Christ- the Passover lamb

Introduction

Text: John 2:13-25 “The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.”

The Story-

Jesus comes to Jerusalem for the Jewish passover celebration. and as he walks into the temple to worship he sees all of theses people who have turned a time to remember what God has done to a time to get rich off odf other people, .

He walks into the temple and it looks more like a flea market than a place of worship.

You see the passover required all Jewish men within 15 miles of Jerusalem to come each year and pay a temple tax as well as sacrifice an animal.

So just like we do today when lots of people come to an event there are always food trucks and vendors lining the streets around the event.

Apparently after so many years they just moved right into the temple to provide all the things people needed to fulfill their requirements for Passover.

and this angers Jesus because they have disgraced something that God had called holy by making it more about the money than the worship.

he immediately cleans house - he chases out the animals, he flips over the money exchangers tables, and kicks all of them out of the temple.

The jewish men come to him and said who do you think you are to do this in the temple. Give us a sign that proves who you are.

Jesus says destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.

the jewish men didn’t understand because Jesus wasn’t talking about the building they were in but about his own body.

In essence he was saying we are here in this temple building to celebrate the passover lamb.

but there is coming a day when I will be the ultimate passover lamb, and my body and blood will be spilt to pay the debt of sin for the world.

In order for us to truly understand Jesus’s holy anger in the temple on this day we are going to look at the jewish celebration of the passover.

I want us to have a good understanding of this central part of God’s story of redemption for mankind, because it alone is the greatest picture of what Jesus death accomplished or us on the cross.

Big Idea : The Blood of Christ Satisfies the judgement of God

There are three passovers I want us to consider today.

The original passover

the Symbolic Passover

the Final Passover.

The original passover

Our story this morning begins with the very first Hebrew man- Abraham

in Genesis 15 God speaks to Abram in a dream

listen to what God tell’s Abraham in Genesis 15:12-14 “As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.”

God spoke to Abraham in a dream and told him that his offspring would be enslaved in a land that wasn’t their own for 400 years. But in the end they would come out of the slavery with great riches and into their own land.

Abraham had a son named Isaac, and Isaac had a son named Jacob- Jacob had 12 sons- which became the the 12 tribes of Israel.

Because of a famine in their own land Jacob took his entire family which included all 12 of his sons and their families totally about 70 people down to Egypt to live because there was plenty of food and water in this region at the time.

This is exactly what God had told Abraham would happen to his descendants- His family would live in a land that was not their own.

The bible says that God blessed them and their numbers increased from the 70 people who went to Egypt to over 4 million at the time of the exodus. they were no longer a small group of foreigners living in a small corner of the country but had become a great population on their own.

Pharoah understanding that the Israelites now outnumbered the Egyptians and in fear of the Jews overtaking the power he Forced them into hard labor, to try and keep them under his control.

This is exactly what God had told Abraham would happen to his descendants- they would be afflicted by the country they lived in.

Many years later, when their number had grown to millions, the Egyptian King (or Pharaoh) began to see them as a threat and eventually pressed them into slavery.

We do not really know how many years they were slaves But we know that they were in Egypt for over 400 years just as God had told Abraham it would be.

The Hebrews cried out for deliverance- the oppression was getting to great for them to bear, and so God sent them a man named Moses to lead them out of Isreal and into the promised land.

God told moses to Go to Pharaoh as His spokesmen and tell Pharaoh to let My People Go.

Pharaoh refused to listen to God’s demand, and as a result God would send 10 plagues to get Pharaohs attention.

Everyone of these plagues was meant to show that the God of the Hebrews was greater than any of the Egyptian God’s.

It was God’s way of saying that He was the only God and no Egyptian God is above him or equal with him.

and so a cycle began, God would warn Pharaoh to let his people go - and Pharoah would say no- so God would bring a plague, each one targeting another of the Egyptian God’s

First the Nile River was turned to blood- this demonstrated God’s power over the Egyptian God of the Nile

The God sent an astronomical amount of frogs hopping everyone across the land- they were in every nook and cranny inside the homes in everyones beds, and outside. there was no escape-

this was an attack on the the Egyptian God of Fertility who had the head of a frog

this was followed by swarms of gnats coming up from the earth- ( I hate gnats- thew crawl in my ears, up my nose land on my eyes, they are one of the most annoying things I can think of outside-

God didn't just send a few gnats they were everywhere .

God was showing his power over the Egyptian god of the earth.

If gnats were not enough - God now sends swarms of flies showing his power over the god of rebirth- who had the head of a fly.

Again Pharaoh refused to listen to God -so God struck the Egyptians cattle and they all died.- this was an attack on the God of Love who who had the head of a cow.

so now we have a river of blood, dead frogs, piles and piles of gnats and flies, and dead cows rotting all over the land- I don’t think I could have stopped throwing up from the smell that had to be filling the air with because of all these decaying corpses.

God was not done- pharaoh still refused to listen

God sent festering boils to torment the people- their bodies were completely covered from the bottom of their feet to the tops of their head with boils- God was showing his power over the Egyptian God of medicine and peace-

Then a massive Hail storm covered all of egypt and destroyed much of their crops- God showed that he was more powerful then the Egyptians God of the sky- Because he made the sky obey him.

and what the hail did not destroy God sent swarms of locust like a storm across the land to devour everything that was left. This demonstrated his power over the God of storms and disaster.

Finally God attacked the Egyptian god of the sun Ra- and caused darkness to fall on all of the Egyptian land.

God sent 9 plagues to prove he was the one and only God- and yet pharoah still did not listen and let God’s people go. In fact, the story tells us that in the midst of these plagues he oppressed and abused the Hebrews even more out of anger.

But God was not done- He had one more plague that would sweep the land-

This last plaque was the most devastating of all the plagues.

God in all of His justice was going to judge the people’s disobedience. Whether they were hebrews or Egyptians.

But God is also a god of Mercy- providing aw ay of escape,

if the people did not do what God was about to ask then they would fall under this judgement for their disobedience, and there was no way of escape

But if they obeyed- God would rescue them.

Exodus 11:1-7

“The Lord said to Moses, “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. Speak now in the hearing of the people, that they ask, every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor, for silver and gold jewelry.” And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and in the sight of the people. So Moses said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle. There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again. But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.’

God instructs the Hebrew people to ask all of their Egyptian friends and neighbors for Gold and silver Jewelry because he has made them favorable in the sight of their neighbors.

So here the Hebrews go around their communities and the Egyptians like them so much that they just give them an abundance of silver and gold and precious jewels,

How cool is that- Even in the midst of all their bondage- God is still working his plan for their future. They are about to leave Egypt but God is not just allowing them to escape is is sending them out with wealth unknown.

God then tells His people that at midnight the angel of death will come to all the land and will kill the first born son of every family.

understand this morning that this was the ultimate attack on the Pharaoh by God because there was no greater god to the Egyptians than Pharaoh himself, and what God was about to do was to destroy the next heir in Pharaohs blood line.

God was about to demonstrate to the world that there is no other god greater than himself, even the Pharaoh of Egypt.

So now the stage is set for the first passover event to happen.

Take a lamb (12:1-2)

The Lord told moses and Aaron to tell the whole community that.....In the tenth day of this month they each must take a lamb for themselves according to their families—a lamb for each household.

Every Hebrew family was to take one of their lambs but this needed to be a special lamb

a Male without blemish

verse 5 says “ Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. “

God wanted a perfect sacrifice one without blemish one without any spots of imperfection.

Kill the lamb at the appointed time

v.6 “and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.”

Do not break any of the bones

v 46 “46 It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones”

Apply the blood of the lamb to the door posts and the lintel

vs:7 “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.

Stay inside the house until morning

v22 “None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning.”

I WILL PASS OVER

vs. 12-13 For 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. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.”

When God came and judged Egypt by killing the firstborns, any house that had the blood on the doorway he would pass over and they would not experience the judgment from the lord.

Ex 12:28 “Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.”

Their obedience was outward evidence of their internal Faith in God.

They were freed from judgement because they trusted in God.

the first passover was a devastating blow to the Egyptian world. God had come in and judged the people . and the only ones who did not experience this judgement where the ones who had faith in God and obeyed with their actions.

The First Passover was When God passed over the firstborn it was because judgement had already fallen on the sacrificial lamb. The lamb’s blood paid the price of the debt for the first born.

It was the substitution- it died so that another could live.

Remember what God told Abraham back in Genesis 15- Verse slide)

God did what he said he would do Abrahams descendants went to Egypt and were enslaved and afflicted for 400 years, and then through the sacrificial lamb the judgement upon Egypt passed over Isreal and they left Israel with the wealth of Egypt.

God did what He said he would do.

Transition; God was beginning to set the stage for the final passover that would almost 1700 years later. But until that final Passover would come to pass, God wanted his people to remember what he had done for them

The Symbolic Passover- Exodus 12

After the hebrews left Egypt God told his people to always remember the day that judgement was passed over because of the blood of the lamb.

Listen to His instructions about the Passover that He gave to Israel.

Numbers 9:1-5 “And the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying, “Let the people of Israel keep the Passover at its appointed time. On the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight, you shall keep it at its appointed time; according to all its statutes and all its rules you shall keep it.” So Moses told the people of Israel that they should keep the Passover. And they kept the Passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, in the wilderness of Sinai; according to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so the people of Israel did.”

The festival of Passover commemorated the night when the angel of death ‘passed over’ the homes that obeyed God and put the blood of the spotless lamb on their doorways as a substitute for the life of their first born son.

When the Jews escaped from Egypt the Passover was immediately followed by the seven-day Festival of Unleavened Bread

This symbolic festival was so that God’s people would Remember that He provided a way of redemption for those under Condemnation.

It was a time for all of Israel to remember that God in his mercy provided a way of escape, and all that anyone needed to do was to believe that God would do what He said he would do and then act upon those beliefs.

For 1700 years God’s chosen people- the Israelites - would remember this first passover.

But the story of the passover is so much greater than this event in Egypt. God had an even great passover sacrifice in-store for not just the jews -but for all mankind.

Transition: let’s look together at God’s FINAL Passover Lamb.

The Final Passover

- John 1:29 “The next dayJohn saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

John in this text declares Jesus as the sacrificial lamb that will be the substitute sacrificae for all of mankind.

Remember the requirements for the passover lamb

it must be a male

Matthew 1:21 speaking of Mary- “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.””

Jesus came to earth and was born as a baby boy

It must be Spotless without any Blemish

1 Peter 2:22 “Jesus committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.”

HEbrews 4:15 “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

1 John 3:5 “You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.”

Jesus came to this earth with one purpose and that was to be the sacrificial lamb for you, because there is no other option than for a perfect substitute, but the problem is that there is no other perfect substitute other than God himself. and so He came and lived perfectly without the spot or blemish of sin in his life.

It must be killed at the appointed time

Romans 5:6 “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.”

what wasnt by chance that jesus died when he did- it was at the exact moment God had appointed for Jesus to die as the sacrificial lamb

You must not break any of its bones

When a convict is hung on a cross the the normal roman practice was to break their legs so that they would die quickly.

but when Jesus hung on the cross as the sacrificial lamb- the soldiers instead of breaking his legs took their sword and stabbed him in his side.

this wasn’t by chance , but by according to God’s Soverign plan.

John 19:36-37 “For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.” And again another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.”

Finally,

Ithe Lambs blood is what brings Passsover to the recipient.

Jesus came to earth as a baby boy and grew into man.

The passover lamb had one purpose to be killed, dying in the place of another.

Jesus as the lamb of God died in your place. He shed his blood so that you can have passover from the condemnation that is upon you because of your debt of sin

Romans 5:8 “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

The passover lamb’s blood was applied to the door post of the house, marking the home as having the debt paid in full.

Hebrews 9:22 “ without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”

just like the firstborns in Egypt ,God everyone of us have been condemned to die because of our sin.

The only way the firstborns escaped their condemnation was through the blood of an innocent sacrifice.

The only way we can ever escape the eternal judgement we face is through the blood of the innocent sacrifice of Jesus .

Hebrews 9:14 “how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

Eph. 1:7 “In Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,”

Grace is God giving us what we don’t deserve.

He has given us a perfect sacrificial substitutionary lamb to take our place and pay our debt for our sins.

Jesus Christ is the Final passover lamb.

God has provided a way for His judgement to Passover you.

But we must act upon this truth

when you have faith in Jesus - His blood covers the door post of your heart. God no longer sees your sinfulness but the blood ofJesus that covers you, and the judgement that you deserve for your sin is no longer on your account but rest in the completed work of Jesus on the cross.

Believe in Jesus:

Think what would have happened if a Hebrew man back in Egypt would have thought to himself, This all seems crazy, They want me to kill my best lamb, my prize possession, I have a crippled lamb that could do the same thing, its blood is just as red as the other. This will do just fine.

Or what if the teenagers decided this whole curfew thing of staying inside all night is just silly and snuck out to hang with heir friends.

They may have even done these things with the best intentions, they may have done most of what God asked them to do , but the realty was, that if they disobeyed God’s instructions in anyway - the angel of death would not have passed over their house, and the judgment of the first born would have still been on his shoulders.

In the same way- God has given us clear instructions in order for us to be passed over.

The only way for your eternal judgement of sin to be passed over is through the blood of the perfect sacrificial lamb Jesus

nothing else will satisfy the debt you owe.

Nothing else will meet the demands from God.

The angel of death will come to you looking for payment of your sins in full.

THE Final PASSOVER was 2000 years ago when Death passed over mankind because their debt of sin t was paid in FULL by the blood of Christ the Sacrifical Lamb of God.

Bring it Home

In our passage in John chapter 2

jesus walks into the temple and sees that the people have made the passover more about them and not about God.

For the salesmen it was about making money

For the priest is was about getting more in tithes and power

For the people is was about their convenience - It was easier to just buy a cow or sheep in the temple than to have to bring a spotless one of their own.

Jesus was angry because the people were robbing God of the glory he deserved.

they had forget what God did for them at the first passover when he provided a way of escape through the shedding of innocent blood.

he understood that this yearly festival was meant not only to be are membrane what had happened in Egypt - but he also knew that is was a picture of himself as the lamb of God who would be the substitute sacrifice for the sins of all the world.

So Christ did have righteous anger- Christ was angry because man was sinning against the holy God, they had taken what was holy and made it about them selfs. They had forgotten the PASSOVER IN THEIR LIVES.

Close: as we wrap up today I want you to think about the passover in your life.

Have you as a redeemed child of God forget what the passover lamb did for you.

1 Corinthians 5:7 speaking to the church says “Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.”

What the apostle Paul is saying is Get rid of the sin in your life because you are no longer in sin but are now Holy in Christ..

If you are a believer this morning than Your debt of sin has been paid in full. Christ, our passover lamb has ben Sacrificed - - His blood has covered the door post of your heart and it is sufficient when it comes to the payment of God’s eternal judgement of your sin.

If you have never accepted Jesus as your passover lamb- you are as a first born in Egypt. you will face the eternal judgement of God, which is death - eternal seperation from Him forever in hell.

Don’t take another breath before you accept Jesus as your sacrificial passover lamb.

If you have accepted Jesus as your passover lamb- don’t be like the Jewish people in the temple living for your own gain.. Don’t rob God of His glory He deserves.

Get rid of the sins in your life because you are no longer under sin but in Christ- the Passover Lamb of God has paid your debt in full so lets act like it

Let us as a church REMEMBER the finished work of our Passover Lamb- Jesus Christ

PRAY