Live Unleavened

Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

1 Corinthians 5:7-8

The Jews ate the Passover meal on the 14th day of the month of Nisan. This meal marked the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread which lasted seven days from the evening of the 14th to the evening of the 21st. Anyone who ate anything leavened during those seven days was cut off from Israel. So, it was very important that on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Israelites removed all leaven from their homes. Historically, Jews have taken this practice very seriously. In fact, it’s traditional Jewish practice to search every corner of the home with a lit candle to ensure that no bits or crumbs of leaven remain.*

Paul draws on that background to argue that the New Testament church lives (figuratively) during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Jesus, our Passover Lamb, has already been slaughtered. His death was the Passover celebration that began the Feast in which we now live in. And this Feast of Unleavened Bread will continue until the church age ends and we eat the Marriage Supper of the Lamb when Jesus returns.

Paul argues then that we are called to “continually celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread every day—not just one week out of the year— [but all our lives] by living in a holy way.”** Paul uses leaven as an analogy for sin, and the implication is that we should search out and remove the old leaven of sin from our lives, from our homes, and from our churches. We are to be an unleavened people, kept as pure and uncontaminated by sin as we can until Jesus returns.

Make no mistake, God calls us individuals and churches to live unleavened lives. To seek out and destroy the sin that festers and grows in the corners of our lives and homes and churches.

So, I have to ask... What sin or sinful residue do you need to clean out of your life? Or out of your home? What do you need to get rid of? Purge it from your life and live unleavened, until Jesus returns.

* Jamieson, Robert, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown. Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997.

** Naselli, Andrew David. “1 Corinthians.” In Romans–Galatians, edited by Iain M. Duguid, James M. Hamilton Jr., and Jay Sklar, X:209–394. ESV Expository Commentary. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020.

A Church that Welcomes the Truth

Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

2 Timothy 4:2–4

We need more pastors and teachers in our churches today who will preach the whole counsel of God without fear. We need pastors who are prepared in season and out of season... who correct, rebuke and encourage. But we also need churches who will listen to and welcome the truth.

Sadly, some churches have turned away from the truth and refuse to hear it. Some churches won’t put up with sound doctrine being preached from their pulpits. Instead, they gather teachers and preachers who will preach what their itching ears want to hear.

Don't let that happen at your church. If you want your church to be a place where the whole counsel of God is preached… then do your part as a church member to welcome sound doctrine and sound preaching. 

How do you do that? Let me give you a few ideas:

1) Encourage your pastor more than you criticize him. When you think he preached a bad sermon, say nothing. Chances are he already knows. But when you think he preached a good one, go out of your way to encourage him and tell him what it meant to you. 

2) When your pastor preaches a difficult passage of Scripture and handles it biblically, thank him! Let him know that you want to study hard passages of Scripture and have them carefully explained.

3) When you hear other church members complain about sound doctrine being preached, support your pastor! Have his back. He may very well be risking his job to preach God's Word. If you want him to keep preaching courageously, then support it!

I am very thankful to be in a church that does all of these things, but I know that not every pastor is as blessed as I am. You may not be able to change the climate of your church overnight, but you'd be surprised how much impact a single church member can have. Be that church member for your pastor and for your church. 

Lukewarm Laodicea

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

Revelation 3:15–16

You may not know this, but if you drink enough water at a certain temperature, roughly 95-100 degrees Fehrenheit, it can make you nauseous and actually induce vomiting.* I imagine the residents of Laodicea did know this. Laodicea didn’t have a source of clean, drinking water. Their water had to be piped in by means of an aqueduct. Cold water was piped in from Colossae. Hot water was piped in from the hot springs at Hierapolis. Either way by the time the water got to Laodicea, it was lukewarm.**

Jesus tells this church that their lukewarm Christianity makes Him feel the same way. It makes Him sick to His stomach. It makes Him want to vomit. And because of this Jesus threatens to spew this church out of His mouth.

Now, it’s not exactly clear if that would mean this church would cease to exist or not. But what is clear is that this church was dangerously close to being rejecting by it’s Lord. If the church at Laodicea continued to be lukewarm in their commitment to Jesus, then He would have nothing to do with them.*** They were in grave danger of losing Jesus’ blessing on their church. And what is a church without Jesus’ blessing?! If Jesus rejects us, what hope do we have? None.

It’s easy for a church to lose it’s passion over time and grow lukewarm. It’s easy for us to get to a place where we’re really just going through the motions. Where church stops being about about Jesus or about love or about the gospel and it’s just something we do... out of habit. That is a very dangerous place to be. We can’t let that happen to our churches, or to us as individuals, for fear of being rejected by our Lord.

If your faith has grown a little cold, then stir it up today. Don’t just go through the motions. Don’t play pretend. Either you’re all in or you’re all out. Jesus hates apathy. He hates lukewarm commitment. So, decide right now to be all in for Jesus. Fan the flames of your faith. And with God’s help, you will never be lukewarm in your commitment to Him again.

*Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., & Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Vol. 2, p. 562). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

**Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (Re 3:15). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

***Schreiner, Thomas R. “Revelation.” In Hebrews–Revelation, edited by Iain M. Duguid, James M. Hamilton Jr., and Jay Sklar, XII:525–754. ESV Expository Commentary. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018.

Futility (W.o.W. Rewind)

 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

Hebrews 10:11

Does your life ever feel like an exercise in futility? Do you ever wonder why God allows you to stay stuck in your station in life with seemingly no hope of escape? Consider the Old Testament priests. Stunningly, the Bible tells us that a faithful priest under the old covenant was doomed to spend their life, day after day, offering the same sacrifices for sin over and over again that could never actually atone for sin. From a human standpoint this is the very definition of an exercise in futility. What a waste of time! But it wasn't. Even if the priests didn't know it, every single sacrifice offered in the Old Testament served a higher purpose than atoning for sin. Every sacrifice pointed forward to Jesus. So the priests didn't spend their lives offering pointless sacrifices, they spent their lives pointing forward to that more excellent sacrifice, Jesus. He offered a single sacrifice for sins by which we have been sanctified once for all (Hebrews 10:10, 12).

So what at first glance appears to be pointless is actually a beautiful reminder of what we are all supposed to do. We point to Jesus with our lives. Whatever circumstances you find yourself in, make sure your response points people to Jesus. You can be sure that no matter how great or how terrible your life is, God has allowed you to be in the exact place you are in so that you might point others to Him by your response. God appoints some to thrive that the world may see He is good. He appoints some to poverty so His goodness can be shown in providing for them. Some suffer that the world may see His tenderness and His power to rescue. Some are called to singleness so they can spend more time pointing others to Jesus. Others are called to families so they can raise up the next generation for Jesus.

Whatever circumstances God has put you in, He has put you there to point people to Jesus. So worry less about why God has allowed certain things in your life. You'll probably never be able to answer that question anyway. Instead, focus on how you are pointing others to Jesus in your circumstances, through your circumstances or even in spite of your circumstances.

Father, whatever my situation, help me point to Jesus with my life!