Let's pray together.  Father, thank you for the joy that we have.  There really is a supernatural, spiritual joy that we derive when we make meaningful contact with you and contact with one another.  Whereas John said, for truly our fellowship is with God, the Father and with the Lord Jesus Christ and with one another, and it is true and we thank you for it.  We thank you how encouraging it is to gather like this, over songs of worship, sharing in common as the word communion implies, sharing in common the life that is brand new and that will continue throughout all of eternity.  Thank you for what you've done in us and for us.  In Jesus' name, amen.

Now, our next book of the Bible, since we finished Genesis is going to be, of course, Exodus, and it is our next book.  It is a story about deliverance, but we're not going to really be ale to get into Exodus like we want to until after the holiday season.  I'll explain why.  Next week is communion week and--I'm sorry, tonight is communion week.  I'm a week up.  Next week is Thanksgiving week.  It's a time of celebration and we're going to have that service, and then the following week, we're already going to be in December and we're going to have children's plays and nights of worship, and kind of focus in on that whole event.

So we're really not going to able to open up Exodus like we want to.  I'm going to give you a little bit of a preview of coming attraction tonight and (00:01:55) on a couple of verses.  But we're not going to really be able to unlock it, unfold it and delve into it like we will until January.  Now, I want to announce to you that when we start in Exodus, we're coming up with something new.  I got some of the best and brightest minds together, and we're going to do something on Wednesday nights that I don't think have ever been done, and I can just tell you that.

First of all, I would tell you that nothing is going to change in terms of nuts and bolts.  It's worship and the Word of God, and it will always be that way.  But I'm always looking for ways to connect people together over the commonality of the Word of God.  How can we connect people together over the commonality of the Word of God or to develop--let's call it a textual community, where we come together and we share in common with each other, we rejoice and learn together the text of the Word of God.  It's a community based upon the word.  It's a textual community.  And so that's what we're moving toward.

But imagine, if we were able to get everybody in church and we were able to read through, prepare for, read together the same text of scripture throughout the week in our devotional time and it all culminates in one night a week on Wednesday night.  And some of you do that.  Some of you read ahead already, but we want to make it easier for you through a variety of ways that will tell you about when we start it to make that not only easier, but fun.

So you're going to be digging into the word in your devotional time.  We'll be having devotions every morning together so to speak, or everyday together, whenever you have it, it doesn't matter and we're all going to be sort of doing the same steps that lead up to the preparation for the next chapters that we read on Wednesday night.

There's a book put out years ago.  It was a Bible overview guide called Halley's Bible Handbook, and what's odd about this book more than any other Bible survey book is that when you open the first page, the front cover, and you get to page one, it says, "The most important page in this book is page 748."  I've never seen a book that said, "Of all the things you read, this is the most important."  So if you're a curious reader and you see that you want to immediately turn to the most important page in the book.

And I'm thinking, well, he's doing a survey of the Bible.  Every page is the most important page.  But on page 748, here's a snippet of it, he writes, "The most important thing in this book is this simple suggestion--that each church have a congregational plan of Bible reading and that the pastor's sermon be from the part of the Bible read the past week, thus connecting the pastor's preaching with the people's Bible reading."  And he said this, "If this is followed, it will produce a revitalized church and bring about a grand revival."

So, what you're going to see coming up in January on Wednesday nights is the same basic thing, worship and Bible study.  It's not going to be called line on line anymore, that sort of a thing we put together years ago and carried it through.  It's going to be called Expound.  Wednesday nights will be called Expound.  And what Expound is about is expanding your knowledge of the truth of God by expounding for you the Word of God.

But we want to do it in a way that's interactive, that's enjoyable and that we can do as a congregation together all throughout the week culminating on Wednesday night.  And tonight, as you can see upfront and as promised, we're going to take the Lord's Supper together.  We're focusing on redemption and that is what the Book of Exodus focuses on.  The grand theme of the Book of Exodus is Redemption and Revelation.  Redemption and Revelation.  He redeemed the children of Israel from bondage and he revealed himself to them.

And again, I'll go over this again when we start in January.  This is sort of a preview of that.  But I would bet that that is also the theme of your life.  The theme of your life is Redemption and Revelation.  Is it not?  God redeemed you and he's in the process of revealing himself to you.  Or to put it in a New Testament sense, he's saved you, redeemed you and he's in the process of sanctifying you, cleaning you up, making you holier, drawing you closer to him by revealing his truth to you.

So Redemption and Revelation are themes not only of the Book of Exodus, but they're themes of your life and that's what communion is all about, and we celebrate communion.  We celebrate.  A few years ago, an assistant pastor here on staff was out shopping for the grape juice for our communion service and he had to buy a large quantity of it as you can imagine.  So, he brings the cart up to the checkout stand and in front of him is a lady with a couple of six-packs of beer and she turns and sees this whole crateful of grape juice and she smiles and she says, "Having a celebration, huh?" and he goes, "Uh-huh?"

It is a celebration.  We are celebrating.  We have been forgiven.  Forgiven people are happy people.  We have something to celebrate over.  In Psalm 32, the Bible says, "Happy or blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered."  "Blessed or happy is the man to whom the Lord does not impute inequity."  We're happy people.  I heard it in your singing a little while ago.  I could hear back of this platform an enormous anthem of voices coming up here, and how that must please the Father.

And all I could hear in that is what a happy group of people forgiven by God, celebrating their redemption.  Forgiveness of sin brings joy because sin produces guilt and guilt is what blocks us from having joy.  Once again, forgiveness of sin brings joy because sin is what produces guilt and guilt is what bocks the flow of joy.

Several years ago, I actually saw in a newspaper an advertisement and I've followed up on this, "For Disposable Guilt Bags".  It was called Disposable Guilt Bags.  Ten little paper sacks with instructions, $2.50 per kit if you decided to buy one.  And the instruction said, "Take in a deep breath, place the bag securely over you mouth and blow all of the guilt into the bag and then dispose off immediately." Now you read that and go, "Hokey, stupid.  Nobody would fall for that!"  Within minutes, I researched it, 2500 kits at $2.50 a pack were sold.  You do the math.  That's $6250.00.

Somebody was thinking, somebody must have known that deep within the core of every human being is the desire to get rid of guilt.  You can't dispose of it, however.  It has to be forgiven.  You need forgiveness.  That's what communion is all about, forgiveness.  How is it we can be forgiven?  The answer in a single word, a lamb.  A lamb.

And we come to Exodus Chapter 12, and I know it starts, so we'll throw the passages up on the screen, but let me set the stage for you in the Book of Exodus.

Since Joseph died in Genesis, 400 years have elapsed.  A new pharaoh arises who does not know who Joseph is, does not know the history and the legacy of the Children of Israel, and this new pharaoh has a problem.  In his mind, the problem is the Jewish problem.  This race has proliferated.  They entered Canaan with just 78 people and now they're upwards of two to three million people.  They've had lots of babies and they're taking over the land and it becomes a problem for this pharaoh.

So, this pharaoh decides to enslave those Jewish people to make them serve him rigorously.  It becomes a problem for the Jewish people.  They cry out to God as what they know to do.  When in trouble, call on God.  They call on God.  God raises up a man by the name of Mosheh, Moses, The Deliverer.  By a process of 10 plagues, God gets the pharaoh's attention real fast and basically takes pharaoh, arm behind the back until pharaoh cries out, "Uncle!" and decides to let God's people, through Moses go.  That takes us to Chapter 12.  It's the night of the final plague in Egypt--the death of the firstborn.  God said that he would send his angel through the land and he would pass over all of the homes where a lamb had been slain and the blood applied to the lentils and the doorpost.

I'm reading the first few verses of Exodus 12.  Now, the Lord spoke to Moses in errand in the land of Egypt saying, "This month shall be your beginning of months.  It shall be the first month of the year to you."  Interesting.  Their entire calendar was now to change and revolve around one event--redemption.  They are now supposed to reckon time according to the time they were redeemed.  It's their spiritual birthday and the rest of their generations, their calendars would change so that they would keep the very first day as the day they were redeemed.  I love that.

And I love when people today recon their years based upon their spiritual, not their physical birth.  I had a 25-year-old walk up to me smiling and saying, "I'm three years old today."  It was three years ago tonight that I gave my life to Christ.  Changing the way you look at life based upon the event of redemption.  The text goes on, "Speak to all the congregation of Israel saying, 'On the 10th day of this month, every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father.  A lamb for a household and if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons according to each man's need, you shall make your count for the lamb.  Your lamb shall be without blemish.  A male of the first year, you may take it from the sheep or from the goats.'"

I'd like you to notice something in those verses that I just read.  In verse three, four and five, verses that I just read, there's something a little bit different.  In verse three, it says, "A lamb."  In verse four, it says, "The lamb."  In verse five, it says, "Your lamb."--a lamb, the lamb, your lamb.  This week I received a letter from someone in our fellowship, a beautiful letter.  God has done such work in his life.  And he admitted that for years, he had come to this fellowship and enjoyed the singing, enjoyed the messages, but it wasn't until several years went by until he gave his life to Christ.

And I thought about this and I thought about him and I thought, "Here's somebody who heard about a lamb who could do something for him and then on day, he became convinced that this lamb was the lamb.  The only way a person could come to Christ or come to God was through Jesus Christ, the lamb.  You couldn't get to heaven but through the lamb.

So we went from a lamb to the lamb and it was that day that he prayed and received his lamb.  It was his savior.  Jesus died for his sins.  I want you to think about that.  Jesus died for your sins.  He took your shame upon himself.  Is he your lamb?  Do you have a personalization of this reality?  Is he your lamb or is he just a lamb?  When he's your lamb, that's when everything changes.

And I invite you tonight if Jesus Christ isn't personally your savior to making that.  The text goes in Chapter 12, Verse 12, God says, "For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and I will strike all the firstborn of the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment.  I am the Lord.  Now, the blood shall be a sign for you and the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you."

That's where the term Passover comes from.  God says, "I will pass over you and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt."  Something interesting.  If you lived back then and if you were to kill a lamb, it would do you no good.  None whatsoever.   It would be totally fruitless and useless for you to slay a lamb unless you were to apply it to your house.  If you just killed the lamb and the blood was shed but you didn't apply it to your own house, to your own life, you would die.  You had to put your faith into action.  Killing the lamb, smearing the blood on the lentils and the doorpost of the house.  Within the house you are protected.

Now, let's say you were an Egyptian and there was a Jewish person down the street and you saw blood on the lentils and doorpost.  And you are convicted that that was the only way you were going to be saved from the plague that was going to come because after all, nine had preceded it, Moses had predicted it and they all came true.  Now, he's predicting that the firstborn in every home will die unless there's that blood applied.  If you're an Egyptian, do you think, "I'm a logical person.  I'm going to run into that Jewish person's house."  You would be saved.  But if you were Jewish and you killed the lamb and even put the blood on the lentils and the doorpost, but were outside the house, you would die.  You wouldn't live.

So it's important that they realize it wasn't about their genealogy, it wasn't about their religious upbringing, it wasn't about their Jewishness, it wasn't about the Covenant of Abraham as much as this new covenant of blood that was being shed.  Only blood could save them and forgive them of the sins that they have committed.

So, in this act of Passover, God was acting as judge, God was acting as savior and God was acting as father.  He was acting as judge, he was going to judge Egypt and the gods of Egypt by slaying the firstborn of Egypt and even among Israel if they didn't believe and act in faith by putting the blood over their home.  He was acting as savior, saving anyone who would trust and come into the domicile, into the house where the blood was applied.  And he acted as father because through this redemption, he was making for himself a Special People, the Bible says, where God would be their father.

All in that act of Passover, God was doing these things.  Question, why so graphic?  Why so bloody?  Why so brutal?  As to kill an innocent animal and put blood over the entrance to your house.  How gross.  Why would God do that?  Well, it's something they would never forget.  It was to indelibly inscribe into their memory their redemption and it worked.  You know how it worked?  Because throughout their generations after this, throughout the other writings in the Bible, throughout the Psalms, even in the Jewish portions of the New Testament, they're all looking back to the night the lambs were slain and our forefathers were delivered.

It worked.  They remembered it.  We're called at the communion table to remember the sacrifice.  Do this in remembrance of me.  Fast forward, from the Old Testament to the New Testament.  Fast forward to the day that John the Baptist was down at the Jordan River, baptizing people for the remission of sins and he sees his cousin, whom he knows as the messiah, Jesus was walking toward him.

And John looks up and he says, "Behold!" which I like to translate, "Hey, check it out!"  "Hey look!  There's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."  What do you think was running through John's mind when he said that phrase, "Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world?"  After all, he was the son of a priest, right?  Zachariah's father served in the temple.  John, being a PK, a Priest's Kid, would know all about the rituals of the temple.  Maybe when he said that, he thought all the way back to Genesis Chapter 22, which we covered in recent times, where Abraham and Isaac were walking up toward Mount Moriah and Isaac said to his father, "Father look, here's the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?"  And Abraham said, "My son, God will provide for himself a lamb as a sacrifice," or it should best translated, "God will provide himself a lamb."

God will become the lamb.  He will provide himself through Christ as the lamb.  God will provide himself the lamb.  Maybe that went through John's mind.  Maybe Isaiah 53 went through John's mind, that passage that those in the New Testament found to relate to Jesus Christ as their lamb.  Where Isaiah the prophet said, "He was led as a lamb before the slaughter and as a sheep before it shares a silent, so he opened out his mouth."  Maybe that went through John's mind or perhaps it's what we're discussing in Exodus 12, the Passover lamb.  The spreading of the blood on the lentils and the doorpost of the home, or maybe all of those things were going through his mind as he, in one phrase in encapsulated the mission and the purpose of Christ, the Lamb of God.

Years later, Paul the Apostle, in the Book of 1 Corinthians Chapter 5, said, "Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed for us."  Linking the Passover of the Old Testament and the sacrifice of Christ in the New Testament together, the symbolism was the same.  Then it was Peter, one of the apostles of our Lord and he said in 1 Peter Chapter 1, "You are not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your forefathers, but by the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or spot."

The lamb, my lamb, our lamb.  So that's Exodus 12 and we fast forwarded to the New Testament gospels of John the Baptist and behold the Lamb of God.  Now, fast forward again all the way toward the end, the Book of Revelation.  John receives visions of the end times.  He sees first of all the vision of the glorified coming Christ in Chapter 1.  Chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, he sees the vision of the seven churches scattered throughout Asia Minor as Jesus writes little postcards to hem.

Beginning in Chapter 4, there's a change in scenery.  John is taken immediately up into the heavenly courts and he sees everything from a heavenly perspective as the Great Tribulation period is about to unfold on the earth.

As John sees that, to write that, in Chapter 5 are these words.  Revelation Chapter 5 verse 1, "And I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll written inside and on the back sealed with seven seals.  And then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, 'Who is worthy to open this scroll and lose its seals?'  And no one in heaven or on the earth, or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look at it.  And so I wept much because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll or to look at it.  But one of the elders said to me, 'Do not weep.  Behold,' or, 'Check it out.' 'Hey John!  Quit crying!  Check this out.  Behold the lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Root of David has prevailed to open the scroll and lose its seven seals.'"

Two names are given to Jesus.  One you're familiar with.  The first one is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.  Remember back in Chapter 49 of Genesis, where Jacob said, "Judah is a lion's whelp.  The messiah was to come to the Tribe of Judah," and he did.  And the tribe of Judah would adapt as its symbol for the tribe, its banner for the tribe, the symbol of a lion.  "Look, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah has prevailed".  But he's also called the Root of David.  Now, why is he called that?  Because the Prophet Isaiah said that, "There will come forth a rod from the stem of Jessie."  Jessie was David's father.  "A root will come from the stem of Jessie and a branch will grow up from him."  He's from the root of David.

In other words, "Look, don't cry.  Here's somebody who has been predicted from Genesis, even the greatest Prophet Isaiah spoke about his coming.  He's going to do the job of redeeming the earth, taking the title deed, the scroll and unloosing it.  So, Verse 6, he turns, he looks, he's checking it out.  It says this, "And I looked and check it out," "Behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders stood a lamb."  A lamb?  I thought he said, "Look!  A lion!"  I looked and I saw a lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits sent out into all the earth.  That's not what John expected.  The elders said, "Don't cry, man.  Look, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah."  And he looks expecting to see a lion.  He sees a lamb.  Now that's familiar territory because a lamb--Jesus is called the lamb 29 times in the Book of Revelation.  This is different.  He sees a lamb, it says, "As though it had been slain."

Now, don't you think that's a little strange for John to see in heaven?  This is heaven now.  He's in God's glory.  Everything's perfect in God's glory.  Everything's redeemed, everything's resurrected in God's glory, and everything's made new.  And he sees a lamb as though it had been slain.  Even in heaven, even surrounding the glory of God, he sees Jesus Christ still bearing the marks of the cross.  Let that just sink in for a minute.  In heaven, in redemption, in glory land, is Jesus still bearing the marks of crucifixion.

You remember after Jesus rose from the dead, he's in his resurrected body.  Thomas, who did not believe that Jesus had resurrected, Jesus appeared to him and said, "Hey, Tommy boy, behold."  Check it out.  "Behold my hands, my side and my feet.  Reach forth your finger and see my hands.  Reach forth your hand and put it into my side and see that it's I."  Even Jesus, in his resurrected body, before he ascended bore the marks of crucifixion and now John sees him in heaven and his glory is seen with the same scars.

That tells me that for all of eternity, Jesus Christ will be bearing the marks of his sacrificial death in heaven.  Let me phrase it another way.  The only work of man that you will ever see in heaven are the wounds we put on the body of Jesus Christ.  I know, some of you are thinking, "Oh, that's so sad.  That's going to be so sad."  No, it's going to be sensational.  It's not a badge of shame to Jesus, it's his badge of honor.  Because he forever wants us to remember, just like he wanted them to remember back then in Exodus, he wants us to remember tonight, he wants us to forever remember that it was those scars, it was that sacrifice that helped us find our way home.  We'll be home.  How did you get here?  How did you get home?  See that lamb as though it had been slain?  That's how I got home.

Years ago, there was a police officer patrolling our town in Northern England.  He heard a whimpering, a crying.  He looked around, went around the block.  It was night time.  It was cold and he saw a little boy on the steps of a tenement building in London crying.  The officer said, "What's wrong little boy?  What's wrong, lad?" And he said, "I'm lost.  I can't find my way home."  He said, "Well, where do you live?"  The boy said, "I don't remember.  I don't know the street name."

So the officer started rattling off all the street names, he knew them all by heart, he started rattling all the street names up.  None of them sounded familiar to the boy.  The officer started naming shops, naming businesses, restaurants, anything he could in different sections.  Nothing rang a bell to the boy.  Finally, the officer grabbed the little boy, walked out into the street because he remembered in the center of town was a huge steeple attached to a church and on top of the steeple was a big white cross.  And he pointed up to that steeple and he said, "Do you live anywhere near that?" and the boy's eyes widened.  He lit up and he said, "Yes!  Take me to the cross.  I can find my way home from there."  It's where he lived.  He lived in that neighborhood.

Well, that's what communion does.  It points us to the cross where we have found our way home.  Your home.  Your home in the sense that you have a spiritual family or your brothers and your sisters.  There's no better family than God's family.  There's no better support mechanism than the Body of Christ.  I have discovered that over the years.  That's why I love being a churchman.  I love being a pastor and I know that you love that kind of fellowship that comes from it.  Your home in that sense.  But you're going to be really be home when you stand in glory and there is your savior who took your judgment on himself, and enables you to have a father.  It's by his stripes we are healed.

As you take these elements tonight, take them with a Heart of Thanksgiving.  Take them with a renewed heart of joy.  Get in touch with what it means to be a child of God by faith in Jesus Christ.  I'm going to ask the communion board to come forward.  We're going to pass out these elements.  I'm going to ask you to hold on to them until we all have them and once we all have them, then we'll take them together.  First the bread and then the fruit of the vine.

As we're about to take these elements, just consider what could separate us.  We have different backgrounds, different ages, different experiences, some of us are separated by miles.  There's people watching all over the world, little groups of people tuning in, watching and entering into this communion service via the internet.  But now consider what we have in common and what we have in common overshadows what could separate us.  What we have in common is a savior who loves us all, died for us all and accepts us all based upon that work and love, so that it doesn't matter what separates us.