they're not all fake, but if I were to do this, I would be fake, who walks around with a big old smile going like, Oh, praise the Lord!

[5:56] I just don't do that. That's not me. And I'm not trying to get you to be somebody you're not. But I am wanting to see joy just flood your soul because of who Jesus is.

[6:09] And I think we can do that by understanding something about the Passover. And I want us to understand two things. Number one, in the Passover, we see that God redeems the unworthy.

[6:24] God redeems the unworthy. And I want to show you the unworthiness of Israel in two ways. The first is sort of a small recap of the sermon from last week.

[6:39] Because if you weren't here last week, we talked about idolatry of the heart, particularly related to Israel, because Israel was in bondage to Egypt as slaves physically, but they were in bondage to the gods of Egypt spiritually.

[6:56] I'll give you one verse. In Joshua 24, verse 14, this is at the end of Joshua's career. Verse 15 is the famous verse where he says, Choose you this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

[7:12] Right before that verse, he says this. Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and truth and put away the gods which your father served beyond the river.

[7:24] That's the Euphrates. And in Egypt, Israel is not a commendable people.

[7:45] Israel is not a holy people. Israel is stained thoroughly with sin. They are idolaters, and they are unworthy to be in the presence of God.

[8:00] And that's exactly the kind of people he redeems. Let me tell you another way that we see their unworthiness, because we see them being bound for judgment.

[8:13] In chapter 12 of Exodus, verse 13, it says that 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.

[8:27] By the way, you know that's where Passover comes from. I'm just making sure. Okay. And no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

[8:38] Up to this point, it has been by God's choice that he has made a distinction between Israel and Egypt. And now, the distinction is the blood.

[9:03] If they don't put the blood on the door, they will suffer judgment. They are no better than the Egyptians.

[9:13] They're in the same spiritual boat as the Egyptians. And had they not put the blood on the doorpost, they would have lost their firstborn.

[9:27] God redeems the unworthy. And I want to make application today and help you believers and Christians to understand and hold on to and believe this, that we must believe that God redeems the unworthy.

[9:42] He rescues the wicked. He ransoms the sinner. He saves the transgressor. Those are the people that he saves.

[9:53] Those are the people that he redeems. It's what Paul, in the book of Romans, describes God as the one who justifies the ungodly. And we will say this all the time, so there's no one who deserves to be a Christian.

[10:08] There's no one who deserves to be in heaven with God. There's no one who deserves salvation. But sometimes I don't think that we grasp it deep enough and full enough.

[10:21] There is nothing about us that is commendable. God is not better off because he has us. And we need to have the mindset of the Apostle Paul where we lower ourself in our estimation and we think to ourselves, as in 1 Timothy 1, verse 15, he says it's a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners among whom I am foremost of all.

[10:53] Does that state your mind and your heart about yourself? Do you believe that you can say with the Apostle Paul, I am foremost of all sinners?

[11:10] I mean, do you believe in your heart that there's no one more wicked and deserving of death and hell than you? As a Christian who's headed to heaven, I need to believe, I need to understand that I'm a wicked sinner.

[11:32] We are unworthy. You see, if he redeems those who are unworthy, but you say to yourself, I'm not sure that I would say that about myself, then you have no part of Christ.

[11:44] If your pride and your arrogance will not let you say, I am foremost of all sinners, then you can have nothing to do with Jesus because he rescues unworthy people.

[11:58] And we can kid around and imitate Dave Ramsey with his answering the question, how are you with better than I deserve, but do we really feel that deep down?

[12:09] Why is it so important to feel our unworthiness? Paul says something else in 1 Timothy, beginning in verse 16.

[12:25] I think this is fascinating. Yet for this reason, because I'm the foremost of sinners, I found mercy. So that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate his perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in him for eternal life.

[12:47] He's saying here that him being the foremost of sinners means Jesus gets more glory. The more that I am a sinner, the more that I recognize, and the more that other people recognize that I'm a wicked sinner that deserves nothing but death and hell, the more as he saves me, he deserves glory because of his patience in dealing with us.

[13:10] And then he says in verse 17, now to the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. The only proper posture for worship is to believe that you're a wicked sinner.

[13:27] Now I understand we're going to say, but wait a minute, I'm saved. Yes, you are. And I'm talking to saved people. Paul the apostle as a saved person, as a person who's being inspired by the Holy Spirit writing scripture says, I am foremost of all sinners.

[13:44] And I think we need to follow his example. So what do we need to do, Christians? We need to go back and rehearse what we were like in our sin. You need to remember before you became a Christian.

[13:57] You need to remember that day. You need to remember what your life was like. You need to look back and see where it is he's brought you from. That's what he's doing in the Passover. That's what he's going to do when they go into the land to do the Passover.

[14:10] He's telling them, remember. Remember the slavery that you were in. And when your children ask, why are we doing this? You can tell them because the Lord delivered us on this night.

[14:21] Go back and look at where you have come from and then look at what you deserved death and hell and then remember what Christ has done for you.

[14:38] Remember what Christ has done for you. And that, that is the posture of prayer. Maybe you're not a Christian and as someone who's not a Christian, you need to understand and believe the same truth that no one's good enough to get to heaven.

[14:59] No one can earn their way to heaven. No one can merit their way to heaven. And the thing you have to remember is that death is coming. Death is coming for all of us.

[15:13] 150,000 people die every day. That's the, that's a town the size of Waco being wiped off the map every single day. Death is coming for us and what are you going to do?

[15:28] Are you ready to die? Are you ready to meet your maker? Are you ready to stand before him? You can be. Turn from being the boss of your own life.

[15:40] Turn from being the one in charge of your own life. Turn from your sin and instead turn to Jesus. Turn to him because he's the one by his death and his resurrection who has paid the price for you.

[15:53] He is, he is the one who redeems the unworthy. The second thing I want us to see is that he redeems by blood. He redeems by blood.

[16:07] Now I want you to notice just a couple of verses here in chapter 12 of Exodus that show us the blood here and then we'll talk about it for a second. In verse 6 and 7 they go together.

[16:18] He says, You shall keep it until the 14th day of the same month and then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight. This is the sacrifice. Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two door post and on the lentil of the houses in which they eat.

[16:33] Verse 13, 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.

[16:47] Verse 22, You shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood which is in the basin and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lentil and the two door posts and none of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning.

[17:03] Verse 23, For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians and when he sees the blood on the lentil and the two door posts the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you.

[17:16] It sounds like a crazy thing but they're being told that in order to avoid the death angel taking your firstborn you take the lamb you sacrifice it you take the blood and you paint it on your door.

[17:31] You just paint it on your door. How can this at all work? And there's a lot of people who want to be very mystical about this and think to themselves well maybe there's something all mystical about it all or maybe it's just all symbolic and so the question is why is blood necessary?

[17:51] Why is it necessary? It's necessary because life is in the blood. Leviticus chapter 17 verse 11 speaking of the day of atonement and the sacrifices that are there he says for the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.

[18:23] It is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement. Life is in the blood.

[18:35] Atonement is made by blood because blood has life in it. Life that God has given.

[18:45] You'll remember at creation that God breathed into Adam the breath of life. As a matter of fact Genesis account shows us that all creatures have some sort of breath of life in them and so the life is in the blood this life from God a precious gift from God animating the creature God then uses that life for sacrifices to make atonement.

[19:11] That's why God himself sacrifices a creature on behalf of Adam and Eve. That's why Abel's sacrifice was more acceptable than Cain's because there was life in the blood and that's why Abraham was ready to spill the blood of his own son because when God called him to sacrifice his son Abraham knew this meant spilling his son's blood and yet God provided a sacrifice in place of Isaac.

[19:41] On Passover the firstborn of every family and animal was subject to the wrath of God. He would take them all as a sacrifice because of his holiness and his glory but he made a way for the firstborn to be ransomed.

[19:58] He made a way for the firstborn to be redeemed. He made a way for the firstborn to be atoned for and that is the life of the blood.

[20:10] That the blood was shed on behalf of someone else. So it is the blood that protects. Now how does this get us to Jesus?

[20:25] This Passover lamb is then a pre-figure. It is a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ who would give his blood with the life in that blood for our sin.

[20:38] and if the blood of bulls and goats would suffice for a season but then have to be repeated because there was something deficient in that life the perfect son of God and his life for our sins is not deficient.

[20:53] He is our substitute and he gave his life as a ransom. A ransom you remember that a ransom is not a good guy giving a bad guy payment in order to make the bad guy stop doing something.

[21:06] Like kidnapping. That's our idea of ransom. That's not the Bible's idea of ransom. The Bible's idea of ransom is that a bad guy has to give a good guy some sort of payment so that the good guy doesn't legally take his life.

[21:24] God and his law has been broken and he has the legal right to destroy us in hell for all eternity. But we're ransomed because God in his love sent his son to take that punishment for us.

[21:44] So his blood then becomes an atonement for us that pays God back for the offense that we've made of his sin. His life could be considered a redemption.

[21:56] The word redemption means to buy back. If you were taking on debt in this culture you couldn't pay something that you owed you would go to the marketplace and sell yourself and someone would pay your debt in order to get you free of that.

[22:18] They would redeem you of that. They would buy you back out of that slavery to debt. That is what Jesus' blood does for us. It buys us back out of that.

[22:28] Atonement that's what his blood does. That's what the life in the blood does. He atones for us. The idea of atonement is the idea of appeasement.

[22:40] Appeasement. God is holy. His law has been broken. He's rightfully angry. Now he's not like human anger.

[22:52] Not vindictive. Not out of control. Always. Always. Just. You know if you flick water on a ten-year-old his sense of justice is way out of bounds because he's going to take a cup of water and pour it on your head.

[23:13] God's not like that. God is angry. God's wrathful. But he is never out of control. Never vindictive.

[23:25] Never unjust. But he's angry because we have broken his law. He is appeased by the sacrifice of Jesus.

[23:41] Jesus' blood appeases and turns away the wrath of God from us. That's why 1 Peter 1 says that we were redeemed with precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless the blood of Christ.

[24:01] In Ephesians chapter 1 verse 7 says that in him we have redemption through his blood. What is it? The forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace.

[24:12] In Colossians chapter 1 verse 19 and 20 says for it was the father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him and through him to reconcile all things to himself.

[24:24] If you think about the word reconcile you're talking about there being hostility and he's bringing hostile parties back together he's reconciling all things to himself having made peace through the blood of his cross.

[24:41] He's reconciled us to God. So Christians here's what we need to take out of this. I've tried to explain this as simply as I know how. Maybe I've muddied the waters for you. I hope I haven't.

[24:53] You've got to remember that when Jesus died on the cross he died as a Passover lamb. We needed protection from the wrath to come.

[25:06] We deserved death and hell but the blood of the lamb the perfect lamb of God it's as though it was painted over our doorposts and it stops the wrath of God because he's our substitute.

[25:23] that on the cross he died as an atonement that his sacrifice pleased the Lord. This is how we know it pleased the Lord. There's several places but this is a clear one to me.

[25:36] In Romans chapter 1 verse 4 Jesus was declared the son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. In other words he was declared the son of God at his baptism but God then owned him again at the resurrection because this is my son.

[25:54] He was pleased with what his son had done. God's wrath was satisfied and it continues to be satisfied on our behalf for all time.

[26:05] Here's what I want you to understand that if you have trusted Christ and you have been washed with the blood then all of your sins that you've ever committed in the past all that you will ever commit in the future have been fully and finally paid for.

[26:22] Because according to Hebrews he is therefore able to save forever. He's able to save forever.

[26:34] He is able to save forever those who draw near to him through him since he always lives to make intercession for them.

[26:48] In other words he died upon the cross he rose from the grave he ascended to the throne he rules and he reigns and his blood is pleaded upon our behalf for all eternity because he's a priest after the order of Melchizedek which means he saves forever.

[27:10] There's never a moment that you're going to be walking into heaven and he's going to look at you and say listen by the way you had a few sins you did in the last month of your life you're going to have to pay for those because I couldn't quite get to them.

[27:25] No everything is fully fully paid forever. You better say amen. My goodness we're unworthy and yet this is what he's given to us.

[27:42] This is what he's done for us. he has died to reconcile us to God. So Christians I just want to say to you that in a moment we're going to come to the Lord's table and the Lord's table is a visual sermon.

[28:03] It's a visual sermon that we participate in and according to Paul in 1 Corinthians when we partake of this we proclaim the Lord's death.

[28:14] until he comes. It's an ordinance of the church for the church as a body that we get to look at these things we get to consume these things in order to proclaim his death.

[28:32] So I my prayer is that if you find yourself today coming to the Lord's table not having that joy feeling a little just ho-hum about the whole thing then maybe there's a couple of things I can challenge you with.

[28:48] One maybe you're not saved. I don't know. But if you just find this to be ritual and that's all it means to you then you really need to examine your heart and see where you stand.

[29:13] Or maybe maybe you're just unaware and untaught ignorant of what all this means and it just seems sort of ritual and you've never really had your eyes open to see what all of this is about.

[29:28] Or maybe maybe you have sin in your life and it sort of clouded your vision makes the things of God not look beautiful.

[29:39] You know 2 Peter tells us that we can get to the place in our sin that we can forget that we were bought by the blood of Christ. So maybe today is a good day for you to go to the Lord and say Lord please forgive me my sin.

[29:55] So as a Christian then I just want you to prepare to take the Lord's Supper. That's what I want you to do. That's the application today. And you prepare to take the Lord's Supper by making sure number one you're not at disunity with anybody in this body of believers.

[30:10] Number two that you understand what we're going to be doing. That you get it that the bread and the cup they represent certain things and we're going to be preaching that to ourselves.

[30:20] Three you can't come worthily. Like so many people will say to themselves it's like well you know I've sinned this week and I really shouldn't partake of the Lord's Supper because I'm a sinner and I've done some bad things.

[30:33] It's like yeah we're all sinners. There's not a one of us who didn't sin this last week. There's probably not a one of us who didn't sin this morning. So there's nothing about us worthy of coming to partake of the Lord's Supper.

[30:48] And so if you understand that this is about him and not us and this is a moment to preach the gospel to ourselves and you're not at disunity with another brother or sister in Christ and you know that if you were to die today you would spend eternity in heaven with the Lord then we invite you to come and partake of this Lord's Supper with us.

[31:08] But if you're not a Christian you're not sure then I certainly would encourage you not to partake of the Lord's Supper but I just want to tell you a couple things and then we're going to sing to give some time for you to pray and get your heart ready and then we're going to come to the Lord's table.

[31:25] But if you're not a Christian I want to remind you about something and that is this. one day not only are we going to face death but another thing is going to happen one day and that is that Jesus is coming back.

[31:40] Now there's all kinds of things we could talk about on the timeline of that but that's not my point today. I don't care about the timeline. What I care about is that when he comes back we will stand in judgment before him.

[31:54] And I just want to imagine for a moment that you're standing there before the Lord in judgment. And if you are not a Christian his wrath is going to pour out on you like water out of a cup.

[32:12] And in that moment what would you say to the Lord and and say Lord please don't let your wrath come to me because of what?

[32:24] What's your answer there? Is your answer that the shield that would protect you from this wrath being poured out upon you is because your dad was a deacon? Is the shield that would protect you from that wrath being poured out upon you is that I've always been a Christian?

[32:43] Would the shield that would protect you from the wrath being poured out is that I was a member of a church or I've read my Bible I've given to the poor? You see all of those shields will be burned up.

[32:57] There's only one thing that will protect from the wrath of God and that is the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. And if that's where your hope is then you're a Christian and if that is not where your hope is then you're not.

[33:19] And I beg you to be saved. come to Christ. Let's pray together. Let's pray together.