Week 4: The Passover (Exodus 12) Discussion Questions

Transcription

1 Week 4: The Passover (Exodus 12) Discussion Questions 1. Share with the group anything new you learned from Sunday s sermon on the Passover. 2. Why did God require a mark on the door? Didn t he know where the Israelites lived? Explore the significance of it with reference to what Mark shared in the sermon. 3. What is the much more serious slavery, than the Israelites knew in Egypt. See Romans 6:11-18 (or the entire chapter). The Lamb explained read 11:4-8 (and maybe 4:22-23) 4. Why did God strike the firstborn in Egypt? 5. Every Israelite first born would be able say I am alive because a lamb died. And all the people of Israel could say we are set free now because a lamb died. Discuss the beautiful parallel with our own situation. 6. A friend asks you what Jesus death means to you. How do you answer simply and succinctly? The Lamb remembered 7. Why was this rescue to become such a defining moment for Israel? 8. Why was it to be remembered in the annual feast of the Passover? 9. Why were the Israelites to dedicate their firstborn Son to God? (13:1-2) The Lamb fulfilled Extra reading: John 1:29; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8; Revelation 5: It what ways was the Passover a sign to point forward to Jesus and our rescue? What were the similarities and differences of the two rescues? 11. If someone was to ask you why do we have bread and wine regularly at church?, how would you explain the Lord s Supper? 12. What is one thing that the Lord s Supper or Holy Communion cannot be? See Hebrews 7:27; Hebrews 10: What conversation might transpire if you were to say to someone on New Year s Eve, Wow 2014! Two thousand and fourteen years since what?

2 Exodus # 4 The God who rescues The Passover Exodus 12 The Lamb explained The Lamb remembered The Lamb fulfilled * I want to acknowledge the help and inspiration that a sermon on this passage by the Reverend Simon Manchester was to me as I prepared. Mark. We come this morning to the very famous story of the Passover... when God passed through the Egyptians that was dreadful and deadly God passed over Israel and that was wonderful and saving Lots of films made on this... not all of them accurate! Spielberg film The Prince of Egypt happy to have a mark on the door but no it wasn t just a mark it wasn t as if God needed a mark so he knew where his people were but it was to be a lamb s blood... Why? so that the people of Israel would get a lesson in why and how there were being spared. Why were they being spared? Because there was a death that would save them. It was a lamb s death that would save them that s why they were being spared. They were going to be spared but a lamb would not be spared and when God saw that they had received his gracious provision for them and taken the lamb and applied the blood, he passed over their house, and they escaped not only from God s judgement but from Egypt. As we come to the subject I want to remind you that it s possible to make some mistakes as we study the Passover. One is to imagine that the Israelites were a bunch of really nice people innocent almost perfect struggling and deserving to be delivered from Egypt. But they not an innocent people and the lamb shedding the blood for them is the proof they needed to be rescued, delivered, spared from God s judgement Another mistake is to look back to the old story and have a quaint pity for them it was a long time ago and they are chained and enslaved but we of course are smart and sophisticated and completely free. But nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus said the most serious slavery in the world is to be one who sins, and if you sin, you re a slave to sin... you re stuck to it, you re guilty because of it;

3 you re doomed because of it and there is a slavery which is much more serious than physical and outward slavery it s inward and eternal. We mustn t study Exodus and think of it only as history lesson, but a personal lesson There is something more serious than slavery in Egypt and it s slavery to sin and there s something more wonderful than rescue from Egypt and that s rescue from sin So we want to look this morning at: The lamb explained The lamb remembered The lamb fulfilled 1. THE LAMB EXPLAINED 9 disasters were to teach the Egyptians that they should not mess with God and now the 10th disaster or plague is coming. 11:4-8 So Moses said, "This is what the LORD says: 'About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. 5 Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. 6 There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt--worse than there has ever been or ever will be again. 7 But among the Israelites not a dog will bark at any man or animal.' Then you will know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. 8 All these officials of yours will come to me, bowing down before me and saying, 'Go, you and all the people who follow you!' This final plague is going to really force Pharaoh s hand and it s going to be so big it will actually restructure the calendar of Israel. 12:2 from now on the first month of the year will be the month they remember the Passover. The whole calendar will be restructured around this event. Why is God going to strike down the first born? The first born in Scripture means the heir. The inheritor. The one who will cause the future to take place. And Pharaoh has been messing with God s firstborn Israel. His people. Pharaoh has been preventing God s plans for his people. Ch. 4:22 say to Pharaoh, This is what the LORD says: Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I told you, Let my son go, so that he may worship me. But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son. This isn t God being childish or revengeful what he s doing here is teaching the world that God cannot be mocked he cannot be messed with that his plans revolve around his people and they cannot be stopped. Everyone in Israel and Egypt and the whole world will see that if you turn your back on God your future is hopeless... but if you turn to God and put your trust in him, you have a future. So the only way for the Israelites to escape the judgment of God was to take the lamb or even a little goat... four days later it was to be killed, the blood was to put on the door frames, then they would eat the meat and leave nothing left over, which I take it was to kill off any temptations to be idolatrous towards the meat or superstitious toward the meat. And the point is the Lamb will be a substitute for the first born. The oldest son in every Israelite home will not die. And the people, who are God s firstborn, will be pushed out of Egypt.

4 Now do you notice that every single house in Egypt is going to have a death in it? But in the Egyptian houses the death will be a son. And in the Israelite houses, the death will be a lamb. And in the Israelites houses every first born son will get up and say I am alive because a lamb died. And all the people of Israel will say we are set free now to leave Egypt and go to the Promised Land because a lamb died. Does that sound at all familiar? John the Baptist said when he first saw Jesus behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world... We Christians are alive now because Jesus the Lamb died. We are set free because the Lamb died in our place. We talk a lot about grace; God is gracious, he extends his grace to us; we are saved by grace, we live by grace, we live under his grace... but it all has to be paid for. Jesus paid the price. His grace is grounded in sacrifice. He took the death, so we get the life. He took the separation, so we get the restoration. Israelites were learning as they killed the lamb and put the blood on the door that all the blessings of God are going to come to us because this blood was shed. And when we understand what Jesus has done we learn that all the blessings of God are going to come to us, because Jesus blood was shed! God s grace is grounded in sacrifice. 2. THE LAMB REMEMBERED God said he would come through the land of Egypt and strike down the first born and he did... and this sword of justice came down and there was this tremendous wailing which went up from the Egyptians... dreadful dreadful... wailing wherever God was rejected but wherever God was heeded it was a silent night... That was the original evening. The original Passover. Never to be repeated. Taking the lamb, putting the blood on the door... never to be repeated. It was a one-off rescue. But every year after that the first month of the year there was to an annual Passover memorial to remember the rescue. Not to repeat the rescue but to remember the rescue. We know as a nation what it means to remember key moments in the nation s history and we do by annual events... Australia Day; Anzac Day, Labour Day, Remembrance Day... all designed that we may never forget... Well the Passover was to be remembered by a weeklong festival; by a retelling of the story; by symbols which would remind them of the key moments eg they were to use bread made without yeast, and that would be a permanent memorial to them of the night where they had bread without yeast because they were hurrying to get out......and by that remembrance they would be humbled, they would be thankful and their very souls would be fed at the reminder of God s goodness to them of which they were completely undeserving. This rescue was their defining moment as a nation, as a people. It was forever part of their identity we are the people whom God brought out of Egypt. Forever part of how they understood God. Our God is a rescuing God he brought us up out of Egypt with a mighty hand!

5 Forever how God was understood by other nations the God who brought his people up out of Egypt. Remembering the rescue was then built in to the calendar that they may never forget never forget 3. THE LAMB FULFILLED 12:41 God s people left Egypt. Pharaoh basically pushed them out. And as they left Egypt it had been 430 years since they d been there. And there was going to be Passover v43 and 13:1 there was also going to be a regular consecrating and dedication of the first born son. Why would they dedicate the first boy of the family to God? Because they would remember that their firstborn had been spared in Egypt and the firstborn of the Egyptians had not been spared... and they would give thanks to God for rescue. So the feast and the dedication a double reminder. Now friends this was all very significant for the Jews... and still is among orthodox Jews today they still celebrate it......but we Christians know it to be well, yes significant in and of itself but also a very large and significant SIGN... pointing forward to our salvation through the Lord Jesus... And we know this to be the case not only due to the references in John and Revelation to Jesus as the Lamb of God and worshipping the Lamb and the Lamb who was slain......but we also know it from the way Jesus himself radically transformed the Passover... So as Jesus ate the Passover meal with his disciples... and I want to remind you that this Passover meal had now been operating for 1500 years roughly... as they re sitting around experiencing the Passover meal, Jesus does something absolute astonishing... and absolutely unbelievable. He just simply changes the words Now the Lord s Supper which we re going to share in a few minutes this morning has been operating for 2000 years. Can you imagine Adam getting up and deciding he s just going to change the words? And can you imagine if he s not only going to change the words but he s going to change the focus so that it s all about him. Unbelievable! But that s what Jesus does at this Passover or for him the last supper. He knows that the Passover is a memorial to escaping Egypt. He also knows that is a signpost to himself. He knows that he is the final Lamb. And instead of picking up the Passover bread and saying the familiar words of the Passover he says to them this is my body... This is my blood. God had said to the Israelites you re to do this every year it s to be an everlasting memorial and Jesus comes in and says I m changing it. It s about me. Jesus is saying at the last supper, I want you to remember my death. There was a lamb who died in Egypt yes. That was a shadow. My death is the reality. That lamb that died in Egypt that got the Israelites out of Egypt. My death will get you out of sin and separation and hell itself. Your freedom says Jesus is going to rest on my sacrifice.

6 So when Jesus said to them at the table take the bread and take the cup - he said something extremely significant. Israel didn t escape judgement because they were working harder or because they knew more about God or because they were more pious or because they went to church. Israel escaped judgement because they took the lamb and took the blood and spread it etc. None of us will be saved or forgiven and go to the new creation because we re working harder or because we know more about God or because we re more pious or because we go to church. It s because we ve taken hold of Jesus as our Saviour... Like getting caught in the rip you take hold of the surf life saver s board... Like being rescued in the flood, you take hold of the harness let down by the helicopter We take hold of Jesus as the only way... And when we hold out our empty hand to take bread and wine it s a reminder that we bring nothing... We take the bread, we take the wine as a reminder we have taken hold of Jesus. The key to salvation, the key to Christianity, the key to eternal life, the key to going to heaven is that you take Christ. That means there has come a point where you lift up your voice to God and you say to him if you re the Saviour of the world Jesus Christ, I want to take you to be my Saviour. I want to take you to be my Lord. I want to receive you. I don t have anything to give you except my sin. I want to take you. And just as the Passover celebration could never be a repeat of that first Passover but was a memorial of it... a celebration of it... to remember it - not to repeat the rescue but to remember the rescue....so communion is not a repeat of Jesus sacrifice... it could never be that... it is to remember Jesus sacrifice. Sometimes I hear people say that they ve been to another church - a church of another denomination and they ll say the words were much the same... Well there are similarities... but there are some churches who believe that the communion is itself a sacrifice for sin... and they ll hold a communion for someone who s died as if the communion there and then is going to deal with their sin Only the original sacrifice of Jesus made once for all upon the cross... our liturgy says can deal with sin... and at our communion we remember and we say thank you!... and by that remembrance we are humbled, we are thankful and our very souls are fed at the reminder of God s goodness to us of which we are completely undeserving. You see God s rescue of us through the Lord Jesus is our defining moment as his people. The only reason we are his people is because of Jesus sacrificial rescue. It s forever to be part of how we understand our God. Our God is a rescuing God he brought us from slavery to sin in to a freedom to serve him; he brought us from death to live; from darkness to light... And remembering the rescue is now built into our calendar weekly or monthly that we may never forget... never forget... My great hope is that communion never becomes mere ritual... that it s always something that draws us closer that it s rich and real... not empty words... that its humbling and thrilling...

7 Well that final plague this great rescue - was going to be so big, it actually restructured the calendar! imagine that! Mmm Our rescue... through the Lord Jesus so big so significant so wonderful... it actually restructured the calendar... Wouldn t it be interesting on New Year s Eve this year... coming up to and you re at a party and you simply say to your friend next to you gee 2014 years since WHAT!!?? I ll hope you ll go home this morning... knowing how great a rescue has been bought for you.. That God s grace to you was at the price of his Son s sacrifice... And that this memorial we re about to share... we can never repeat that sacrifice... but it is designed that we always remember that one perfect and sufficient sacrifice... and never forget never forget And if you ve taken hold of Christ... then you ve taken hold of life and you re free today free from sin and death and free to worship... Our heavenly Father, we want to thank you for sending the Lord Jesus to live and die and rise for people like us who are not worthy... and for bringing us the good news of Jesus life, death, and resurrection so that we might take hold of him and be rescued forever. We pray that you would fill us with the joy of the gospel. We pray that you would fill us with the peace of the gospel. And we pray that you would also fill us with the love for the gospel and words to say, so that many others might know that you are great and gracious and we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.