Come to the Table: The Feast of Deliverance (Exodus 12:1-14; Matthew 26:17-19, 26-29)

Hello, friends.

This is Pastor Creighton.

Thank you for tuning in to Newsong Church's Sermon Podcast.

At Newsong Church, we want to see Jesus lifted high in Port Perry, Ontario, as we worship, grow, and serve.

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Lord, by your word and your Holy Spirit, you have ordained such means of grace that we would be strengthened and nourished and have our faith confirmed in our Lord Jesus.

Pray, Father, that you would communicate your word of promise to us through this, your word and Holy Scripture.

And as we come to the table, Father, grant that we would taste and see that you are good.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen.

Please be seated.

So what is the church all about?

Devoted to Jesus.

Shortest sermon ever, right?

Amen.

Well, that's true.

Most certainly that's true.

If the church is going to endeavor to be the church, that's true.

But let's ask the second question: how?

How is the church devoted to Jesus?

Well, this is where we get into some debates, isn't it?

Probably you'll get different answers depending on which denomination you ask or which particular church family you're talking to.

There's probably different ways we go about being about this one Lord and Savior, Jesus.

I know we've got many different church backgrounds represented here.

There's a minority of us who are actually so-called cradle Anglicans.

Myself, I'm not one of them.

There's non-denominational Christians represented here.

There's Lutherans and Mennonites, Roman Catholics, even Baptists.

We're all looking around.

We love you all.

We love you all.

And we're one in Christ.

If you were to ask the earliest church, how do you go about this thing called being devoted to Christ?

I suspect that the disciples of Jesus and the disciples of those disciples would answer something like Acts 2, 42.

They would give you a fourfold answer.

Here's how we go about being devoted to Jesus.

Acts 2, this is the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and a few verses that follow reflect the devotion, the practice of the earliest church.

It says the earliest church devoted themselves to one, the apostles' teaching, two, the fellowship, three, to the breaking of bread, and four, the prayers.

Apostles' teaching, solid biblical exposition.

Two, the fellowship, doing shared life together.

To the prayers.

What's the church without prayer?

And the breaking of the bread.

Does any of these surprise you?

Coming from a non-denominational background, perhaps, breaking of the bread stands out for me.

Truthfully, the first thing that comes to my mind is something like a church potluck.

And it's a good thing to be devoted, I suppose, to church potlucks in so far as they foster fellowship.

I suspect there'll be a day where we celebrate a potluck again.

But what do we mean by the breaking of the bread?

If we look for clues in how the author of Acts, Luke, has used this phrase, breaking of the bread, we'll see it described in connection to the Last Supper that Jesus celebrates with his disciples.

Luke 22, verse 19, much the same as our reading in Matthew 26, says this.

Luke 22:19

Do this in remembrance of me.

And we see much the same thing happen post-resurrection in Luke chapter 24.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

See, the breaking of the bread refers to the Lord's Supper, to Holy Communion, to the Eucharist, to what some of our brothers and sisters call the Mass.

This is the Lord's meal that he shares with his disciples.

And the earliest church was devoted to it.

Does that surprise you?

See, why did the earliest church devote themselves to this thing called the breaking of the bread?

This is our three-part study.

And I want to offer three biblical answers for why the earliest church devoted themselves to sharing the Lord's meal together at the Lord's table, and why we at New Song are going to follow the same.

Here's three reasons.

One, the table is the feast of deliverance.

It points us back to God's work of salvation through substitution.

Two, this table is the bread of heaven.

It gives to us the bread of heaven.

It presently points us to Christ's real presence as he offers himself to us.

And answer number three, why did the disciples devote themselves to the breaking of the bread?

Because it's the marriage supper of the Lamb.

It points us forward to the great feast in the kingdom to come where Christ is our host.

It points us back, it orients us presently, and it points us forward.

So this series, come to the table, is for Christians who've ever wondered what's the deal with communion.

It's also for those parishioners who are wondering, why are we at Newsong doing this thing every single week when we've done it every other week or so?

But I hope this series is also for folks who are just checking Jesus out and want to understand the significance of this gift he gives to his church.

This series, I hope, is for everyone who wishes that Jesus longs for Jesus to be even more present to them in an objective way and to give them some sign of his favor towards them.

Have you ever longed for that?

You ever long to receive that gift from Jesus that tells you exactly how he regards you?

So none of this series and study together is meant to be a merely intellectual exercise as though we're going to walk away with some nice Bible trivia.

Rather, this is study is meant to strengthen and confirm and nourish our faith through looking at the word together and receiving from the Lord's table, receiving the sacrament, his means of grace.

This series is meant to train our palate so that we can better taste and see that the Lord is good.

So let's come to the table for the Feast of Deliverance.

Let's start our journey in Exodus chapter 12, verses 1 to 14.

Exodus 12:1–14

If you've got your order of service or your Bible, I encourage you to turn to Exodus chapter 12.

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

As you do, let me ask, what's happening in Exodus?

So God has committed himself to bless the world through his covenant people, Israel.

And they've sojourned now in Egypt for over 400 years.

They've been fruitful and they've multiplied in that time.

But a new Pharaoh shows up on the scene.

He doesn't see God's people as a source of blessing.

Rather, he sees God's people as a threat to his power.

So Pharaoh brutally enslaves the people of Israel, oppresses them, abuses them, and even kills a generation of their firstborn sons when they grow too numerous for his liking.

So one scholar rightly notes this that Pharaoh's kingdom epitomizes humanity's rebellion against God.

And this is important for us to catch.

Because God's actions that follow here aren't just sort of a one-off.

That's an interesting thing he did in Egypt.

God's actions represent his rescue plan, his plan for redemption, to take his people out from the kingdom of darkness and deliver them into a kingdom of light.

This represents God's very heart to rescue his people.

So under Pharaoh's iron fist, Israel cries out for help, and God answers.

He raises up his servant Moses in chapters two and three to be an instrument for deliverance to his people and to execute his judgment against Pharaoh and this kingdom of opposition to God.

So in chapters seven to ten, God unleashes nine plagues, but Pharaoh refuses to humble himself and submit and let God's people go free.

So now we come to chapter twelve, just before the final and most terrible plague.

See, just as Pharaoh has killed the sons of Israel, so God in his judgment will kill all the firstborn in the land of Egypt.

Look at verse twelve.

The Lord says to Moses and Aaron, I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments.

I am the Lord.

So let's notice something at this point.

God's judgment isn't just against Egypt, is it?

God's judgment is against all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast.

God plans to visit the homes of not just the Egyptians, but the Israelites too.

Under God's word of judgment, all stand condemned, oppressor and oppressed alike.

But God provides for his people a means of rescue, a means of salvation, a means of deliverance from this death and judgment for his people.

It's deliverance through a substitute.

God relays his instructions to Moses, verse 3, take a lamb for your household, and in verse 6, kill your lambs at twilight.

You're gonna do two things with this lamb that you slaughtered.

Verse 7 Take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses.

This is gonna be a sign.

A sign of what?

Sign of substitution.

See, God has spoken his word of judgment over the whole land, and over each and every house that dwells in it, and there will be death in each household.

But his word offers a symbolic exchange.

Instead of the life of the firstborn son in this household, God will see that a lamb has been offered instead by the blood on the doorposts, and when he sees the blood, he will pass over that house.

This is a sign of substitution, but it requires faith on the part of God's people to trust that God's gonna follow through with what he's said, and it requires obedience that they actually put it into performance.

First thing they're gonna do is put blood on the doorposts.

The second thing they're gonna do is eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

God's people are supposed to eat it.

See, it's not enough just to put the blood on the doorposts.

This substitute lamb has to be eaten.

And why is that?

Well, to put it simply, I would say it's appropriation by consumption.

Appropriation by consumption.

The Israelites are meant to understand that by eating this lamb, they are in a way joining themselves to it.

They're appropriating it to themselves.

See, this lamb died the death that God has spoken over this household.

This lamb is their hope for deliverance, and their hope for deliverance depends on their union to this, their substitute.

So simply put, the Israelites are meant to understand that they are what they eat.

Why is that?

Verse 13.

On the houses where you are, 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.

See, a substitute has been made, the blood of the Lamb for the blood of the people.

But this requires trust, trust in God, who has offered his people such a means of rescue, such that death will not overtake them, and they will be delivered from slavery and bondage in Egypt.

Verse 23 For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.

See, it's as though God himself is standing at the doorway, not letting the agent of destruction enter into that home, precisely because the blood is the substitute, the sign of substitution.

So let's not miss the significance of this ritual remembrance.

See, in verses one and two, God is telling Moses and Aaron both that this will not be a one-time only event as they head out of Egypt.

This will be an annual feast for celebrating God's deliverance in rescuing his people from bondage in Egypt.

The Passover is meant not to be a one-and-done deal.

It's meant to be a year for year, generation after generation remembrance.

It's meant to be a remembrance such that children and grandchildren of these Israelites will ask, verse 26, What's the deal with the Passover?

Why do we do this year for year?

And verse 27, God instructs his people to answer this 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.

Year after year, generation after generation, God calls his people to remember the feast of deliverance.

Deliverance through substitution, the Passover.

But remembering for the Israelites is not a mere reminiscing.

He remember when God did that nifty thing back in Egypt?

This is not mere reminiscing, digging up a memory that otherwise belongs to the past.

Remembering in a biblical sense is to recall the past into the present such that it shapes and forms and gives definition to our reality in the present.

Of the Passover, theologian Michael Horton writes that in the Jewish liturgy, remembering means participating here and now in certain defining events in the past and also in the future.

Together with their forebears, those who share in the Passover meal, invoke the name of the suzerain, that is the sovereign, for rescue.

And he quotes Psalm 116, I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.

What's Michael Horton saying here?

He's saying that the Passover is less a, remember when God did that nifty thing, and more of a present participation.

God has rescued his people.

And so we participate in this rescue here and now as we bring this past event into the present.

We join ourselves with it because we need God's rescue too.

God's past action of deliverance in history gives definition to his present work of salvation.

So remembering the Passover year after year is a call for God's people to place their faith in the substitute that God provides for them as their means of deliverance.

God's substitute points us forward, or God's substitutes here, points us to God's substitute for us.

And this is the logic of the whole Levitical system in the Old Testament.

Do you ever wonder why the Old Testament is so obsessed with lambs and blood and slaughtering, and it kind of makes your stomach queasy sometimes?

It's precisely for this logic, because God's Old Covenant takes seriously that we need a substitute.

God has spoken judgment over all of us.

We need a substitute if we have any hope of deliverance.

Yet no substitute lamb is truly perfect.

No man-made oblation, that is to say, what we offer to God, is so perfect as to appease his wrath fully and make satisfaction once for all time.

That's why the New Testament author of Hebrews reflects for since the law, the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, has but a shadow of good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered year for year, make perfect those who draw near.

What's the author saying here?

He's saying that the Old Testament sacrifices, indeed, together with the Passover Lamb, is not meant to be sufficient.

There's nothing we can offer that is truly sufficient to make satisfaction for God's judgment.

No, it points us forward to that perfect substitute, that perfect sacrifice to come.

That Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

So we meet Jesus in the upper room with his disciples.

Matthew 26 is the institution of the Lord's Supper, Holy Communion, the Eucharist.

We can use these words somewhat interchangeably, though they bring out different aspects of this same meal that we share together.

This is the institution of the Lord's Supper, but what's the context?

Did you catch that?

Verse 17, his disciples ask Jesus, Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover?

In other words, when Jesus institutes communion, he doesn't go, hey guys, I got this nifty new idea for you.

It's kind of like a charcuterie board, minus the cheese.

We're gonna see if it sticks around.

I think you guys are really gonna like this.

No, Jesus has gathered his disciples together to celebrate this covenant meal as they have year after year.

Probably this isn't the first Passover Jesus has shared with his disciples.

They've gathered together to celebrate the feast of deliverance, to recall those saving events that God has done in the past into the present such that it gives definition to God's present salvation work.

Except when Jesus celebrates this Passover on the eve of his crucifixion, he reconstitutes it.

He re-centers this Passover, not centered in Egypt anymore, but centered in himself.

This is my Passover.

See, where Israel and Egypt stood under God's word of judgment, so too do Jesus' disciples.

So too do we.

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

And we are in bondage, not to slavery in Egypt, but in bondage to sin and death and hell.

So here Jesus takes the unleavened bread of the Passover meal and says, This is my body.

Just as God's people in the old covenant joined themselves to their substitute Lamb by eating its flesh, so too do God's new covenant people in Christ join themselves to their perfect substitute Jesus by eating his flesh.

Jesus takes the wine served at the Passover meal and says, This is my blood.

Just as God's people have sprinkled the blood of the substitute Lamb on their doorposts as a sign of God's passing over in judgment, so now God's people are called to receive Christ's blood for the forgiveness of their sins, release, and deliverance from the kingdom of darkness.

See, it's through Christ's blood that God has once for all passed over judgment of his people.

Pastor Michael Green comments, his followers are to feed on him, just as the Jews fed on the Passover lamb and the unleavened bread of the first Passover.

See, the first Passover took place on the eve of God's deliverance from Egypt, but now this Passover meal takes place on the eve of the greatest deliverance from sin and Satan and death.

This is the eve of the greater Exodus, from the kingdom of darkness and all that opposes God, and into the marvelous kingdom of his glorious light.

And it's through the cross that Christ will ransom his people from brutal slavery to sin, and through his resurrection that he will bring his people into his Father's kingdom.

Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians, God did not, God did not subject us to suffer wrath, but to suffer salv or to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And if it's true that God's people understand remembrance not simply as accessing this old memory, but rather a participation in the past that it gives definition to our present, then this, our Passover feast in Christ, is meant to bring Christ's once for all.

Substitutionary sacrifice to bear upon our present right here at New Song, wherever the Lord's Supper is celebrated.

So let that land on you for a second.

This is Jesus offering his very self to you as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world at the table with the promise of the forgiveness of your sins.

See, celebrating Holy Communion as Christ taught us in remembrance of Him is bringing Jesus' once for all sacrifice upon the cross to bear upon our presence.

And it's not just a year-for-year celebration.

We ought to celebrate every Sunday.

Every day we celebrate the resurrection and gather together and devote ourselves to this feast of deliverance.

See, eating and drinking at this table matters because it's through eating and drinking that we once again receive our perfect substitute for sin, Jesus, the Lamb of God.

So communion is a wonderful thing.

Communion is a participation in Christ our substitute, but it's not a thing to be taken lightly.

Paul offers the Corinthian church instructions on the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians chapter 11.

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

They were clearly all over the map, and their selfishness and divisiveness and indulgence meant that they were going about the Lord's Supper all the wrong way, and it was doing more harm than good.

So Paul calls each Corinthian Christian to examine yourself before coming to the Lord's table.

Because he says, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.

So what does Paul mean by an unworthy manner?

Does that unsettle you?

I mean, who among us could achieve that standard?

See, rather, Paul wants this church to consider the implications of Christ's substitutionary death for us.

Does our heart reflect Christ's as we come to his table?

We must be willing to engage in honest self-examination and ask God for his help.

See, perhaps we know that we've wronged another and sinned against them in thought or word or in deed.

Perhaps that person is even in this church.

Self-examination means that we take the time to acknowledge and confess and make amends for our selfishness, our indivisiveness, our self-indulgence.

And this gives expression at the peace.

I know the peace in our liturgy is often the time where we say, hey, how you doing?

What are you doing for lunch?

And that's a great feature to it as well.

But for the earliest church, the peace meant exactly that.

Outside of Christ, we are not at peace with God.

Outside of Christ, we are not at peace with one another.

And so if there is resentments or unforgiveness or sins between us as brothers and sisters in Christ, this is the moment to take one another aside before we go to the table and say, Brother, sister, I've sinned against you, and I need to ask your forgiveness.

And so come to the table, ready to receive the feast which is for us for the forgiveness of sins.

It's better we come forward to receive a blessing than to come forward harboring divisive and unconfessed sin.

As we come to the feast of deliverance for sin, are we willing to acknowledge these sins before God and perhaps even one another before we come to his table to receive Christ anew?

But let's not be unsettled.

This table is a table of assurance.

For those of us who will be sinners until the day we die, which I hope all of us will raise our hand to that, if we're honest with ourselves, this is a table that assures us that forgiveness is not found in our moral performance, but in Christ's perfect sacrifice and his substitution.

So for those of us who know that we need a substitute to provide for us what we cannot provide for ourselves, we need to come to the table and stretch out our hands and hear these words.

This is the body of Christ broken for you, and this is the blood of Christ shed for you.

He is our perfect substitute.

And that's why Paul writes, For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed.

Let us therefore keep the feast, the festival, the feast of deliverance, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

So, friends, will you come to the table?

This is the table of deliverance, where God's judgment passes over his people through their perfect substitute.

And so now his judgment passes over us because of what Christ has accomplished once for all on his cross.

We come to the table not merely to remember him, but to receive him afresh, as he brings the reality of the new covenant, the forgiveness of sins, to bear upon our presence.

Confess your sins to him.

Make amends with your brothers and sisters, if need be.

Friends, this is our feast of deliverance.

For as often as you drink this bread, eat this bread, and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death, the Lord's substitution until he comes.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

We worship a generous God who calls us to follow him in giving willfully, cheerfully, and sacrificially.

Newsong Church's mission and ministry is one hundred percent funded by the generous gifts of those worshiping and journeying with us.

If you'd like to offer a gift towards Newsong's ministry, please visit Newsongportperry.ca giving for more information on how to do that.

May God bless you and keep you today and every day.