Holy Week: Exodus & Easter | Pastor Alex Himaya

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Well, Happy Easter, church. So good to be with you. And as you just saw, we have been challenging those who call Battle Creek Church their home on Easter weekend to give one day's salary. In fact, if you take your cell phones out right now and just tap that circle on the chair in front of you, the prompts will come up to help you do that. And obviously, that amount varies based on your salary. For those of you who are new this weekend, we've been preparing over the last several weeks to bless the world with an over and above offering. And I want to declare to you that 100% of this offering will go beyond the walls of Battle Creek Church through our partner, Convoy of Hope,

to feed hungry and vulnerable children all over the world. And we are praying, and our prayer is this, that our one day could change their every day. A few people asked me earlier. They said, hey, if we're new and we're just visiting, can we give? Of course. You can give to this. We believe it's gonna impact children all over the world. And so just tap your phone on that circle in front of you and follow those prompts. If you don't know how to do the tap, in a moment, a QR code will come up. And let's go ahead and give that offering today because theologically, let me tell you what we believe. We believe one day can change everything. In fact, one day did change everything in that empty tomb, and it can change everything for someone who is still waiting to be reached. So thank you again for joining us in this amazing opportunity to bless those who are less fortunate than you and me. And as you finish giving that gift today, would you just take your hands and open them on your lap, and would you bow your heads and bow, bow your heads and close your eyes, and would you just ask with me, first of all, Lord, would you bless our generosity? Would you use it to not only feed children, but to reach children for Jesus?

And not just the children, but their whole families. Would you use it in a great way and multiply it to impact lives? And now today, as we jump into the celebration of Easter and the resurrection of your son, Jesus, we pray that all over the world today he would be lifted up, glorified, made much of. And we thank you that from Genesis 1 all the way to the end of Revelation, there's a scarlet thread that runs through every verse of Scripture. And that thread is the person of Jesus. We pray that we would lift him up in this place today and he would come out of the Scriptures into our lives in a real way, in an applicable way, in a life-changing way. And it's in the strong and the mighty and the matchless name of Jesus we pray. And together we all say amen and amen. Now, how many of you, you don't need to raise your hands on this one, but how many of you, truth be told, are waiting for your one day, where everything changes? And you know what I mean, that where one day changes everything, where one day life finally comes together. Maybe for you it's one day you win the lottery, right? And you can finally quit that job that you tolerate. Or one day you cross the stage

and receive that diploma or that degree. Or one day you walk down an aisle and you declare, I do. Or one day you move into that house you've been dreaming about. Maybe you're like me, you're not that ambitious. You just wanna finish that one project that you started three years ago. years ago, but let me ask a different question. How many of you have ever had something in your life, this one I do want you to show your hands, how many of you have ever had something in your life that started strong but didn't finish well? Anybody? Now, I'm not talking about OU's football team in the playoff games, and you can't cheer at that, OSU fans, you can't even start strong, right? And so let me make this real for you today, okay? Maybe just getting here today was a struggle. Trying to get the kids ready and get them out the door, and one of your kids left unfinished with one shoe on, the other still at the house, and them looking like they got in a fight with a laundry basket. Anybody? Of course, right? That's true for many of us, and speaking of socks and shoes, I heard something two weeks ago in a meeting that I have never ever heard before, that there are some people who put one sock on and then put that shoe on, and then move to the other foot

and put the other sock on and the other shoe on. Any of you do that? That is some kind of weird. We have a community group for you. It meets under supervision, but I can fast track you in. Here's the point I'm trying to make. We all, from time to time, suffer from a failure to finish what we started. How many of you, your to-do list feels longer than your done list, right? Or you feel still closer to the starting line than you do the finish line? And here's the truth. It's not just the small stuff in life. For a lot of us, life itself feels unfinished. And maybe it's a marriage that started strong, but today feels fragile. Maybe it's a dream that you were sure that God gave you, and now it feels stalled. Or maybe it's a prayer that you prayed with all kinds of confidence that still has not been answered, or a habit you thought you had defeated, and it keeps showing back up in your life. Truth be told, some of you, if not many of you, walked in today carrying that very tension. And if you're honest, there are parts of your life that feel unfinished or unresolved or unsettled. And the question is this. What is God doing when life feels stuck in the middle?

I wanna look at it because all through the Bible, God has been on a mission to finish what he started. Exodus, Easter, and every day. They're actually very connected. And today what I wanna do is spend all of our time showing you the connections between the Exodus and Easter. In fact, I wanna show you, it's really just one story. And then I'm gonna spend the next four weeks, starting next weekend, connecting for you Easter and resurrection power to your everyday life. From the Exodus to the Easter, there's something powerful about the tenacity of God. From Egypt to the cross to the empty tomb, God has been telling one story, a rescue story. And there is a thread that runs through all of it, and that thread is this. God will finish what he started. And that's really good news for you today. But because when God begins a rescue, he never abandons it halfway through. When God initiates a redemption, he always completes it. And if that was true in the Exodus and that was true at Easter, then it can be true in your life every single day. And so what I wanna do today is I wanna take two stories from this book. One from the beginning of the book and the book of Exodus, and the other, the pinnacle of the entire Bible, the Easter story.

And I wanna lay them side by side and show you the connection between the Exodus and Easter. And if we get that connection, then I think we'll be better equipped in the next four-week series to connect Easter and resurrection power to our everyday lives. Because listen to me, this isn't just Israel's story. And it isn't just Jesus' story. It's your story, and it's my story. And whether you know it or not, there is actually a very deep connection between Easter and the Jewish celebration of Passover in the book of Exodus. And it goes deeper, much, much deeper than just their place on a calendar. It even goes deeper than the fact that the first Easter occurred on the Jewish Passover. And maybe this week on your iCal on Wednesday, a holiday popped up, and it said today is Passover. And you don't even know. What Passover is, well let me just take a minute and explain it to you. In the book of Exodus, the children of Israel were in slavery under Pharaoh in Egypt. And God sends his servant Moses to Pharaoh to say, Pharaoh, Pharaoh, oh baby, let my people go. And if you got that reference, you were a teenage Christian in the 90s. Christianity in the 90s meant human videos,

motions to every single lyric and every worship song and the Holy Spirit still breaking through. But Pharaoh said no. In fact, he said no 10 times. And each of those 10 no's led to 10 plagues, 10 plagues on Egypt. And I don't know about you, but after the boils, I'm negotiating. Boils, pus of any kind, I'm done, I'm out, right? You can have the whole country is what I would have said. Let me just ask you, which of the plagues would have done you in? Show of hands, how many frogs? I'm done. Okay, gnats, show of hands. Locusts, show of hands. Blood in the water, how about that one, right? It don't have to be blood in the water, it could just be a simple Band-Aid in the water and Meredith is out like Scout, like she's out. And to the degree that when the kids were little and they wanted to go to water parks, Meredith would not go because one time she did and a Band-Aid floated onto her shoulder and she was done, right? And so I had to take them all by myself to water parks after that. Memorial trip to the water parks about 18 years ago. And I took the kids, we were at the beach and Catherine was eight, Eli was six, Ben was four.

And as we're walking into the water park, there was a brand new sideshow, a spectacle at the water parks in that day. Now they're everywhere. It was a surfing hill. Some of you know what I'm talking about because they have them on cruise ships and stuff now. And it's this foam hill that's about this tall and about 20 or 30 feet wide. And there's a jet at the bottom of that hill that shoots water out at this height, 30,000 gallons a second that creates this wave that goes up this hill. And you ride a surfboard or a kneeboard on this hill. And the way it worked on the way in, they said to me, the boys were like, Daddy, we wanna try that. I said, we'll do it on the way out. You ever say that? And on the way out, the boys remembered. They did not forget. And they said, Daddy, you promised we could do that. So we go over and get in line. The lifeguard comes over to us and says, hey, sir, you're not gonna make it because we're gonna close. And the way this thing works is we let 15 people in at a time, they pay, they get 15 minutes to take their turns, and then it's over. But we're gonna close, you're not gonna make it in.

So I gave him some money. And I said, please include us in that 15. He said, okay. And so we got in the line, and it was me and my two little boys. Ben was four, he did not have, he had about 1 3rd of the mass required to fight that wave. Every time he got on the board, it shot him like a rocket at the top of the thing. And then the other 12 were high school football team. They all looked like they'd been cut out of stone. And I'm sure they're looking at me like, what's Pops gonna do with his little boys? And I'm trying to engage them, and they're half-hearted engaging with me. And the way it works is you take your turn, and when you fall off, you go to the back of the line and somebody else takes a turn. And so when it became my turn, I actually impressed the teenage boys. Because I grew up on water skis and knee boards, I kinda understood what was happening here. And so I was able to do it pretty well, and enough to engage them. Now they're talking to me about tricks that we should try. And one of the boys looks at me and says, you should do a barrel roll. I said, what's a barrel roll?

They said, you get on your belly, and you just, with your core, you throw yourself all the way around and land back on the wave on your belly. I said, pretty sure I can do that. And so I get on the hill and I do it. And I just declared to you today, I landed the whole barrel roll perfectly. And somewhere between the beginning and the end of the barrel roll, that 30,000 gallons a second got between me and my bathing suit. And shot it off like a rocket. It looked like Ben going to the top of the hill. And here's what I want you to hear. I'm at this angle. Hundreds of people leaving the water park all watching me, butt naked, shaking on a water hill. I look out and people are just flabbergasted. Meredith is peeing in her pants. And I look over here at the lifeguard and she's like, and I'm like, are you gonna save me? And I didn't know what to do at that moment. And so I just kind of lifted the board up over the wave and let it shoot me to the top of the flat of the platform. Now here's the good news. I caught my bathing suit with my big toe. But it looked like it had gone through a spin cycle. Washing machine it was wrapped inside of itself with the lining it out like one leg inside

I have no idea what happened to this thing But but I laid there on the board at the top of this platform and undid my bathing suit and then inched it all the way Back up laying flat on my belly the whole time It took three minutes which is an eternity butt naked in public When we left Eli looked at me and said daddy your butt is white. I I Said not nearly as white as your son. Like I'm way tanner than you. I don't even know what I was taught What was I talking? I'm talking about the plagues. Remember the plagues Is it just me or would anyone else have negotiated right in the plagues But but Pharaoh took it took ten Plagues to get his attention and the last one was the worst of all the plagues the plague of the firstborn Where God judged Egypt and the Pharaoh and he sent the death angel to kill every firstborn in the land of Egypt But God told his people if you will take the blood of the Lamb and you will put it on the doorpost of your house The death angel will pass over you. That's why the holiday is called the Passover and here's the deal I think we all actually need to get the Context of the story because the story told outside of its original culture and time that it happened in Often doesn't make much sense Which is why when my kids quote tick-tock to me I need subtitles and an interpreter right but because every generation has context and without Context you lose the meaning but but none of the Bible was done out of context in fact the greater context and the connection between these two stories goes all the way back to the beginning and all the way to the End of the Bible. In fact, the last book of the Bible Revelation chapter 13 verse 8 says this Jesus was slain from the foundation of the world Meaning what that the story of Easter Jesus death burial and resurrection was God's plan from the very beginning That it's all a part of God's rescue plan for our lives, it's his plan for today It's planned for tomorrow and his plan for all of eternity. So let's jump into it Okay in the Easter story if you got your Bible look go to John chapter 19 or you can go in the Battle Creek app We have all the scriptures listed there for you. But in John chapter 19 in verse 14 let's look at what it says. It was about noon on the day of

Preparation for the Passover and Pilate said to the people look here is your King away with him. They yelled away with him Crucify him now I want to show you today a few of the connections between these two stories and I want to begin right here Because this word noon is actually a really really Important word in the story. What time is noon? 12 o'clock, right and and unless you're in the military. We have to 12 o'clock every single day, right noon and Midnight, it's not a trick question. Okay at noon and Midnight, right and what is the difference between noon and midnight if they're both 12 o'clock? Simply put one is light one is dark But on that day As John is writing this story the gospel writer Matthew adds a little detail about what happened and he says on that day at noon Darkness fell across the land. In other words that day 12 noon felt like 12 Midnight and some of you know exactly what I'm talking about because everything in life for you was going good till that chapter happened Till that event took place till that tragedy Occurred and it felt like the lights went out in the middle of the day now the connection to the Passover Let me show you in the Exodus and that night at Midnight the Lord struck down all of the firstborn sons in the land of Egypt from the firstborn son of Pharaoh To the firstborn son of the lowliest person in all of the land Pharaoh and all of Egypt woke up during the night and as you Imagine a wailing was heard throughout the entire land of Egypt and on that first Passover it was dark at 12 midnight and on the first Easter it was dark at 12 noon But here's what I want you to see in both of those cases God was working in the darkness to bring his light why because God always finishes what he starts and God told them coming out of the Passover from now on every generation you are to sacrifice a lamb each and every year on the Jewish calendar on the Passover a Passover lamb for each family but on the

Passover in Jesus day while in the temple square they were keeping that tradition and hundreds or thousands If not hundreds of thousands of lambs were being killed by the priest and their blood being drained out Jesus Outside the city walls our Passover lamb was hanging on a cross Remember in John chapter 1 we're told Jesus is the Lamb of God I spent the whole month of December at the Christmas time teaching you that Jesus is the Lamb of God I did that to get you ready for this Easter message and while they were killing each lamb God instructed them to roast it Now let me explain that to you because again the context and the culture Matters you see when this was playing out The connection went when it's made it comes alive for you Look at how John first explains what they did to Jesus the soldiers wove a crown of thorns put it on his head Carrying the cross by himself. He went to the place Called the place of the skull in Hebrew Golgotha There they nailed him to the cross now Look at how the Exodus explains how the Passover lamb was to be prepared Do not eat any of the meat raw or boiled in water the whole say whole the whole animal including the head the legs and the internal organs must be roasted over a Fire the Passover lamb was roasted over a fire and the rabbis declared that the skewers that you roast the lamb On cannot be metal. They must be wooden Skewers and the what they would do in that day is they would take the whole lamb And its legs are like this and they would butterfly it right through the sternum and they would spread it open so that its legs Now sat out like this and to keep these legs out like this they would run one wooden skewer through the hand of the hoof of this lamb through its Shoulders and out the other hand to hold it split wide open and then they would take another skewer and they would run it right Parallel to the spine right out the back of the lamb and those skewers set just like that I'm not gonna ask you what that looks like yet I will in a moment before you think about what that looks like I want to show you one more detail the head the legs and the internal

Organs now what they would do with the internal organs when they gut that lamb is they would pull them all out and they would Wrap them around the head around and around and around the head of the lamb and then they would put those skewers with that whole lamb on it like this on the fire and roast it and cook it and what that lamb looked like as It roasted and cooked all together was unmistakable and When Jesus hung on that cross with a crown of thorns on his head, he looked exactly like that Passover lamb to them Meaning that the very people who cried out Crucify him looked up and saw the Passover lamb Slain for them. The point is that the Passover lamb was not casually prepared. God gave them very specific Instructions and that day while the priests in the temple what we're lifting up those lambs on those wooden skewers Soldiers lifted up the Lamb of God onto a wooden cross just outside the city wall In other words salvation is not symbolic to God It cost something very real because sin destroys real lives redemption required a real Sacrifice and salvation was not was not abstract. It was costly That God paid the price for our sins. Do you see it? Are you getting it? Do you understand it? Jesus is the Passover Sacrifice, but let me show you one more detail or connection It says drain the blood Into a basin and then take a bundle of hyssop branches and dip it into the blood Brush the hyssop across the doorpost and the door frames of your Houses now what kind of a branch I want you to notice what kind of a branch Hyssop branch now watch this Jesus knew that his mission was now finished and to fulfill the scripture He said I am thirsty a jar of sour wine was sitting there so they soaked a sponge in it and they put it on a Hyssop branch and held it up to his lips the very same plant that brushed the blood on the doorpost in Exodus now brushed the bloody face of Jesus on The cross and what God the father was doing in that moment is attaching his son's Easter story to the exodus that happened

1,400 years earlier. What's the point? Here's the point. Your salvation was never plan B Every detail in the Gospels when you see a detail you should ask yourself Why do I need to know that and every detail in the Gospels communicates God will finish what he Started and if God did that then he can do it for you today. It's all connected Now we switch gears in the story From the blood of the Lamb to the body of the Lord. Look at this first in John It was the day of preparation and the Jewish leaders didn't want the bodies hanging there the next day Which was the Sabbath and a very special Sabbath at that because it was Passover week Now the Jewish leaders could not leave a dead body Hanging on a cross during the Sabbath because that would be unclean So they went to Pilate and they petitioned for him to speed this thing up Now crucifixion as a death sentence. It took a long time. It was not quick and painless in fact It was slow and agonizing and the way they would speed it up is the Roman soldiers would come to those on the cross and they would break the Legs of the one on the cross so that they would slump down and suffocate But when they came to Jesus, he was already dead Now the connection to the Passover is this phrase right here. They didn't want the bodies hanging there the next Day, look at this in Exodus Do not leave any of it until the next morning and when the Jewish Believers that original audience read the gospel of John all of these details would have jumped off the pages for them They got it because they lived in that culture and they lived in that context and when we read this story in that context We can see it too that it's all connected even to the liturgy in the way We do church all these years later. It's connected when we do the Lord's Supper, right? We have two elements the wine and the bread the blood of the Lamb represented by the wine the body of the Lord Represented by the unleavened bread now, that's what John is pointing at here in the Passover story We were told that they were to take unleavened bread with them and they were to carry that bread with them because they had to run So there was no time to let the bread rise because they were in a hurry to get out of Egypt Now you see in the Bible

Leaven or yeast often represents sin Don't miss this Jesus is our sinless spotless lamb the bread of life born in Bethlehem Bait laham in Hebrew means the house of bread His body is the bread. So of course, he is the unleavened bread of the Passover because he is Sinless now look at this in Exodus So the Israelites quickly made some bread and they wrapped cloth Around the bread and carried the bread in the cloth on their shoulders The bread is wrapped in the cloth now. Now watch this and John following Jesus burial custom They wrapped Jesus body in long sheets of cloth and the connection is being made here that the Unleavened bread of Jesus sinless body was wrapped up in a cloth and they recognized that connection and in Jesus They saw the sinless sacrifice that took away our sins in Jesus They witnessed the fact that God finishes what he starts and that's where it begins for you today in the body and the blood of Jesus Christ that's where God finishes what he started for you and I need you to hear me today God is not done with you What he started in you he will finish what he started at the Exodus He finished at the cross what he started at the crucifixion He finished at the empty tomb and what he started in your life. He is committed to finish through resurrection power Now, let me show you one more today one more connection to the Easter story and and this one blew my mind years ago When a Messianic Jew told me about it in Israel In fact, let's go back to John's gospel and let me show it to you early on Sunday morning While it was still dark Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone Had been rolled away from the entrance so she tells Peter and John and They run to the tomb themselves

Look at what it says. He, this is John, stooped and looked in. And he saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he didn't go in. Then Peter arrived. The Bible is inspired, but John wants us to know he outran Peter. And he went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there while the cloth that had covered Jesus' head was folded up and lying apart from the other wrappings. The linen cloth was folded up. In our culture, that means nothing. But in their culture, it meant a lot. It was huge, actually. As I sat at a concrete picnic table at a place called Tabga on the Sea of Galilee, a Messianic Jew explained this to me about 10 years ago. And here's what he told me. That in a Jewish culture, if you were seated at a dinner and you were finished with your dinner and you were getting up to leave and you wanted to signal to the host and to the servants that you're done here and you're not coming back, you would just take your napkin and you would just wad it up and throw it over your plate and stand. And what you communicated at that moment is to your host, I'm finished.

You can take my plate, I'm leaving. But if you needed to get up to stretch your legs or go talk to someone or go to the restroom or do something else, what you would do to signify to them that you were coming back is you would take your napkin and you would actually fold it nicely. And then you would lay it over your plate, signifying to the host and everyone else, I'm not done here, I'm coming back. And here's what we've been saying. From the Exodus to the cross to the empty tomb, God has been telling one story, a rescue story. Just like at the beginning of the story, on that very first Passover night, every family faced the very same question. And that question was not, are you a good person? That question was not, do you believe that Moses exists? That question was not, did you grow up Hebrew? Only one question mattered that day, is there blood on your door post? Because when midnight came, heritage would not save them. Sincerity would not save them. Proximity would not save them. Bloodline would not save them. And those things will not save you either. Only the blood of the lamb. And thousands and thousands of years later, the question has not changed. Let me ask you the question,

is your life covered by the blood of the lamb? Because the Passover was never about information. It was always about application. The blood had to be applied. And Jesus is the lamb, slain before the foundation of the world. He's the lamb lifted up on the cross. He's the lamb whose blood causes death to pass over. And that lamb walked out of that grave. The grave could not hold him, death could not stop him, and sin could not defeat him. And that day, he walked out of that tomb, and he folded up that napkin to remind us he is finishing what he started. Let's pray together at all of our campuses, heads bowed and eyes closed. And would you, in this moment, in a personal way, just pray something like, Lord, if it's true you finished what you started, then God, what have you started in me? And let him answer you. What is it that still feels unfinished? Ask him, God, what are you working on in my life? And let him tell you. And over the next four weeks, we're gonna connect that to resurrection. Direction power But maybe he brought you here today

to finish what he started in you years ago and to apply the blood of the Lamb to your life And if that's you I want to lead you in a prayer Helping you confess Jesus as your Lord Helping you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead so that you can also be saved I want you to pray it out loud. You're gonna hear men and women and boys and girls all around you praying out loud But if you want the blood applied to your life today Would you pray with me and say dear God? I Know I'm a sinner But today I ask you to forgive me for all of my sin Jesus would you come into my life? to be my Lord my Savior Apply the blood to my life As my forgiver in the best way that I know how I Turn my back on my sin, and I trust you alone Jesus to save me Thank you for saving me in Jesus name we pray and together we all say Amen, and amen, would you thank the Lord for meeting with us on this Easter?