SPEAKER_00: Good morning, First Baptist Wimberly.
SPEAKER_00: This is Mike Gibbons.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Friday.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, first of all, if you hear any background noise, my apologies.
SPEAKER_00: I'm in a hotel lobby in Dallas, but I wanted to get this to my church family.
SPEAKER_00: Today, or tomorrow, is the start of a big weekend at First Baptist, and I hope you are planning on attending Family Life Weekend.
SPEAKER_00: We've been working on this for a while and truly believe that this will be a blessing for parents, grandparents, students, and children.
SPEAKER_00: So please make every effort to be here.
SPEAKER_00: And even if you can't make that, I do hope to see you on Palm Sunday at 10 o'clock.
SPEAKER_00: All of our church family will be together for one service.
SPEAKER_00: Don't miss it.
SPEAKER_00: Palm Sunday commemorates the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And it's the start of Holy Week.
SPEAKER_00: Each spring, people from all over Israel would go to Jerusalem to sacrifice a lamb for the Passover feast.
SPEAKER_00: And the day Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem was the very day Passover lambs were being driven into the city.
SPEAKER_00: All of Jesus' ministry had been driving toward this day, this celebration of Passover, when Christ, our Passover lamb, would be sacrificed.
SPEAKER_00: God had given specific instructions about the lamb that was to the lamb that was to be slain for Passover.
SPEAKER_00: And listen to these verses from Exodus 12 and note how Jesus fit the criteria.
SPEAKER_00: This is from Exodus 12, verses 5, 6, 8, and 46.
SPEAKER_00: And it says, Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old.
SPEAKER_00: The whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight, eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not break any of its bones.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was without blemish.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was slain in the most public way, in front of the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Roman soldiers always went to those who were crucified to break their bones.
SPEAKER_00: But when they went to Jesus, they found him already dead, so none of his bones were broken.
SPEAKER_00: The Passover lamb was to be roasted with fire.
SPEAKER_00: Christ, our Savior, experienced the fire of God's wrath for you and me.
SPEAKER_00: Unless we feed on the sacrifice of Jesus through repentance and faith, we have no part of his life and no protection from the fires of judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Palm Sunday is indeed a celebration of a triumphal entry of Christ, our Passover Lamb.
SPEAKER_00: This is Mike Gibbons, and I love being your pastor.