I. Remembering the Way God Remembers 00:03
Today is a momentous day, as I’m sure many of you know. It’s September 11th. And it’s fortuitous: as God often does, he has aligned something that I think weaves perfectly into what we’re going to be talking about today in the Passover.
I took this class in college. It was actually the hardest class that I ever took. I got a C in it, which for me… I was appalled. “I got a C? Are you kidding?” And I actually took a half class with this professor the next semester, one that I didn’t need to take, just so I could prove to him that I was an A student. I got an A in that half class. So, you know, pat myself on the back. I’m exposing my arrogance and pride here. But I had this competitive urge to succeed, and this guy rightly judged me at the level of my abilities in that class.
But there were things that stuck with me. We were taking a Psych of Memory course, and he gives these exams where you have to remember what you learned. And no matter how often he told us, “This is how you remember these things, this is how you do these things,” most of the people in that class didn’t do so hot. But what I learned by looking at the science of how we remember things has stuck with me to this day. We watched these videos of people who have debilitating disorders, where they have a brain injury or some sort of defect, and they can’t remember their past, and it completely takes them out. There is something about remembering that is absolutely interwoven with how we view our own identity and those around us.
You see these posts all over the internet today: “Remember September 11th.” “Remember 9/11.” Why do we do that? Because it’s important to remember who we are, where we’ve been, how that defines us as a people. But go one step further. And this is something that I think we as Christian people, as the church, need to do for our culture: we need to remember things the way that God remembers them. There are many situations in our life where, if you invite God into your memory of that situation, he will overwhelm your idea of what happened with his idea of what happened.
II. The Story So Far 02:24
And the majority of the Old Testament is the people of Israel, as we read about on a near-weekly basis, rebelling against God, suffering tragedy, going through the worst situations, and then God tells them what was happening in those situations. And Passover’s no different. Passover is a situation where we’re reading from the perspective of God guiding the author to tell us our history. When we read the Exodus, we’re reading our history as the people of God, and we’re remembering our history as the people of God, and we’re learning how God wants to interact with us today.
I’m not going to do a huge overview of where we’ve been, but you know the story. You’ve probably seen the movie The Prince of Egypt a couple of times. At least in my house we’ve seen it quite a bit. We are dealing with the people of Israel, whom God has chosen out of the entire earth to bring forward as his people, who will be the witness of his goodness to the entire world. The means of his salvation for the whole world is going to come out of these people.
And so, as God often does, he puts them in what we would consider the worst possible scenario to raise up his people: in the slavery, in the tyranny, of Egypt. And then he raises up Moses, a picture of Christ, as their savior. And he goes to Pharaoh and he says, “Let my people go.” And Pharaoh says, “No. What do you mean? Why? I haven’t heard of this God Yahweh who you talk about. Why would I just let my slave force, my wealth, go?” And Moses, like all of us, panics at that moment. Even though God told him Pharaoh wouldn’t let the people go, Moses says, “God, you haven’t delivered your people at all. What are you doing?” (Exod 5.22–23)
And then God proceeds to show (and this is what we learned last week) how there is no God who can provide for you except for God Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who revealed himself most fully in Jesus Christ. That’s the only God who can save us. Because what had happened was that the Egyptians had a long list of reasons why their gods were providing for them. They were the wealthiest, strongest nation. They lived in the most peace and comfort in their time, possibly in the history of the world. They had all of this wealth going for them, and yet they weren’t serving the one God who created all things. And so God, through the plagues (we saw the symbols), rejected every one of the Egyptian gods and said, “No, I’m the one who either gives or takes away.”
And all of this was not just to tell Egypt, “You guys are wrong.” It was to train Israel to stop going after the gods of Egypt. Because if God had just taken Israel out of Egypt, this body of slaves, and said, “Okay, now worship me,” they wouldn’t have known to give up the bondage that they had in their spirit to all these other gods. They had been raised as slaves in Egypt. And did you know, if you’re raised as a slave in Egypt, you’re not going to immediately be able to transition into a prince in the kingdom of God?
And we also learned, as we talked about this, that this story is not just about a people six thousand years ago. This story is about each of us who were slaves to sin until Jesus’ saving work activated in our lives. But we pick up these habits of spirit and mind where we are acting, in our spirit and in our mind, as if we are still slaves to sin, when God has called us to be princes in his kingdom. And so when we talk about this story, as God rescues these people and we see these dramatic acts as God brings his plagues in judgment against the evils of Egypt, we should remember that that same God is jealous for our worship and our attention, which we’re so quick to give to other places, to other things, to wealth, success.
So keep that in mind as we go quickly through the story of Passover, which is the final plague in Egypt. But it is way more than that. It is God’s redemptive act that is fulfilled finally in Jesus. Because what did Jesus do at the Passover supper? He went through the same festival that we’re going to talk about today, which started when God rescued the Israelites out of Egypt. And in the very middle of that festival he lifted up the unleavened bread that we’ll read about today, he broke it, and he said (okay, I’m adding some words here to paraphrase), “You thought that this broken bread was a part of God’s salvation back in Egypt, but I’m telling you it’s also my body, broken for you.”
We actually do that every week. We celebrate the Passover feast as the celebrant lifts up the host and breaks the bread. That’s the unleavened bread that we will talk about today. How wonderfully God has brought his saving work into our life. Over the tens of thousands of years of humanity, God has continued to save. So that’s what we’re remembering today. As we remember 9/11, as we remember Passover, we’re thinking about what God is doing in our life right now.
III. Plundering Egypt 08:16
And so we’ll start in chapter 11:
1 Yahweh said to Moses, “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. 2 Speak now in the hearing of the people, that they ask, every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor, for silver and gold jewelry.” 3 And Yahweh gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and in the sight of the people. Exod 11.1–3
So there are a couple of things as we’re leading up. And remember, right now the Egyptians have no idea what to think about this slave people who are now claiming that their God is completely destroying Egypt. I mean, locusts, darkness, frogs, the Nile turning to blood. These are people in shock as they see the power of God unfolded. And God says, “Yeah, go ahead and ask for their gold and silver.” And they’re so shaken by all this, they’re like, “Yeah, anything to get your God to stop ruining our country. Anything to get you out of here.”
And yet we see that there’s actually a deeper symbolism in this. Because where does God find our provision in our lives today? He often finds it in the place you don’t want to look. He often finds it in our weakness. He finds the way to make us strong. And I think there are a couple of reasons for that. I think that’s how the world works: God has actually built the world such that his strength can take place in our weakness. I think it’s his goodness.
I wanted to tell a quick story that I think will hopefully resonate with you, about these people I was reading about in this book. I think it illustrates what’s happening here: as the Israelites are plundering Egypt, the place of their slavery becomes the source of their wealth.
There are these marriage counselors who have a book that I read, and it’s fantastic, and they have a great ministry. They tell this story about their 15-year anniversary, when they were talking to their friend who had done their premarital counseling, their pastor. And they basically were like, “Our first ten years of marriage were hell. Absolute hell.” Now, I know each of us who are married can probably remember a few times where our marriage didn’t feel so great. I know I can. But these guys said that day in and day out their marriage was torture. It was so hard. They couldn’t figure it out. And then God, through his goodness, through their faithfulness to one another, brought them through. And they were sharing this miracle, and the guy goes, “Oh yeah, well, that makes plenty of sense. I totally knew that that was going to happen.” And they’re like, “Wait, what?” And he goes, “Yeah, you remember that evaluation you filled out, and then we sent it off to the psychologist, and it had family history and your temperaments?” He goes, “I’ve been doing this for thirty years, and I’ve never once had anything but a score given back to me. On your papers the psychologist wrote a note that said, ‘Do not let these people get married. They are so incompatible. I’ve never seen scores this low.’” And they’re like, “You didn’t tell us that!” And he’s like, “How could I have not told you? That’s part of the premarital…” And they’re like, “You did not tell us that.”
God in his goodness allowed this professional premarital counselor to forget to tell them the results, so that during those ten years of hell they weren’t thinking, “Well, duh, we deserve to be incompatible. We got a test that told us so.” Instead it comes out later, so that now they can write books that say, “Whatever you’re going through in your marriage, we’ve gone through worse, and God brought us through.” That’s what God does with our tyranny, our slavery, our weakness. The reason why they were fighting wasn’t because they were incompatible. It was because they were fallen, broken, deceitful, arrogant humans like you and I. And when you put those two together and you make them live together, you make them raise children together, you’re gonna have some problems. But there’s honey in the rock. There are things that God wants you to get out of those experiences that you would never find anywhere else.
And so the Israelites come out of slavery richer than anybody in the area. They had herds, they had cattle, they had provisions, they had gold and silver. They were the richest nomadic tribe in all the world, out of slavery, four hundred years of slavery in Egypt. And God did that. What can he do with your current situation that you’re struggling with? What is he trying to teach you there?
IV. Israel Is My Firstborn Son 12:38
And so we move on, as they plunder the Egyptians, to this final plague. And you know what it is: he’s going to take the firstborn son of all the Egyptians. He even takes the firstborn of the cattle. But remember, way back in the beginning, before the first time Moses confronts Pharaoh, God had told him this. In chapter 4, verse 21:
21 And Yahweh said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says Yahweh, Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’” Exod 4.21–23
Here’s the fascinating part about this verse. Every one of us has served other gods in our life. Every one of us has fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3.23). Every one of us, at some point or another, has sacrificed our children to our own selfish desires, or if we don’t have children, we’ve sacrificed our future children to our own selfish desires. Every one of us is deserving of the same punishment as God is laying at Pharaoh’s feet. What did Jesus say? If you mislead a child, it’s better that you just tie a rope around your neck and dive into the sea (Matt 18.6). And every one of us knows that we have fallen short.
But what we learn in Passover is not how bad Egypt was but how good God is: that he provided a redemption, a way of escape. There is not a single good thing said about the Israelites in the first eleven chapters of Exodus. There’s not a single good thing. Moses learns to follow God (pretty stubbornly, might I add). Aaron, maybe; he follows God pretty well. But the people of Israel are following other gods. They’re deserving of the same fate as all the Egyptians. And yet God in his goodness provides a way of escape, as he always does. He provides a method of salvation.
So that’s what we’re going to read about now. What was God’s method of salvation for the Jews in this time? And why did the Jews have to do all of these crazy things? Because they were under the same burden of guilt, of sin, the same slavery to sin and death, as the Egyptians were. But God made a way of escape.
V. The First Month of the Year 14:59
So this is what happens in Passover, and we’re just going to hit some key features here. First, he says, “This month shall be the first month of the year for you,” moving forward.
There’s a movement in the world that wants to change our dating system, and it’s been around for a while: from BC and AD, Before Christ and Anno Domini, in the year of our Lord. They want to change it to Before Common Era and Common Era. The question is, when does Before Common Era stop and when does Common Era start? Well, it still starts and stops with Jesus.
In the same way that Passover is the symbol of Israel’s redemption that starts their year, our entire calendar is revolving around God’s redemptive purposes in our life. And that’s just the whole world. If we go one step deeper, if we go to you: your calendar should be organized around the times that God saved your life, the times that God set you free, the times that God redeemed you. Because, like we said, this is not just a story about people six thousand years ago. This is a story about us today being set free from the power of sin and death in our life.
Do you remember all the times God has come through for you? I think that’s part of why it’s so encouraging to hear Father Jim preach, because he has all the best stories about times when he was in the worst pickle and God got him out of it. We should be telling one another those stories. We should be telling our kids, our family members, the stories of when God showed up. That’s why the first month of the year shall be the month of Passover for the Israelite people.
VI. The Lamb at Twilight 17:14
And then, as you know, there’s the Passover lamb, the paschal lamb, ultimately fulfilled in Jesus. But what’s this whole thing about? Why do they have to kill a lamb that’s under a year, that’s unblemished? That seems kind of primitive, doesn’t it? Doesn’t that seem like some pagan ritual? Why would they have to kill a lamb? There’s a symbol here. There’s a call in us to sacrifice that which is most valuable for God’s salvation. Later on we learn in the New Testament that our call is actually to be a living sacrifice (Rom 12.1).
The most valuable thing you could think of, when you’re a nomad who wanders through deserts, is your source of food and sustenance, and your baby lamb that could build your herd, that could lead to feeding your family. Today we’re just called to give everything. The call is much higher today. Yeah, you don’t have to go out and find a lamb or buy one at the temple, but your whole life is called to be dedicated to him.
What’s the point of sacrificing a lamb? The salvation of God always costs something. Now, ultimately, he paid that price. But if you’re gonna hold on to, let’s say, your idol worship, as we’ve been talking about, if you’re gonna hold on to the gods of Egypt, if you’re gonna hold on to your own ability to provide, you’re pushing out room for God’s grace in your life. Now, luckily, God’s a lot bigger than you. And whose grip in this relationship matters, his or yours? I would say his. And so God will complete the work that he’s begun in you (Phil 1.6). But man, let go.
Maybe you don’t have a lamb to sacrifice, but maybe you have your own ego. I know that’s one that comes up for me regularly. I have to lay down my own decision-making powers, my own intelligence, my own stubbornness. I just have to lay it down, and I have to sacrifice. We’re still participating in the sacrifice of the lamb in our own lives.
And then it says, kill the lambs at twilight. What’s that about? Well, the Israelite people started their day at twilight: sunset to sunset. So what do you do when you wake up in the morning? Do you die to yourself? Do you sacrifice your lamb on the altar? Or do you go out and earn the bacon? Do you go out and protect yourself by filling your head with entertainment and nonsense? I know personally that if I don’t intentionally dedicate my day to the Lord, then I am very quickly all about me. And it shows. My wife knows: “Hey, how was your morning? How was your time with Jesus this morning?” You know, it’s the same as saying, “Man, you’re being a real jerk right now. Where are you?” But there’s this sense, before you go to bed in this day, and when you wake up: dedicate your life to the Lord. Remember, kill your lamb, that precious thing that you’re holding on to.
VII. The Destroyer at Midnight 20:33
And then of course the Lord, or the destroyer, comes at midnight, in the darkest time of night. It calls forth the same language that we get about when Jesus is going to return at the end of the day. The point is, be prepared.
I think that the largest idol that we worship as American Christians is our time. I think if you just narrowed it down to what we would care about more than anything else, I think it’s our time. We want our time to watch our show, or we want our time to go fishing, or we want our time to spend at the nice restaurant. We want our time. “I don’t want to give up my Saturday to go build a pergola at the church.” And yet what does God ask of us? He asks of us our lives, everything, and especially our time.
Because you don’t know when God wants to move in your life. What if there’s this opportunity where God could set you free, and you were sleeping when he asked you to be awake? Now, this point isn’t a scare message, like, “Oh no, we’re gonna miss God if I’m not constantly in my Bible or constantly praying all day.” That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is, prepare your heart. God’s coming, period. He’s coming today, he’s coming tomorrow. Every day God will come in your life, and you never know when he’s going to come and he’s going to change everything. It happens in an instant, suddenly. So open your eyes. Orient your life around the moments when God shows up, and remember them. Remind yourself. Be aware, be awake, be alive.
VIII. Hyssop and the Blood 21:46
And then he says, “So what you’re going to do, because I’m coming at midnight, is you’re going to cover your lintels, your doorposts, with blood,” and you’re going to paint it with hyssop. Which was so great, because I had written a sermon before I even knew what the readings were today, because I knew we were on this thing. And what are they doing? They’re doing that with hyssop. And what did we read in our psalm today? “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (Ps 51.7).
What’s the point here? In order for us to be spiritually cleansed, there must be a death. There must be a sacrifice. It’s the same thing we were talking about with the lamb. Where is God calling you to take up your cross and follow him? That’s why they’re spreading the blood of the lamb symbolically over their doorposts. They’re saying, “My whole house is dedicated to the Lord and protected by the blood of his sacrifice.” Ultimately we know that the true blood that washes us whiter than snow is Jesus’: that by his stripes we are healed (Isa 53.5); by his blood we are cleansed.
It can sound so pagan or foreign, but it makes so much sense when you put it simply. It’s like, yeah, we actually have to lay down our lives in order for God to resurrect us. In fact, our clearest symbol that we’re told is in baptism, like we have today. When you baptize a baby, they enter into death with Christ and are raised to newness of life. You’re bought with a price there (1 Cor 6.20). There but for the grace of God go I.
And then it says no one leaves their house till morning. So they’re doing all this stuff. They’re having this feast where they’re going to eat the lamb, they’ve painted their doorposts, and they’re told, “You can’t leave till morning.” And as my mom often used to say, “Nothing good happens after 11 p.m. Why are you out, Jesse? Get back home.” There is something real there, something true. I know it’s a little trite. I know there are times and places to have celebrations that last into the wee hours of the morning. Absolutely. But if you find yourself finding excuses to stay up late, ask yourself why. That’s just a question; I’m not making some spiritual point here. But why are you up at midnight on your phone, or on the computer, or hanging out with friends, or whatever it is? Is it the right time?
There’s all of this symbolism in the liturgical calendar and the covenantal relationship with the Jewish people. All of this stuff has to do with how we spend our time. And so I’m just asking, why were they not allowed to leave from twilight till morning? Well, there’s a sense in which they were called to be in that one place, under the covering of the paschal lamb, who we know is Jesus. And there’s a sense in which you can leave the covering that God has given you, if you find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Now, I’m not saying just staying up late. My sister works as a nurse, and she works all night long. Is she doing anything wrong doing that? No. She’s working her butt off to do her job, to serve people in a hospital. But are you at the right place at the right time? Are you under the covering, or are you out cowboy-style, doing your own thing? I know I’ve found myself where I look around and I say, “Man, I’m just in the wrong place doing the wrong thing.” It might not even be sinful, but I just knew it wasn’t what God wanted me to be doing. So open your eyes. Listen. Where are you at?
IX. Unleavened Bread and Bitter Herbs 26:09
And then it says, eat up the lamb that night and burn up all the excess. And that’s all about learning to live by God’s provision and not your own. Because man, there’s a lot of good meat there that you could dry. You could turn it into jerky. You could take it into the desert. You could do these things. You could provide for yourself out of that. And God says, “No, no, no. This one’s mine, and you’re gonna trust me to provide.”
And then it says, eat unleavened bread with bitter herbs. What’s the point of that? Bitter herbs? You’re gonna make it taste worse? Why would God say that? There are two reasons. Number one, unleavened bread: you don’t have to sit around and wait for the dough to rise. That’s what it says in the Scripture. You don’t have any time to put yeast in your dough and wait for it to rise. God is coming suddenly. It’s the same message as when God comes at midnight. You never know when God’s going to come. You need to be prepared.
And so you have unleavened bread, and bitter herbs to remind you of what God has saved you from. That’s what it says in Scripture. Why do they have bitter herbs? It says because of the suffering in Egypt, in slavery. And you think, “Well, that’s kind of silly, God. Wouldn’t they remember four hundred years of slavery?” You guys know that in like two chapters they’re saying, “Moses, why’d you take us out of Egypt? Couldn’t we have died there?” (Exod 14.11–12) So yeah, the bitter herbs matter. They needed to be reminded of what they had gone through and what God had brought them through.
That’s our problem too. In America we have it too easy. The default state for civilization is suffering, slavery, and death. We wake up every morning in America with the air conditioning on and think, “Man, the default state is just pleasure.” That’s not it. We need to remember what God has saved us from. Now, I’m making this about material goods, but the same thing can be said for your spiritual goods. We are so blessed to have Saint Michael’s, to have this community of people, to have this history of God working in our life. And we wake up and we think this is default. No. Default is suffering by yourself in depression and anxiety. Remember what God has done in your life.
And we eat it with our belt fastened, sandals on our feet, staff in our hand, and we eat it in haste. Once again, it’s the same message we get in the New Testament: put on the armor of God (Ephes 6.11). Be ready to go. I was thinking about what I do in the mornings. Am I ready for the day, ready for God to show up, and ready to love those that I encounter?
And those are the preparations. That’s what they’re gonna do during Passover. They’re gonna eat this stuff, they’re gonna stay in their house, they’re gonna have the blood of the lamb on their doorposts, and Yahweh is going to pass over.
X. When I See the Blood 29:10
So in Exodus 12, beginning in verse 12, it says:
11 …It is Yahweh’s Passover. 12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am Yahweh. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. Exod 12.11–13
Ultimately, while God’s judging the gods of Egypt for the Egyptians, he’s also judging them for the Israelites. Because when you worship your own success, your own time, your own money, what you do is you sacrifice your children to a false god. We actually see this happen fairly frequently. You see the kids of the famous, successful people who become complete and utter failures in their life, because these people, who think that they know what good is, what success and money will get them, realize that it actually doesn’t protect their children, and it often opens them up. I mean, it’s a cliché at this point for rich people’s kids to be drug addicted or have all these other problems. And we live in Orange County, where there are quite a few people, I would argue, who worship success and money. And we see them sending their kids to these prestigious schools, and we see their whole lives fall apart, because ultimately who the father and mother worship will determine the state of their kids.
Now, of course, God can save anyone anywhere. He’s so good. He saved me. Now, my parents are awesome and loved God and worshiped him, and there’s nothing I am more grateful for. I say that very frankly. But what do we need to sacrifice today in our own life for the sake of our kids? Because it’s all around us. The divorce rates. What’s divorce? You can’t divorce your spouse and expect that your kids aren’t going to be affected. “But I’m pursuing my own happiness. I wasn’t happy in that marriage.” Okay, so you’re worshiping a false god, and you’re sacrificing your children to it. Abortion is the worst possible case scenario, but there’s plenty before that that people are encouraged to do. “Don’t get married when you’re in your 20s. That’s for when you live and enjoy your life. Don’t get married till you’re 30, maybe 35.” You’re sacrificing your potential children to your own happiness.
Now, I need to clarify all of this and put brackets around it and say: God has a plan for every one of our lives, and it looks different. And the only way you can know whether you’re worshiping a false god is by coming before him and asking, confessing your sins, being aware of where you’re at. Maybe God hasn’t called you to be married when you’re 35. Maybe God didn’t call you to have kids. Maybe blah, blah, blah. I know there are exceptions. But I will tell you this: our culture spends every waking day telling you that your happiness is what matters, your time is what matters. And we have to actually fight that and organize our lives around the story of God’s time and God’s purposes. Otherwise our kids suffer.
So we’ll end here, with Pharaoh’s response. God comes, he takes the firstborn, and there’s a cry in Egypt, they say, like has never been heard, as you might imagine.
31 Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve Yahweh, as you have said. 32 Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!” Exod 12.31–32
Oh, is Pharaoh learning his lesson? What is happening here? He’s been spanked all over the book, and he keeps turning his back. He says, “Oh, stop the plague and I’ll let you go.” And then he says, “Psych! You stop the plague, but I’m not letting you go.” He keeps playing this game. Has he finally learned? He even says, “Bless me. As you’re serving God, pray for me.” We learn next week that he does not learn his lesson. In fact, Pharaoh is the powerful coward who is more than willing to bully and demand what he wants when he thinks he’s in the lead. But as soon as he sees the tide turning, he ducks out. He says, “No, I’m not playing this game. You’re right, God’s more powerful.” But he never learns his lesson.
And I talked a little bit last week about what is happening in Pharaoh’s mind. And I just want to tell you, if you’re honest with yourself, you understand Pharaoh. Because I know that there have been places in my life where over and over again God reminds me, “Yeah, you shouldn’t do that. Yeah, you messed up.” And yet I keep returning to that same behavior, because I want it my way.
So as we think today (and all of today has been about the sacrifices that God calls us to make), let’s remember that ultimately the sacrifice has been made for us. The grace is freely offered. The invitations to lay down your own life, your own things that you want, come with the guarantee of God’s goodness, resurrection, and joy, already bought for you.
In fact, we’re baptizing this baby this morning into the kingdom of God. This baby did nothing to earn it. Has this baby earned it yet? I don’t think so. This baby has not done anything to earn membership in the family of God. And when we talk about laying things down, what we’re talking about is, “Okay, you’re in this kingdom. Let me teach you how to have joy, life.” Again and again in Scripture there’s a choice between life and death: choose life (Deut 30.19). You’re in the family. You’re in the kingdom. Live like it. Amen.