Jesus Fulfills The Feasts - Part 1 Series

Seeing the Reality through the Shadows

Jesus Fulfills the Feasts – Part 1

Colossians 2:16-17; Exodus 12; Leviticus 23

Colossians 2:16-17 - 16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

Series Intro

Slide

Do you ever doubt Christianity? Do you ever face doubts that eternal life is really as easy as trusting Jesus for your salvation and God giving it to you? Do you doubt that Jesus’ sacrifice is really the way that God has planned?

Does it ever enter your mind that maybe Jesus was a great guy and all, but is He really the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God who came from heaven to pay for our sins?

Well, we can be sure that Satan will continue to seek to tell us lies and get us to doubt Christ and rob us of the joy and assurance of salvation of those who are saved and seek to prevent those who have not trusted in Christ from turning to Him and being saved.

But we can truly know that Jesus is the Christ, that He is the one who was prophesied to come, that He is the Savior of the world, and that this has been God’s plan all along.

It wasn’t just plan B when the Old Covenant didn’t seem to work out. This was God’s plan from the very beginning.

Slide

Today, we are starting a new series that takes us into Easter called, Seeing the Reality through the Shadows, and we will be taking a look at how Jesus is the fulfillment of many of the things God established in the Old Testament.

For the next 2 weeks we are going to look at the feasts of Israel and their purpose and how Jesus fulfilled the first feasts literally and next week we are going to look at the fall feasts and how we can be certain of their fulfillment with Christ’s second coming!

Then, on Easter Weekend, we will look at some of the prophecies found in the Old Testament concerning the coming Messiah and see How Jesus is the fulfillment of those perfectly!

There is no doubt that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God and that He is our hope.

It is my hope that after this series, you will be even more confident of your faith in Christ or that, after seeing the reality of Christ even in the shadows of the patterns and prophecies of the Old Testament, you would put your hope in Christ and receive Him as your Savior and receive the everlasting life that He died to attain for you and rose from the dead to be able to give it to you!

Sermon intro

So let’s begin today looking at the first of the feasts of Israel that Jesus fulfilled in His first coming.

What are the feasts of Israel?

Slide

The feast days that Israel celebrated were times appointed by God that were commemorative and communal. They were used to bring the people of Israel together to celebrate the Lord and His works as they remembered their common origin and the experiences of their ancestors. There were 7 times that were appointed by the Lord in the Old Testament.

The observance of these holidays presented the Israelites with lessons on sin, judgment, forgiveness, the need for thanksgiving to the Lord, and the importance of trusting God instead of hoarding their possessions.

But of even greater, I believe, theological importance is how each of the feasts are typological, of how they are a foreshadowing of greater fulfillment found in Christ.

Paul says this when he is talking to the Colossians about some of the appointed times of the Lord.

Slide

Colossians 2:16-17

16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

Question

How is Jesus the reality of these feasts that were only a shadow of the things to come?

Well, I want to start by looking at the Spring feasts that Israel celebrated and that are right upon us currently on the calendar. Let’s take a look at each of these feasts and what their purpose was for Israel.

The Feasts of Israel

Slide

The first of these feast days is

The Passover (Pesach) (Pay Sock)

Turn with me to Exodus 12

To give you a little background as you turn there, God has just sent 9 plagues against Egypt to judge them for Israel’s captivity and is using these plagues to ultimately free the Israelites.