Jesus is the Passover Lamb

All right.

All about Jesus.

I love seeing all those names.

The one that really jumped out to me, especially because we're about to talk about it, is him being called the Lamb of God.

I hope that as you came in, you were able to see that we had these baskets at each of the entrances with the Lord's Supper elements.

And a little bit later we're going to partake together.

And if you didn't get yours, go grab that at any point.

That way you have that with you when we get to that part of the message of the teaching today.

Or send someone to get it for you or whatever.

Because we're going to take a look at that in just a moment.

But there's a word that kind of gets thrown around.

I use this word a lot.

And I shouldn't say I use it a lot.

I use it without thinking much about the meaning of it when I use it, because it's the name of a holiday, an ancient holiday.

And that is the word Passover.

And so today we really begin what many people often call Holy Week.

And this is the day, Palm Sunday, as it's referred to, where if you read the Gospels in the New Testament, when Jesus was approaching his death on the cross, he rides into Jerusalem triumphantly.

In fact, earlier this morning, we were doing some setup and we had our setup team here.

We had some staff here to come help with that as well.

And I went upstairs in the hallway just above us here where the kids' area is, and there were just palm branches everywhere laying on the floor.

I'm like, oh, we're getting creative.

We're going to teach the kids about the Palm Sunday.

And yes, as Jesus rode in on a donkey into Jerusalem, people went ahead of them and laid down cloaks.

They laid down palm branches and they gave him really a victorious, kingly entrance into Jerusalem.

But little did even they know what he was there to do.

Now, as it consequently ends up being, it was the week of Passover.

It was the days leading up to the Passover feast, which was a really, really big deal among the Jewish people.

It was a very, very specific day that Passover was celebrated.

It's the month of Nisan, not to be confused with a car, but it's spelled that way.

Nisan 14 is the date of the Passover.

Very, very specific date.

We see that in the law of Moses in Numbers chapter 9, verses 2 and 3.

Numbers 9:2

This is the day that all Jewish people were to observe the Passover.

Now, as Jesus arrived into Jerusalem there with this triumphant entry, the temple was packed with people from all over the place, not just people close to the temple that lived in the Jerusalem area proper.

I mean, people had made long pilgrimages to come to the temple, to come to Jerusalem to partake in the Passover and all the festivities that would happen afterwards.

And I would say this had to feel like no other Passover in the lifetime of those people there, especially those who lived in the region of Judea.

Because Jesus, well, he was an unknown at this point.

At this point, he had been doing his public ministry for about three years.

He had done so many miracles, so many signs, so many wonders, so many people healed, so many people who had demons exercised out of their lives, out of their very bodies.

And the word had spread that this could be the one, the one that had been prophesied about for so long, the one called the Messiah.

Could this be him?

And here he comes riding in, and people had all these hopes that maybe this is the guy.

In addition to that, though, you had the Jewish leaders who were already trying to find a way to silence him, to get rid of him, to catch him in something, to turn the people against him.

And when they couldn't turn the people against him, they themselves were going to make sure he was silenced.

So this is the arrival of Jesus in the midst of all of those emotions, all that context.

The people were excited because of the miracles, because of all the things that Jesus done.

All of this was happening at once as Jesus came in to Holy Week, to the week of Passover.

That Thursday would be Nisan 14.

That Thursday would be that.

All that to say this, absolutely none of that was by accident.

This is a part of a big long-term strategy of God.

And we're going to see that together as we look at the original Passover together.

This was part of God's plan for centuries, for millennia.

I would argue since the beginning of humanity, this was part of his plan for the salvation of the world.

And this plan was already cooked up when he was rescuing the Israelites from slavery.

You know, Israel was very oppressed by the Egyptians at one point in their history.

Before the oppression, actually, one of their very own forefathers, Joseph, actually helped rescue the Egyptians from a famine.

And ultimately Joseph's family came and resided there in that area.

But over time, as the Israelite people multiplied and they became so populous among Egypt that Pharaoh, the head of Egypt, was using them for slave labor and oppressing them, but also making sure they didn't outgrow them.

He had actually issued a decree that all newborn Hebrew sons would be killed and thrown into the Nile River.

It was in the midst of that decree that a lady by the name of Jacobed hid her newborn son Moses for three months and ultimately placed him in a waterproof basket and put him in the Nile River, just hoping beyond hope he would survive.

As it would turn out, Pharaoh's own daughter found the basket, found the baby, wanted to keep the baby and raise the baby, which she did.

And kind of a cool thing, Moses' own sister actually helped raise her brother because she was kind of following the basket along the river.

All part of God's plan that Moses, who was basically raised in the palace of Egypt, 80 years later, as an 80-year-old man, would show up before Pharaoh and demand him to let the people of God go.

Demand that he free the Israelites.

Now, in case you don't know that story, the way that all worked out is that whenever the Pharaoh of Egypt would refuse to let God's people go, there would be a plague.

And there were 10 plagues.

The plague of blood, where the whole Nile River turned into blood, a plague of frogs, a plague of gnats, some scholars believe that would have been lice, a plague of flies, a plague upon the livestock, a plague of boils, a plague of hail, a plague of locusts, a plague of darkness, and the last plague upon the firstborn, the death of every firstborn, not only human but animal in Egypt.

After each plague, Pharaoh would verbally commit to letting God's people go, but then he would change his mind every time until that tenth plague.

It is that tenth plague, the death of every firstborn in every home throughout the land of Egypt, that we find the birth of Passover.

And it's actually one of many foreshadowings in the Old Testament of the Bible of Jesus Himself.

How God had already had a plan to save the world.

So I want to read to you from Exodus chapter 12, starting at verse 1, the first ever Passover.

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

It says, The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.

Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month, each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household.

If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are.

You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat.

The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats.

Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight.

Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the door frames of the houses where they eat the lambs.

That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs and bread made without yeast.

Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire, with the head, legs, and internal organs gross.

Do not leave any of it till morning.

If some is left till morning, you must burn it.

This is how you are to eat it, with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, eat in haste.

It is the Lord's Passover.

This is it.

This is the origin of Passover.

I throw that word around.

Like I said, I don't use that word often, but it's a holiday.

It's been around a long time.

Yeah, the Passover, the Passover, the Passover.

In this passage, there are very specific instructions that four days before Nisan 14, on the tenth day of Nisan, the families would choose that spotless lamb and take care of it and protect it for four days, where it would be slaughtered, where it would be eaten, the blood of the lamb to be placed on the sides and the tops of the door frame of their homes.

And when you see that language where they're eating bitter herbs, that bread had no yeast in it because they didn't have time to let that dough rise and then bake it.

This was a meal to be done in a hurry with your cloak tucked in so that you could take off and run, with your staff in hand, so you can just go, because they were about to be freed by Pharaoh, and there was going to be no time to waste.

Get out of Egypt immediately.

This was the Passover, eat in haste.

Now the word Passover in Hebrew is Pesach.

It's a very unique language, the Hebrew language is.

You can see that it's literally just three Hebrew letters that form this word.

And it literally means what we say.

It means passing over, or what we would probably say is skipping over, is what we say.

We skip over something.

That's pesoch in Hebrew.

If you park right there with that word at the end of verse 11, it's a hint of what God is about to do for us as well.

So Moses had already told Pharaoh what was going to happen.

All the firstborn children in Egypt, even the firstborn of all the livestock, they're going to die.

So God commands the people through Moses to take this unblemished lamb and take the blood of that lamb and put it on the doorframes and the doorposts.

And he said, This is the Lord's Passover.

What was he saying?

Like, if you just stop right there, like, why?

What does that even do to take the blood of the lamb and put it on those doorposts?

He explains, starting in verse 12, it says, On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt.

I am the Lord.

The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will Pesoch.

I will pass over you.

I will skip your home.

No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

This is a day you are to commemorate.

For the generations to come, you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord, a lasting ordinance.

For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast.

On the first day, remove the yeast from your houses.

For whoever eats anything with yeast in it, from the first day through the seventh, must be cut off from Israel.

On the first day, hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day.

Do not work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat.

Sounds like a great festival to me.

This is all you may do.

Celebrate the festival of unleavened bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt.

Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.

You get the uh feeling this is very important to God.

You must remember this.

I don't want you working.

I want you to do a seven-day festival starting with Nisan 14 for seven more days.

You do no work.

All you do is remember.

All you do is celebrate.

All you do is remember what I did for you to set you free from Egypt.

And this was a big deal.

And they were good at it.

They remembered the Passover for sure.

In fact, they leveraged the Passover by the time Jesus walks into the temple.

It became quite a bit of a moneymaker for the council leadership of Jewish people, which is why we find on the next day Jesus comes flipping tables and driving out animals and flipping over the money changers' money and all of that.

But here's what I want us to focus in on this morning.

What I just read to you happened 1,500 years before Jesus took that Passover with his disciples in the upper end.

1,500 years prior.

Many perfect lambs were slain at that first Passover.

And for 1,500 years since, a lot of unblemished lambs and goats sacrificed for the sins of family members and the people of Israel.

But I would argue today that all of that makes zero sense in a vacuum.

That God would say, This is what I want you to do.

God can do anything, right?

God can do whatever he wants, he can come up with any plan to do whatever he wants to do.

I had this weird thought, and again, I'm not a Bible scholar.

Another Bible scholar would be listening to saying, dude, what are you like, don't just think your thoughts out loud, but I'm gonna think my thoughts out loud.

Do you think Yahweh God wasn't sure which homes were the Israelites' homes?

You know, no address numbers, I'm sure.

He didn't have, you know, a list of who would lived where.

Do you think God needed the help of the Israelite people to know who lived where and which homes were the Israelites' homes, and which ones were the Egyptian homes?

I would argue no way.

He absolutely knew who lived where.

That the only reason it makes sense that he commanded them to find an unblemished lamb to sacrifice, and the only way it makes sense that he commanded them very specifically to take the blood of that lamb and put it on their doorframe is because he was preparing not only them, but the entire world for Jesus Christ.

It's the only way it makes sense.

He played a very long strategy to get it through our thick skulls and the Israelites' thick skulls, everybody's thick skulls, that the only way to salvation is by the grace of God.

Because living in those homes, we don't know what they were like, but I guarantee you, those people who had those that blood on their door frames, they were imperfect people.

Absolutely.

And we know that.

Because if you keep reading where they did actually leave Egypt, they were some varmints, man.

They complained, they didn't have faith.

At one point they convinced Aaron to build an Egyptian idol for them to worship while Moses was up on the mountain.

I mean, they had struggles.

They were not spiritually well.

They still had a lot of Egypt in them that God was trying to remove out of them, and they wandered in the wilderness, and because of their lack of faith, uh that most of them never saw the promised land.

Almost all of them never saw the promised land that God had freed them to experience.

So they were imperfect people, but they were saved.

They were rescued by the blood of lambs.

And God made a big point to say, I want you to never forget this.

I want you to celebrate this, I want you to remember it, I want you to pause your life for it.

And they did that for thousands of years, 1.5 millennia, until Jesus himself, the perfect lamb of God, was slain for the sins of the world.

The only thing that would rescue God's people from death was the blood of a perfect lamb.

This was a truth he began to teach them all the way in Exodus 12.

And they got that.

And they celebrated it and they remembered it.

It was like, yay, wasn't that awesome?

Look, what a miracle our forefathers' experience.

They didn't do anything except obey what God told them to do, and that blood of those perfect lambs saved them and rescued them.

The people who slept in those homes that night were sinners, doubters.

Even Moses himself had killed a person before God called him to lead them.

Well, saved those people was not their perfection, it was their faith in what God said was true.

And what God said was the Lamb's blood is enough.

All you have to do is be covered by this blood, and you'll be free.

It changed them, it freed them, it united them.

They kept commemorating this day for 1.5 millennia until Jesus showed up on the scene.

This was their independence day.

It was a great miracle that they would never forget.

And I believe that God was preparing them and us to hopefully believe this.

Jesus' blood is enough.

Not you, not your goodness.

And that sounds a little bit contrarian to say it that way.

But I think if we're not careful, this world, even in spiritual circles, is trying to get us to be enough, to step up.

That maybe we can step up and become enough and be enough, and that God is just here to help us become enough and be enough.

Actually, it's the opposite.

He's enough.

And when we actually completely surrender our entire lives and allow that to be true and say, man, his blood on the cross is everything.

Because of that, he is my Lord, he is my savior, and now I'm just his.

Trying to turn God into some kind of maybe life coach for us when instead we're just in him forever, covered by him forever, resting in him forever, free forever.

I believe that's why Jesus said over and over again that if you want to enter my kingdom, you got to become like one of these kids.

When they believe, like, you got me, Daddy, you got me, you're gonna catch me?

Cool, I'll jump.

And they will, and we do most of the time.

If we can be more like that, that we understand that what Jesus did for us is absolutely enough.

It's about his goodness, it's about his perfection, it's about his loving sacrifice.

The only thing you can do and I can do is believe that what God said is true and act upon it and rest in it.

The blood of Jesus.

Do you see it that way?

Do you really see that the death of Jesus on the cross and ultimately his resurrection from the tomb?

That's enough.

That you are covered by that, that your faith in that alone is your salvation, that your faith in that alone is what allows you to be reconciled to God and to walk with him.

And to worship him and to look forward to seeing him face to face one day.

That it's not about, am I good enough?

Am I doing this right?

It's very simple.

Jesus is the Lamb of God that allowed himself to be slain for us.

The greatest act of love and grace and mercy that's ever happened on planet earth.

It's such a big deal that it literally becomes the fulcrum point of human history.

All the years we've counted since then have been counted since then, because that's everything.

The death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus.

The only thing you can do is believe what God said is true.

Now, I want to be careful there because it's bigger than head knowledge.

It's the moment that where the kid takes the jump, knowing that dad's going to catch him, or her, or mom.

I know Sherry's probably stronger than I am, so she'd be the one maybe the little toddlers would jump into.

She's got those biceps bigger than mine right now.

The the leap that says, I know you got me, no matter what.

I know that what you did on that cross, it is finished.

Do you really believe that your salvation was completed by the sacrifice of Jesus?

That's what this is all about.

This is why today we observe or we partake of the Lord's Supper.

This is our, in a way, tiny little Passover meal with a tiny little piece of unleavened bread and a little bit of juice to remind us of the body of Jesus that was sacrificed in the blood of the Lamb of God that was shed for you and me.

That if we believe that what he said is true in his word, then that's enough.

That that is enough.

We're gonna partake together.

And I want to pause for a moment and just say this.

I believe that every time we meet and gather together on a Sunday morning, and those watching, listening online as well, that there's always someone that's trying to figure things out spiritually.

Like you may be like, I don't know if I believe that or not.

I'm I'm curious and I'm heading maybe in that direction, but I just don't know that I believe yet.

What I would invite you to do is to just hold on to this.

Don't open it, keep it with you.

And I would encourage you, at least till next Sunday on Easter Sunday, put it somewhere where you will see it every single day so that throughout the remaining of this Easter season, you can look at that and hopefully remember what we talked about today.

That Jesus died on the cross for you.

He invites you to submit your life under his blood to be freed, to be saved, to be rescued.

And maybe hopefully sooner than later, one day, you'll believe and put your faith in him.

If that is you today, that you've done that, you've placed your faith in Jesus Christ, you believe that he died on the cross for your sins, you've asked him to forgive you of your sins, and you believe on the third day he rose again that he's alive and well at the right hand of the Father, and that his blood is the only way that you are saved, then today I invite you to partake of the Lord's Supper.

Before we partake together, I just want to pause and pray.

And as I'm praying out loud, if you're here today, or if you're watching, listening online, and you've never placed your faith in Jesus, it's it's it's such a paradox in my brain.

I want to say to you, it's the most simple thing you could ever do.

Because when my life changed, all I did was pray the best way I knew how to God in my heart and ask him to forgive me of my sins.

And I just put my faith in him.

I don't remember the exact words I spoke.

I was at Bible camp in the woods of southeastern Kentucky, and it changed my life.

So it's simple, but I would say it's also sometimes a hard step, it's a leap.

Because it will never leave you the same.

I'll never forget my own dad saying to me once, I don't want to do that because I don't want my life to change.

But then less than a decade later, he did put his faith in Jesus and his life really did change before our very eyes.

So yeah, don't pray this prayer flippantly and ask God to save you and rescue you unless you are ready to be transformed from the inside out.

But if you've been weary trying to figure out life, not feeling free, the Lamb of God died for you.

Freedom is right there, right there, ready for you to experience.

All it takes is a step of faith and saying, Jesus, save me.

I believe in you, will you save me?

So this prayer that I'm gonna voice is for those who want to take that step.

Let us all bow together and pray as we do this.

Father, in this moment, there might be someone watching, listening, someone in this room that has not taken that step of faith.

You say in your word that whoever calls upon your name will be saved.

You say if we confess with our mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and that we believe in our hearts that he died and rose on the third day from the grave, that we are saved.

So, Father, in this moment, hear the prayers of those turning to you finally, saying a prayer maybe like this.

Jesus, I believe that you died on the cross for me.

I declare right now that you are my Lord.

You died as the Lamb of God for my sins.

I believe that your blood was shed for me.

And now here I am.

Take my life, give me new life, give me freedom that can only come from you.

I am now yours.

Oh God, I thank you for those who might be praying that prayer right now of faith.

Help them to feel the power of your presence entering into their very lives, their very souls.

Help them to know that even now they are covered by the blood of the Lamb forever.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

And if you just did that, you had not put your faith in Christ before you just did that.

I invite you to partake as well in what we're about to experience.

I want to read to you from Matthew 26, starting in verse 26, on Nisan 14, as Jesus partook of the Passover meal with his disciples.

It says this, while they were eating, Jesus took bread, and we need given thanks.

He broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat, this is my body.

So we're gonna pray before we eat together, but go ahead and take that piece of bread out.

And as we hold it together, let's give thanks for it in prayer.

Oh Father, we thank you that you put on human flesh and dwell among us.

That you submitted yourself to death, one of the most excruciating forms of death imaginable.

The crucifixion.

Father, saying thank you just feels so small, but it's all we have.

All we have is our worship because you paid it all through your body.

So, Father, as we partake of this bread, we do it as an act of gratitude and worship, giving you thanks for giving your all for us.

Thank you, Father.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Let us eat together.

He continues on in verse 27.

It says, Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink from it, all of you.

This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now, from now on, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.

This juice symbolizes the only way we are saved.

The blood of the Lamb of God Jesus Christ.

Let's bow together and give him thanks.

Oh Lord, you poured out your very life so that we could have life.

And Father, as we partake of this little bit of juice today, we do it as a symbol of us drinking the cup that you have drank.

That we want to follow you all the days of our life.

Even if it means suffering in your name, we do it.

Because Father, you are our Lord, you are our Savior, and we are so grateful for this new covenant that you have made, where you paid all our sins for us, and we just live in freedom of new life for you and with you forever.

Help us to live like that.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Let us drink together.

It says one more thing after that, a little short verse in verse 30.

When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

And so we're going to do the same thing in a moment.

I'm going to pray one more time, and then this worship team is going to lead us in another worship song.

But before we do that, I know Jack mentioned this earlier that I'm going to be standing and worshiping in the next steps area.

I want to ask a very specific request.

If you place your faith in Jesus today, I invite you to come see me.

Give me a fist bump, chest bump, whatever, because all of the angels rejoice in heaven over one sinner who repents.

The blood of the Lamb has made you a whole new person.

Whether you know it or not, buckle up, you're in for a great adventure.

And I want you to come see me and tell me that I did that, man.

That's that I started my journey with Christ today.

So I can celebrate that with you.

Can we do that?

If you did that, you come see me either during the song or before you leave this morning.

All right, let's stand together and let's worship him.

But first, let's pray.

Father, I thank you for your great salvation that we didn't pay for, we didn't earn, we didn't deserve.

Oh Lord, you paid it all.

And so now we worship you with our voices, with our hearts, with our very lives, because you alone are worthy of our worship, Father.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for paying it all for us, God.

We pray in Jesus' name.

And all God's people said, Amen.

Let's worship Him now.