A Gospel lesson text this morning is found in Exodus chapter 12. We've been working through Exodus chapter 12 the past two weeks as we've been working through the whole book of Exodus starting in chapter 1 and we continue where we left off. Exodus chapter 12 is found on page 49 in the Bible that are in your seats. Please turn there or turning your own Bibles. Let us listen to what God has to say to us this morning. This is God's Word, eternally true, Exodus chapter 12 beginning in verse 43. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, these are the regulations for the Passover. No foreigner is to eat of it. Any slave you have bought may eat of it after you have circumcised him, but a temporary resident and a hired worker may not eat of it. It must be eaten inside one house, taken none of the meat outside the house, do not break any of the bones. The whole community of Israel must celebrate it. An alien living among you who wants to celebrate the Lord's Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised, then he may take part like one born in the land. No uncircumcised male may eat of it. The same law applies to the native born and to the alien living among you. All the Israelites did just with the Lord and commanded Moses and Aaron, and on that very day the Lord brought the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions. Hearings are reading, we have a response of thankfulness printed for you and your bulletins on the bottom left. Please look there and respond as you see. The Word of the Lord, let us pray, our God and our Father, we believe that your Word is living and active, and we ask that you, Jesus, would preach to us now. We ask that Holy Spirit you would illumine this text for us that we might understand it and be changed by it. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. We are looking this morning at the fact that God is a separator. Now within the church, God is a uniter, isn't He? His Spirit as well as each one of us, and that unites us together, and we are united around His Spirit and by His gospel, as we learned, remember that in Philippians some time ago, we are united, a united people around the gospel of Jesus, around Jesus, and by His Spirit we have become one, but God is a God who separates in a different sense. I remember I learned something that was just amazing to me, simple things that are explanatory, are exciting for me. I remember when my dad told me, I don't know when it was, it was probably junior high. My dad grew up on a farm, and he used to milk cows literally at five in the morning and a haul manure, and then go to high school running after you had done all that. He knew what it was, the milk cows, and you all about milk, and all that kind of stuff, and he told me, and this was what I was excited about, again simple things that excite me. That skin milk is called skin milk, because when you milk a cow into a bucket, the old fashioned way, the milk lands there in the bucket, and the milk goes down in the bucket. On the bottom part, in the cream, the fatty stuff rises to the top. That's literally in a bucket, you have thin milk in the bottom, and this creamy fatty stuff at the top. And skin milk is called skin milk, because they skim off the cream, and just leave the milk there, and that just fascinated me. That's why we call it instead of, well it's called nonfat sometimes, but the pain on the label skim milk, because the fat has been skimmed off of it. The fat has been separated from the rest of the milk, and God is a separator here, and he separates in many ways throughout scripture, and shows the stat in many different ways, but what is he talking about here? What is he separating? Why is he separating? Oh God is separating here, the non-believers from the believers. Those of the covenant, those of God's people, from those who are not of the covenant, those who are not God's people, and there are many things that we are good to attend to, when we know this fact, and God gives us people instructions, God's people are still coming out of Egypt here, and he's given instructions to Moses there, and he says, when you get in the land, years later, here's how I want you to celebrate the Passover, and then we find out in those last couple of verses, verse 51, that they're not out of the land yet, we're reminded of that, but they God brings them out, but God gives us people instructions about how they are to celebrate the Passover when they get into the land. God says, you first of all hear this morning, because I separate God says, you are protected from harm, because God separates, you are protected from harm, that's the first implication that God is driving here in this passage, that he is one who separates you from harm, he is your life's word to say, this outline looks massive, don't worry, there are a lot of points here and it moves fast, so just kind of stay on your pencil there, if you're a blank filler inner, stay on the path there, if you're not leaned back and know that we're blowing through this stuff, we're given the instruction, God's people are giving the instruction in verse 46, that the Israelites were to stay where, inside their houses, they were to stay inside their houses, now he's talking about when they're in the land, years later, 40 years later, when you celebrate the Passover, you're to stay inside your houses, why did God tell them this? Well this followed the 10th plague in Egypt's pattern, the 10th plague was the Passover plague, it was when God killed all the first born in the land of Egypt except for the first born in houses that had lambs blood at the outside of the doorposts and across the doorposts on the top, on what's that called, the lentil, that's the old word for it, and so God separated there in Egypt during the 10th plague, his people from the Egyptians, those people of the covenant, from those people who were not in covenant with him, and how he did that, he marched them with lambs blood at the doors, and if the house had lambs blood on it, God's destroying angels did not go in and killed that first born child in that house, so stay inside when you eat the Passover God says because this symbolizes to you that families inside homes whose doors had lambs blood were rescued from death that night. This was to cause God's people, the Israelites and the Promised Land to remember that we stay inside when we celebrate this because outside there is harm, outside is God's destructive wrathful angel bringing about judgments on the foreign gods of Egypt, so we stay inside. For the church Jesus spilled blood at the cross protects those inside his church, that's your blank, Jesus spilled blood at the cross protects those inside his church and for the church, the Lord's Supper has replaced Passover, the Lord's Supper has replaced Passover, that's another blank for you, this is why today we only celebrate the Lord's Supper inside the church during a worship service, we celebrate it in house, so to speak, in the church, the place of protection from harm, the church is the place of protection from harm isn't it? There was a famous church father who said no salvation outside the church, famous statement, no salvation about 300 AD, no salvation outside the church, and he brought to bear the point that the church is God's protected entity in this world, protected from God's judgment, protected from the evil one, and this was prefigured for us that Passover night, and it gets prefigured by God's people in the Promised Land as they celebrate the Passover meal, they celebrate it inside the walls of their house and they don't go outside because outside of their house is harm, is destruction, and God says to that to you this morning, outside of this house, outside of the church is harm and destruction, solidifically speaking, that doesn't mean we don't go outside the doors of our church, that doesn't mean we don't interact with nonbelievers, Paul instructs us to do that, Jesus instructs us to interact with nonbelievers all the time, but he says, don't leave the confines of the church, that is this, don't leave the blood of Christ, the blood of Christ covers the door way of the church and those who give allegiance like these, the use and the teal said this morning, those who give allegiance to the church are keeping themselves inside the house, and those of you here this morning I'm preaching to the choir, so to speak, but I'm saying to you in the future, do not reach a place in your life where you think there is safety outside of the walls of the church where you can blow the church off and be safe. God says here, if you blow the church off, if you are not a part of his church, worry about your salvation, that may be a sign that you are not indeed safe from his judgment, because judgment goes on outside the church to those who do not ally themselves with Jesus, but those who are in the church allied with him connected to him and his body, the church, those people are protected from harm, they are inside the house of the lamb's blood at the door, that speaking in terms of salvation, but also in our lives as believers, as those who are in the church, literally and figuratively through the week, in this life, this practice of celebrating the Lord's suffer in the church of the Passover being celebrated inside the houses, this practice confirms to the believer that nothing that's your blank, nothing will come his way apart from God's protection. Those who are in the church, those who are members of his church that have said, I profess and believe in Jesus, I profess faith in Jesus as my Savior, I declare myself a sinner in need of his grace, those people have the protection of God himself and have the comfort in difficult circumstances that those difficult circumstances have not come their way apart from his protection and guidance over their lives, because God separates you are protected from harm. We are separated by the walls of our house, the church, covered in the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God. Second God says to you this morning, because God separates, seek the salvation of your neighbor, because God separates, seek the salvation of your neighbor. Now we don't see this real abundantly, clearly, right at the time of Passover, although we do, last week we looked at the verse that said many others, many others came with the Israelites. It seems to indicate that there were non-Israelites who allied themselves to the people of God and God out of trouble and God out of Egypt and left with God's people from Egypt, but we see this as God institutes the practice of Passover and the promised land. He says no foreigner, your blank, their uncircumcised foreigners to Israel were prohibited from eating the Passover meal in the promised land. We see that in verses 43 through 45, we see it in verses 48 through 49 as well, foreigners are excluded from the benefits of the blood of the Lamb. Again, this followed the pattern of the night of the tenth plague. Only Israelites were protected from harm, the only people protected from harm were those inside the doors of a house with Lamb's blood. God separates certain people from certain people. Today in the church, the Lord's Supper is prohibited to non-believers and that's why before we celebrate the Lord's Supper, which we'll do next week, each time I will say this is a sacrament, this is a meal for believers. If you're not to the place yet where you believe that you are hopeless in your sin of ever having eternal life apart from Jesus, please do not take up the bread and the cup here. This is God separating his people who believe from those who don't believe, those of saving faith from those without. This practice of separation and the Lord's Supper also serves to remind us of the final separation that will occur at Christ's return. Matthew 25, Jesus speaks of the sheep and the goats, and he puts the sheep on one side and the goats on the other side into the sheep. He says, inner in, you bless by the Lord and to your eternal inheritance prepared for you before the foundation of the world. And to the goats, he says, away from me, I know you not. Final separation. So as we come to the Lord's Supper, we give great thanks to the Lord for separating us into the sheep, for causing us to have a destiny of blessedness, but we also think of those who are not among the church. They are separated out. They are excluded. So what? Corners in the promised land were told could celebrate the Lord's Supper, the Passover, rather, if they became an Israelite through circumcision, that's your blank, their circumcision. God doesn't exclude anyone, racially anyone who comes along and says, I want to be one of God's people. Ruth, Daniel's great, or, I mean, David's great-grandmother, I think it's great-grandmother, says to her mother, Naomi, even though she's from Moab, she says, your God is my God. Your people are my people. This was the promise in the Old Testament. This is the promise in the New Testament. God is ever expanding his kingdom by adding those who were formerly not of it. And God does this in the promised land. There were certain people who were foreigners who lived in the promised land who were who were servants of God's people, how servants and various agricultural servants, that kind of thing. And if they would cling to the God of Israel, and show that cling by the fact that they and their male children would all be circumcised, they could experience the benefits of protection of the God of Israel. Paul tells us that a believer in Christ is one who's been circumcised, here's your blank, of the heart by the spirit of God in Romans 2.29. He says a believer in Christ who is one who has been circumcised of the heart by the spirit. Circumcision is a spiritual thing. The Old Testament talks about circumcision of the heart. And God tells us, circumcised people in the Old Testament, you need circumcision of the heart because you're not obeying me. You have no hearts for me. You're not following me. You're not worshiping me. That's what God says to his circumcised people, and Paul brings up this theme again in Romans 2 as well as other places, that there is a circumcision of the heart that takes place by the spirit of God. And that refers to people becoming believers in Jesus. When someone becomes a believer in Jesus, they have had their heart circumcised by the spirit of God. And so just like Israelites in Old Testament times, we're to be people that circumcised, foreigners, those excluded from the promises of Israel during their day that they might celebrate the Lord's Supper or that they might celebrate the Passover. So today, we look at the people around us, foreigners to the promises of God, those outside the church, and we seek their salvation. We say, oh, Lord, would you spiritually circumcised Joe or friend, or whoever it may be, our friend, our coworker, our neighbour? Would you bring salvation to them? By your spirit, would you give them faith? Your blank here. God exhorts me here to seek the spiritual circumcision by faith of my neighbour. Why? That my neighbour might use the imagery of this passage here A, come inside. We seek, we see our neighbours out there, people we know, people we work with, people that are our literal neighbours in our neighbourhood, and we seek for them on Passover night, on the night at the 10th point, to come inside, come inside this house, come inside the church, we are covered by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, and you will not be harmed by the wrath of God, not be harmed by the judgment of God, if you come inside this place by faith. And we seek the spiritual circumcision by faith of our neighbours that our neighbours might eat with Jesus, that they might eat with Jesus. Now, at the Lord's Supper, we eat with Jesus, at the Lord's Supper, when we celebrate it, that's a blank for you. Now, at the Lord's Supper, and in eternity, Jesus speaks in the gospel of Matthew. I will not celebrate this again until my kingdom has come. And we find out when he celebrates this in Revelation 19, we hear of this wedding Supper of the Lamb when Jesus feasts with his people. We seek for our non-believing neighbours and friends and co-workers and classmates and teammates, etc. to be circumcised by the Spirit, to come to faith in Jesus that not only they might experience the benefits of his church, but that when judgment comes, they are with the sheep and celebrating the wedding feast of the Lamb, eating with Jesus for eternity. Now, thirdly, from this passage, God says that not only that you are protected from harm because God has separated, he says not only are you supposed to be seeking the salvation of your neighbour because he separates, but thirdly, because God separates we are to express to him deepening gratitude. Because God separates, God says to you, express to me deepening gratitude. This is one of the reasons we celebrate the Lord's Supper over and over again. This is one of the reasons God's people, each year at Passover time, their first month of the year, they celebrated the Passover meal that they may grow, that their gratitude to him might be increased and deepened. We read in this passage that it's here to be like every, every person, every person in Israel was commanded to celebrate Passover. Verse 47, the whole community of Israel must celebrate it. Passover celebration was for the purpose of reflecting on what God had done in Egypt, and what God had done through the Passover lambs in Egypt, and they were to commemorate this every year during that time, Easter time roughly, for us, that they might recall, that they might reenact through slaughtering Passover lambs, what God had done for them to rescue them from their slavery and oppression in Egypt, what God had done for them to bring them into the promised land of security and of abundance. By celebrating the Passover each year, the Israelite was to grow in its thankfulness to God. It's easy to forget what God has done for us, isn't it? It was easy to forget back in Old Testament days what God had done for them, especially these future generations, fifth generation off from being in Egypt, but they were called the whole community, every person to celebrate the Passover that they might be thankful to the Lord for his mighty acts, for their salvation from Egypt. To refrain from celebrating the Passover was to express an effect in gratitude toward God for the liberation from Egypt he wrought. To refrain from celebrating the Lord's supper today is to express an effect in gratitude toward God for the liberation from our sin, from his judgment that he wrought in Jesus Christ through his blood. What this means is that the Lord's supper is not primarily about me or you, when we celebrate the Lord's sets of blanks for you, write me in there, when you celebrate the Lord's supper, it's not about us. It's about God. It's a sign pointing us to God, what he is like, saving and forgiving and powerful, and it's a sign pointing us to what he did in Jesus Christ, when Jesus came to this earth, bore our sins that we might be forgiven, and what God did in raising Jesus the life that we might be raised to spiritual life and believing him that we might be raised that the last day in new bodily resurrection life to be with him forever. As I talked to various pastors a lot of times when they have ills in the church, so to speak, it's ills that are brought about by self-centeredness, and that's to be expected. We are self-centered people, everybody I am, you are, everybody is, that's our sin nature in us. We think about how things benefit me, how does this benefit me, and there are benefits to the Lord's supper. Jesus strengthens us, that's a benefit to us, but primarily the Lord's supper is about him. It's a sign pointing us to him to cause us to be thankful to him. I was talking with somebody a number of years ago, and he was talking about how he likes to, he wasn't a believer, but he went to church, and he would prefer that he celebrate the Lord's supper every week, because he said, it gives me that special kind of religious feeling, and from his non-believing perspective, the Lord's supper was all about him. It made him feel good, and so he wanted to celebrate the Lord's supper. It's not evil if the Lord's supper makes us feel good. It should make us feel good, because we are communing with our Lord, but it's not about us. It's a demonstration of the saving acts of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, for us. We're to use the Lord's supper in part to deepen our hearsay blank, our understanding, our understanding of the gospel, and to grow in our awe and appreciation. We use the Lord's supper to deepen our understanding of the gospel that we might grow in our awe and appreciation of Christ. The Lord's supper is to aid me and you, you and me, and properly being thankful to God as being or being my saving Passover Lamb.
We must certainly, as this passage tells us, celebrate the Lord's supper as believers. We're commanded to do so here. Each and every believer must do this, celebrate the Lord's supper. No believers to neglect this command of God, because to do so to neglect the Lord's supper is in a front to God, because it shows a lack of appreciation for what he has done in Jesus. It says, old Jesus, thanks, but I don't have time for you to commemorate what you've done. I'm unwilling, it says, in essence, or too busy or too unappreciated to take time to give thanks for in the gospel rescuing me for my slavery to sin and death. Verse 47, look at it there. Every is your light. Every is your light. I must celebrate the Passover. This excludes the possibility of the following kind of Christian life. Many of you have heard this or maybe even practiced it. You've seen it where somebody says, yes, I'm a believer in Jesus, but I don't belong to a local church. I don't think I need to be in one. That's especially prevalent among people today. There's a kind of a spirit of not joining things. I'll be fine out here in my own. I'll read my Bible, maybe go to a small group Bible study. I'll listen to the radio and radio preachers or whatever, and I'll be fine. Verse 47 excludes this way of the Christian life. Why? Because God commands us to celebrate His supper. He commands us to be thankful to Him by celebrating His supper. If you're a believer in Jesus, God says to us here, you're being ungrateful to Jesus by not regularly celebrating the Lord's supper. So you're blank here. The unattached to a local church Christian life is excluded by verse 47. It's not an option. We say, based on God's word, to be part of no particular church. A believer must regularly celebrate the Lord's supper, and the Lord's supper is only celebrated within the confines of the church because it's in the walls of the house as we find out from this passage. I think I only saw my dad come to tears one time in public. I saw him come to tears other times, but this time he was speaking to a group about his life and faith journey, that kind of thing. He was talking about, he got in part of it, talking about his wife, my mother, and I remember my dad's a sharp cookie. He's very intense and hard work or always thinking about stuff. He always wants to do things just right and does things just right. So if he knows I'd do something, let him do it for you because it'll be done well. But my dad's an orthodontist, and he got to speak in front of the American Medical Association as the keynote lecturer. First time in orthodontist I've ever been able to speak in front of medical doctors, MDs, AMN, and it's this great honor for me, I was too young to know about it. But I remember when he was speaking about this to his group, he shared how he looked up and saw my mother that had come to this, and he didn't expect her there. He hadn't made that big the deal out of it, that kind of thing. I don't think. And he looked out there and he saw my mom, and he just broke up in tears in front of this group because it meant so much to him. He realized the honor he had received by being able to speak in front of this group of MDs. But to be honored by his wife in this way meant much more to him. That's the kind of thing we have with the Lord's Supper. God looks down and he sees us celebrating it and he says, my people are honoring me. They are commemorating that I gave my son for them, that I slaughtered my son as a Passover lamb for them, and they are giving an honor and tribute to me here. So we celebrate the Lord's Supper. And we say, Jesus, we are thankful that in the separation of men, of those who are believers, from those who are not believers, you could have very well left me outside, but you brought me inside and you covered my doors with your blood. And so we give, we give thanks. Christ is not only our husband, but he has also made us his bride by rescuing us at the cost of his own life as a Passover lamb. Should we honor him by being that and celebrating the Lord's Supper regularly, you bet. And as we command, we come to understand this more and more, we should come more and more to see that the not to do so is completely unthinkable to us as we think about these things now, just to put note here as we end. If you know a believer who's not in the church, don't rip him the shreds. He doesn't understand this. If he did, the spirit of God would prompt him to be in here. So we just as, we have been graciously dealt with in Jesus in the gospel, when we come across people who are outside of the church, though are professing belief in Jesus, we say to them, come on in the church, come on in, there are benefits for you, and as a saved person, you need to give honor and thanks to Jesus by worshiping him each week. It's not about us after all is it. It's about Jesus. When we come, we celebrate the Lord's Supper and give him thanks for dying for us. It's appropriate for you to do that. We don't come together with condemnation that drives people away, and we come with patience just as God came to us in the gospel, in the foot in the sermon, please.