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Is the Feast of Unleavened Bread all about “getting sin of your life”? Is that the only message here? I’d submit to you that there’s much more. It is where the Father, the Creator, has placed you. He has placed you in the world, in the place where He wants you to be. It’s not just the “bread of affliction” but also the “bread of hope.”
Paul brings out some lessons about unleavened bread, not the physical bread, but the spiritual. It’s not just throwing out sin. He has placed us in the world and when He has given us His son, He has also given us His Spirit. We are to be in the world as unleavened bread.
We know how the Feast was established even before they left Egypt.
Let’s go to 1st Corinthians 5. The chapter starts out on a very negative tone. In most modern congregations, they would not consider removing this type of sinner from their congregation, presuming that is compassion. We don’t think we have to listen to apostle Paul’s opinion. We forget that he was a very important apostle — one “sent” by the Messiah Himself. He’s not expressing a mere opinion here. He was speaking in Yeshua’s name and with Yeshua’s authority. He was taught by Yeshua Himself on how to be an apostle.
We have been taught that we are not to judge, but the truth is that we are to judge what is going on inside the community of faith. Most preachers don’t like to read this part of 1st Corinthians. They only want to teach about God’s love and ignore His wrath. Yeshua taught that if our right hand or right eye offends us to pluck it out. This was not on the physical plane but on the spiritual. One of Yeshua’s own 12 Apostles was cast out.
In 1st Cor. 5:7, he refers to this sinner as the “leaven” that is to be cast out so that his actions are not held up as acceptable: “Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened.” They were already unleavened and they are to act like it so that they could remain unleavened. He didn’t want them to become proud of their tolerance of sin.
He tells them to “keep the feast” — of Unleavened Bread — so we can understand where God has placed us. It’s a seven-day feast, which shows us that God will start the work and He will complete His work in our lives. When we die, it will be completed because Messiah is our Passover (1st Cor. 5:7).
“… not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1st Cor. 5:8)
This man’s sin was so blatant and obvious that it had to be addressed, but there are more subtle sins that have to be addressed too.
We are to be clear, transparent and easy to see — not “actors” aka hypocrites. And the community we worship in is also supposed to be clear, transparent and easy to understand in all matters of our lives.
They are unleavened because of Yeshua. They didn’t enter into it, Yeshua moved them into it.
Let’s go to Eph. 4:1-3, recounting when Paul is in prison. They were called into Yeshua’s unleavened world. We are to be humble, gentle, patient and tolerant but we should haven’t to tell people that we are these things. We are just to live that way and let others figure it out.
Love is not emotion; it’s action. Yeshua loved us by laying down His life for us. He died for his friends. There’s no greater love than that. That is a difficult love, because pride stands in our way.
In Eph. 4:4-6, the word one — εἷς heis in Greek (G1520), אֶחָד ’echad (H259) — is repeated seven times: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.” When we think about the one Spirit, that Spirit is in us. Not many spirits, but One. There’s one baptism, one death that matters, and that is Yeshua’s. It’s all about being one — ’echad.
Let’s go onto Ep. 4:31-32. Messiah, the Passover, is how we are to come into God’s unleavened world. What he’s talking about here are those things that can draw away from unity with God, His Messiah and our fellow believers such as bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander and malice.
How do we obtain this unity? Do we dwell on our flesh and how we used to be or do we dwell on where God is taking us and where we are now?
We all have asked God to give us wisdom to function in this world but we need to ask God for the wisdom to function in His world.
The wisdom that God gives you can confound or dumbfound those who have the world’s knowledge. Those with PhD’s, who set themselves up as intelligent and puffed up, aren’t the ones God works with but Prov. 1 shows us that only God gives wisdom to those to fear Him.
We listen to what God says because our lives are on the line, not His. He has already done it for us, will we accept it?
Now, we’ll go to Col. 3:1-12. When we are in Messiah Yeshua, we are to seek what is above, where Messiah is on His throne. This is hard to do. We forget that God has placed us in Shalom. The root meaning of שָׁלוֹם shalom (H7965) is a place of safety.
He is look out for our live, our welfare on this Earth. He knows what we need: clothing, housing, food. He made that for us. He took care of that.
Now let’s go to Rom. 3:30-31. The circumcised, the Jews, who has knowledge of the Torah and the oracles of God and the uncircumcised, the Gentiles, who don’t know the Torah and the oracles of God are saved the same way: through faith. We don’t nullify or void God’s word just because those who came before us didn’t practice it properly?
Yeshua told the Apostles they were clean before His work was complete in them. Since the death of Yeshua has freed us from the death described in the Torah, we have been made innocent. We are no longer guilty.
Finally, let’s go to Rom. 5:5-7. We used to be sinners but we are now blameless. That part has already been justified and we are to walk an unleavened walk. We are to live in clarity, truth and sincerity. When you find yourself doing the opposite, just kill it, because it shouldn’t be a part of you anymore. Yeshua was found guilty for us by God’s command, even though He was never guilty of anything. We are to live by the oracles of God. We are to establish them. We are no longer outsiders, but insiders. It’s not about how bad we were but about where we are now and where God has established us thanks to Yeshua.
Speaker: Richard Agee. Summary: Tammy.