Let’s have another word of prayer.
Lord, we thank You for the freshness of that reminder of Your great love that has been displayed to us through Calvary. As we reflect this morning upon those verses in Isaiah, it truly brings us to the foot of Thy cross.
Lord, we thank You that You are no longer in that grave. It could not hold You. You have conquered death. You have conquered the world, Satan, sin, the flesh—all things. You are seated on high, at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. We gather in that victory now.
Lord, as we are under an open heaven to behold Thy face, as we look into Your Word, we would have the heart to receive Your Word. We would open our hearts to allow You to speak and allow Your Word to do what it has been designed to do.
We thank You that we can separate this time unto You, and that through Thy Holy Spirit, You have made such a bountiful provision for us. By faith, we step into that.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
This morning, since it is the first Sunday of the month, we are starting another portion of our foundation series. We know this foundation series has been going on for a few months, and we have been looking at this matter which is really a foundation of life. We have no other foundation than our Lord Jesus Christ.
As we have been looking and beholding how He desires for His life to be manifested within us, in our times of fellowship, we first looked at our individual life. We looked at all that He has done to transfer us out of the kingdom of darkness and bring us into the kingdom of His beloved Son.
Recently, we have been looking at this matter of corporate life. Even within corporate life, over the last few months, we have been looking at some essential issues: the essentials of the cross and the essentials of the headship of Christ. Next month, we will look at the essentials of the Person and work of the Holy Spirit.
This month, we are going to be looking at the essential ingredient, the essential component, the essential aspect of the priesthood of all believers.
The priesthood of all believers.
So let me start with a question as we begin this month: How many priests are in this room this morning?
Well, hopefully by the end of the month everybody’s hand will be raised. We have all been made priests unto God, and we are rejoicing in that.
What we desire in our times together, both here and on Friday nights, is that this would not just be a teaching to us, but that it would be a reality expressed in our lives. We can see how jealous the Lord is for His people to be functioning as priests unto Him.
We can start with the question, what is a priest? Is a priest one who just does religious exercises? I believe that, because of the traditions of men, we have made this whole matter of what a priest is pretty far from what God’s original heart is.
A priest is simply one who lives for God and has a desire to serve Him. A priest is one who lives for God.
This was Paul’s testimony in 2 Corinthians 5. When Paul beheld the love of Christ, he said, “The love of Christ has constrained me, controlled me, that I no longer live for myself, but I live for the One who has loved me, the One who has died for me, and the One who is raised on high.”
That’s a priest, brothers and sisters. This is what we have all been brought into.
We would like to break this matter of the priesthood of all believers into two times. We will fellowship this morning on the certainty of our priesthood—the absolute certainty of our priesthood.
Next Sunday, Lord willing, we will look at the character and conduct of our priesthood. What is the very character of who we are as priests? What is our conduct as priests to be? May the Lord help us.
I think it is good, when we look at subjects like this, to go back to the beginning and really see God’s original heart and purpose. For that, let us turn back to the book of Exodus, Exodus 19.
The setting for Exodus 19 is that the Lord, in His great and marvelous mercy, has delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt. He has brought them into the Sinai desert, and they are there before the mount.
We will read Exodus 19:1-8.
And in the third month after the children of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day they came into the wilderness of Sinai.
When they set out from Rephidim, they came to the wilderness of Sinai, and camped in the wilderness; and there Israel camped in front of the mountain.
And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel: You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself.
Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine;
and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
These are the words that you shall speak to the children of Israel.
So Moses came and called the elders of the people, and set before them all these words which the Lord had commanded him.
And all the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” And Moses brought back the words of the people to the Lord.
Let us also look in the New Testament at 1 Peter 2. Again, these are familiar verses, and we hope that our familiarity with them is not a hindrance.
And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God,
you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Then 1 Peter 2:9:
But ye are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
One last Scripture is Revelation 1:5-6:
Unto Him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by His blood;
and He made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto His God and Father;
to Him be the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
As we look back at Exodus 19, where the Lord has delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt, it is interesting to note the first thing that the Lord speaks to them. Before He shares with them the Ten Commandments, before He shares with them the pattern of the tabernacle—the pattern of His dwelling place and His desire to dwell among the people of God—He first shares with them that, if they will obey His voice, they will be a kingdom of priests.
This was God’s desire. He says this to all the people: to the men as well as to the women, to the young as well as to the old. “You are all to be a kingdom of priests.” There are no limitations within this verse. Once you were born as a child within the people of Israel, you were to be a priest to the Lord Most High. This was His original heart and desire.
It is interesting that we are talking about a kingdom. Sometimes Scripture refers to a priesthood. Very rarely throughout Scripture does it refer to just a single priest. Generally, you see the priests functioning together, and that is what a priesthood is.
The priesthood is the corporate expression of the people of God functioning under the headship of Christ. He desires that we, as the people of God, as priests unto Him, obey our Head and function together. It is not each priest out doing his own thing. No, it is a priesthood. He is leading, directing, and ordaining what each one of us is to do.
Praise God, we see in His very original heart and purpose that He wanted each one of us to enter into the precious reality of this.
But we know that when Moses went back up on that mount, as he was receiving the Ten Commandments and the pattern of the tabernacle, the people said, “Moses is delaying. Aaron, make for us a god that we can see.”
Aaron gathered all the gold earrings, and they made the golden calf. They made their own god in their own image, after a deity of Egypt. How often we go back to the world and the things of the world. Even when we are trying to be religious, we use earthly, worldly techniques.
That was the golden calf: man trying to be religious and using his own worldly ways to please God. We know it was not acceptable to God.
If you look at Exodus 32:7, there is a saying there concerning how the people had corrupted themselves. In that corruption, the people actually disqualified themselves from being priests. God did not disqualify them; they corrupted themselves. They disqualified themselves.
When Moses came down from the mount and saw the condition of the people, he stood in the gate and gave out this cry: “Whoever is on the Lord’s side, come to me.” Praise God, the tribe of Levi—the Levites—came to Moses. We can read that chapter and see God’s judgment upon that situation.
But God, in His great mercy, never allows the failures of man to thwart His purpose. He will accomplish His purpose. He raised up what many call an emergency measure.
He said, in effect, “I wanted everybody to be priests, but because you have disqualified yourselves, Aaron and Levi will serve as priests unto God.” Aaron was the great high priest, and the tribe of Levi assisted within the service of the tabernacle and served their brothers and sisters within Israel.
The people could no longer approach the Lord directly. They had to go through an intermediary. If you wanted to offer praise to God, you had to bring your lamb, bring that sacrifice, and the priest offered it. You had to go through an intermediary. You could not pray for yourself or worship simply between you and God. There was something between you: that priest.
There was a special group representing the people of Israel before God, and that special group was representing God to the people. It was that way throughout the Old Testament, and that is the tragedy of it.
Yet, even in the Old Testament, we still see God’s heart and His desire to have each one within the nation of Israel serve Him. He opened another door.
If you look in Numbers 6, you see the call of those who desired to be a Nazarite. Numbers 6:2 says:
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When a man or a woman shall make a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself unto the Lord.
The Lord was again saying that there were those who really wanted to serve Him. Even though they had been excluded and disqualified themselves, He made provision for those who had that heart to come and take the vow of the Nazarite.
We know of some famous Nazarites in the Old Testament. We know of Samuel—not of the priestly family—yet Samuel gave himself as a priest unto God. We know of Samson, not of a priestly family, but a Nazarite serving God.
So, even when the people of Israel had disqualified themselves from functioning as priests, in His great mercy, the Lord still made a way for ones who had a heart to dedicate themselves to Him. We see how much our Lord desires that each one of His people would serve Him.
Even though everyone was disqualified, there was an avenue made through the vow of the Nazarite for everyone to come back. Yet only a few chose that route. How tragic it was.
We read this morning out of Isaiah concerning our great suffering Savior. As Isaiah prophesies of those glorious end days, when the Lord has restored all things unto Himself, Isaiah 61:6 testifies, “You will all be called priests of the Lord.”
We see God’s heart: that we would be restored and returned to that priesthood. Praise God, that prophetic utterance, and all that was upon God’s heart, was fulfilled in the fullness of time when our Lord Jesus Christ came upon this earth.
Through His redemption, He recovered all that was lost. He came to seek and save all that was lost. Yes, that includes individuals, but it also includes God’s original heart, His purpose, and His plan for a people that had been lost.
One aspect of all that had been lost was the priesthood of all believers. Included in our Lord’s great redemptive work was the recovery of the truth and reality of God’s heart: that we are priests unto God.
If you look back at 1 Peter 2:9, there is a testimony there: “But you are a royal priesthood.” When we were born again, we were born as priests unto our God. This is part of our salvation.
When we were born again, an aspect of that new birth is that we are priests unto God. Sometimes we pray, “Lord, make me a priest. Lord, I want to be a priest. Lord, I want to be called to be a priest.” The Lord will never answer that prayer in one way, because you already are.
You say, “Lord, I want to be a priest.” He says, “How can I answer that prayer? You are.” He will open our eyes to see it, but He is not going to do something to make us priests, because He has already done it. We are priests unto God.
This is one of the great contrasts between the Old Testament priesthood and God’s original purpose, and the New Testament. Remember, back in Exodus 19, it was conditional: “If you obey, then you will be.” But praise God, in the New Testament, because of His great love, because of His sacrifice at Calvary, and because of the completeness of that sacrifice, it is no longer conditional. It is absolute.
There is a certainty in it that each one of us needs to come into: that we would know for certain that we are priests. So, the real question before us is not, “Am I a priest?” or, “Who is a priest?” The question is, “What kind of priest will I be?”
What kind of priest will I be? Am I going to be faithfully functioning, or will I be a negligent one? If the Lord shows us within our hearts the great honor and privilege to which we have been called, and the great honor and privilege of how He has made us priests unto our God, we cannot help but respond with a life lived for Him.
As we look at this whole matter of our priesthood, it is really our eternal occupation. We are born into this, and we are born with a purpose: that we may be priests unto Him. This is really the meaning of our life. The meaning of our life is living for Him.
It is not that there are certain ones who do the spiritual work, while others do secular work. No, we are all called to be priests unto Him. We have been indoctrinated so much with what we call a clergy-laity mentality: there is a special class of people that does all the spiritual work, while I am doing this other work.
No, we go back to the very foundation of this whole series: it is one life that we live. It is one life that we live. Just as we are believers twenty-four-seven, we are priests twenty-four-seven.
We are not just priests when we gather together here. We are not just priests when we gather at prayer meeting. We are priests in our homes, in our jobs, and in our schools, because one of the responsibilities of the priest was to bring God to the people.
What greater display of our priesthood is there than, in the midst of our school or work, bringing God into that situation so that people can see the glorious gospel and come out of darkness into light? We will talk more about this next week.
Within our homes, we are living for Him. This was why I picked the hymn this morning, “Living for Jesus,” which we all know so well.
Sorry, but I should have told you all ahead of time. Actually, I did not know about that until this morning. But we have such a tendency to separate our lives into a spiritual element and a secular element. Really, it is one life that we are living, and it gets displayed in many ways.
The brother who wrote this hymn was Thomas Chisholm. He was born in a log cabin in Kentucky, and he was a Pentecostal preacher. See, if you get this new hymnbook, Christ in Song, you will know all of this. Another plug there. Get that before the twentieth when we come together and sing. There are a few copies there, and we are ordering some more.
But anyway, this brother was a Pentecostal preacher, but because of health reasons, he had to leave his pastorate and start a secular job. Praise God, as he got into that work, the Lord opened his eyes to see that his purpose in life had not changed.
It was not that, before, as a pastor, he was serving God, and now, in the secular world, he was serving man. No, he saw that whatever he was doing, he was “living for Jesus, a life that is true.”
How we need our eyes opened to see that the life we have been called to as priests unto God is simply living for Jesus. In all that we do, it would be a life that is true.
As we live that life, it will be manifested in certain ways when we gather together here, through prayers and worship, and through times on Friday night. It will be manifested in different ways as we are at work.
It is not necessarily going around speaking, declaring, and preaching the gospel, driving all your coworkers crazy. But there is a great prayer ministry that each one of us has as we touch ones in this world.
Brothers and sisters, the Lord wants us to be priests unto the Most High God, living for Him, to be that same testimony, to proclaim, as it says in Peter, the excellencies of Him Who has called us. That is the simplicity of being a priest, and we end up making it so complicated.
Our purpose in life is to know Him, serve Him, and simply live for Him.
As you look at the beginning of the book of Acts, how precious it is. When the Lord brought in these thousands, as they started living and functioning together, all that they did was express the life of Christ and live for Him.
As they lived for Him, they were together. As they lived unto Him, they were worshiping God. As they lived unto Him, the gospel went out. As they lived for Him, they continued on so that the gospel would be spread in many places.
It was not as though these ones said, “I cannot do this until this special elite group tells me what to do.” No, there was a spontaneity of life. They were all priests.
As we look back in the book of Acts, we see marvelous prayer times of the brothers and sisters gathering together. When Peter and John were arrested, it does not say that only certain elite ones prayed for them. It says the brethren came together and prayed, and God moved.
There was a great functioning of the priesthood of all believers throughout the book of Acts and throughout that first century. The early church was in a normal condition. Often we think it was so special, but actually it is a picture of normal church life.
It is a picture of everyone functioning unto God—not pursuing their own interests, not trying to build their own platform, not trying to create their own ministry, but simply living for Jesus: a life that is true, a life really given unto Him in all that we do.
But it is tragic that, even by the end of the first century, there was a falling away from God’s original purpose and His heart. I want to go through a little history to see how we got from the book of Acts to where we are today, because outwardly there is quite a contrast.
The spiritual reality is that we are still all priests, but the way many things have evolved throughout history is far from what God’s original heart and plan was.
If you look through Revelation 2, you see in the letters to the church in Ephesus and the church in Pergamum that the Lord refers to one group of people called the Nicolaitans. In Ephesus, He commends those who hate the works of the Nicolaitans, and the Lord says, “I hate them also.” But later, in Pergamum, He says, “Some of you hold to the teaching, to the doctrine, of the Nicolaitans.”
We do not really know who these people were, because there is nobody in history recorded by this name. But quite often, as you look in the book of Revelation, names are symbolic. Names are a testimony of what the Lord is trying to say.
The meaning of the word Nicolaitan is “to conquer the common people,” or “to conquer the laity.” It means there is one group above the others, overruling the laity. It is interesting that, within about seventy years of the birth of the church, it had fallen into this condition. How tragic it is. We start to see the seeds of this special class, even in its teaching and doctrine.
Why does this occur so often among the people of God? Broadly speaking, there are two general reasons.
The first reason is fleshly ambition. Some want to have the prominence. They seek the preeminent place, as John wrote in 3 John. Some just love to have the prominent place. They think they know better. They think they are more spiritual. They think their ministry is so good, that they have more insight, more teaching, and are more qualified than others.
Therefore, they rise up. Often they have very charismatic personalities or very domineering personalities, and they rise up and present themselves as this spiritual class.
But we cannot blame it all on them. So often, the reason some rise up is because of the passivity, complacency, and distractedness of others.
So often we say, “It is really not convenient tonight to go out and pray. I have some other things I would like to do. I think I will just get some others to pray.”
“I have really been looking forward to doing this this afternoon. It is not convenient to go and visit this brother or sister who is sick. It is not convenient right now to fix a meal and take it to someone who cannot get out.”
We can see, in many ways within our natural self, how convenient it is if we set up a special group of people who will handle all the needs of everything. Then we can just come together on Sunday morning, have a nice time of worship, and all feel good.
We subtly fall into this trap of letting someone else do it—letting others do it. “I am not qualified.”
Truly, brothers and sisters, the danger is not merely when we think we are not qualified. There is a greater danger in thinking that we are qualified. The ones who think they are qualified take the preeminence. The ones who do not think they are qualified start laying back, and it gets further and further away from what God’s heart is.
He has made each one of us priests unto Him. Would we, in this hour in which we are living, not allow the distractions of this world to pull our hearts away? Would we not allow being occupied with many things to pull our hearts away, but simply allow each day that we live to be lived for Jesus?
Being a priest and living for Jesus is not a matter of meeting attendance. If we are living for Him, we will be at the meetings, but our measurement of living for Him is not that. Our goal is to live for Him and to allow the fullness of His heart.
We do not want to allow the meetings to become a limitation—something where we think, “Oh, if I can serve here.” No, there are so many other hours in the week in which we can be living for Him.
Praise God, we have the freedom and opportunity to gather in His name. Each of us can come and bring our offerings unto Him. We can come and pour out our hearts.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we did not just have forty-five minutes of worship? I am not talking about a feeling now; I am talking about a reality. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we came and there were two hundred and some brothers and sisters who each wanted to have that moment to offer up that sacrifice of praise?
Each brother and sister would have that moment—not to hide behind the hymns, even though the hymns are good, but not to hide behind them—to offer up that prayer from the heart unto Him. Oh, how that would please the Lord.
Please do not misunderstand this, but a time like that would do more for the glory of God and for our individual lives than the ministry of this Word occasionally. Now, I say that in fear and trembling, because the ministry of the Word is so essential and vital.
But there are other ways in which the Lord is calling us to live unto Him. May we be open to that, to see the fullness of His life expressed among us as the people of God.
Praise God, brothers and sisters. Isn’t it wonderful when we can touch His life together? Isn’t it wonderful when we can touch His life on a Friday night, as we share together? We touch His life when we have lunch or breakfast with brothers and sisters. How encouraging and strengthening that is.
May we allow the Lord to really come into the fullness of all that He desires to express among us as the people of God.
It is tragic how, at the end of the first century, there was this falling away from God’s original purpose and His heart. They had been made priests, but they were starting to divide.
By about the fourth century, a person named Constantine came into power. Before that, Christianity had been persecuted. But because of certain events in Constantine’s life, Christianity came into favor.
He started treating it with much favor and privilege. He even told all his army that if they became Christians, he would give them special clothes and extra pay. What soldier would not say, “I am a believer”?
Many started coming unto the Lord, but they were only coming to receive outward benefits. They were not true believers; they were outward in name only. There was not a real life. There was not that being born again unto Him. For lifeless ones to serve the Lord is impossible.
There was such a mixture in Christendom at that time. Special groups were created to do the spiritual work. You had those who would do secular work, and this spiritual group that would do spiritual work.
This culminated around the sixth century, when Rome was firmly established as the head of the church. There was the supposed successor to Peter, and they were all formally called priests.
Again, man could not approach God directly. Within this Romish system, you could not pray directly; you went to the priest, and the priest prayed for you. If you wanted to offer up a sacrifice, you had to go through an intermediary to get to the Lord.
Left to ourselves, we fall back into our old ways—that old Judaistic way of the Old Testament, with something between man and God.
That went on for about a thousand years. But praise God, about a thousand years later, in the sixteenth century, the Lord touched ones like Martin Luther and John Calvin. We have the marvelous time of the Reformation.
The two greatest things recovered during the Reformation were, first, the reality of justification by faith. The Lord Jesus had recovered it at Calvary; the truth was always there, but man had lost it.
Luther, Calvin, and others opened the eyes of hearts to see that we are not justified by works or by our merits, but justified by faith in the One Who loved us and died for us.
Also within the Reformation, praise God, the open Bible was recovered. Before that time, the Bible was a closed book. It was actually chained in monasteries, and the common people had no access to it. In fact, most of the priests and monks were illiterate and could not even read it. The Bible was literally a closed book.
But praise God, at the Reformation, it became an open book. Because it became an open book, people started saying, “We need to translate this into the language of the people so they can read it”—not just Greek, Hebrew, or Latin, but English, French, and German, so that every believer could read the Bible for themselves.
As people started reading the Bible, they saw the great contrast between what the written Word said and what they were hearing from the Romish system. The Lord did a marvelous work of recovering and bringing back so much of what His original heart was.
It is interesting, also, that Luther, Calvin, and many of the Reformers saw the reality of the priesthood of all believers. They saw that we were all called to be priests. There was not to be an elaborate system separating God from man, but each one was to have access into the presence of the Lord.
But Luther did not feel that the people were ready. The people were not spiritual enough, because many at that time were nominal or not even born again.
Because of Luther’s assessment that people were not spiritual enough, they continued practicing much of the traditional clergy-laity way. Instead of priests, they were called pastors, but there was still a special group that was considered a little better, with special training beyond the common people.
It is tragic that today much of Christendom is found in the same way. It is very similar to Catholicism and very similar to Judaism: someone is placed between man and God.
“We need someone specially trained to study the Bible, to give a message, and to teach us. We need special ones who know how to pray. I do not know how to pray, so we need special ones to pray for us. How can I worship? We need special ones to worship for us and lead us in worship.”
We think we are so modern today. I am thankful we do not have a worship team. A worship team. So often we think worship teams are modern and progressive, but it is actually going back to the old Judaistic way of having certain ones who are the only ones that can lead in song.
Praise God, yes, the Lord has ones who help and assist us as we desire, with these feeble voices, to lift up a joyful sound. But praise God, He has called us all to be priests unto Him.
So often within Christendom, just as throughout history, we have ones doing everything—praying, leading in worship—and everyone else just sits there and lets them handle everything. Then we go on and feel as though we are okay.
Would the Lord open the eyes of our hearts to allow us to see the certainty and calling for each one of us to be functioning as priests unto our God? It is such a high calling, brothers and sisters. It is such a great privilege.
Praise God, even as we look through history, we can find encouragement in this: throughout history, no matter the darkest times and no matter how far we had gotten from God’s original heart and purpose, there were still the few, the small, and the insignificant—the ones with funny names, like the Paulicians, the Bogomils, the Waldensians, the Lollards, and the Hussites.
All these funny names throughout history were holding to the simplicity and purity of their devotion to the Lord. They were the ones who had the Word of God. They were the ones who were functioning. They saw that when they were born again, they were priests.
It is interesting, as we look at history, that even during the Dark Ages, between the sixth century and the Reformation, there were ones gathered in homes around a simple table, with a cup and a loaf on that table. How precious. There was something of the reality that they gathered in the name of the Lord to remember Him.
They were all offering up their praise and sacrifice. They called one another brother. They knew they were related. They were living for Jesus in all that they did—a life that was true unto the calling God had put upon their lives.
Everyone was engaged in active service. There was great variety and great diversity of service. We will touch more on that next week, but there was great diversity within the manifold wisdom of God, as He designed us to serve Him and live for Him.
One of the tragedies of those faithful ones is that, throughout history, normally those trying to hold fast to the testimony of Jesus—those holding fast to the reality of the priesthood of all believers—were the ones persecuted most by the established church.
It is tragic. Quite often, more persecution comes from the established church toward true believers than from the world toward true believers. So tragic.
Would the Lord open our eyes and strengthen us? This is one of the things that, in these last days, the Lord desires to recover in a fuller and greater way.
Praise God, the truth of the priesthood of all believers has been recovered. But has the reality and practice of the priesthood of all believers been fully recovered in this day?
The Lord desires that we not just know about it in our heads or merely be able to talk about it, but that we would be living it—not always looking for someone else to do something for us, not always looking for someone else to take care of us.
Rather, we would be living for Jesus. In that, we are serving Him and serving our brothers and sisters, being priests unto Him. This is what He is calling us to in this hour.
Praise God. May we not be like Luther, looking around at circumstances and saying, “It is not convenient now to do this. These are not the best people. Lord, if You gave me a better group of brothers and sisters to meet with, we could practice this priesthood of all believers. But You gave me this motley crew. I cannot work with them, so I am going to stay as the pastor.”
Let us not fall into those traps—subtle, conscious, or unconscious thoughts of letting others do it because they are more spiritual.
Now, when we talk about more spiritual, we are talking about ones putting on a spiritual front. In life, there are those who have more life. There are ones who are mature. We have fathers, young men, and children. There is recognition of life and maturity.
But today, I am speaking more about the outward appearance of things. There is the inward reality of life. Yes, we learn from one another, and we have ones whom we respect and fellowship with. But we do not yield our life to some outward form.
We do not fall back into these old ways because it is more convenient or because of the circumstances. The Lord’s ways are so much greater than our ways.
So often, when we look at a situation out of convenience or expediency, we say, “We will just come in and handle it.” But maybe that is not the way God wanted it, because that is our natural thinking.
There is a beautiful picture of this in the book of Acts. Remember the story of Peter praying on the rooftop, when ones came from the house of Cornelius to call Peter to Caesarea to share the gospel with Cornelius? That is in Acts 10.
Cornelius was one who feared God—a proselyte, one who had come into Judaism and given his life over to serving God. But he sensed there was so much more. An angel appeared to him in a vision and said, “Send your men over and get Peter.”
Peter came and shared that glorious gospel, and we see how, through that, the gospel was opened to the Gentiles. What a marvelous testimony of God’s great love for all mankind in Acts 10.
But it is interesting: who else was in Caesarea before Peter? Cornelius was there in Acts 10. Who was there in Acts 8? Philip the evangelist.
Remember how Philip opened the Bible to the eunuch, and then the Lord lifted him up so that he went and shared the gospel? Philip ended up living in Caesarea. Later, he is called Philip the evangelist.
In our natural minds, we would think, “Philip is there. He is an evangelist. Let Philip go to Cornelius. Let him share the gospel.” But God had a higher plan. He does not work on expediency or circumstance. He leads and directs in all things.
Then in Acts 9, when Paul was being taken back to Tarsus, where did he go through as he left Jerusalem? He went through Caesarea. Why not use Paul to share with Cornelius?
But God had something more than Cornelius’s salvation. It was the testimony of Peter—the one who stood on the day of Pentecost—the testimony of the oneness of the Body of Christ, with Jews and Gentiles being brought in as that wall came down.
The same vessel was used by God to show the unity of the Body of Christ and not give opportunity for the enemy to come in and divide worse than he has.
So often, we look at situations and say, “The circumstances are such. It is not convenient here. Oh, we have this one here; we can do that.” Oh, brothers and sisters, this is one of the things about being a priesthood.
The priesthood of all believers is vitally interrelated with what was shared last month on the headship of Christ. The headship of Christ is what allows the priesthood of believers to truly live in the way we are called to live.
We cannot live for ourselves anymore, brothers and sisters. In the hour and days in which we are living, we have been saved with a purpose. If the Lord has called us unto Himself to live for Him and be priests unto our Most High God, we would no longer serve ourselves.
Just as Paul was captured and constrained by the love of Christ, would we in this hour know that capture by the love of Christ? Would this become our testimony: no longer living for ourselves, but living for Him?
As we respond in this way—and we will touch more on this next week—there will be no lack of service within the Body of Christ, no lack of service within the house of God, and no delaying of the bride making herself ready.
The bride is delaying now because we are occupied with other things. But as we are captured afresh by what the Lord has done, know the certainty of being made priests unto Him, and live under His headship for Him to direct us in all things, we will be those found hastening His return.
As we start this month looking at the matter of the priesthood of all believers, may the Lord settle it within all our hearts that each and every one of us—male, female, young, old—are all priests. We all are living for Him.
Our priestly life is not something complicated. It is simply daily coming under the headship of Christ and allowing Him to live out His life through us for His glory and His honor.
Let us pray.
Lord, when we actually stop and think of the honor and privilege of being made priests unto You, it is overwhelming.
But Lord, we thank You that You have made every provision for that in Christ Jesus. It is not our natural self doing it.
We thank You, Lord, that we can function as priests unto You with the simplicity of Paul’s testimony: “Not I, but Christ.” Paul testified, “For me to live is Christ.”
Lord, would this be our testimony in the days and the hour in which we are living? As we fellowship and touch on this matter of the priesthood of all believers this month, do not allow us to fall into the trap of simply gaining more knowledge about this or merely being able to talk about it.
But would the reality of being priests unto You impact our lives? Lord, may the recovery of the reality of the priesthood of all believers be taking place in this hour.
In Jesus’ name, amen.