Many of you have participated in church, and you know what that symbolizes or what that means. As I was preparing for that today, I thought there are a number of people in our congregation that either may not be familiar with that and participating in it. Maybe some of us are new to the faith, and maybe some don't have the full understanding of why we do what we're going to do in the service today. And so if I could bring a message today, it's the why. Now we call it by two things. We call it by communion. We also call it by the Lord's supper. And we all know that there is symbolism in it. And it's not that these elements become living anything. These are symbolic things that we're going to participate in. Can I get an amen? Everybody understands that it's symbolic. And so I want us to understand why. That's the important thing that we want to teach about today. And in order to know why, I've got to take you all the way back to the very beginning of the why. I don't have time because we are going to do this Lord's Supper and communion. I don't have time to go through all of the details and some of you are saying, whew, but I'm going to go through as much of it as I possibly can. Because I want you to have an understanding. And I want to do everything in my spiritual power, that is in the strength of the Lord, to make known to you the why. Why do we do it? Because I want this to be such a meaningful thing for you. I want it to be such a powerful thing for you. One of the reasons we do not do this on an every week basis is because we believe that it can lose its uniqueness, it can become just a tradition if we just did it all the time without any thought about it, the why. Okay? And so in our church we believe that we should participate at least once a quarter and on special occasions we should participate in this. We have not had the communion of the Lord's Supper for a long time here at Beacon. And so we're gonna get it started back up again. But all of you are anxious to know why. So open your Bibles up to the book of Exodus. Now, I gotta give you a little bit of background. So all of us are on the same page. God came to a man, actually, he came to a baby named Moses. And if we were to rehearse his, early stage of life we would know that God protected Moses even when he was an infant. God had a purpose and a plan for Moses' life. Moses was rescued and taken care of by his own biological mother as a result of different circumstances all being orchestrated together and God made a way to provide for Moses' life even when he was yet a baby, nursing in his mother's breast. And it is a beautiful story about how God has his hand on his life, even from the very beginning of his life. And I want to remind you today, just as a secondary thought, every single life matters to God. There is not a single life that is insignificant to God. Somebody may have told you that you're an accident or somebody may have told you that they weren't really ready for you in life or whatever the case may be. But I want you to know that from God's point of view, every single life is precious. And God has a plan and purpose for every single life. single life. Moses raised up and was growing up and he became, he became conflicted in his spirit between what he was experiencing in the place called Egypt and what he was experiencing in the very DNA of his spiritual life and that was as a Hebrew. And the two things were in constant conflict. By the way, there should always be conflict when we're in bondage versus wanting to be set free from that bondage. And the people of Israel were under the oppression of Egypt. Egypt was the oppression. The people of Israel, the Hebrews... And they were absolutely under the tutelage and the rule of the Egyptian people. Now you say, why is that important? Because there was a day that God came to Moses and said, Moses, I want you to lead my people, Israel, out of bondage. I want you to lead them to the promised land. I'm going to lead them, but I want you to be the focus of their leadership. I want to use you to set my people free, to let my people go out of bondage. By the way, God is always in the business of setting people free. It is not the intention of God for us to be slaves to our past or slaves to certain conditions of life. God wants to set us free. Well, the people of Israel were under bondage. Now, most of us know some of the story of Moses. Moses goes to Pharaoh and says, let my people go. And Pharaoh says, okay. And then he changed his mind. And the Bible teaches us that he did that over 10 different experiences with the judgment of God falling on him and the entire nation of Egypt. And by the way, affecting the people of Israel too, because they had to see some of those plagues and they had to go through some of those things that God brought out. I mean, for instance, all the waterways turned to blood. Well, guess what? That did not just affect the Egyptians. It affected also the Hebrews, the Israelites that were in bondage. They saw it, they had to live through that experience. Is anybody listening to me right now? Sometimes as a nation goes, so the people of God also have to endure the decisions of that nation. Can I hear an oh me to that? Now there were 10 different experiences and I'm not rehearsing all 10 because I've got to go into the main one for today. The one that was most impactful, the one that was most hard, the one that what we're gonna focus on today. After all of the other nine, there was a process that they went through to regain life as they knew it, normalcy of life as they knew it. Pharaoh would say, Moses would say, let God's people go. Pharaoh would say, okay. Then he changed his mind, a plague would come, judgment would come. Then the people were affected by it. Moses would come back and say, let God's people go. That thing went on and on and on and on. So does a lot of our bondage, but we'll talk about that more in a moment. And so we come to chapter 12 and I want you to read, I know I'm gonna cover a lot of verses, but I'm doing this as a teaching today because I want everybody to have a deeper understanding. When you come to participate in the Lord's communion, I want you to have a better understanding of it. So go with me to chapter 12 of Exodus in verse one. This is the end of this whole journey, but I want you to watch how it ends here. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt saying, this month shall be unto you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. So who's setting the calendar? God's setting the calendar, right? And God's telling them how it's going to be. He says in verse three, speak you unto all the congregation of Israel, saying in the 10th day of this month, they shall take to them every man, a what church? Every single household is going to take a lamb out of their flock. It says, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house. Verse four, and if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house take it according to the number of souls. Every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall, verse five, ladies and gentlemen, and remember, this is teaching. I really want you to gain understanding. What is God giving all of this detail for? Because he expects obedience. He expects them to follow this. prescription completely. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the 14th day of the same month. And the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. Now what is God looking for? He's looking for obedience. He's looking for them to look at the word of God and say, or hear the word of God and say, if God says it, that settles it and I'm going to leave the results up to Him. And if God is looking for anything in your life and mine, He's looking for the same thing. He's looking for us to be obedient as best we know how with the idea that God is first in our life We're going to strive to walk in obedience to him and we're gonna leave the results up to him because he's God. And the scripture is telling us, here's exactly what I want you to do and here's how it's gonna play out. Now he comes to verse six, you should keep it until the 14th day. That's interesting because he's already given a day process here. And he says, in that evening, you're gonna take the life of that lamb. And verse seven, and they shall take of the blood. Now watch this. They shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and the upper door post of the houses wherein they shall eat it. Once they've sacrificed the lamb, the blood is to be smeared on the side post of the front door and over the mantle of the front door. Does everybody get the picture? Now that is what God tells them to do. God is telling them. Now, if we did not have the events that were going to follow this, it would not change a thing that God had given his instruction to his people. It wouldn't change anything. They may not fully understand why, they may not understand the outcome, but they know that God has spoken and they've settled it in their minds. If God tells us to do it, we're going to do it. whether we understand it or not. And oh, how I believe God is looking for a people like that today. He's looking for people who would be willing to simply trust him and obey him according to his word and leave the results up to him. Oh, how I believe he looks for that today. Even if we don't understand, I know there are some of you who are smarter than most theologians and you look at the Bible and say, oh, I know the parts I can keep and the parts I can throw out, but I'm not that smart. I just look at the word of God and say, if God says it, I want to do everything I can to be obedient to what he says, because he wouldn't tell me to do something that would go counter to his purpose for my life. He wouldn't speak to me in a way that would be detrimental to my life. He wouldn't ask me to do something that would bring discredit to his glory and to his name or into harm in my life. And he tells them, you're going to strike the blood on the doorpost. Now watch this. And they shall eat the flesh that night, verse eight, roast with fire and unleavened bread. And with bitter herbs, they shall eat it. Now verse 9, eat not of it raw, nor sodden it all with water, but roast with fire. And all that is, ladies and gentlemen, that in their culture they would have soaked certain meats for a certain period of time to cure the meat before they fixed it or prepared it. In this case, God is giving specific instruction as to how it's to be prepared. Now watch this. Roast with fire, his head and his legs, and with the pertinence thereof. Verse 10, you shall let nothing of it remain until the morning, and that which remains of it shall, until the morning, you shall burn with fire. Everybody getting the picture? No leftovers, and if there are any leftovers, they're to be consumed with fire. No leftovers. You know why there's no leftovers? Can I give you a little, a little clue into the future of this account? Why there's no leftovers? Because they're not going to be there to eat it. Oh, I thought that'd make you happier right there, but it didn't. All right, let me keep working on it. Now watch what he says in verse 11. And thus shall you eat it with your loin skirted. Uh-oh, there's what preacher's talking about, verse 11. Your shoes on your feet and your staff in your hand. You shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's what? Passover. It is the Lord's Passover, not man's Passover, not religion Passover, it is the Lord's Passover. Now, we're gonna get definition of that in a moment here, but just understand, God is giving specific instruction, and I know I'm repeating myself, somebody said preacher, sometimes you repeat, I'm doing that on purpose. Because I believe with a steadfast heart of my belief, every fiber of my being, that God is looking for a simple, faithful obedience. Because we do not know what's going to come tomorrow. Can I hear an amen? We don't know, some of us, what's going to happen today. And God is saying, what I'm looking for in my people is a willingness to obey my word, whether they know what it's going to come out to be or not. And God goes on though, and I'm thankful that he does. Look at what he says in verse 12. This gets really tough right here because now he's giving them the why. He says, for I will pass through the land of Egypt this night and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. That was a judgment on Egypt. It was a judgment on a rebellious people. It was a judgment against sinful rebellion against God. Listen to me carefully. Any one of those 10 experiences, now this 10th one, but any one of those nine other experiences, Pharaoh could have said, enough is enough, let them go. Are y'all still with me? But he chose not to. Just like many times in our lives. God says, don't do it. It's going to bring harm. It's going to bring hurt. It's going to bring devastation. You may not see it. You may think you know better than God, but God sees the long haul of your life and mine. And he says, don't do it. There's an angst in your spirit. There's a hesitation in your mind. You say, I need to pay attention to the tension. Oh, well, I don't need to worry about that. I'm just going to go do what makes me feel good. because it's all about me anyway, and so we launch into life, we act in a way that rebels against God, we expect no consequence for it, yet the entire pattern of the Bible is that there is always a consequence at the end of disobedience. Even for a Christian, There are consequences. Why? Not because God hates us, but because God has a problem with our sin. He has a problem with our spirit of rebellion. And what is God going to do? He's going to correct that spirit in us. He wants to work on breaking the spirit of self-will so that we will identify with His will. Now, I haven't got to the full part of it yet, but we need to get to this in verse 12. He says, I'm gonna pass through and I'm gonna smite the firstborn of the Egyptians. Whew, that's good, it's for them and not for us. Y'all still listening to me? I figured I'd get a little bit more reaction. I'm glad they're in trouble, not me. I mean, after all, the decisions made at the Capitol don't affect me. After all, it doesn't matter, really, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter who really gets into the presidency. After all, it just matters about what I've got in my pocket and how I'm living my day-to-day life. And I'm not doing harm to anybody, so after all, it doesn't have any consequential effect on anybody else. Ladies and gentlemen, please do not believe that. There's consequential things. Watch what he says. He says in verse 12, at the very end of verse 12, he says, I am the Lord. God is concerned about being elevated in the spirit of your life and mine to his rightful position. He is Lord. If you hear nothing else that this preacher says today, please understand God is looking to be elevated in your life. He is Lord. Anything that competes with His Lordship in your life is a sin. Anything that competes with His Lordship in your life is a sin. Anything that competes with His Lordship in your life is sin. Anything that we let be elevated in the place of God is an idol to us, and the Bible teaches us God wants no other gods in your life and mine except Him. He says, I am the Lord. I promise you, I'm gonna tie all this together in a moment. He goes to verse 13 and he says, and the blood shall be to you. These are important words to teach you today. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are. You need to know something is going to happen in Egypt. And it has the potential to impact every household with a newborn or young child in it. But Israel, when you do what I've told you to do, when you mark the doorpost with the blood of the lamb, when you put the blood where I told you to put the blood and you apply it to the sides of your door and the doorpost, he says, and the blood shall be unto you a token upon the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, When I see the blood, when I see you have taken me seriously and you have obeyed my words, he says, then I will pass over you. I will pass over your household. We have a one-year-old baby in our household. I cannot even imagine thinking that something could tragically happen to her little life when God has allowed us to bring her this far in life. I can't imagine what that might be like for the people of Egypt, let alone the people of Israel. Is anybody understanding what I'm saying? And God says, but when I see the blood, when I see the blood on your doorposts, I will pass over you. Why is this so important? Because obedience is important. The will of God is important, and it has eternal consequences tied to it. When God says, I will pass over your house when I see the blood, he goes a little bit further, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt. Ladies and gentlemen, I gotta tie a little bit of this together for a moment. I need you to understand God knows how to protect his children. It doesn't mean that we will not go through economic woes. It does not mean that we might not see famines and storms in the land. It does not mean we won't see some of the things that are going to come upon this planet. But the Bible teaches us that every single one of the events that's taking place on the world stage is a precursor to the eventual calling up of Jesus to his being brought up to heaven to meet him in the air. Ladies and gentlemen, everything that's going on right now on the world stage is a precursor to his return for his children. And in the meantime, what he says as he goes over your life and mine, if I see the blood, on your life, when I see the mark of Jesus Christ on your heart, when you are identifiable as a child of the most high God, he says, you may hear the screams, but you will not be affected by the circumstance. You will see and hear and be in the midst of the experience, but you yourself, God is going to watch out for you. That's a tough one to preach. That's a tough one to say to you. Because the answer, the question you have to answer in the spirit of your mind is, is my life marked by the blood of Jesus Christ? I'm getting ahead of myself. Look at what it says in verse 14. And this day shall be unto you for a memorial and you shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. Look at the last part of verse 14. Please, please mark this in the spirit of your mind. He says, you shall keep it a feast by an ordinance. How long? Forever. forever. We believe there are two ordinances that are given to the church. One is baptism, which we celebrated a few weeks ago. And the second is the Lord's supper, which we're going to participate in today. This is an ordinance that was instituted as a point of memorial all the way back in the day of Exodus. The reason we do this, I'm gonna tie it together in a moment. The reason we do this is because the Bible, God told the people of Israel, you do this in memorial. You do this as an ordinance forever. You say, now, some of you are already ahead of me and say, wait a minute, preacher, we're not Jewish. I mean, we're not Jewish, so why do we observe it? Why are we participating? And why is it important for us to remember this? I've got to take you to, you got your Bible still open? Can you go look with me one other passage real quick? I promise I'm gonna call us to a close here in a moment. And I just want you to see this. Go all the way over to John chapter 13 for just a moment. I wasn't gonna take this passage, but I think the Lord's spirit is wanting me to go here. And so I want you to go to John chapter 13. I'm gonna tie this together. Job 13.1. Y'all find it? I love hearing the pages of the Bible turn. That's awesome. Job 13.1. What's the Bible say in verse one? Look at it. Now before the feast of the what church? Passover. So what was Jesus doing? Jesus was keeping true to the Hebrew heritage, celebrating the Passover. Y'all with me? And so he, what he has, this is right before Jesus is going to face the cross of Calvary. This is right before Jesus is going to die for your sin and mine. And it says, now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come, that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end. Supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus knowing that the Father has given all things into his hands, and he was come from God and went to God. He rises from the supper, laid aside his garments, took a towel, girded himself, he poured water into a basin. How many of you know this experience? Right? He pours water into a basin. He begins to wash the disciples' feet, to wipe them with a towel where he was girded. Then verse six, he comes to Simon Peter and says, he says in verse six, Peter said, Lord, doest thou wash my feet? With a question mark. Jesus answered and said unto him, what I do thou knowest not now, but thou shall know hereafter. Obedience. Submission, servant spirit, will be met with knowledge, but not now, later. Obey the word of the Lord now, leave the results up to the Lord, and watch to see what he will do. What he tells him is, in verse seven, he says, what I do now, you don't know, but you will, Peter said. He says, thou shalt never wash my feet. Thou shalt never wash my feet. If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon said, Lord, not my feet only, but my hands and my head. And Jesus said, he that is washed needs not to wash his feet, but is clean everywith, and you are clean, but not all. Now, ladies and gentlemen, when you look at all of this, you say, what does all of this signify? What does it all symbolize? What are they embracing? The Passover meal. Jesus said in another passage of scripture, he said, I will not take this bread and this wine. I will not take this again until I take it anew with you in the kingdom of heaven. What was he telling them? He said, in the meantime, between now and the time for that, you do this as often as you will in remembrance of me. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I'm pushed a little for time's sake, but I really want you to understand the connection. When Jesus came to Peter and said, I'm going to wash your feet, Peter said, no way you're going to wash me. How humbling would that be if Jesus knelt down in front of you to wash your feet? And Jesus got a hold of Peter and said, Peter, if you don't let me do this, you're not gonna understand the rest of the experience. You're not gonna understand the other side of this. You're not gonna understand my purpose and my plan. But if you do let me wash your feet, it's gonna make sense to you. And Peter said, not only my feet, Lord, but give me a shower. You say, that's goofy. No, that was Peter. Peter was always saying stuff like that. He was always just way out there in his response to Jesus. And Jesus said, look, you already had a shower. I just wanted to wash your feet. I just wanted to wash your feet and get the dirt off your feet and show you the ways of the kingdom. Jesus instituted at that Passover. He instituted the very flesh and blood that would die in just a few hours ahead of this moment in time. The last things that Jesus did on this earth was participate in the Passover. to keep the ordinance of the Lord, but also to bring a magnification to that Passover that they would understand things like, behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Who did that? Jesus does that. The reason Jesus went to the cross at Calvary and had nails driven into his feet and his hands, a crown of thorns pushed out upon his brow, let alone the very flesh of his body being ripped in absolute shreds off of the bone and separated from the muscle. The reason Jesus went through all of that is because the Bible says without the shedding of blood, there could be no forgiveness for our sin. Jesus became He became the blood giver and the blood sacrifice. He paid the ultimate price for your sin and mine so that we could be forgiven, we could be accepted, and we could be receiving a promise that when we are absent from our body, we'll be present with the Lord. But none of that was possible without Jesus Christ becoming the Passover lamb for your life and mine. You say, preacher, tie it all together. When we take these pieces of cracker, this bread in our body, this little cup of juice into our body, what are we symbolizing? We're symbolizing that we know that it cost Jesus Christ everything for our sin to be forgiven. It cost Him His life. It cost Him the shedding of His blood. And listen to me carefully. That is not something we should take lightly. It is not something that we have been in church a hundred years and somehow we become immune to the pain and the suffering of our Savior on the cross of Calvary. Don't become calloused in your heart. That's what the Bible means when it says, do not let your love grow cold. When you look at the cross of Calvary, recognize what the Lord Jesus Christ did on your behalf and mine. Ladies and gentlemen, it's not something that we approach lightly. It's not something that we approach with carelessness. It's not something that we go to the Lord's table, as we call it, and say, well, I'm just glad he did that for me. Ladies and gentlemen, this should absolutely shake us to our core that we are sinners doomed to a devil's hell and Jesus Christ came to pay a price that we might be forgiven for our sin and we might be redeemed from the pit of hell to the glories of heaven. Ladies and gentlemen, there's only one way that's possible and that is through Jesus Christ becoming the Passover lamb that now covers the doorpost of your life, that covers the doorpost of your heart and says this one has been washed This one has been cleansed. This one has been purified. Though my sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. The sin is covered and washed away by the blood of Jesus Christ. You say, preacher, we know that. When was the last time that the acknowledgement of his sacrifice brought you to your knees in repentance. When was the last time the knowledge of his great love brought you to a point of brokenness in your spirit and caused you to kneel down in your spirit and say, oh God, depart from me, I'm an evil man or woman. Depart from me, I've sinned against you. Oh Lord, I don't deserve you. There is no entitlement in heaven. There's no entitlement in our relationship with God. There's no entitlement when we say, well, I'm so good, Jesus just died for me, or I deserve it because I'm such a good, I mean, after all, I'm pretty good, Jesus. You said preacher. But this world needs to acknowledge the Passover. This world needs to experience and understand. And where is the demonstration of that? It's in the people of God. The Bible teaches us that when you come to receive the Lord's Supper, it's for anyone who is a true believer in Jesus Christ. If you have prayed, at some point in the last season of your life, and you've asked God to forgive you for your sin, then you're okay to take the Lord's Supper. But the Bible warns us against taking the Lord's Supper unworthily. That is, if you're not yet a Christian, if you've not really accepted Christ's forgiveness for your sin, you've not dealt with that, it's okay to let the tray pass you by. Don't take of the Lord's Supper because it is a serious thing. to take the Lord's Supper if you're not, if your heart is not right with God. I wish I wouldn't be able to tell you, but I've seen people very, very sick after taking the Lord's Supper with sin in their lives without confession. And the reason I always do the Lord's Supper at the end of the service, even though people have to stick around and all that stuff, and people's got busy stuff to do, but the reason I always do it at the end of the service is because I wanna give you a chance to talk to God. I want you to come to the Lord's table and receive this ordinance. I want you to receive it with the right heart. Brother Jeremy and Brother Richard, would you guys come on up here, and Hayden and Leland, if you guys would come up here, we're gonna serve the Lord's Supper. But I'm going to ask everybody in the room to bow your heads with me for a moment. Everybody bow your heads. I want to ask two questions and then we're going to pray. All right, everybody bow your heads for a moment. Is there anybody within the sound of my voice that would say, Preacher, if I died today, I'm not sure that I would get to go into God's heaven. I want to, I hope to, I'd like to go to heaven when I die, but I'm not sure. Raise your hand quickly and put it down. Is there anybody in the room that says, if I died right now, I'm not sure I'd go to heaven. Then let me ask you this question, brothers and sisters, Christians, let me ask you this question. Is there anything you need to confess to the Lord? Any wrong attitude, any wrong heartfelt, anything going on in your life that you just need to give to the Lord right now? I want to give a moment of silence in the sanctuary. I want you to pray before the Lord and I want you to confess whatever needs to be confessed. You give it to the Lord right now.