Christ: Our Passover
Exodus 12

Baxter T. Exum (#1791)
Four Lakes Church of Christ
Madison, Wisconsin
July 6, 2025

Good morning and welcome! If you are visiting with us today (either here in person or online or on the phone), we are so glad to have you with us, and we’d like to ask that you fill out a visitor card – either online or on a card from the pew in front of you. And we also invite you to pass along any questions or prayer concerns in this way as well.

As we get started today, I’d like to give a quick update on the New Building Fund. Thank you to all who have given so sacrificially over the past few weeks! As most of you know, an anonymous donor called about 6 weeks ago and offered to match all contributions (up to $40,000) until July 4th. As of the 4th, all of us worked together and came up with $40,226, and that is amazing! And let’s also be aware that we will continue working on this going forward. We will continue with the envelopes on the bulletin board as well as with the option on Tithely on the church website. As always, if you’d like more information, just ask, and we also have a packet with some pictures and a more detailed explanation on the bulletin board. This would be a good time for the reminder to be checking in with other congregations where we have worshiped in the past. Explain the need, and ask for help.

In terms of our prayer concerns, thank you for remembering our work at Beaver Creek Bible Camp (up near Eau Claire) over the past week. What an amazing group of kids! And the staff did a great job as well. My work involved making coffee every morning, helping with axe-throwing, leading the hikes, and starting two campfires every day. Regarding my Bible class, I had a group of about nine 8-9 year olds, and we studied the book of James all week. Day 1 was a bit rough, but I regrouped with some printouts of an easy-to-read translation where we could all follow along together a bit easier, and then I found some coloring sheets and word finds for each chapter, and we had a good time together. On the first day, by the way, we studied James 1:27, where James tell us that, “The worship that God wants is this: caring for orphans or widows who need help and keeping yourself free from the world’s evil influence. This is the kind of worship that God accepts as pure and good.” We defined widows, we defined orphans as kids who don’t have a mom and a dad, and the little girl in the front row piped up and said, “I’m an orphan, but there are some people who love me so much that they take care of me.” She’s in foster care and living with an awesome Christian family up in Minnesota. There are some rules that prevent me from showing her face on social media, but she was an absolute joy to have in class – always early, and always eager to sit on the front row. I’d appreciate it if you could say a prayer for this kiddo. God knows and he cares.
We are here this morning to share the good news concerning the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. He gave his life for ours, and we obey this good news by turning to God in faith, by turning away from sin, by confessing our faith that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God, and by obeying the Lord’s command to be buried with him in baptism for the forgiveness of sins. At this point, we are born into God’s family, and the Christian life begins. As usual and as our encouragement to you, we are sharing several examples of what this looks like, and we are starting this morning with an update from Marco McMorice, apparently from Uganda. Marco is a brother who studied at the Bear Valley Bible Institute (or one of their extension schools) at some point in the past, and he now preaches the gospel. He posted this week and says, “Greetings brethren, Thank you for the prayers. Today three souls were added to the Lord’s Church. Kasika Valley Church Of Christ is growing. My friend Romi from Bolivia, Kule Collins,and Muhindo Kenneth got saved.

This next one comes to us from the New 27th Avenue congregation down in Ocala, Florida. They posted this week and they say, “Let’s welcome brother and sister Moss to the Family of God!”

This last one today comes to us from Sergey Shupishov, from lrpen in Ukraine. As translated by Facebok, Sergey says that, “June 24, on Tuesday, Irina joined the God's family in Irpen through water baptism. We rejoice with her and celebrate the new birth of God's daughter!” They then quote Mark 16:16, where Jesus says that, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” As always, we share these images by way of encouragement. And if you have any questions about this, if you are ready to obey the good news right now, if we can help with that in any way, we invite you to get in touch. You can send a message to info@fourlakeschurch.org, you can give me a call or send a text to 608-224-0274, or you can simply pull me aside after worship this morning, and we would love to help in any way possible.

This morning, we are actually planning on reading and singing our way through God’s plan of salvation. We’re putting the order of worship over on the right-hand side of each slide up here. And to introduce our song and scripture service, I want to invite you to turn with me to Exodus 12 (on page 105 in our pew Bibles). In the first eleven chapters of Exodus, God’s people are languishing as slaves in Egypt. Moses has confronted Pharaoh over and over again, through a series of plagues, but Pharaoh has continued hardening his heart. This brings us to Exodus 12, where God has had enough. Let’s start by looking together at Exodus 12:1-12,

1 Now the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt,  2 “This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you.  3 “Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers’ households, a lamb for each household.  4 ‘Now if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor nearest to his house are to take one according to the number of persons in them; according to what each man should eat, you are to divide the lamb.  5 ‘Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats.  6 ‘You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight.  7 ‘Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.  8 ‘They shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.  9 ‘Do not eat any of it raw or boiled at all with water, but rather roasted with fire, both its head and its legs along with its entrails.  10 ‘And you shall not leave any of it over until morning, but whatever is left of it until morning, you shall burn with fire.  11 ‘Now you shall eat it in this manner: with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste--it is the Lord’s Passover.  12 ‘For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments--I am the Lord.  13 ‘The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; 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. 

The chapter continues with God telling Moses that this Passover will be an ongoing observance, at the same time every year, as a reminder of God’s deliverance. The Lord gives additional details, including the instruction that they were to be careful not to break any of the lamb’s bones in the process of killing it. The chapter goes on to explain that the people obeyed and that the Lord did, in fact, destroy all of the firstborn in the land, except for in those homes that spread the blood of the Passover lamb on their doorposts, as instructed.

There are many lessons to learn from this, but I would just briefly mention an interesting reference in 1 Corinthians 5:7, where Christ is described as “our Passover.” We know, of course, that Jesus is referred to as being a “lamb” or the “lamb of God” nearly 30 times in the gospel accounts, with several additional references in the book of Revelation.

And the parallels are impressive. The Passover lamb was to be a male, unblemished; it was to be killed and the blood was to be applied in a particular way, making the difference between life and death. Both the lamb and Jesus were offered willingly, “He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so he did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53). And then we also find that the Passover itself was to be commemorated on an ongoing basis, similar to the weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper that we plan on doing yet again this morning.

This morning, then, let’s think about what the Lord has done for us, and then let’s take some time to think about how we react what he’s done through our obedience to the obedience to the gospel. Before we continue with the Lord’s Supper, let’s go to God in prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

Thank you for bringing us together this morning, people from all around the world, to worship your Son for what he’s done for us. We are bringing you an offering of song this morning, praising you for your amazing love. Thank you, Father, for passing over our sins.

We pray that we may be able to set the cares of this world aside so that we can focus on you alone over the next hour. Thank you, Father, for saving us and for making us a part of your kingdom, the church.

We come to you today in Jesus’ name. AMEN.

To comment on this lesson: fourlakeschurch@gmail.com