Podcasts about at passover

At Passover, we gather with friends and family to retell the story of Israel’s swift exodus from Egypt. It is God’s redemption story, sparing His people from the Egyptian plagues and ultimately delivering them from slavery and death. Rich Freeman of Chosen People Ministries will join Tuesday’s Mornings with Eric and Brigitte to discuss ways to honor Jesus as the Passover Lamb. https://chosenpeople.com/event/virtual-messiah-in-the-passover/Donate to Moody Radio: http://moodyradio.org/donateto/morningshow/wrmbSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At the Last Supper, we see Jesus changing the liturgy of Passover. At Passover, the 4 cups represent the four promises of Jesus in Exodus 6:6-7. Today, we see that through His suffering and death we see the fulfillment of the  4th cup 

By Rick Shabi in Cincinnati East, OH - April 13, 2024 - Youtube Link for Video: (https://youtu.be/vQcrsPzvbAI) Proper, "in a worthy manner" Passover observance requires self-examination, acknowledgment of and repentance from areas in which we have strayed from God. God has in mind for us a purpose, and when we commit to Him we submit to His will and direction, serving Him diligently. At Passover, we recognize and recommit ourselves to God, but there must be diligent "discerning of His body" that precedes that. How do we do that so we are ready to come before Him in a "worthy manner?"

At Passover, Jesus gathered his followers and spelled out a new relational arrangement between God and humankind: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” But Jesus wasn't celebratory. He seemed troubled. Initiating this new covenant with God would require sacrifice. What came next would confuse his followers and send them scattering.THE BIG IDEA: When Jesus died, everybody unfollowed and everybody unbelieved.

At Passover, Jesus enters the Temple complex and immediately flies into a rage, whipping the moneychangers and merchants, dumping their boxes of money, and overturning their tables. How does this angry outburst fit with your conception of Jesus? Why did he do what he did? And what does this story teach us about both the nature of the Temple and the purpose of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection?

Parshat Shemini:  Passover, Leaven, and Kosher Food  -  English only.  At Passover, we are commanded to abstain from leaven and to eat unleavened bread.  If leaven represents pride and sin, why then can we eat it at other times of the year?  Perhaps understanding this can help us understand the laws of Kosher!  Recorded April 15, 2023.

Passover:  Why Is There a Bone on The Seder Plate?  -  English only. At Passover, we place a shank bone of a lamb on our Seder plate. The meaning behind this symbol is extraordinary.  April 10, 2023.

1 Corinthians 11:17-33 How we handle the Lord's Table matters. At Passover they ate to remember when they did not die.  At The Lord's Table we eat to remember when He did. Eat Clean

I Corinthians 11:17-33 How we handle the Lord's Table Matters. At Passover they ate to remember when they did not die.  At The Lord's Table we eat to remember when He did.

Understanding the prophetic significance of the Counting Down of the Omer prepares you for the coming change and any attacks by the enemy intended to cause division during this season. During this 50-day period between Passover and Shavuot, the Lord's desire is to balance your emotions so you can embrace the coming changes. At Passover, you received a word from the Lord. Trials and tribulations come, and you begin to doubt the word. The Bible says that the enemy comes for the word's sake. “and they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word's sake, immediately they stumble.”—Mark 4:17 In this podcast, Rabbi Curt Landry reveals the prophetic significance of the Counting down of the Omer, why the attacks are intensified during this time, and how to walk by the Spirit when trials and tribulations come.   Be forewarned and forearmed, knowing the Lord has given you all you need to overcome in this hour! *Please note this was recorded before Shavuot, but the principles discussed still apply.

A Sermon for Whitsunday Acts 2:1-11 by William Klock   Last Sunday we recalled the Ascension of Jesus and remembered it's significance—that it offers a powerful visual confirmation of his lordship over creation.  And yet many Christians fail to make that connection.  For many, the ascension just means that Jesus isn't physically present with us anymore.  And I think this has happened because we as the Church have too often neglected to understand the events of Jesus' life and the life of the early Church within the context of the big story of God and his people.  When we do that me miss the deeper significance of pretty much everything.  For the last century or so, Evangelicalism has been dominated by a theological system that understands Jesus' kingdom essentially to be an entirely future reality.  And that leaves the Church spiritually impoverished.  Think of our study of Revelation and themes it stresses: tribulation, perseverance, and kingdom.  But if the kingdom is only a future reality, perseverance in the face of tribulation becomes impossible—or something we must do soley on our own strength.  Now Pentecost.  Something similar has happened with Pentecost.  Not necessarily in the same way, but nevertheless, we've allowed a cheapened view of things to downgrade what Pentecost actually means.  In the case of Pentecost, a lot of Christians have turned it into little more than a personal experience.  And as much as the reality of Pentecost is a personal experience for us as Christians, when that becomes our main focus, we tend to lose the bigger picture, the big picture of redemption. So let's back up to the Ascension for a moment to get some perspective before we head into Pentecost.  Again, the point of the Ascension is that Jesus has taken his throne and that he will reign from there until, as St. Paul says, every last enemy is put under his feet—until every enemy of God and his people, of his kingdom and his new creation has been conquered.  And if Jesus is reigning, that means that his kingdom is here and his kingdom is now—even if its full consummation is still future.  This is what the Old Testament points to throughout its pages.  It's what the New Testament affirms about Jesus and his coming and his mission.  Kings don't take their thrones without their sovereign rule being inaugurated and that's as true of Jesus as it is for earthly kings. As I've thought about this I've come to suspect that one of the major reasons we've missed the reality of God's kingdom is that we haven't fully grasped the mission of the Church—of God's new creation here on earth.  We pray every day, “Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” but we never fully grasp just what we're praying in those words.  And that's what I want to talk about this morning.  And that brings us back to Pentecost.  What's the significance of Pentecost?  Why is Pentecost important? The best place to start is our Epistle from Acts 2 this morning.  St. Luke tells us there of this amazing thing that took place as the Holy Spirit came in a rush of wind and fell on the disciples in something that looked like tongues of fire.  Suddenly they were praising God in other languages.  Jews from all over the empire were there and heard these Galilean men telling of the mighty acts of God in their own languages.  None of these visitors was quite sure what was going on.  Some of them thought the disciples were drunk.  And that's when Peter stood up and gave his first sermon.  He began with Joel's prophecy as he walked the people through the Old Testament and then explained how Jesus, in his death and resurrection and then in his ascension not only fulfilled those prophecies, but how Jesus actually fulfilled Israel's failed mission.  As he says in verse 36, “Therefore let the whole house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” It's an amazing picture Luke gives us, but as we read it we probably missed the really significant little note he gives us right at the beginning.  In verse 1 Luke begins by telling us that all this happened “when the day of Pentecost arrived”.  And we think, “Well, of course…this is why we refer to that day as Pentecost!”  What a lot of people don't realise is that it wasn't Luke or the Church that decided to call that day Pentecost.  That day was already called Pentecost.  That's what the Greek-speaking Jews called the day fifty days after Passover—“pente”, “fifty”.  In Hebrew it was called the Feast of Weeks—specifically, seven weeks after Passover.  And the connection between this Jewish festival and what happened on that day Luke tells us in Acts when the Spirit descended on the disciples is important. Passover and Pentecost go all the way back to the beginning of Israel's story in the Exodus.  Remember back to the first Passover.  The Lord sent his angel to take the lives of the firstborn of all Egypt.  But he made a provision to spare the firstborn of Israel.  He gave Moses instructions for the people: Each family was to slaughter a lamb.  They were to eat the lamb and they were to paint its blood on the doorposts of their home.  When the angel of death saw the blood of the sacrificed lamb he would literally “pass over” that home and spare those inside.  The next day the Lord led his people out of their bondage in Egypt.  He rescued them again as he parted the waters of the Red Sea so that they could escape Pharaoh's army and he led them to Mt. Sinai in the wilderness where he gave them his law.  The law he gave to the people through Moses was the charter of his covenant.  To be God's people is to manifest his glory and his faithfulness to the world.  “On earth as in heaven,” as we pray.  That was Israel's calling and it had been ever since the Lord had called Abraham: to be a light to the gentiles so that the nations might know the glory of the Lord and be drawn to him.  The Lord wrote his law on tablets of stone so that Israel would know what to do to fulfil her mission and ministry—that she would know what it is to live in covenant with the Lord.  God rescued his people, leading them in an exodus from their bondage to the Egyptians and on the fiftieth day he met them and gave them his law.  That was the origin of the feast of Pentecost.  And that was its significance for Israel down through the years.  At Passover they remembered how God had rescued them.  Year after year they sacrificed lambs and painted the blood on their doorposts to remind them of the way in which the Lord had saved them.  And every year, fifty days later they commemorated and celebrated the giving of the law that taught them how to live as the Lord's people. All of that's packed into that statement Luke makes in Acts 2:1 about the day of Pentecost having come.  And that points to the meaning of Pentecost as we remember and celebrate it as Christians.  On that last Passover of the Old Covenant era, Jesus went to Jerusalem.  He and his friends ate that age old covenant meal in the upper room, but as they did so, Jesus gave it new significance.  Now the Passover bread was his body.  Now the wine was his blood.  The next day, Jesus gave his body and blood for the sins of his people.  And on that first Easter morning he rose from the grave, not only conquering sin and death, but leading his people in a new exodus.  This time is wasn't an exodus from human slavery, but an exodus from slavery to sin and death and into the new promised land of the long-awaited age to come. For forty days Jesus taught his people from the Law and the Prophets, showing them all these connections.  He gave his people a new mission.  And yet it wasn't a completely new mission.  It was the same mission that Israel had had all along: to manifest the glory of the Lord to the nations and to call them into covenant with him.  But this time the Lord was equipping his people as he never had before.  He had promised through the prophet Ezekiel: “I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them.  I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 11:19).  This is what humanity needed all along.  The law was external—written on stone tablets.  What humanity needed was a new heart, a new life, given and made possible by the indwelling Spirit of God.  And so, at his ascension, Jesus gave his disciples their mission: go out into the world, proclaim the good news—the message that Jesus is Lord, that there is a new and eternal King, make disciples of the nations, and baptise them into the God who loves and redeems his rebellious people.  Once again, “On earth as it is in heaven.”  But this is also why he told them to go to Jerusalem and wait.  The exodus made Israel God's people.  In fact, we see throughout the Old Testament that it was in the Exodus that the Lord adopted Israel and called her his firstborn.  But being adopted is different from being given the tools needed to actually live as part of the family and to carry out the mission. Think about that.  Imagine being adopted into a family, but not being told the house rules or the family expectations.  That was what Israel needed to live the Lord's adoption.  And that's the purpose that the law served when it was given at Sinai.  It was the family rules.  And just so with Jesus' disciples.  Jesus is now the Lord's firstborn.  He has taken Israel's role on himself and as we pass through the waters of baptism in faith—our own Red Sea experience—we are adopted as Jesus' brothers and sisters into the Lord's family.  But we need to be equipped to live as members of the Lord's family.  And so, on the fiftieth day after their exodus, after their rescue from slavery to sin and death, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to his people.  Instead of external tablets of stone, he gave his life-giving and empowering Spirit to breathe life into his sons and daughters that they—that we—might truly live as his people, as his family.  Instead of an external law pointing us to God, God comes to us himself, pours himself into us, and turns our hearts to him.  “On earth as it is in heaven.” That day was a commissioning too.  Pentecost mirrors Jesus' own baptism.  Think back to the beginning of the story of Jesus' ministry.  He was baptised by John and as he came up out of the waters of the Jordan River the Holy Spirit descended on him and the Lord spoke from heaven: This is my beloved Son; in him I am well-pleased.  At Pentecost the Lord did the same thing for the Church.  He sent his Spirit not only to indwell us, but to commission us to carry out the mission that Jesus began.  On Pentecost the Lord declared to his Church, to all those who are in Christ: These are my beloved sons and daughters; in them I am well-pleased.  And as Jesus was sent from his baptism into the wilderness to suffer Satan's harassment and to triumph over him in the power of the Spirit, so from our baptism at Pentecost, the Church is sent out into the wilderness: to charge into the darkness with the light of Christ, to proclaim the good news that Jesus is Lord and that he has conquered sin and death and Satan.  We're not called to go timidly into the world to offer people a new option on the smorgasbord of world religions.  No, we're to charge into the territory of Satan and of Caesar to proclaim that there is a new Lord, that the kingdoms and systems of this old age are coming to an end and that Jesus is Lord.  In Jesus and then in the Church, heaven and earth are coming back together, the fracture caused by our rebellion is being healed, all things are being made new, and this corrupt and broken world is being set to rights under the power and authority of the King.  Our message is one that we should be proclaiming not with timidity and fear, but with power and authority.  Ascension and Pentecost give us the assurance we need that Jesus reigns, that his kingdom is here and now, and that however bad things may look today, he will with absolute certainty subdue every enemy and return on the clouds the conquering king at the end of the age. No matter how bad things look.  No matter how bad things get.  As we've seen in the message of Revealtion, there's no reason to be afraid.  There's no reason not to have confidence in our mission.  Ascension and Pentecost should be reminders of that.  Last week we sang those words of the old hymn “See the Conqueror”:   Thou hast raised our human nature In the clouds to God's right hand There we sit in heavenly places There with Thee in glory stand   Jesus reigns adorned by angels Man with God is on the throne Mighty Lord in Thine ascension We by faith behold our own We by faith behold our own   In his Ascension Jesus gives us assurance.  He in his resurrected and exalted humanity has raised our humanity and this earthly realm to heaven.  That's one half of his final promise to restore heaven and earth.  And Pentecost embodies the other half of the promise: In sending the gift of the Holy Spirit to indwell his people, the Lord has sent heaven to earth.  Humanity has risen to heaven with Jesus and heaven has descended to earth with the Holy Spirit and so we know that heaven and earth cannot remain sundered and separated forever.  One day they will be restored.  All that remains is for Jesus to subdue his enemies. In the meantime, Brothers and Sisters, we the Church have been made the temple of the living God.  Think about what that means.  In the beginning God created a garden temple where he and his people lived in fellowship with each other.  Human beings lived in the presence of God.  Our sin broke that fellowship.  Sin and death drove us from the garden.  Sin and death forced apart earth and heaven.  The tabernacle and the temple were built as models of that garden temple in miniature.  They became the centre of Israel's life, because in the temple God and human beings could find fellowship, even if it was a limited and broken fellowship.  Then Jesus came and he became the temple himself.  In his incarnation he united humanity to God and in giving his Spirit to us, to the Church, the Lord has made us his living temple.  In us, thanks to Pentecost, God is made known to fallen and broken humanity.  In us the new creation has begun.  And in us the Lord is working to restore his fallen and broken world to himself.  As ancient Israel caught a glimpse of heaven in the temple, so the world is meant to catch a glimpse of heaven in us, in the Church—a view of humanity and God once again set to rights through the mediating work of Jesus. And how do we do that?  Brothers and Sisters, just as Israel was given a new set of “family rules” to show her how to be light in the darkness, we as God's new Israel have been given the same.  Not a legalistic set of dos and don'ts—although it does certainly involve that—but a call to live the law of love exemplified first in the Lord's relationship with Israel and then brought to full fruit in the ministry of Jesus.  We're called to manifest faith and to manifest hope and, most of all, to manifest love to a world with no faith and no hope, to a world filled with fear and hate.  We're called to live out the manifesto, the charter given by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount: hungering and thirsting for righteousness, showing mercy, making peace.  We're called to show the world that Jesus has given us a new way of living.  In fact, it's not a new way.  It's the old way that was lost when we fell into rebellion and sin, but now it's back and it's possible because this time it's not just a set of rules carved on stone; it's a new being and a new life imparted to our hearts by the very Spirit of God living in us and giving us his new life. Brothers and Sisters, there's an awful tendency to forget all of this when we turn Pentecost into a private experience as often happens.  Pentecost is about the people of God being equipped by the Spirit to live as his people, not just privately, but publicly—not for the sake of ourselves, but for the sake of the world.  Pentecost is about the Spirit bearing fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, it's about the people of God being changed and renewed in our hearts that we might proclaim that Jesus is Lord.  And we do all this as heralds of his kingdom, proclaiming its good news.  That's the idea of “gospel” or “good news”.  The New Testament brings together two meanings in that word meaning “good news”.  For the Jews “good news” brought to mind the language of Isaiah.  “Good news” meant a messenger coming to a people languishing in exile; a messenger sent to tell them that their enemies had been defeated and that the Lord had returned to Zion.  To Greeks and Romans, “good news” brought to mind an imperial herald, sent to the far reaches of the empire with the message that a new Caesar had ascended to the throne.  In Jesus both of those meanings are brought together.  In Jesus we have a new and eternal King; in Jesus the Lord has returned to Zion to dwell in the midst of his people.  The power of Pentecost is the power and life of the Spirit given to us to proclaim his kingdom and to live it before the eyes of the world.  “On earth as it is in heaven.” Let us pray: O God, who on this day taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Passover  Part 7:  A Celebration of Life  -  English only.  At Passover, we remember that we were slaves in Egypt.  Yet this feast represents something even more fundamental!  This is a message that we all should hear before we sit down at the Passover seder!  This is a rebroadcast of a March 15, 2003 sermon from our archives.

Passover  Part 5:   Removing Leaven  -  English only.  At Passover, we're commanded to remove all chametz, all leaven, from our homes. Yet we can eat leaven the rest of the year. Why is it forbidden at times but allowed at other times? Perhaps what appears to be an inconsistency, can help us recognize a spiritual principle about what it means to remove the leaven.  This is a rebroadcast of a March 23, 2002 sermon from our archives.

Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying: "You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth." So far in looking at this chapter, we have talked about how we should worship the Lord Jesus Christ because of Who He is (vv.5-7). He is the Lion of Judah, the root of David and the Lamb that had been slain. Yesterday we talked about how we should worship Him for where He is (vv. 6-10). He is in heaven “in the midst of the throne”! Today, we want to discuss how we should worship Jesus because of what He does (vv. 8-10). When John saw the Lamb come and take the scroll, the weeping ended and the praising began. Daniel in his vision in Daniel 7:13-14 saw it this way: "I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him. Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom the one Which shall not be destroyed.” God's people and the representatives of God's creation joined their voices in a new song of praise. Note that praise and prayer were united, for incense is a picture of prayer rising to the throne of God (Ps. 141:2; Luke 1:10). We will talk about the "incense prayers" of the saints again in Revelation 6:9-11 and 8:1-6. What kind of song did they sing? To begin with, it was a worship hymn, for they said, "You art worthy!" To worship means "to ascribe worth," and Jesus alone is worthy. Today, far too many contemporary songs are "I" centered rather than "Christ" centered. They so emphasize the believer's experience that they almost ignore the Lord's glory. Certainly there is a place for that kind of song, but nothing can compare with adoring Christ in spiritual worship. We should never forget the praise hymns like Holy, Holy, Holy. But this song they sang was also a Gospel song! "For You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood ". The word translated slain means "violently slain" (Rev. 5:6). Literally it pictures a lamb "cut in the throat for a sacrifice." Heaven will be singing about the Cross and the blood for all eternity! Years ago I read about a denomination that revised its official hymnal and removed all songs about the blood of Christ. That hymnal could never be used in heaven, because there they glorify the Lamb slain for the sins of the world. “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins” (Hebrews 9:22). In Genesis 22, when Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac, the Angel of the LORD stopped him and showed him a ram caught in a thicket nearby and it was substituted for Isaac, which is a beautiful picture of Christ giving His life for the individual. At Passover in the Old Testament, the lamb was slain for each family (Exodus 12:3). Isaiah states that Jesus died for the nation of Israel (Isa. 53:8; John 11:49-52). John the Baptist affirmed that the Lamb died for the whole world!(John 1:29) The more we meditate on the power and scope of Christ's work on the cross, the more humbled and worshipful we should become. Yes, heaven's song will be worshipful and center on the wonderful Gospel message! May the Lord help us to praise Him in our songs in this way even now as we worship Him! God Bless!

If you enjoyed this show send $1 on cashapp to $lovesharnae “Purge” Passover the true story of Sharnae. Season: Passover Easter scene: Easter egg hunt. Characters: gruesomely slaughtered. Mystery: the audience never sees the adults. Blind Visual: the children have been recording. There will be a trial at bedtime. “We will save ourselves. Mark the Red Cross on the door” sound effects digital mastered from “nobody sleeps in the woods tonight” Sound effects: precise audio clarity tone:classic screeching in the night scratching of branches against the window, the sound of wood creaking under your feet. Glass breaking More Details: children start whispering. They are in the grass looking for Easter eggs. The grass is tall light and breezy the sky is a masterpiece. Once in a lifetime scenery. The child says “parents touching kids” the grass starts to whisper an echo of every word. Across the field the breeze carried those words “cops kidnapping children” the sun got brighter. The glitter and paint shines in the light. Children are finding the treats. The wind turns in the other direction. “Us Marshall's held the kids hostage from Ohio and atlanta” the grass becomes stiff and tall. The children laugh harder. the wind sings “pedophiles bribed the magistrate” the grass goes flat. You hear the tiniest voice by the basket say “tonight we kill the parents” “when the sun sets, the moon will passover” prepare today. At Passover we will purge them all to ensure the safety of all children. “Load up the yacht , grab all the pets, we leave for new land after the last blood drop” the wolves will shed their sheep skin and show their true self. That's when we purge all the adults. They all must go and we will start fresh. Noah said “let's build a boat” she gathered all the baskets and they began to break them down. They sang and giggled as the boat grew taller and wider. The grass was a beautiful blanket beneath Noah's arc. Her favorite compass was carefully placed at the nose of this beautiful boat. Moses told noah. We need a vacation. We purge tonight. They will never see it coming. Tonight there will be a tornado in outer space. The weather will mysteriously change. The polar vortex spins at 173 mph. This creates a cold weather affect. This slowed down to 77 mph. This created a warm weather effect. The hole in the ozone began the day me and Billie jeans baby was born. 7.19.1982. Grandma had a albino baby…again. was noah was born on sep 16. Her birth was phenomenal. A miracle was recorded that day. Her spirit left a hole in the universe during zdelivery. Watch offline Available to download Genres Polish, Horror Movies This movie is... Violent, Scary, Dark Audio German, English, Spanish, French, Polish - Audio Description, Polish [Original] Subtitles English, English, Spanish, Polish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese Cast Julia Wieniawa-Narkiewicz Michał Lupa Wiktoria Gąsiewska Stanisław Cywka Sebastian Dela Gabriela Muskała Michał Zbroja Mirosław Zbrojewicz Piotr Cyrwus Olaf Lubaszenko Wojciech Mecwaldowski --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/cqcsos/message

Text: Matthew 16:1-20 Title: Testing, Teaching, & Understanding Reading: Matthew 16:1-20 “for many the demand to follow Jesus to be a disciple is too burdensome. Instead they want to know more about Jesus.” (Stanley Hauerwas) “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:22&23) “like a parent teaching a child not to be led astray by the flashing signs of city advertisements, he warned them of the ‘leaven’ of the Pharisees and Sadducees. This was puzzling to the disciples, who thought Jesus was referring cryptically to the fact that they'd forgotten to bring any bread with them. It is even more puzzling to us, because unless we have grown up knowing something about Judaism we probably don't know what leaven could stand for. The point is this. At Passover, one of the greatest Jewish festivals, all leaven had to be cleared out of the house commemorating the time when the children of Israel left Egypt in such a hurry that they didn't have time to bake leavened bread, and so ate it unleavened. Gradually, ‘leaven’ became a symbol not for something that makes bread more palatable, but for something that makes it less pure. Warning against the ‘leaven’ of someone's teaching meant warning against ways in which the true message of God's kingdom could be corrupted, diluted, or (as we say, referring to drink rather than bread), ‘watered-down’.” (N.T. Wright)  

At Passover, many of you received a word for supernatural healing, favor, and financial increase. You sowed a seed in faith, believing this word will come to pass. As we enter the period between Passover and Shavuot called the “Counting Down of the Omer,” let us remember that it is a time of deep introspection and self-awareness that prepares us for the release of the word. This is a critical period for born-again Believers. During this 50-day window of time, God wants us to get quiet before Him so that He can release an impartation of wisdom and empowerment, equipping us for the next season. Right now, changes are happening in the spiritual realm. The enemy is planning an attack that will cause division. But the Lord wants us to come to Him so that we can balance our emotions. When our emotions are balanced, we can embrace the changes He is making within us, which allows us to withstand the attacks.  During this podcast, Curt Landry explains how to be prepared for the promotion of empowerment that God has for the Body of Christ. The blessings and favors we received at Passover require responsibility. Now it is time for you to receive the balance and impartation that releases knowledge, wisdom, and understanding for favor in the next season.

In this episode, we discuss self-imposed limits. At Passover, God urges us to break free from the idols we've created in our lives, to confront our fears and insecurities, to slaughter the god of the Egyptians and walk out freely from the the Egypts we've built for ourselves. For more content from Charlie, and/or to order Charlie's book Unlocking Greatness, please visit http://www.charlieharary.com

Charlie Harary discusses self-imposed limits. At Passover, God urges us to break free from the idols we've created in our lives, to confront our fears and insecurities, to slaughter the god of the Egyptians, and walk out freely from the Egypts we've built for ourselves.

At Passover time some Greeks sought a meeting with Jesus, the writer of the Gospel of John's hint about the soon coming universality of the Gospel. Jesus seemed to be rather obscure when answering these people's request. However, he was thinking past the immediate and rather focused on his impending death and subsequent resurrection, for our sakes. After this Jews and Gentiles alike would begin to "see Jesus" as he really was/is: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24, NRSV).

At Passover, we clean out leaven from our houses. Is this really necessary? What does God tell us about cleaning out leaven.

An edited excerpt from this week's Temple Talks follows below. Cantor AbelsonWe're going to look at some of the changing faces of Jewish music since I've been here, and from Jayson's perspective, some of the new music coming out of the URJ and Transcontinental Music.When I first got here, 35 years ago, the closing anthem was God in His Holy Temple, accompanied by organ and a choir of professional singers—very different than what we have today. At Passover, we sang Mendelssohn's Elijah every year. We'd sing, “if with all your hearts you truly seek Me.” It was very odd for me at first as I came from a conservative, traditional background, but those were the traditions at Temple Israel, so I followed that. At the time, Rabbi Steven Pinsky was the senior rabbi. He loved having formal classical music performed on Shabbat. Congregational participation was not so much on the charts. No one really sang along. It was up to the Cantor to lead.Over the years we've had lots of talented musicians at Temple: Rabbi Joe Black, Rabbi Sim Glaser, and Rabbi Tobias Moss, among others. We've had quite a musical team and seen a lot of musical change over the years since I've been here.Jayson RodovskyMy experience also mirrors Cantor Abelson's. And so today we will hear various examples of how the music has changed. These are only little snippet excerpts from the original recordings. If you're interested, you can go on the Transcontinental Music Publishing website and hear longer examples. I think you'll hear a shift from the earlier examples to the later ones. We'll be hearing from 1983 until almost today, from a presentational style to a more congregant-participation style, which is a wonderful thing in my mind, that more people can participate directly rather than being passive in the pew—not that we ever threw everything else out. It is nice to have melodies that are more cantorial in style but good to have both options available in our day.****************Welcome to Temple Talks, a new podcast from Temple Israel in Minneapolis, where Jewish wisdom meets our ever-changing world. Join us as we talk with our favorite partners and thought leaders, from around town and around the world. We hope these talks will inspire you, challenge you, and give us all new ideas about Judaism, religious life, and social justice. Join us for services, learning, and community at TempleIsrael.com.

By Randy D'Alessandro in Beloit, WI - February 13, 2021 - At Passover time we examine ourselves. We are told in scripture to be a "living sacrifice" but what does that mean? This sermon answers that question by looking to the meaning of the Old Testament sacrificial system.

Jesus was a force for disruption during his ministry. At Passover he cleared the temple, sent livestock and moneychangers running, and acted like he owned the place. He started baptizing in the Judean countryside, becoming even more popular than John the Baptist. Jesus healed an invalid at pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath, and the religious leaders said you can’t heal on the Sabbath. It drove the religious leaders crazy.   They asked, "Who does he think he is!?"   In response, Jesus gives his first extended discourse in John 5:18-47. Jesus tells us just who he thinks he is…and holds nothing back. This sermon explores the resume of Jesus—experiences, qualifications, and references—that forms that basis for the extravagant claims of deity that he made during His ministry. Is Jesus really the Messiah, the Son of God?   After exploring these claims and Jesus' response, the resounding answer is YES! Our take-aways are two-fold: Jesus is the only one really able to help us. He can, with a word, make us alive again. Jesus is the resurrection and the life that we all need. If Jesus is for us, we have much to be thankful for. If we have heard Jesus’ word, and believed on his name, we will never face him as a judge. We have passed from death to life, and nothing can ever take that away from us.   John 5:18-47   Click here for the sermon Q&A. 

There Came from Heaven Acts 2:1-11 by William Klock Last Sunday we recalled the Ascension of Jesus and remembered it’s significance—that it offers a powerful visual confirmation of his lordship over creation.  Now Pentecost.  Do we understand the significance of Pentecost?  I think that for a lot of Christians, Ascension is little more than a reminder that Jesus isn’t physically present with us anymore.  There’s a whole theological system or movement in Evangelical Christianity that has pushed the reign and kingdom of Jesus into the future and every time I run into one of these people I want to ask: What about the Ascension?  Actually, I’ve done just that and what I find every time is that the significance of the Ascension has never really dawn on them.  And I think something similar has happened with Pentecost.  Not necessarily in the same way, but nevertheless, we’ve allowed a cheapened view of things to downgrade what Pentecost actually means.  In the case of Pentecost, I think what’s happened is that a lot of Christians have turned it into little more than a person experience.  And as much as the reality of Pentecost is a personal experience for us as Christians, when that becomes our main focus, we tend to lose the bigger picture, the big picture of redemption. So let’s back up to the Ascension for a moment to get some perspective before we head into Pentecost.  Again, the point of the Ascension is that Jesus has taken his throne and that he will reign from there until, as St. Paul says, every last enemy is put under his feet—until every enemy of God and his people, of his kingdom and his new creation has been conquered.  And if Jesus is reigning, that means that his kingdom is here and his kingdom is now.  This is what the Old Testament points to throughout its pages.  It’s what the New Testament affirms about Jesus and his coming and his mission.  Now, there’s a big machine out there in Christians TV and publishing that’s figured out you can make a lot of money publishing sensationalist books about the future and they feed Christians a steady diet of theology that says Jesus’ kingdom hasn’t yet come, but the fact that Jesus ascended should tell us otherwise.  King’s don’t take their thrones without their sovereign rule being inaugurated and that’s as true of Jesus as it is for earthly kings. As I’ve thought about this I’ve come to suspect that one of the major reasons we’ve missed the reality of God’s kingdom is that we haven’t fully grasped the mission of the Church—of God’s new creation here on earth.  We pray every day, “Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” but we never fully grasp just what we’re praying in those words.  And that’s what I want to talk about this morning.  And that brings us back to Pentecost.  What’s the significance of Pentecost?  Why is Pentecost important? The best place to start is our Epistle from Acts 2 this morning.  St. Luke tells us there of this amazing thing that took place as the Holy Spirit came in a rush of wind and fell on the disciples in something that looked like tongues of fire.  Suddenly they were praising God in other languages.  Jews from all over the empire were there and heard these Galilean men telling of the mighty acts of God in their own languages.  None of these visitors was quite sure what was going on.  Some of them thought the disciples were drunk.  And that’s when Peter stood up and gave his first sermon.  He began with Joel’s prophecy as he walked the people through the Old Testament and then explained how Jesus, in his death and resurrection and then in his ascension not only fulfilled those prophecies, but how Jesus actually fulfilled Israel’s failed mission.  As he says in verse 36, “Therefore let the whole house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” It’s an amazing picture Luke gives us, but as we read it we probably missed the really significant little note he gives us right at the beginning.  In verse 1 Luke begins by telling us that all this happened “when the day of Pentecost arrived”.  And we think, “Well, of course…this is why we refer to that day as Pentecost!”  What a lot of people don’t realise is that it wasn’t Luke or the Church that decided to call that day Pentecost.  That day was already called Pentecost.  That’s what the Greek-speaking Jews called the day fifty days after Passover—“pente”, “fifty”.  In Hebrew it was called the Feast of Weeks—specifically, seven weeks after Passover.  And the connection between this Jewish festival and what happened on that day Luke tells us in Acts when the Spirit descended on the disciples is important. Passover and Pentecost go all the way back to the beginning of Israel’s story in the Exodus.  Remember back to the first Passover.  The Lord sent his angel to take the lives of the firstborn of all Egypt.  But he made a provision to spare the firstborn of Israel.  He gave Moses instructions for the people: Each family was to slaughter a lamb.  They were to eat the lamb and they were to paint its blood on the doorposts of their home.  When the angel of death saw the blood of the sacrificed lamb he would literally “pass over” that home and spare those inside.  The next day the Lord led his people out of their bondage in Egypt.  He rescued them again as he parted the waters of the Red Sea so that they could escape Pharaoh’s army and he led them to Mt. Sinai in the wilderness where he gave them his law.  The law he gave to the people through Moses was the charter of his covenant.  To be God’s people is to manifest his glory and his faithfulness to the world.  That was Israel’s calling and it had been ever since the Lord had called Abraham: to be a light to the gentiles so that the nations might know the glory of the Lord and be drawn to him.  The Lord wrote his law on tablets of stone so that Israel would know what to do to fulfil her mission and ministry—that she would know what it is to live in covenant with the Lord.  God rescued his people, leading them in an exodus from their bondage to the Egyptians and on the fiftieth day he met them and gave them his law.  That was the origin of the feast of Pentecost.  And that was its significance for Israel down through the years.  At Passover they remembered how God had rescued them.  Year after year they sacrificed lambs and painted the blood on their doorposts to remind them of the way in which the Lord had saved them.  And every year, fifty days later they commemorated and celebrated the giving of the law that taught them how to live as the Lord’s people. All of that’s packed into that statement Luke makes in Acts 2:1 about the day of Pentecost having come.  And that points to the meaning of Pentecost as we remember and celebrate it as Christians.  On that last Passover of the Old Covenant era, Jesus went to Jerusalem.  He and his friends ate that age old covenant meal in the upper room, but as they did so, Jesus gave it new significance.  Now the Passover bread was his body.  Now the wine was his blood.  The next day, Jesus gave his body and blood for the sins of his people.  And on that first Easter morning he rose from the grave, not only conquering sin and death, but leading his people in a new exodus.  This time is wasn’t an exodus from human slavery, but an exodus from slavery to sin and death and into the new promised land of the long-awaited age to come. For forty days Jesus taught his people from the Law and the Prophets, showing them all these connections.  He gave his people a new mission.  And yet it wasn’t a completely new mission.  It was the same mission that Israel had had all along: to manifest the glory of the Lord to the nations and to call them into covenant with him.  But this time the Lord was equipping his people as he never had before.  He had promised through the prophet Ezekiel: “I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them.  I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 11:19).  This is what humanity needed all along.  The law was external—written on stone tablets.  What humanity needed was a new heart, a new life, given and made possible by the indwelling Spirit of God.  And so, at his ascension, Jesus gave his disciples their mission: go out into the world, proclaim the good news—the message that Jesus is Lord, that there is a new and eternal King, make disciples of the nations, and baptise them into the God who loves and redeems his rebellious people.  But this is also why he told them to go to Jerusalem and wait.  The exodus made Israel God’s people.  In fact, we see throughout the Old Testament that it was in the Exodus that the Lord adopted Israel and called her his firstborn.  But being adopted is different from being given the tools needed to actually live as part of the family. Think about that.  Imagine being adopted into a family, but not being told the house rules or the family expectations.  That was what Israel needed to live the Lord’s adoption.  And that’s the purpose that the law served when it was given at Sinai.  It was the family rules.  And just so with Jesus’ disciples.  Jesus is now the Lord’s firstborn.  He has taken Israel’s role on himself and as we pass through the waters of baptism in faith—our own Red Sea experience—we are adopted as Jesus’ brothers and sisters into the Lord’s family.  But we need to be equipped to live as members of the Lord’s family.  And so, on the fiftieth day after their exodus, after their rescue from slavery to sin and death, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to his people.  Instead of external tablets of stone, he gave his life-giving and empowering Spirit to breathe life into his sons and daughters that they—that we—might truly live as his people, as his family.  Instead of an external law pointing us to God, God comes to us himself, pours himself into us, and turns out hearts to him. That day was a commissioning too.  Pentecost mirrors Jesus’ own baptism.  Think back to the beginning of the story of Jesus’ ministry.  He was baptised by John and as he came up out of the waters of the Jordan River the Holy Spirit descended on him and the Lord spoke from heaven: This is my beloved Son; in him I am well-pleased.  At Pentecost the Lord did the same thing for the Church.  He sent his Spirit not only to indwell us, but to commission us to carry out the mission that Jesus began.  On Pentecost the Lord declared to his Church, to all those who are in Christ: These are my beloved sons and daughters; in them I am well-pleased.  And as Jesus was sent from his baptism into the wilderness to suffer Satan’s harassment and to triumph over him in the power of the Spirit, so from our baptism at Pentecost, the Church is sent out into the wilderness: to charge into the darkness with the light of Christ, to proclaim the good news that Jesus is Lord and that he has conquered sin and death and Satan.  We’re not called to go timidly into the world to offer people a new option on the smorgasbord of world religions.  No, we’re to charge into the territory of Satan and of Caesar to proclaim that there is a new Lord, that the kingdoms of Satan and of Caesar are coming to an end and that Jesus is Lord.  Our message is one that we should be proclaiming not with timidity and fear, but with power and authority.  Ascension and Pentecost give us the assurance we need that Jesus reigns, that his kingdom is here and now, and that however bad things may look today, he will with absolute certainty subdue every enemy and return on the clouds the conquering king at the end of the age. There’s no reason to be afraid.  There’s no reason not to have confidence in our mission.  Ascension and Pentecost should be reminders of that.  Last week we sang those words of the old hymn “See the Conqueror”:   Thou hast raised our human nature In the clouds to God’s right hand There we sit in heavenly places There with Thee in glory stand   Jesus reigns adorned by angels Man with God is on the throne Mighty Lord in Thine ascension We by faith behold our own We by faith behold our own   In his Ascension Jesus gives us assurance.  He in his resurrected and exalted humanity has raised our humanity and this earthly realm to heaven.  That’s one half of his final promise to restore heaven and earth.  And Pentecost embodies the other half of the promise: In sending the gift of the Holy Spirit to indwell his people, the Lord has sent heaven to earth.  Humanity has risen to heaven with Jesus and heaven has descended to earth with the Holy Spirit and so we know that heaven and earth cannot remain sundered and separated forever.  One day they will be restored.  All that remains is for Jesus to subdue his enemies. In the meantime, Brother and Sisters, we the Church have been made the temple of the living God.  Think about what that means.  In the beginning God created a garden temple where he and his people lived in fellowship with each other.  Men and women lived in the presence of God.  Our sin broke that fellowship.  Sin and death drove us from the garden.  Sin and death forced apart earth and heaven.  The tabernacle and the temple were built as models of that garden temple in miniature.  They became the centre of Israel’s life, because in the temple God and human beings could find fellowship, even if it was a limited and broken fellowship.  Then Jesus came and he became the temple himself.  In his incarnation he united humanity to God and in giving his Spirit to us, to the Church, the Lord has made us his living temple.  In us, thanks to Pentecost, God is made known to fallen and broken humanity.  In us the new creation has begun.  And in us the Lord is working to restore his fallen and broken world to himself. And what’s our mission?  How do we shine the light of Christ in the darkness?  Brothers and Sisters, just as Israel was given a new set of “family rules” to show her how to be light in the darkness, we as God’s new Israel have been given the same.  Not a legalistic set of dos and don’ts, but a call to live as Jesus did.  We’re called to manifest faith and to manifest hope and, most of all, to manifest love to a world with no faith and no hope and that’s filled with fear and hate.  We’re called to live out the manifesto, the charter given by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount: hungering and thirsting for righteousness, showing mercy, making peace.  We’re called to show the world that Jesus has given us a new way of living.  In fact, it’s not a new way.  It’s the old way that was lost when we fell into rebellion and sin, but now it’s back and it’s possible because this time it’s not a set of rules carved on stone; it’s a new being and a new life imparted to our hearts by the very Spirit of God living in us and giving us his new life. Brothers and Sisters, there’s an awful tendency to forget all of this when we turn Pentecost into a private experience as often happens.  Pentecost is about the people of God being equipped by the Spirit to live as his people, not just privately, but publicly—not for the sake of ourselves, but for the sake of the world.  Pentecost is about the Spirit bearing fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, it’s about the people of God being changed and renewed in our hearts that we might proclaim that Jesus is Lord.  And we do all this as heralds of his kingdom, proclaiming its good news.  This idea of “gospel” or “good news” in the New Testament brings together two meanings.  For the Jews “good news” brought to mind the language of Isaiah.  “Good news” meant a messenger coming to a people languishing in exile; a messenger sent to tell them that their enemies had been defeated and that the Lord had returned to Zion.  To Greeks and Romans, “good news” brought to mind an imperial herald, sent to the far reaches of the empire with the message that a new Caesar had ascended to the throne.  In Jesus both of those meanings are brought together.  In Jesus we have a new and eternal King; in Jesus the Lord has returned to Zion to dwell in the midst of his people.  The power of Pentecost is the power and life of the Spirit given to us to proclaim his kingdom and to live it before the eyes of the world. Let us pray: O God, who on this day taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

"THOSE WHO RECEIVED HIS WORD ..." April 26 Our chapter in Acts (2) contains the dramatic message of the Apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost. This day is the same as the Old Testament “Feast of Weeks” (Exod.34 v.22; Lev.23 v.15,16] ‘Pentecost’ is the Greek word for ‘fiftieth’ – it occurred 50 days (7 weeks) after the Passover, it was at the start of harvesting. The climax of Peter’s message is to declare to those assembled, from a vast range of countries, the great significance of what had happened at the Passover. These people, obviously Jews, had come from a vast range of places to worship – it is evident they had not been there for the week or weekend as happens these days. At Passover time the jealous Priests had whipped these visitors (and others) into a frenzy to reject Jesus as a false Messiah. Remember that in the “forty days” (Acts 1 v.3) after Jesus’ resurrection Jesus was only appearing to his followers. The last 2 chapters of John we have just read illustrated this was not on a daily basis. Paul was aware there was one occasion when “he appeared to 500 brothers at one time” [1 Cor 15 v.6] We can reasonably imagine that all sorts of what would be called today, ‘unconfirmed reports’ were in circulation. What an impact the ability to speak in other languages would have had! The “mighty works of God” [v.11] were being declared to each in their own language. Peter brings his speech to a climax, declaring, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” [v.36] A great many of the hearers were “cut to the heart” [v.37] They “said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brothers, what shall we do?” and are told, “Repent and be baptised … save yourselves from this crooked generation. So those who received his word were baptised …” [v.40,41] about 3,000 of them. What is it to “receive” the message? It is a very common word in the Greek, the repentant thief on the cross with Jesus acknowledged, “we are receivingthe due reward of our sins” [Luke 23 v.41] The Gk word is often translated as “accept” Paul was told when he returned to Jerusalem, “”make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly , because they will not accept your testimony about me.” [Acts 22 v.18] Today, the main attitude is either scoffing or indifference. Few are like those of Berea who “received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” [Acts 17 v.11] How have you “received” God’s word, what effect is it having in your life?

At Passover, Jesus gathered his followers and spelled out a new relational arrangement between God and humankind: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” But Jesus wasn't celebratory. He seemed troubled. Initiating this new covenant with God would require sacrifice. What came next would confuse his followers and send them scattering.

At Passover, Jesus gathered his followers and spelled out a new relational arrangement between God and humankind: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” But Jesus wasn't celebratory. He seemed troubled. Initiating this new covenant with God would require sacrifice. What came next would confuse his followers and send them scattering.

Torah portion reading Exodus 12:1-51 Haftorah portion reading Joshua 3:1-4:24 Brit Hadasha reading John 3:1-21 In this week’s teaching we will look at the following: *The Passover and Unleavened bread are the LORD’s feasts. *The LORD’s feasts are appointments with Him and they are rehearsals. *Passover is a “nightwatch” for the children of Israel for all time. *At Passover, a nation was born. Passover is also a picture of personal salvation, saved by grace, through faith. *On May 14, 1948, we saw “secular Zion” was born. (Isaiah 66:7-9) *There is a future “biblical Zion” nation that will be born in one day (Isaiah 66:7-9) For more teachings and resources, visit us at our website ~ https://bridgeconnectorministries.com and https://www.dailyaudiotorah.com

At Passover every male is to make a sacrifice and pay the temple tax. Hundreds of thousands descend upon Jerusalem to do this. For a fee, agents change travelers’ money into the proper currency. Animals for sacrifices have been moved into the Court of the Gentiles. A noisy, stinky den of robbers awaits all who desire to obey the Law. Jesus disrupts the entire proceedings. Jesus will not entrust himself to those in charge; he knows what is inside of human beings—inner corruption and pollution.

At Passover, Jesus gathered his followers and spelled out a new relational arrangement between God and humankind: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” But Jesus wasn't celebratory. He seemed troubled.

At Passover, Jesus gathered his followers and spelled out a new relational arrangement between God and humankind: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” But Jesus wasn’t celebratory. He seemed troubled.

At Passover, Jesus gathered his followers and spelled out a new relational arrangement between God and humankind: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” Initiating this new covenant with God, however, would require sacrifice. What came next would confuse his followers and send them scattering.

At Passover, Jesus gathered his followers and spelled out a new relational arrangement between God and humankind: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” But Jesus wasn’t celebratory. He seemed troubled. Initiating this new covenant with God would require sacrifice. What came next would confuse his followers and send them scattering.

At Passover, Jesus gathered his followers and spelled out a new relational arrangement between God and mankind: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” But Jesus wasn’t celebratory. He seemed troubled. Initiating this new covenant with God would require sacrifice. What came next would confuse his followers and send them scattering.

At Passover time we search for a piece of bread called the Afikomen, this is a Greek word and the only one in the Hebrew service. Do you know why this is? Matzoh is unleavened bread and has symbolic spiritual value, but it is hidden in the feast. We will uncover it for you here.  May You be Blessed.  Rebbe T.

  THE HEALING AND MIRACLE PODCASTwith Prince Handley HOW TO BE HEALED AT HOLY COMMUNION AND PASSOVER You can listen to this message NOW. Click the center of the pod circle at top left. (Allow images to display.) Listen now  ... or download for later. You can also LISTEN here: LISTEN NOW   CLICK HERE FOR THE WHOLE PASSOVER STUDY SERIES >>> THE PASSOVER, PART 1 OF 7 To SUBSCRIBE, see instructions at bottom of message below. If you have a friend who is sick in body or mind, or is demon-possessed, tell them about The Healing and Miracle Podcast. 24/7 release of Prince Handley blogs, teachings, and podcasts >>> STREAM Text:  "follow princehandley"  to 40404 (in USA) Or, Twitter: princehandley  PODCAST MISSION STATEMENT: My goal is to define the parameters in which you can be healed scripturally, and live in health ... and then you can help others do the same! -- Prince Handley If you have friends who need healing or a miracle, email them this teaching. DESCRIPTION: We should expect MIRACLES during Communion and during Passover. I received an instant MIRACLE during Passover Seder at synagogue. Great pain and misery resulting from several rare diseases I developed in Africa that could not be diagnosed medically were healed instantly. NOTICE: THE WRITTEN TEXT IN THE BODY BELOW INCLUDES THE SHOW NOTES OF THIS PODCAST EPISODE. HOWEVER, FOR A FULL STUDY ON THE PASSOVER - AND TO LEARN LITTLE KNOWN TRUTHS ABOUT THE PASSOVER ... AND HOW THE PASSOVER PORTRAYS MASHIACH'S ATONEMENT ... CLICK HERE (AFTER READING THE SHOW NOTES BELOW) >>> THE PASSOVER SERIES USE THE SERIES TO TEACH YOUR SYNAGOGUES, CHURCHES, AND BIBLE STUDY GROUPS.   HOLY COMMUNION AND PASSOVER     You must know that healing belongs to you.  There is no need for you to depart from health.     You can be healed ... walk in health ... and help others to do the same.     In the last podcast we discussed HOW to be healed by THE LAYING ON OF HANDS.     In this show I want to teach you HOW to be healed by HOLY COMMUNION (the Lord’s Supper, or Eucharist) and, also, by celebrating PASSOVER.     We should expect MIRACLES during the Holy Communion (the Lord’s Supper) and, also, during Passover. We are celebrating what Messiah did FOR US, and he told us to do this in order to remember Him until he returns. "For as often as you eat this bread, and drink this cup, you SHOW the Lord’s death until he comes [again]."  [1 Corinthians 11:26]     The Holy Bible teaches us in the 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 of the Brit Chadasha (the New Testament, or Covenant) that we are to do two things when we come to the Lord’s Supper: Discern the Lord’s body; and, Examine ourselves.     To discern means to see His sacrifice for us as "distinct" from other things. See his body (the bread) beaten - even before the cross - as the Roman soldiers whip (or, flog) him, leaving his back bruised and striped with open wounds. See his head pierced by the crown of thorns, causing blood to flow down his face and chest. And then … see his hands and feet nailed with rough spikes to the wooden cross. All of this for us … and for God!     This is why the Pesach bread, the matzo, has pin holes and stripes. At Passover, we are celebrating deliverance from bondage in Egypt … and, also, spiritual bondage; and drink the RED WINE to commemorate the RED BLOOD Messiah shed for us as the Lamb of God, without fault or blemish, who takes away the sin of the world. This is why the matzo bread has pin holes and stripes. The early Messianic believers added this to the Passover. Almost all the early Messianic believers in Yeshua were Jewish.     See his blood (the cup) shed for us: sinless blood, having good credit in the bank of Heaven. Not blood which inherited sin from Adam and his race, but blood from a miracle birth from above: as the Spirit of G-d breathed on the womb of a virgin, creating NEW LIFE from God. "In whom we have redemption THROUGH HIS BLOOD, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." (Brit Chadasha: Ephesians 1:7) “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” (Torah: Leviticus 17:11) ”So Messiah was once offered to bear the sins of many.” (Brit Chadasha: Hebrew 9:28)     Yeshua’s body and mind bore the punishment for our sins … his blood paid the PRICE to redeem, or ransom, us. And God raised him from the dead: Yeshua is ALIVE to save and to heal you! Yes, miracles and healing are available in the Holy Communion and the Passover by discerning the Lord’s body … seeing him and what he did for us. Isaiah Chapter 53 in the Tanach tells us: He bore our sicknesses and diseases. He carried (away) our pains. He was wounded and bruised for our sin. The LORD laid on him the sin of us all. And with his stripes WE ARE HEALED. Podcast time: 5 minutes, exactly (with music) Podcast size:  4.57 MB Copyright 2012 Prince Handley All rights reserved. ________________________________________ Real Miracles ResourcesPrince Handley BooksFree Bible & Rabbinical StudiesFAST READS24/7 Prince Handley Blogs, Podcasts & Teachings _________________________________________  Handley WORLD SERVICES Incorporated Box 1001 Bonsall, California 92003 USA NOTE: Scroll down for ALL previous podcasts

At Passover time Jews and Christians alike celebrate the miracle of delivery from captivity. But God redeemed us for a purpose, for a new life. This week Lindsay helps us look at this new life that God wants for us.

Two Journeys of Progress Well, I am excited to preach on this passage today, Philippians 3:12-16. I think about the truths in this text every day, and I think we're going to learn some things this morning, I trust, on how to run the Christian race that's set before us. As we've talked, the Book of Philippians sets before us two races to run, we could put it in those terms today. The internal race of personal holiness, so that we are moment by moment growing to be more like Jesus. And that external race of worldwide gospel advance. Have you heard that before? I know it's repetition, but I just want you to know what the Book of Philippians is about, and the scriptures as well. God has a work to do inside you, and God has a work to do outside of you. And in the end, they end up about the same. And the goal of both is that the Church would be perfect in Christ. Now, that word "perfect" is an interesting word, isn't it? In Psalm 19:96 the Psalmist says, "To all perfection, I see a limit." Now, that's an interesting thing, isn't it? When you stop and think about it, the Psalmist is looking for perfection. He looks around and he's seeking it. He wants to find it. Secondly, he doesn't find it. No matter where he looks, he does not see perfection. To all perfection, there is certainly a limit. If you were an expert in diamonds, you could spend your whole life looking for the perfect diamond, in color, and clarity, and cut, and carat. You would search and you would never find one. You might find one diamond that was better than every other diamond you'd ever seen, but you would not find the perfect diamond. If you are a coffee connoisseur, which I am not but some of you are, and you were to spend your whole life searching for the perfect cup of coffee, you would never find it. You could remember that one cup you drank in such and such a place and every other cup would not come up to that level, for the rest of your life. Some of them badly so. But you would never find the perfect cup of coffee. The expert chef is searching for the perfect dining experience, and never finding it. The composer for the perfect sounds, the perfect tones, and it's never achieved. The poet for the perfect combination of words to evoke from within what he or she is trying to say through the poem, and never finding it. Perfection eludes us. "To all perfection, I see a limit." And yet, I believe, just like it says in Ecclesiastes, I think it's 3:12, "God has set eternity in the hearts of men." I think he's set perfection there too. Oh, we're hungry for it, aren't we? We would like to see something perfect. And even more, the more we go on in our Christian lives, we would like to be perfect. We would like to be done forever with our sin. And we'd like to live, wouldn't we, in a perfect world? We would like to be perfect because we don't want to ruin that perfect world by being there, but we would like the world around us to be perfect too. And so that's a different way of coming at the same thing again in Philippians, that God is working within us, transforming us little by little until we are as perfect as Jesus is. And God is doing that same work around us in the world, bringing people from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation, until at last, His perfect kingdom comes. Now, all of this perfection comes from God's own nature. We serve and love and worship a perfect God, don't we? We serve a perfect God. God is absolutely perfect. He is perfect in His person. He is unchanging, never changes, that means He is never improving and never getting worse. Because He can't, he is already perfect. He is omnipotent, that means perfect in power. It is impossible for God to have any more power than He does right now. He is omniscient. It is impossible for God to know anymore than He knows right now. He knows all things now. God is perfect in holiness. He hates evil. In Him, there is no darkness at all. He is absolutely perfect in His holiness. He is perfectly just. He loves justice and righteousness, and hates wickedness. And it would be impossible for God to love these and hate the wickedness anymore than he does. He's already perfect. These days, there's the idea of a changing God, a transforming or growing God, that God is growing along with us. That is false. God is perfect now, He's always been perfect, and He always will be perfect. And God is perfectly loving. It is impossible for God to love you, in Christ, anymore than he does right now. It's impossible. It's frankly impossible for God to love His enemies more than He does right now. He sent them a beautiful day, in this area anyway, and he continues to love his enemies with a perfect love as He defines it. I. Our Perfect God, Our Perfect Salvation Our God is a perfect God. And not only is our God in His person perfect, His salvation plan is perfect too, isn't it? God had the whole salvation plan worked out perfectly, down to the jot and tittle. He had the whole thing worked out before the foundation of the world, and there's no way that it could be improved to bring Him more glory and us more joy. Amen. It's a perfect salvation plan. To create a world perfect, with no evil in it at all. To allow, in some way unknown to us, a mystery to us, evil to spring up within His world, and to deal with it over millennia the way He has, with perfect wisdom. To have called out a people of his own, the Jews, to lead them out with a mighty hand in an outstretched arm from Egypt, and to give them commandments, which they could not follow in their wickedness. And to put up with that wickedness for 1,000 years of national history in the promised land. And to give prophet after prophet, telling them how wicked they are and that they need a savior, who's going to come and he's going to be like this. To give them a king like David, who exemplified the best a human king could be, and to promise David that he would have a son who would sit on the throne forever. And to set up in the hearts of the people an expectancy, that someday that savior would come. And to give them a perfect picture of His work through the animal sacrificial system. The blood of the sacrifice shed in the place of the sinners. They get to live, the animal dies. All of it a picture of the Lamb of God, who would come to take away the sin of the world. And then, in the fullness of time, Jesus came. In the fullness of time, born of a virgin, and lived under the law a perfect life of obedience to the father. Never committed any sin, never broke any of Moses's law, obeyed all of it to the Nth degree. Perfect righteousness. Did mighty miracles, that we can't even describe, more than we could even count. The world itself would contain all of the books that would be written, if they were written, of all the mighty works that He did. And at the right time, He died on the cross. At Passover, wouldn't you know, isn't that perfect? At Passover, He would shed His blood at the moment that the Passover sacrifice shed His blood for you. That He would take all of your guilt and your sin and weakness on himself, and shed His blood to pay the penalty for your sin and for mine. Now, that's a perfect salvation plan, but not done. Because the message had to be gotten out. And for 2,000 years, He's been using people like you and me to share the gospel, to preach the good news. And people have been and are being saved, and they're going to keep on getting saved until the Lord returns and brings in that perfect kingdom. What a perfect salvation plan. Don't ask me to do that again, I don't think I could do it. But that is the perfect salvation plan. From alpha to omega, He had it all worked out before the foundation of the world. Our God is perfect in his person, He is perfect in His salvation plan, and He has communicated to us through a perfect Bible. As a matter of fact, if it weren't for the perfection of the Bible, we would not know that God is perfect in His person or that His salvation plan is perfect. "The words of the Lord," it says in Psalm 12:6, "are flawless. Like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times over." That means they can't be any more perfect. The word of God is perfect. Therefore, God can have no imperfection around Him. He can't. He can't have any wickedness near Him. Habakkuk 1:13 reminds us that God's eyes are "too pure to look on evil," He "cannot tolerate wrong." Well, if he can't even look at evil, if He can't tolerate wrong, how is He going to live with it in Heaven for eternity? How many sins did Adam and Eve commit to be evicted from the perfect Garden of Eden? Just one. That's it, just one. Because God is holy and perfect. And our God, therefore, commands perfection. He commands us to be perfect. It says in James 2:10, "Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point, is guilty of breaking all of it." Now, you might think that's not fair. Have you heard the story of the boy who put his finger in the dike? It's a story based in Holland. And I have flown to Holland from the North, from England, going over, and it was early morning, I remember that. It's that transatlantic flight, the night is the shortest of your life, three or four hours of darkness, and then boom. And I didn't sleep at all. And there it was. As we're coming down into Amsterdam, I couldn't tell the difference between ocean and land. It's the low countries. And they have to have dikes to protect the land that they have reclaimed from the sea. Can you imagine if there were a single little hole in the dike? Is that any big deal for you, if you live in that village? Oh, you better believe it's a big deal. Because sin doesn't stay put, does it? It just spreads and spreads and spreads and spreads. It's a cancerous tumor. It's a vicious evil. And so God will allow no evil in His kingdom. He'll allow no evil in you or me. Christ Commands Us to Be Perfect He commands us to be perfect. He does it directly in Matthew 5:48, "You must be perfect therefore, as your Heavenly father is perfect." Every time I witness, every time I share the gospel, I try to use that verse. Because you know what people tell me every time, whenever I say that? "Nobody's perfect." Exactly. "That's why we need a savior," I say. I say it every time. They're just perfectly set up. "You must be perfect to go to Heaven." "Well, I'm not perfect." "Well, then you're not going to Heaven, without a savior." You must be perfect, it's commanded from our perfect God. Now, sin has already conquered us. Sin is already all around us. Sin is already through our bodies like a cancerous tumor spreading through the lymph nodes, it's through the whole body. It says in Romans 7:21, "I find this law at work when I want to do good, evil is right there with me." I can't shake it. "What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body of death?" I can't get away from sin. Paul says, in Romans 7. So perfection is out of the question. And therefore, all human fleshly efforts at perfection are doomed from the start. Now, there've been a lot of them, haven't there? In 1516, Thomas More wrote a book called "Utopia." The word "utopia" is actually play on words. "Good place" and "no place," is what it could mean depending on the translation. And I think he intended the pun. It's about a perfect society. And he's writing about a perfect world and he's calling it "no place." And that's right, because there is no perfect place here in this world. Human societies are... Cannot be perfect because they're made up of sinners. Many people have thought that they could set up a perfect society. The French Revolution was an attempt, based on enlightenment philosophies of Voltaire and others, thought that they could set up a society based on liberty and brotherhood and equality. What they ended up with was a bloody, vicious, guillotine-ridden revolution, ultimately ending up in Napoleon's dictatorship and his military conquering ambitions. That's what they ended up with. Communism was an attempt at setting up a perfect human society. And we have looked at the crumbling of what's left of the communist society, in so many places in Europe, and we're still praying for it in other places in the world. It's a total failure. And the reason is, it's not that it's not good to distribute goods so that there's no poor people, it's not that. It's that human sin sabotages the thing from the start. And so communism is a brutal failure. And then there are individual efforts at self-improvement. I've preached about those the last two weeks. The religion of self-effort, and self-righteousness, and saying, "I will. I will. I will." Trying to do better, to pray more, to give more, to be a better person, to not be so argumentative or complaining, to try better. And it never adds up to anything. Human efforts at perfection lead to nothing. There's a whole market of self-help books. I don't know if you've seen it. You can go into a secular bookstore, and they proliferate. They're selling by the millions because people want to help themselves be perfect, if they can. And they never do. "So I find this law at work," said Paul in Romans 7, "When I want to do good, evil is right there with me." And so we must have a perfection that comes from the outside in. And brothers and sisters, that's what salvation is. It's a perfection that came from the outside in. It came from God to us, because there was no way that the perfection could come from the inside out. And if you think perfection's not required, you haven't been listening. Our God is a holy and perfect God, and He must have no sin and evil in His presence. And so we must be perfect. It can't come from inside, it must come from the outside in. And praise God, it has. Praise God that God has given us a perfect salvation. Now, I said "has given us," understand that I believe salvation is a process. It's already and not yet. And that's true for every human being that's ever lived, that needed saving. Jesus is fully in His resurrection body, but nobody else is. Nobody's fully saved yet, because nobody has the great resurrection body yet except Jesus. But someday we will. Someday we're going to be fully saved. And therefore, our salvation, as I've said before, is an already and not yet issue. We already have some of it, and we don't yet have other parts of it. We already have a perfect righteousness before God, if we have trusted in Christ. If you have repented of your sins, come to the cross, seen in Jesus everything you needed for righteousness, and laid down your sins at the foot of the cross and said, "His blood is sufficient to save a sinner like me." You are seen by God to be perfect, now. Isn't that incredible? You can't be seen anymore righteous or more perfect than Jesus's imputed, or gift of, righteousness to you. Already perfect. But are you perfect? Shall I ask your spouse or your best friend? Are you perfect? You are not perfect. And so you say, "Well, I don't understand. We've got this invisible, by-faith, gift of righteousness, but then we've got how we really handle our money, and how we really pray our prayers, and how we really deal with our best friends, and our family members. And how we deal with temptations like lust, and laziness, and pride, and selfishness." Now, that's the real deal. And frankly, there's not one of us, including me, that would want to have our last 168 hours, the last seven days, shown on the screen up here on the wall. And so we are short of the perfection that God requires for Heaven. Not short in the imputed righteousness, but short in our behavior and performance. Such that if we didn't have Christ's imputed righteousness, we would die for the sins we've committed in the last hour or less. So we're not there yet, and we want to see the growing happen. And Paul in this text tells us how it's going to happen. Because of this already and not yet aspect, we must have a spirit led pressing on toward perfection. By your pressing after perfection, you will not be saved. Without your pressing after salvation, you will not be saved. You're not going to get saved because you're working hard and trying harder and harder, no way. We already showed that the religion of self effort will not work. But I'm telling you, if there's not a principle of pressing, striving, straining, pushing after holiness, you're not saved. You're not saved. The Holy Spirit works that in you. II. Paul’s Pattern of Pressing Described And Paul talks about it here for himself in verses 12 through 16. Now we see Paul's pattern of pressing described here. And there are different elements that I want to highlight for you. First, in verse 12, he says, "Not that I have already obtained all this or have already been made perfect. But I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it." 1) Not Already His: Perfection Impossible on Earth Alright. Point one I want to make is that Paul considers that perfection is not already his. In other words, that perfection is impossible here on earth. Now this is so important. Other people have said and have claimed that perfection's possible here on earth. John Wesley is one of them. He wrote a book called, The Plain Account of Christian Perfection, in which he redefines perfection for us, makes it attainable, says that perfection is basically perfect love or at any moment, not violating a known command of God. Well, that's a little narrow, isn't it? Even that is hard enough to live up to, but he claimed that it was possible to be perfect for a little while and then slip back into sin and then be back to being perfect again for a while and then slip back into sin. That is not what Paul has in mind here, I can assure you. No, no, no. He means perfection the way I understand perfection, body, soul, spirit, emotions, every part of me perfection. And Paul says that's not possible here on earth. I don't consider myself yet to have it. There's a journey to travel. There's a distance between me and perfection, and I must travel that journey. Paul constantly keeps in mind, "I'm not finished yet. I'm not done. I've got a journey to travel." Now the word is, in verse 13 he says, "I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it." This is the same word he used early in this chapter. The word is logizomai. It comes from the Greek, the word logic. It's a rational thing but it has to do more with accounting, that we are accounting ourselves imperfect. We're thinking about ourselves that way. I consider myself imperfect. I consider myself a sinner. 2) Involves Great Effort on Paul’s Part Second point that we notice, that this pressing after salvation requires great effort on Paul's part. You want to be saved? It's going to be hard work. Are you saved by your works? We already covered that, no, of course not. But if you are saved, you will work hard in your Christian life. You will. It's just what saving faith does to you. It's what God does to you through the power of the Spirit. He works energetically in you to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Look at verse 13 again and 14, "But one thing I do," he says, "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me Heavenward in Christ Jesus." Do you see these words? Pressing. Pressing, straining. These are powerful words, aren't they? They give you a picture. Imagine somebody wanted to get in really good shape, goes to the Atlantic Ocean, very turbulent, stormy weather, has produced breakers there. And the person goes out and gets a parachute, a little parachute behinds him, and tries to run through the surf as fast as they can. Parachute's filled with water behind them. They are pressing, they are straining. There's an opposing force at every step. That is the image I get that Paul gives us here. That Christian life is one of pressing. It's one of straining. It is not easy to be a Christian. It is not easy to grow in grace in the knowledge of Christ. 3) Success Absolutely Guaranteed: Christ Took Hold of Me for It The third point that Paul makes is that success in this quest for perfection is absolutely guaranteed. Isn't that incredible? Paul says, "I'm going to be perfect someday." Now, you say, "Well, where do you get that?" Well, you get out of probably one of my favorite verses in the whole bible, Philippians 3:12. Look at it again. "Not that I have already obtained all this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." Now, there's a lot of words in there and some grammar, let's unfold it. Okay, let's start with the logical order in Paul's mind. He's starting with Christ, actually. Christ Jesus has already taken hold of Paul. "I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." So Christ took hold of Paul, and he did it for a purpose. "That for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." He had a reason. Jesus is a very purposeful being, you'll find that. I'm finding it. The more I grow, everything's for a purpose, everything. And so Jesus took hold of Paul for a purpose. What was the purpose? In context, there can be no doubt, it's Paul's perfection, his salvation, his completion in the salvation process. Jesus took hold of Paul to make him perfect. And as a result of Jesus taking hold of Paul, Paul presses on to take hold of perfection. "I press on to take hold of that for which, that perfection for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." So therefore, Paul's perfection is absolutely guaranteed. It's as rock solid as Jesus's grip. Do you see that? Oh, that's exciting. Oh, that's encouraging. I've told some of you this before, but I have enjoyed playing a game with my children. When they were younger I did this, they're too big for me now to do this, but I like to pick them up and just hold them close, give them a kiss on the cheek and just hold them, and then start to let go a little bit when they're little. Bigger, they... I can't even pick them up actually. I think I tried to pick one of them up recently and I thought, "This is the last time I will try to do this because I'm going to end up in the hospital. And that wouldn't be good." But when they were little, I would hold them tight and then I'd kind of let go, and they'd start to slip. Do you know what I'm talking about? And what would they instinctively do when they're starting to slip? They grab tighter. And then that would make let go a little more, and they'd grab even tighter. And they're slipping, and I say, "Well, you're on your own now. You're on your own." And they're screaming, that is all a big game. I don't do it over the Grand Canyon edge or anything, I'm a good dad. I'm not doing that. But I'm holding on, but then I kind of let go, and they get anxious. Some people look at their salvation that way. They're holding on to Jesus. Jesus is wishing them the best, hoping that they'll have the strength to hold on right to the end. But if not, well, I've seen others fall. It's really sad when it happens. Don't let it happen to you now. Is that the Savior you know? Uh-huh. He's taken hold of you and He will not let you go. Another image is of a free soloist rock climber I talked to. In Yosemite National Park, there's all these great, great rock climbing things. Why anyone would do that, I don't know. And why anyone would do it with equipment and friends, I don't know. But these guys did it with no equipment and no friends. Just their hands with chalk on them and special shoes and up they would go, expecting it to take 14 hours. And it's kind of like, then people think of salvation, that Jesus is a rock that doesn't move, but you better hold on to Him. You're a free soloist in the climb of salvation, so you better hold on tight as you're making your way up. Is that the salvation that gives you confidence? Is that what Paul is talking about here? No way. No, no, no. I press on to take hold of that for which Christ sovereignly took hold of me and won't let me go until I have it. You're not going to let me go. John 10. "My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one shall snatch them out of my hand." Do you see that? Nobody's going to snatch you from Jesus's hand. So, as a result, Paul believes his final perfection is absolutely guaranteed. Now, look at the interesting thing. Does that make him kick back, relax, take it easy? The easy chair, La-Z-Boy route to Heaven: "As a result of the fact that I know absolutely I'm going to end up perfect, I don't need to get up early for prayer. I don't need to fast. I don't need to mortify the deeds of the flesh. I don't need to go to church. I don't need to do anything. I don't need to witness. I don't need to do anything in the Christian life. You know why? Because it's absolutely guaranteed that I'm going to Heaven." Is that the way Paul thinks? No. He says, "I press. I strain. I strive to take hold of the perfection that Jesus has in mind for me." 4) The Total Focus of Paul’s Life Fourth. This becomes the total focus of Paul's life. Look at verse 13. "One thing I do..." Americans are 40 things I dabble at. Really, I mean, the options are overwhelming, aren't they? Through the internet and through air travel and through technology in general, it's incredible the options that are available to you at every moment of your modern lives. And it causes a kind of, almost like infinitely wide and infinitely shallow experience in life. That's not what Paul's talking about here. He said one thing I do, every day, one thing I do. I strain after Christ. I press after Christ. One thing I do. Total dedication. 5) Doesn’t Live in the Past, But Focuses on the Future Fifth. He doesn't live in the past, but he focuses on the future. Faith is essentially forward-looking all the time. It's just future-oriented. Future-oriented. Look what it says, again. "Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me Heavenward in Christ Jesus." Now, what does this mean, forgetting what lies behind? Well, let's start with the opposite. What does it not mean? It does not mean that we forget Jesus's death and resurrection. Heaven forbid that we should ever forget that Jesus died on the cross for us. Heaven forbid that we should ever forget that he rose from the dead on the third day. No, it's not that. It's not forgetting the truths of the Gospel that we have heard and believed. We should actually go back to them again and again and cherish them. It's not forgetting, frankly, any biblical truths that we've learned. We're actually supposed to be seeing within us, building a city of truth, brick by brick, layer by layer. We're not forgetting the things we've learned. Actually, so much of the problem in the Christian life is that we forget the things we've learned. And therefore, it's not a matter of forgetting God's faithfulness in the past. We should remember that. And it's not a matter of forgetting past successes in our Christian lives. We should learn from them and glorify Him and grow by considering them. And it is not a matter of forgetting your past sins in one sense. Think of it this way. Suppose you woke up every day with a perfect amnesia concerning the past. Some would say, "That sounds really good. That really is attractive to me." But think of it this way. If you had no memory of your past sins, what good would God's discipline be for you? Aren't you supposed to remember you did this thing, God responded this way, therefore, don't do that thing again? Isn't that the essence of discipline? We must remember. But, what does it mean? Well, I think first, it means that we should forget our past lives as though we wish we could go back to them. Paul's not attracted back to his old way of life in Judaism. He's not wishing he could go back to the high priest and ask if he could maybe rebuild that bridge that he burned by preaching Christ. He didn't really mean it. He doesn't want to go back to Egypt. He doesn't want to go back to servitude. Jesus put it this way in Luke 9:62. "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of Heaven." Don't look back. We forget our past life. We're not attracted to it anymore. Jesus put it very succinctly in Luke 17:32. "Remember Lot's wife." What was Lot's wife? What was her problem? She was fleeing Sodom and Gomorrah, but wanted to go back and live there. And the angel told them, "Don't look back at Sodom and Gomorrah. It's gone. Forget it." But she couldn't let it go. She looked back longingly. She looked back saying, "I want to live there again." And she was turned into a pillar of salt. Jesus says, "Be warned. Don't look back at your past life and wish you could be there." Secondly, don't forget... I mean, forget your past failures as if they depress you and bind you and say you cannot make progress toward perfection anymore as a result of this. That's the Devil's great trick. And you have to discern the difference between learning from the past so that you are successful in the future and looking back and saying, "Oh, woe is me. I can never recover. I will never be perfect. I can't do anything, anymore, ever again, because of this sin." No, God is in the business of reclaiming lost sinners. He's in the business of grabbing sinful people and cleaning them up and restoring them and setting them on the path again. Praise God. So, we don't look back at our past failures and say, "They bind me, I can never do such and such again. I can't serve God." And then we don't forget our past success... I mean, we are to forget our past successes if we think of them as though the race is won and it's over. "Oh, remember back in those days when I did such and such." Living in the past. As Christians, we're not called to live in the past. Your past obedience isn't going to do you any good for today's test, except that you're in the pattern of habits and obedience right now. The analogy I've used before and it's a good one, is of the 10,000 meter race. 25 laps, 400 meters each. Can you imagine leading at the 23rd lap, you cross the line and then all of a sudden you start to celebrate. You go over to your friends and give them a hug and they're shocked. "What are you doing? You got two more laps to run. Keep running, you're losing now." And you look for your spouse and say, "Where's that big American flag? And I want to jog around the track and celebrate and all that." While they're continuing to run and you're not running anymore. This is especially tempting for senior adults, if I can speak with tenderness. You're not finished yet because you're here now. If you're finished, you'd be home, you'd be in Heaven. And so therefore you still have a race to run. You still have an obedience to do today. You still have good works which God has stored up for you to do every day. Keep running your race until you go home. We forget what lies behind and we strain toward what lies ahead. The race isn't over as long as it's called today. And if today you hear His voice, don't harden your heart, do what He says. 6) Paul’s Striving Follows God’s Constant Upward Call in Christ Sixth. Paul's striving follows God's constant upward call in Christ Jesus. Every day, God gives him an upward call. Basically says, through the spirit, "This is the way. Walk in it." Every day He says that and that's a great grace, isn't it? Most of the non-Christians in the world, they don't have any idea how to put one foot in front of the other. They don't know where they're going. But God gives us clear guidance. "This is the way. Walk in it." Now, what is that upward call, that upward call of God in Christ, what is it? I think it's at least the scripture. Some of the simplest scriptures can be an upward call. Try this one, do everything without complaining or arguing. Period. Next verse. Wow. That's simple, isn't it? How have you been doing? I've been talking to some of you about that and you been... I didn't come to you, you came to me and you said, "This is the one verse I'm really working on here." How's it going? It's an upward call, isn't it? It's saying do everything without complaining or arguing and it stands over you the rest of your life and says, "Come up here. Come on up." It's like a magnetic pull upward. Or how about this one? Ephesians 4:2, "Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love." How you doing? Is it going well? Are you being completely humble and gentle? Are you being patient with one another, bearing with each other in love? Ephesians 4:2 is an upward call, isn't it? It's pulling you upward. It's saying, "Come on up here to complete humility and complete gentleness." And there are many other verses, as many as there are in the Bible. Philippians 3:14. "I press on," this is the RSV, "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." 7) Paul’s Striving Will Be Rewarded in Heaven Seventh. Paul's striving will be rewarded in Heaven. There's a prize far superior to an Olympic gold medal, far superior to an Olympic gold medal. Our prize will last forever. Theirs is temporal, it's going to be corrupted someday. And so there's a prize and what is that prize? The praise of God. That God would look at your life and say, "Well done you good and faithful servant. You've been faithful than a few things, I'll put you in charge of many things. Enter now into the joy of your master." Oh, what a joyful moment that will be. The upward call to win the prize that God would be pleased with our faith filled lives. 8) Everyone (Even the Most “Perfect”) Must Think This Way Number eight. Everyone, even the most perfect, should think like this. Everyone, even the most perfect. I think you almost could put quotation marks in here. This is for you John Wesley. Okay. "All of us who are perfect should think this way." Well, what way? The way I've been talking. That we're not perfect yet and that we need to strive and strain and press everyday of our lives after perfection. And that we have not already obtained it. I wish the apostle Paul and Mr. John Wesley could sit down and have a conversation about his plain account of Christian perfection and say, "John, you're wrong. Because there is no perfection in this world. There's instead a guarantee of perfection in Heaven and a striving, pressing, straining toward it on Earth." All of us, who are perfect or mature, should think this way. And if on some point, I love this, this is Paul's personality, you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Don't you love that? I'm not wrong about the Christian life, the things I've been describing here on Philippian Street. They are in fact the real Christian life. And if you disagree, I'll love you anyway, we're still brother or sister in Christ, we're still friends, but someday God will show you. Do you see it, right there in the text? If on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only while we continue to disagree, let us, each one of us, live up to the Christian life we've already come to understand. Let's, today, press after Christ. Let's, today, walk with Him. 9) Living Up to What You Have Already Attained And finally, living up to what we've already attained. If you don't fully understand the striving after perfection, you don't fully understand Philippians 3, live up to what you do understand of the Christian life. And as you continue to grow, you'll see more and more, this kind of life that Paul lays out for us here. III. Applications What kind of application can we take? Well, I think he told us at the end here. You should have this attitude towards salvation. You should consider that perfection's not already yours. That shouldn't be too hard, for most of you. That perfection is not yours already. Secondly, you should be willing to make extreme efforts in sanctification. You should be willing to cut off the right hand and gouge out the right eye if it causes you to sin. You should be willing to make extreme efforts toward sanctification. Destroying pride by humbling yourself and apologizing if you've done something wrong, even if it's really hard. Destroying lust by, perhaps, getting rid of the television from your house. Destroying laziness by asking somebody to hold you accountable and say, "I want to accomplish these 10 things today. Will you ask me at the end if I did them?" I mean, vigorous efforts toward holiness. To be willing to do whatever it takes to be more like Jesus; pressing, striving, straining. Thirdly, while you're doing all that, would you please be absolutely confident that someday you'll be perfect? I mean, be absolutely totally convinced that someday no sin will trouble you ever again. Be absolutely confident that Jesus is going to get what He wants. Make seeking after perfection the total focus of your life, not 40 things you dabble in. This is the one thing you want, that you would pursue Christ in this race. And don't live in the past. When you sin, confess it to God, receive his forgiveness, and move on. When you succeed, give God glory, be happy for a little bit, and move on. Keep running the race day after day. If today you hear His voice, don't harden your heart. Set before you Christ constant upward call in Christ, and by that I mean read the Bible every day. Just keep reading verses like, "Be completely humble and gentle," and say, "Lord, make me this way today." Now, if you have listened to what I've been saying, and it doesn't make any sense, and frankly if you know looking inward that you're not a Christian, don't listen to any of the things I just said. Come to Christ, come to the cross. For perhaps the first time, come to the blood and say, "I am lost, I need a savior. Forgive me. Forgive me. I trust in you. That you have the power to forgive sins and make something out of my life." Don't leave this room without coming.