sermon: Jesus in the Feasts (Part Two): Firstfruits

The Feast of Weeks
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 08-Jun-25; Sermon #1822-PM; 83 minutes

Description: (show)

When we study the Bible, especially the Old Testament, we have to constantly keep in mind one salient fact. The central figure of Scripture is God Himself, particularly the Son, Jesus Christ, the Word. We can get caught up in the biblical stories because they are interesting stories. They are dramatic, sometimes they are fun, sometimes they are surprising. Or we can get caught up in the words of wisdom because they do help, definitely. Some of us who are more bent historically can get caught up in the history of the Bible, and we can go back and research and find out when things happened and what was happening in other places in the world that might have impinged upon that history. And of course, many of us in the church of God in times past, and perhaps even today, have been very much caught up in the prophecies that are spread throughout the Old Testament.

But the real subject of the Word of God is the Word of God, our Savior and soon-coming King Jesus Christ. That is the thing we can never allow to stray too far from the forefront of our minds—that Jesus Christ is the central figure of the Bible. Everything is about Him, and He made a very specific point about this in Luke 24. If you would turn there, we are going to read verses that we read last time I was giving this series, that was the first day of Unleavened Bread. So we are going to have a little bit of a summary of the idea of that, at least I will redo the introduction in short. Here in Luke 24, Jesus was talking to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus who were walking with Him. He said to them,

Luke 24:25-27 "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ [ought not the Messiah] to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? ["Didn't you read the Old Testament? Didn't you get that out of it?"] And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.

Luke 24:44-45 Then He said to them [these are the disciples gathered with Him], "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me," And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.

We will tack on verse 49.

Luke 24:49 "Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high."

He made this statement twice here in this verse that the Scriptures are about Him. And He gave them an understanding of those things, speaking with them, preaching a message to them, both to the two on the road with Him and all the 11 plus however many were there gathered later on. And then He said, "Stick around for a little while. I'm going to give you the promise of the Father, so you can understand these things even better." And of course we know that the promise of the Father was given on the Day of Pentecost as we read in Acts 2.

So Jesus verifies that the whole Old Testament is about Him. And of course we know the whole New Testament is about Him too. He appears not only in specific prophecies, but He is everywhere in it. He is the object of so many of the symbols like the sacrifices and the Tabernacle furnishings, and we also know that many Old Testament historical figures are also types of Him, like Isaac and Joseph and Moses and Joshua and David and whoever else is a type of of Christ. There are many more.

And this series of sermons, which this is Part Two on Jesus in God's feasts, revolves around these types. Types are prefigurations of a person or thing and the thing, the actual thing that they point to is called the anti-type. (Just a little instruction about the terms.) But Adam and Eve, we could say, are types of all humanity. In that case, all humanity is the anti-type. Abel is a type of a faithful person, one who follows God's instructions, while Cain represents one who rejects Him and does his own thing.

As we saw last time in the first part of the series, manna from heaven is a type of the true bread from heaven, which is Jesus Christ. He is the anti-type. David is a type of the anointed king of Israel. Solomon, his son, is a type of the wise preacher or pastor or guide of his people, also ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The Old Testament contains scores of types either later fulfilled by Christ directly or by His direct activity in the world or in the church.

Today is the Feast of Pentecost. It is a commanded holy day on God's sacred calendar, one among seven throughout the whole year. Now for nearly a century, the church of God has kept these days, the holy days, as festivals that reveal the plan of God for mankind's salvation. And as I mentioned last time, doing so is not wrong. We can see an outline of God's plan in the holy days. So it is not wrong to think of it that way by any means. God's Word is multifaceted. Something that He reveals can mean several things, all good, all right and true, but we do not have to say that this is this and this only, in many cases. So we can use the order of the holy days and their timing to help us understand prophetic events.

But we should not allow this approach, that is, viewing the holy days through prophetic lens, to be the dominant view. Because if we do so, we end up giving scant attention to more spiritually important perspectives. I know a lot of people want to know where we are in prophecy. I know a lot of people want to know how close we are to Christ's return. If He wanted us to know, He would tell us. But there is something much more vital in the holy days that we need to understand because it is a spiritual aspect that we have to make sure that we know. And not only know but understand and put into use in our everyday lives.

So what I am saying is the prophetic approach, while mostly valid, is secondary to the Bible's focus on the holy days. The holy days most important aspect is their incisive focus on Jesus Christ. That is why He told His disciples: in the law and in the prophets and in the Psalms, these are the things about Me. You need to understand them because I am commissioning you to go out and teach them to the rest of the church and to the world. That is why He draws their focus to Himself. "I am the subject of the Old Testament," He says. Understand that. Keep it in the forefront of your mind. God wants our eyes on Christ first, not fixated on where we are now in prophecy, because the feasts have a more important spiritual purpose. They reveal the character and work of the Son of God, our Redeemer, High Priest, and King. He is everything. We must learn that He is everything. That is why He is called the Head. We do not function, we do not exist without the Head and all that He has done.

Let us go to I Corinthians 15 as we move on to a specific application of this in the Day of Pentecost. Now, here Paul lays out in pretty plain language the type and the anti-type for Pentecost.

I Corinthians 15:19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most pitiable.

That means that there is something coming. There is more to it than just believing now. We have a great goal ahead of us. There are things we have to do in order to achieve that goal or attain to that goal. And so he starts to answer the question.

I Corinthians 15:20-25 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ's at His coming. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet.

As I said, this is a pretty obvious example here of how Paul gives us the type and the anti-type. Specifically, he speaks to us about the anti-type and gives us a description of Him that is the type. So Paul lays out here the type is the firstfruits of the harvest, and the anti-type is Christ's resurrection as the first and epitome of God's spiritual harvest. He says very plainly: Each one in his own order (this is verse 23), Christ the firstfruits. It is simply put, something everybody knows, right? It is amazing how many people do not understand even something simply put like that. Christ the firstfruits.

He said the same thing in terms of Passover. Christ is our Passover. How simple. (back in I Corinthians 5) He Himself said for unleavened bread, "I am the bread of life." And he was certainly unleavened, was He not? No sin to be found in Him.

But in saying this, he tells us very plainly as well that there is more to the story more than meets the eye here. He not only tells us Christ is the firstfruits, but then he more than hints at the fact that others will follow. Because right after he says "Christ the firstfruits," then he says, "afterward those who are Christ's at His coming." There is more to this than just Christ as the firstfruits. There are others that are going to follow. And this is true because Christ successfully fulfilled the type of the firstfruit of the harvest. And then others whom God calls and chooses can be resurrected to spirit and to glory as well, in His image, as a firstfruit.

Let us see this in the Old Testament type of the firstfruits. Let us go back to Leviticus 23 and we are going to look at the wave sheaf offering, and we will also look at the Pentecost offering that is in these two sections. The first section is Leviticus 9, verses 9 through 13. Let us read that now.

Leviticus 23:9-13 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. He shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. And you shall offer on that day, when you wave the sheaf, a male lamb of the first year, without blemish, as a burnt offering to the Lord. [Notice it is a lamb; and who is the Lamb of God?] Its grain offering shall be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering made by fire to the Lord, for a sweet aroma; and its drink offering shall be of wine, one-fourth of a hin.'

That is all we really need to read. I will leave our verse 14.

If you remember, way back when, if you were around in 1994 and reading some of our material, hearing my dad speak on the Pentecost and counting the Pentecost, you will remember that my dad in his early speaking and writing about counting made the point that the wave sheaf offering has far less to do with Unleavened Bread than it does with Pentecost. The wave sheaf day is in the environs of Unleavened Bread, but its true link is with Pentecost and those 50 days, the seven weeks that we had to count between them. They are a beginning and an end, and that is the two points.

The link between wave sheaf day and Pentecost is at least twofold. These are probably the two most important links. 1) Wave sheaf day begins the harvest and it also begins the seven-week count to Pentecost. And Pentecost ends both. It ends the count and the harvest. 2) Both feasts revolve around the idea of firstfruits. The New King James here puts a heading on the paragraph. They call it The Feast of Firstfruits. That is, the wave sheaf day.

Now, the Bible never calls it the Feast of Firstfruits. That is something that the editors here threw in there. But it is a fair title. I think if I were to criticize it, I would say it should be the Feast of the Firstfruits. But that is just my opinion. It labels Pentecost as The Feast of Weeks in the next paragraph, a name that is found in five passages. If you want them, I will just list them quickly. Exodus 34:22; Numbers 28:26; Deuteronomy 16:10, also verse 16; and II Chronicles 8:13. So that is obviously a biblical title. It is also called the Feast of Harvest in Exodus 23:16 and of course, because of the New Testament we pretty much all call it Pentecost, which is a Greek name that means count fifty.

Let us go on to the Feast of Weeks in the next paragraph, starting in verse 15, we will read down through verse 21.

Leviticus 23:15-20 'And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbath shall be completed. Count fifty days [Pentecost] to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the Lord. You shall bring from your habitations two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. They are the firstfruits to the Lord. And you shall offer with the bread seven lambs of the first year, without blemish, one young bull, and two rams. They shall be as a burnt offering to the Lord, with their grain offering and their drink offerings, an offering made by fire for a sweet aroma to the Lord. Then you shall sacrifice one kid of the goats as a sin offering, and two male lambs of the first year as a sacrifice of peace offering. And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits as a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs. They shall be holy to the Lord for the priest.'

There is a lot of detail in here that is just so significant that I do not have time to really get into, but every one of these offerings is significant, and how they are offered, how they are made, like how the bread is made and what they are offered with. And it is very significant in that last sentence that these are holy to the Lord for the priests. I will not get into all that, we have done that in other sermons in the past, but just almost an overload of information and all this symbolic information that ties with Jesus Christ and His work most of all, but also to us.

Leviticus 23:21 'And you shall proclaim on the same day that it is a holy convocation to you. You shall do no customary work on it. It shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.'

In these two feasts, in the wave sheaf day and in the Day of Pentecost, God presents a picture of a period initiated by an offering of a wave sheaf and ended with the offering of two wave loaves. Those are the two main things that get our attention here with their accompanying sacrifices. Both are called firstfruits. You have the firstfruits, a sheaf of the barley harvest, and it is called the firstfruits of your harvest. And then there are two wave loaves. These are made with fine wheat flour, and they are firstfruits to the Lord.

Now, Christ is never explicitly in Scripture called the first of the firstfruits. But Scripture clearly tells us He is. He is the initiator, we might call Him, of the harvest of firstfruits, which I Corinthians 15:20 speaks of in terms of His being the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. And in Colossians 1:18 and in Revelation 1:5, the phrase that is used there in both places is the firstborn from the dead. So He is given all these accolades as being the first. Being a firstfruit or firstborn begs the fact that other fruit or other children will follow. If you are the first, that must mean there must be more coming after you, otherwise you are called an only. In this case, those that follow are also called firstfruits, firstfruits to the Lord. Firstfruits to Yahweh, in the Hebrew. And this links with James calling us a kind of firstfruits of His creatures in James 1:18 and with the 144,000 in Revelation 14:4, who are explicitly called firstfruits to God and to the Lamb.

Remember those wave loaves? They were given, how does it put it there, holy to the Lord for the priest. Together, these designations indicate the firstfruits of Pentecost are of the same kind as the original firstfruit. Mr. Armstrong liked to call this kind the Godkind. But we noticed that in the paragraph devoted to the Pentecost offering, there are differences. So they are of the same kind, but they are different, these secondary firstfruits, if you will. I know that is a little bit wrong, secondary firstfruits, but God considers them all of one. But these ones who come after are subordinate and they are removed in time as well. They come after the first of the firstfruits, if you will.

Thus Christ is first both in chronological order and in quality. Remember, the two wave loaves are baked with leaven. That is a symbol of corruption, and they have to have the corruption killed by fire, as it were, and that fire is usually thought of as sore trials and that sort of thing, and they are waved with the lambs before the Lord for acceptance, even though they have had sin unlike the firstfruits of God who had no sin. He came before the Father as the Lamb of God as His own sacrifice. All these things just can really boggle the mind about how God prepared for all of this and for us to see it all in this way and be able to understand it.

So, Christ is first, both chronologically and in quality. Paul in Colossians 1:15 calls Him in Greek the prototokos. That is a Greek word that means "first in preeminence and authority and privilege." In fact, He is the first, the prototokos, in everything. That is why Paul can call Him in Colossians 3:11, all in all. If He is the firstfruit of the wave sheaf offering, and we are the firstfruits of the harvest in the Feast of Weeks, what does that make Christ on this holy day of Pentecost? It is a trick question. Because He is the firstfruits. He is the Firstfruits. He is the preeminent firstfruit and He always will be.

On wave sheaf day, we could say He is the firstfruit chronologically, the beginning of God's spiritual harvest, the firstborn from the dead, the first to be given glory. On Pentecost we could say He is the model firstfruit. The firstfruit par excellence. The One the elect must emulate. You could also call Him the standard.

Let us go to Matthew 4, we are going to read three separate passages here starting in verse 18 and we will read down through verse 22. This is the calling of Peter, James, John, and Andrew.

Matthew 4:18-22 Now Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers. Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then He said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." They immediately left their nets and followed Him. And going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father, and they followed Him.

Matthew 9:9 [This is the calling of Matthew out of his own mouth, as it were.] As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. [everybody was around him booing and throwing tomatoes and rocks]. And He said to him, "Follow Me." And he arose and followed Him.

Just left his office like all of us wish we could do at times and took on another career.

John 1:43-45 [this is the calling of Philip] The following day, Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, and He found Philip. [Is that not interesting? He looked around for him. He was, "Where's that Phillip?"] and said to him, "Follow Me." Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."

Obviously, I have gone to these verses because they contain Jesus' call to follow Him. We could call this phrase "follow Me," the first duty of Christ's disciples. And that is exactly how He presented it to Peter, Andrew, James, John, Matthew, and Philip. These were the first words that He said to them in His ministry—Follow Me—and that set the tone for their entire discipleship.

While the surface meaning, the physical meaning, the literal meaning is "walk behind me," the obvious spiritual, metaphorical meaning is "do what I do." Imitate Me, come after Me and do as I do. Matthew makes a point of saying that the four original disciples and himself immediately forsook their employment and their families and did as He did, and walked with Him. John brings out that in verse 45 of John 1 Philip immediately went and recruited his friend Nathanael. And said, "Let's follow this Jesus of Nazareth together."

So we have here seven disciples that were, we could say, explicitly given this command. He probably did it to all of them. That would be my guess, that He made this impression on every one of them. "Follow Me." His calling is a charge to follow or obey or emulate or conform to Him from the get-go, to the end. Like I said, the first duty of Christ's disciples is to follow Him.

Let us see some more about this charge that He gave to His disciples. Let us go to John 13 to expand it out just a little bit, verses 12 through 17. We have heard about the foot washing a lot over the past few days and here we have it again.

John 13:12-17 So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord [He was their instructor and their master], and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. . . . Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, happy are you if you do them."

"Follow Me."

Let us go on to I Peter 2.

I Peter 2:21 [Peter got the message.] For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow His steps.

And then just a couple pages away in I John 2.

I John 2:3-6 Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, "I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.

So while the context of these verses are quite different, they all urge us to do a particular thing. And in general, that thing is imitate what Christ did. Do as He did, walk as He walked. Whether it is serving others, suffering without complaint, or keeping God's commandments, the instruction is the same. Jesus never put a wrong foot forward on the path to the Kingdom of God. He always did His Father's will. He never strayed. He never sinned. And so we could never go wrong following His example.

Now we have to make sure that we follow His example in wisdom. Because we may think we are following Him when we are doing things that He has not given us to do, but that is just one of those things that we have to understand as we go through life when it is proper to do certain things. It is something we have to learn over a very long time through our conversion. But if we see the example of Jesus Christ in a situation that we ourselves are in or something very similar, if we do what Jesus did, then we are probably 99% going to walk through that in a good, proper, godly fashion. It is only our human nature that tends to get in the way.

Let us go back to John chapter 5. We are going to pick out two verses here.

John 5:19 Jesus answered and said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner."

John 5:30 "I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me."

What is good for the goose is good for the gander, I guess. He even set the example in this. Because He always did what His Father told Him to do and what He saw His Father doing and the disciples—us—have to do what He did in imitating His Father. It is like a big, long chain. It starts with the Father and He sets the agenda. And then the Son, the visible God that we all have come to know, He shows us how to do it in the pages of His Word. And then we, called at this late time, have to take that wisdom that we glean from this Word and from the Holy Spirit that is given to us and follow that same path, do those same things.

There is a way that the God Family functions, acts, behaves. It all starts from the top. What the Father does, Jesus does. And what Jesus does, His brothers and sisters also do. And later on, it is going to expand out to the whole world. It will not be just those elect in the church that do His will, but all the world. Now that is going to play out over thousands of years, obviously, even from today. But that is the way it is.

Let us use a little bit of a football analogy. The coach of our football team, we will call it "the God team," is the Father and He is basically the one who writes the playbook. So everyone on the team, beginning with the quarterback who is Jesus Christ, must run the plays that are in the playbook and no others. And they run these plays based on the coach's—the Father's—will to score the touchdown, to win the game, to win the championship. And only those plays will work. Any other play that the team decides to run will fail. They will not score. Most likely they will fumble and turn the ball over to the other team. This analogy can only go so far. But I thought those of you who are more athletically minded might get the point.

Our model for how to do that, how to run the right plays is Jesus Christ, the Firstfruits. So we have to learn to live in sync with Christ. We have to run the plays in sync with Christ. If He calls a play in the huddle, we better run it to the best of our ability because that is the play that is going to work. And the huddle, even though in football it is an arcane grouping of words and that is how I think most people look at the gospels and the Bible in general, but our huddle is this Book. That is the playbook where God calls the plays for us to put in motion.

Now, let us go a few pages forward to John 14. If you think about that football analogy, the one that is the God, if you will, who is on the field with the rest of the players is the quarterback. The coach is on the sideline. He is running everything, yes, but the one who is out on the field with the other athletes is the quarterback. That is Jesus Christ, and He is telling us what we have to do to make sure that we win.

John 14:1-6 "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go, you know, and the way you know." [Thomas must not have been listening.] Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how could we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

Let us remember when He said this, what the context of this is: The evening of the Passover just before His arrest and His trial and his crucifixion. Once resurrected, which He had told them several times would happen, He was going to heaven and to sit at the Father's right hand. And here He says His job, then, would be to prepare places of authority and service for His disciples, all of them. There are many mansions, there are many offices, there are many rooms. We can fill the place up. But I am going, He says, to make sure that the people are prepared for the rooms, If you will.

In other words, it would be His job to prepare for the harvest of the firstfruits. As Herbert Armstrong said, He would be putting together His team to govern the world once He once he set up His Kingdom after His return. So He tells them, at least from our vantage point here, what He was going to do. It is pretty plain. That He was going to go where the Father is in heaven, to His house, and He was going to take up the job, take up the responsibility of preparing a people for God.

Now we get to Thomas' questions. Notice them. "Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?" He asked basically two questions. Where are You going? It is the first one. Let me just stop on the first one. I find it very odd that he said, "Where are You going?" Because He had just told them! That is why I said as we are going through there, Thomas must not have been listening. But really the rest of the disciples were not listening either in this sense. They were confused, they did not know what He was talking about. It is almost like they had no conception of the Father being in heaven. I am sure they did, maybe they intellectually knew it, but they could not put it together that Jesus Christ would end up going to the Father in heaven. You know, their understanding may not have been quite as developed as obviously it later was; they were having trouble putting things together. But I have always, since I was a young man, have looked at that and said, "Thomas, why didn't you know what He meant?" He just said, "I go to prepare a place for you." And He just said that it was His Father's house He was going to. I do not know; the disciples just baffle me sometimes. But I guess that is typical of human nature.

But his second question is: "How can we follow You if we do not know the way?" How can we know the way? I think it is really interesting that Jesus completely ignores the first question. "Thomas, you should know." Of course, He was going to expand on it shortly, so He was really just putting Thomas off a bit on the answer to that first question, even though He had made a pretty good description of where He was going. But if you go through this whole evening's worth of discussion between them, they do not get where He is going until chapter 16, verse 29. "Oh, now You're speaking plainly." I mean, He really had to spell it out to them over a very long discourse and finally, you know, the light comes on.

But it is the second one that He answers here. The second question, "How can we follow You if we do not know the way?" And He answers it with one of His "I am" statements. "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

Now remember the second part, "No one comes to the Father except through Me," is referring back to "I go to prepare a place for you." I am going to My Father's house. He is saying essentially, "I am the way. You can't get to the Father's house except through Me." Now we do not need to go through the technical arguments about whether this is properly translated or not. It could be, and it seems like it might very well be better translated as "I am the true and living way." Fine, but we do not need to argue that right now. For our purposes, it does not matter.

Many commentators, though, when you read what they say about John 14:6, spiritualize this statement far too much. What they do is they remove any kind of practical suggestion of the disciples' response to Him. It comes down to basically what we would call a hyper grace; that Christ does it all for us and all we have to do is confess and be baptized and that is it. There is nothing beyond that. Christ then does it all for us and we are going to be in His Kingdom once we make this confession. And so a lot of the commentators make it essentially a proof text. They pull it right out of context without regard to what the rest of the scripture says.

But we cannot do that. We have to think of what Jesus said here in terms of all the other things that are in Scripture about this particular subject. Jesus does not speak of the way to God or the way to the Kingdom just here. It is in many other places in Scripture. For instance, Matthew 7:13-14, where He talks about enter by the narrow gate. That sort of thing. He talks about it in terms of the way to the Kingdom, the way of God as being a narrow and difficult way. He speaks of it in terms of action on our part. It is something we have to find, we have to enter, we have to continue on it. And not only that, we have to endure all the way to the end. Even just the plain metaphor of a path or a way or a road that one must follow to a destination implies both time, that it is going to take a while to go along the path, and motion, that you are going to have to actually move along the path to the destination. So we could call it a procession. You know, in terms of a walk, it is a procession that starts in one place at one time and it ends in another place over time. It is not a singular event. It is not a singular step that we take like a baptism or a confession of faith, but it is a multiplicity of steps. It is many steps over a long distance for a long time. That is the path that we have been set on.

Now perhaps the best imagery I have ever heard of this idea of Christ is the way, or the true and living way, is that He is the archegos in Greek. And it is translated in Hebrews 2:10 as captain or author of our salvation. But it has another metaphor lingering about it, and that is that the captain of our salvation, or the archegos, is one who is a trailblazer. One who blazes a trail, one who goes through rough country first in order to cut a trail for others to follow to a better place out of the wilderness or into another place that could be made as a homeland.

So this would be like a pioneer, a Davy Crockett type who would go through and cut a trail from one inhabited place to or through the frontier to establish another bit of civilization at the other end of the trail. That is what Christ has done for us. He is our trailblazer. He is the one who has cut the path for us and laid it out before us and said, "Look, if you want to get where I am, where I got throughout My life, follow My trail. Don't step off somewhere halfway in between, that's rugged, country. It could kill you. Stepping off the trail will almost surely make you stumble and fall. Stay on the trail, and the trail is My life. The trail is the way I forged through this world and came out on the other end glorified. And if you follow the trail behind Me, do what I do, zigged when I zigged and zagged when I zagged, you'll end up glorified too by the end. You'll end up in the same place."

And if we would go back into the book of Hebrews, the author there continues the theme from chapter 2 of Christ leading us through the wilderness through chapters 3 and 4, using the example of the Israelites in the wilderness who did not follow the trail. Even though they were actually following the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire physically, they were all over the place spiritually, and he says they all died in the wilderness. But if you follow Christ, He will give you rest. He will take you to the Kingdom of God.

Then Paul, who I believe was the ultimate author of the book of Hebrews, hits the same theme very hard in chapters 11 through 13 to close out the epistle. Bringing out our heroes of faith. "Look, if you can't find an example of Jesus, look to those that He called and follow their faith." But ultimately, we have to look unto Jesus, as he says at the opening of chapter 12.

So the way of faith is one in which with His support, we have to follow the example that Christ left for us. If you want to be a firstfruit of God, you must follow the regimen, you must follow the playbook, you must follow the trail that has been given to us, and that is, all of those metaphors are for or represent the practice of godly living. And that practice is given through the ultimate Firstfruit, Jesus Christ. So if you want to be a firstfruit, follow the Firstfruit. His way of living is the only way, the one and only way, the solitary way, the sole way—how many times, how many different ways can I put it?—the unique way, that leads to the wonderful goal of being a firstfruit in the Kingdom of God.

Now let us go to Acts chapter 2. We have been in here several times in the other messages that we have heard. We are going to catch the last of Peter's sermon here, from verse 29, and we will end up in verse 47, ultimately. Now there is a tiny hint of this idea of following the Firstfruit. Or going along on His trail in Peter's sermon on that first Pentecost, well, the first Pentecost after Christ's resurrection. And we know that the Holy Spirit was given on this day. But it was given not only because it was promised (remember, we read there back in the end of Luke, "wait for the promise of the Father."), it was given to be used. It was a tool, a necessary tool to be used with the law of God, which was probably also given on this holy day. And it was for our good. If we use the law, use the Spirit, and use the example of Jesus Christ, and you are very likely, almost assured, if you will, to be in God's Kingdom. But the way Peter sets this up, it is a hint. But we see it better when we move beyond Peter's sermon and see what the Spirit produced.

Acts 2:29-39 "Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear. "For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself: 'The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool."' Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. [So He is both Master or Sovereign and Messiah, Redeemer.] When they had heard this [the crowd], they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" And Peter said to them, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord will call."

Now Peter says a mouthful here. But what he is saying is that Jesus Christ died. He was crucified. And the Father raised Him to life again. And because He accepted Him at His throne, Jesus was given responsibility over the Holy Spirit. He, as the First of the firstfruits or as the Firstfruit, was given the Holy Spirit as His responsibility. He is the dispenser of the Holy Spirit as our High Priest. He is the one that is over our receiving of the Holy Spirit and our use of the Holy Spirit. So He was given an awesome responsibility, that God the Father said, "Son, all of these people I have given You, this, this, this, this, this. Start with these eleven, then these 120, and expand. And You are the One that is going to give the Spirit to each one."

He cannot give it willy-nilly. Peter says right here that Jesus would give it to those who repent and are baptized, have their sins forgiven. Let us not forget what he said at the end of verse 39, that these are only the ones that God the Father would call. So He had a limited list. And if they did the right things, being given a little bit of faith, given understanding, and they took this knowledge and they repented and they sought baptism, then Jesus would infuse them with the Holy Spirit.

Why? Well, we have been talking about it all sermon. Because the Firstfruit, Jesus Christ, wants brethren. Maybe put it a better way. He wants a bride! And the firstfruits that come up in the resurrection when He returns are the Bride of Christ. And He is motivated to have them follow along the path that He has forged.

Let us see how it worked out just in the very early days after the Day of Pentecost or that day and the next few. Starting in verse 40.

Acts 2:40-42 And with many other words, he testified and exhorted them, saying, "Be saved from this perverse generation." Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine [teaching] and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers.

Acts 2:46-47 So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

This has actually been continuing for the last couple thousand years where this same process has been happening. Not necessarily with the power that it happened here in Acts 2, but it has been happening steadily over that time, and God has always had a people, a group, singular individuals, families, what have you, down through the centuries, all walking that path to the Kingdom of God, following the Firstfruit—the great Firstfruit, Jesus Christ. As James reminded me that I said recently, the spirit is that spiritual link between God and man. It is the way that He communicates with us. It is the way that He helps us. It is the way He enables humans to live the way of God. It gives us the ability to understand. It gives us the faith to accept and believe. It gives us the wherewithal to do God's will, to run the plays, to work out the regimen that He has set out for us to do.

In short, the Spirit makes it possible, or maybe I should say makes us able to walk the path to God's Kingdom through the leadership and example of Jesus Christ, the Firstfruits. Many of you probably know that years ago, I talked about the 50 days between wave sheaf day and Pentecost, and equated it with the years of our lives. That it is 50 days, if you take a day for a year, that would mean 50 years. The time, let us say, between our first becoming adults and having the ability to understand, and the time of our death. God says that He gives us 70 years, perhaps 80 if we are strong, but it is a long time that He gives us to walk the path so we have time to grow and overcome; to make mistakes, to overcome those mistakes and learn what is right and good; to learn to actually just get rid of our old habits and make new spiritual godly ones. All those things take time. And so He gives us His Spirit for us to do this. And His law as well, I do not want to forget that either.

But the greatest gift that He has given us for this to happen is the example of Jesus Christ. Nothing happens without Him. He is the one that makes it all work. He went first to show us the way, give us an example. And then He gave us the tools so that we can do those things and learn how to be righteous and holy ourselves. He does not want us to depend on His righteousness all the time. I mean, we do. I do not want you to misunderstand. But He wants us to grow in righteousness ourselves. He wants us to be like Him. He does not want us to be children, always having to be corrected and you know, messing up. He wants us to grow so that we are adults and we do these things automatically. The righteousness is in us, not from outside anymore.

But it is that example of Jesus Christ and the help that He gives, which is the greatest gift of all. And that is why on Pentecost, He is the center. He is the focus. Because if we want to be firstfruits of God, we have to keep our minds, our eyes, firmly fixed on Him.

Let us go back to John the 15th chapter. I was actually going to spend most of my time in verses 1 through 10 on this, but as I went through this sermon I went elsewhere, but I do want to touch on it, at least read it because this is a parallel idea.

John 15:1-10 "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If any one does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love."

Like I said, this saying of His that "I am the true vine" and later "I am the vine, you are the branches," is very much similar to what He said: "I am the way, the truth, and the life." But this one, this particular "I am" saying emphasizes our dependence on Christ for everything spiritually. We can do nothing, He says. We can have no understanding. There could be no overcoming. There can be no growth, no production of fruit without Him, without His example, with all that He provides for us, all the strength that comes through His Spirit. We could paraphrase His saying to read, "I am the true firstfruit. You become firstfruits through abiding in Me." Or continuing in Me, which implies emulating Him in everything. And we could go back to I John 2:6 (which we will not do), but it says, "If you abide in Him, you ought to walk as He walked."

Let us finish in Ephesians 4. We have been here too several times.

Ephesians 4:11-16 He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some of evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

We know this very well. That the goal is being exactly like the Firstfruit, the Head. He goes by so many different titles. But it all comes together in following His example.

Ephesians 4:17-21 This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart, who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to licentiousness [or lewdness], to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ [That is not the example He set. That is not the commands that He gave. Just the opposite.], if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him as the truth is in Jesus:

The truth is in the Person. We can say the truth is in the example. He is the one that we have to be fixated on. And what He tells us, what we need to do,

Ephesians 4:22-24 . . . that you put off concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed [have a new mind] in the spirit of your mind, that you put on the new man [which is Jesus Christ] which was created according to God, in righteousness and true holiness.

This summarizes the matter so well. God has given gifts to the church to, among other things, help the saints grow spiritually to the image of Christ, into the new man, the perfect man. And this entails forsaking the human way and embracing the godly way. I really need to emphasize: Paul says, "the truth is in Jesus." You do not have to look any farther. You do not have to get any other person's opinion about things. The truth is in Him. We must put on Christ. We must talk His talk and walk His walk. That is, we must live as God created us through salvation to live the way of true holiness and righteousness. And if we do that, if we follow the way, we will be firstfruits after the manner of the Firstfruit, Jesus Christ.

So as Christ is our Passover, as Christ is our unleavened bread, He is also our Firstfruit. He is the one, the Archegos, who in love, having done and still doing all the heavy lifting, leads and guides us in our walk of faith and righteousness to the Kingdom of God. He is the true focus of this feast, not us. What do we have to brag about? What have we done? How far have we gone along the road? Not very far. It is not on our problems along the way, that should not be our focus either. But our focus should be on Christ, on His example, His instruction, His gifts, His help, His strength. Because those are the things that make everything possible for us.

And Bill chose the psalm that we sang. Psalm 138 made me think of this because it is the last line of that hymn, Psalm 138:8, and it should be very encouraging for us.

Psalm 138:8 The Lord will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever; do not forsake the works of Your hands.

That is us. He will complete and perfect us to the end.