Let us pray.
Lord, as we have gathered in Thy presence around Your table, as we have been reminded in a fresh way of Your love—that has drawn us unto Yourself, the love that led You to Calvary, the love that has taken us out of that kingdom of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of Your beloved Son—Lord, how else can we respond but tell You how we love You, and we desire to live for You, Lord?
Lord, we thank You. You do not call us to do it in ourselves, but You have enabled us through Your precious life within, through the Holy Spirit.
And Lord, we thank You that, as we come to Your Word this morning, there is a full provision in Christ Jesus for the speaking and hearing of Your Word. We pray that this time would be set apart unto You. We know how much the enemy hates Your Word, but we thank You, Lord, that we can declare Thy name and victory over this time.
And by faith, we can enter into all of the goodness, all of the precious truths, the precious realities that You would have us feast upon this day, Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen.
This morning, we are continuing together on this thought of the priesthood of all believers. We started last week as a continuation in our foundation series. As we have said, the foundation series is really a foundation of life. It is the foundation of living in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, because there is no other foundation except Christ and Him alone.
As we seek to really know of the riches of what we have been called into in this wonderful life, we fellowship together on some of the individual aspects of that life. Recently, we have been looking at the corporate aspects of that life, and we have titled these few months together The Essentials of the Corporate Life.
Even though we are looking at them individually, month by month, in reality you cannot separate them. When we share on the cross, when we share on the priesthood of all believers, when we share on the headship of Christ, and when Kenny shares next month on the person and work of the Holy Spirit, there is nothing that can separate that.
How can we separate the cross from our priesthood? How can we separate the work of the Holy Spirit from being priests? It is really all interrelated. So, in one sense, we separate them for fellowship and to help us, but let us not compartmentalize them within our minds, because it is really one thought.
It is the greater desire for the expression of His life within our lives together. That is what we are after: to see more of Him in one another, and more of Him in this life that we have together.
Last week, we looked at some verses that really showed us the certainty of our priesthood. Let us look back for a brief review. If we look at Exodus 19, we see God’s original heart when He brought the people of Israel out of Egypt and brought them to Mount Sinai. He had a desire for them that each and every one of them would be kings and priests unto Him.
If we look at Exodus 19:5-6, we see how the Lord is sharing His heart with Moses:
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 a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.
We can see within God’s heart that it was His desire that every Israelite, whether male or female, young or old, would be a functioning priest unto the Lord. He made the way for all to enter in.
But we know how, when Moses was on that mount, they made that golden calf, and the Lord said, “You disqualified yourselves.” At that point in time, we see how, when the Lord in His judgment was bringing discipline upon the people, Moses came down and said, “Whoever is on the Lord’s side, come to me.” The tribe of Levi came and stood with the Lord, stood with Moses, and the Lord brought judgment in that day.
The Lord set apart the tribe of Levi from that time on, and we will touch a little more on their function today. Praise God, at the fullness of time, even though the people had disqualified themselves through their own sin and had separated themselves from being able to enter into His presence, His Son came.
Our Lord Jesus said that He came to seek and save that which was lost. One aspect of that which was lost was the priesthood of all believers. As we have even read to start our time this morning, if we look back again at 1 Peter, the Lord makes this declaration: we have been made priests. We are. There is no uncertainty here.
We saw in the Old Testament there was a condition: if you obey, you will be priests. But now, because of the great work our Lord has done, He declares in Peter that we are priests.
If we look at 1 Peter 2:4-5:
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 spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
And in 1 Peter 2:9:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people for God’s own possession,
that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him
Who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
You are. There is absolute certainty here because of the work that our Lord has done at Calvary. We are priests, and as we said last week, the question is not, “Are we priests?” because we are. The question is, “What type of priests are we going to be?”
We asked the question last week also: what is a priest? To me, the value and preciousness of us being priests can be exemplified in how much the enemy hates that word.
Most of us feel very uncomfortable with the word priest. Why is that? Because we see how much the enemy has distorted it. If the enemy did not care about the term priest, he would never have touched it. But the enemy has so distorted the word priest that we who are priests shy away from even using that term.
We were fellowshipping Friday night, and we said that we feel more comfortable saying that we are servants, because priest has such a connotation in this world, and it is so far from God’s original heart.
But would the Lord recover—not that we merely use the word priest, but that we would know the reality of it? Would the reality of being priests unto our God come forth, so that we could be functioning priests and the reality of it would be seen in the world?
It is interesting that many things within Christianity can be tested in their value by how much the enemy hates them. We know that there will be a baptism next week, and we know the great battle over baptism.
We can look upon it as something ordinary, but if we see how much the enemy hates and contests people being baptized—people who are baptized in certain parts of the world are almost under a sentence of death—we understand something of its value. Throughout history, those who have taken that obedient step of baptism have been killed for the Lord’s sake.
It shows us something of the intensity of the enemy’s hatred because of the value it has to the Lord. It is the same way with us being priests unto our God. The Lord desires that each and every one of us would be functioning priests unto our Lord.
There is no mystique about it. We create this mystique about being priests, but a priest is simply one who is living for the Lord. We could use the term: a priest is one who is living a normal Christian life. That is what we are designed to do. That is just an aspect of who we are.
In our normal Christian life, what will be expressed is the preciousness of our priestly function unto Him. It is not that sometimes we are servants, sometimes we are brothers and sisters, and sometimes we are priests. No, these are various descriptions of one life that we have to show forth the excellencies of Him Who first loved us.
Would we get over some of the barriers that the enemy and the world have created, and be able to enter into all that He has for us?
Today, having looked at our certainty last week, we want to look at our character and conduct as priests. Character and conduct: which one is more important?
Well, to our Lord, character is the vital issue. So often we think conduct is so important, and it is. But the thing that is more important to our Lord is the issue of character.
As we read in these passages from 1 Peter, how is the priesthood described? There are two characteristics: holy and royal. Do we ever stop and think about the preciousness of being a holy priesthood, of being a royal priesthood? Or do we allow it to become common?
This word holy—again, somehow there is a mystique about it that we shy away from. We do not want to be so holy; we just want to be normal. Well, if we are truly normal Christians, we will be holy.
Again, the enemy has robbed us of the beauty of holiness in this world. Would that we could be those holy ones set apart unto Him, not defiled by so much that the world would try to bring upon us.
Also, being a royal priesthood: a royal priesthood is one that represents the King. It is one who is allowing that kingly character to be manifested in his life. We are royal. We are coming under the King, and all that we have is not of ourselves.
We are to reflect and show forth the life of the King, bringing the kingdom of God among those we are with. Oh, what a beauty this is, brothers and sisters, to really stop and meditate on this whole thought of holy and royal—such words that have lost their true value and meaning in the days we are living in.
When we are speaking of character, let us be clear: we are not talking about improving our character. No, brothers and sisters, we are talking about His life being lived out through us. It is His life.
We know we cannot fix up our old character. We cannot dress up this pig and make it anything holy; it is still that pig. But what we are talking about is that we have a new life within us.
When we are talking about character, we are talking about the greater expression of His life within our lives: as Paul says, “For me to live is Christ.” Not I, but Christ. It is His life coming forth.
Because, brothers and sisters, the Lord is far more interested in our character than in our conduct. If we are not who He wants us to be, we can never do what He wants us to do.
If we never come into being who He wants us to be, we can never really do what He wants us to do. We will end up being like Saul, out there serving God in his own self, thinking he was doing God a great service but actually working against Him.
Would the Lord work within us so that it would not be our own self trying to do this, trying to look better or have a greater image, but really allowing His life to come in and be expressed through us in this hour?
We are going to use the Old Testament again today for some pictures, because we can see pictures that give us some great principles of what a priest is. These are shadows, and we are not looking so much at their activities as at the pictures and principles being presented.
In the beginning, when the Lord had the nation of Israel, He set aside Aaron and his sons as priests. But even as He had set aside Aaron and his sons to be priests, they had to be prepared. They could not simply go right into the tabernacle, nor could they go into the Holy of Holies just as they were. They had to be prepared.
They had to have that character, that very nature, working within them. If you want to look at the Lord’s calling upon the family of Aaron, their being set apart, their consecration, and their duty, you can look at Exodus 28-29 and Leviticus 8.
As you look at Exodus 29, we find five essential things in their preparation for service. What is so interesting is that, as I read this chapter, these five things came to me as matters we have already shared about in our foundation series:
It is interesting, if we look back at the messages given during the last year, how many times consecration has come up. Consecration comes up a lot. It makes me think that maybe the Lord is trying to say something to us.
Maybe, in His great love and mercy, He keeps bringing us back to this whole matter: who are we living for? Who is Lord of our life? It is not doing something for Him, but yielding ourselves to Him for Him to live His life through us.
As these priests gave themselves to the Lord, one aspect was how they were anointed with oil, and then the blood was applied upon their ear, their thumb, and their foot. They went out to serve, but it is interesting that the blood was upon the ear first, so they could hear what they were supposed to do, and then upon the hands and feet.
How often we get it backwards. We start going before we have even heard. That is consecration. As you look in that chapter, their hands were filled with an offering to the Lord. Everything there spoke of our Lord Jesus.
The question before us is: what are our hands filled with today? The hands of the priests are filled with that which is of Christ. But our hands are so often filled with many other things, occupied with other things, distracting us and keeping us away.
It is really one of the great challenges within the house of God today. One of the problems we have is so much unconsecrated service—doing things in the name of the Lord, but not of Him. We use His name, but we are not doing it of Him; we are doing it in our own strength and power.
Would the Lord bring us back to really allowing His life to be the very life within us that leads us and guides us, that we can allow this very character of Christ to be formed within us?
The Lord has said that we are holy and royal priests. Positionally, we are. But because of our fallen nature, we have to keep coming back to the issue of being holy and royal. It is a daily issue within our lives, because we are sinners and continue to sin.
But we thank the Lord for the blood of the Lamb that cleanses us of our sins, even as we remembered at the table today. Even though we lose, experientially, our holiness, we can come back to the blood, and it can allow us to regain the holiness and nature of the Lord.
We can allow that kingly character to be displayed and bring the King—His life and His authority—into the situations we find ourselves in. Would we learn the essentialness of this character, the very nature of His life being worked within us, so that the reality of the priesthood of all believers might be expressed among us and among the people of God in the day we are living in?
We find ourselves so often wanting to know, when we talk about the priesthood of believers, “When are you going to get to the functioning part? When are you going to tell us what to do?” We will get there.
But there is this vital part of first settling the certainty, and then first settling the very character and nature of the priest. Because if we do not have this foundation, all of our works are simply as filthy rags before Him.
What He is looking for—He is always looking for His life within His people. He looked at those churches in Revelation 2-3. As He looked upon the different churches, what was He looking for? He was looking for the expression of His life.
They had good works. They had a lot of conduct going on, a lot of service going on. But what was missing in some of them was the expression of His life in the fullness He desired. This is what He is looking for in us today.
I was very touched this morning during the worship by how the Lord impressed upon our hearts the matter of being a holy priesthood and a royal priesthood. But that is the simple part, really. The simple part is thanking the Lord that we are that. The simple part is fellowshipping about it on a Friday night. The simple part is reading about it.
That is the objective truth: that is what we are. The challenge is really entering into it and allowing it to become reality within our lives. This is what our goal is. We say this over and over again: we want to enter into the fullness of what He has for us in that expression.
What is our conduct as priests? What is our priestly function? In the Old Testament, to use a picture again, there were two groups: the priests and the Levites. You had the sons of Aaron and the tribe of Levi, and they were those functioning before the Lord.
One group was wholly toward the Lord; they were ministering to God. The other group was ministering and helping their brothers and sisters. One was vertical toward the Lord, and one was horizontal toward the brothers and sisters.
If you look at Exodus 28:1, the Lord is speaking of Aaron:
Then bring near to yourself Aaron, your brother, and his sons with him from among the sons of Israel,
to minister to Me as priests.
Then, in Exodus 29:1, it is the same:
Now this is what you shall do to them to consecrate them
to minister as priests to Me.
The family of Aaron, this priestly family, had a calling in life to minister as priests unto the Lord. They were given responsibilities within the tabernacle, within the Holy of Holies, and within the holy place.
They would go into the Holy of Holies once a year. They would go into the holy place daily, trimming the lamp, caring for the altar of incense, and weekly changing the showbread, or bread of the Presence. All of this was being done unto the Lord.
This was a hidden work. Nobody was seeing them. They were not there looking for the attraction of men or seeking to please men. They were set apart to minister to the Lord.
This hidden life was the most vital and essential aspect of their ministry to the Lord. Sometimes we think that doing something is so important, but it is actually drawing near to God and coming into His presence. There is a preciousness here. There is a vitalness here.
As they came into that holy place, they were about the lampstand with its light shining. They were trimming it so that the light could shine brighter and brighter, beholding and learning, allowing that light to shine upon them.
That showbread there was the precious bread of life, the Word of God. They were learning it and allowing that bread, that Word, to transform them. They were offering incense: continual prayer, continual intercession, and worship unto our Lord.
There was a precious life that these men had, and it was all toward the Lord. They were not there for themselves. They were not asking anything for themselves. They were there ministering to the Lord.
In many ways, brothers and sisters, as we have just gathered, what we have done is offer up an acceptable sacrifice pleasing to Him. It is ministering to the Lord when we gather around the table. We are not asking for ourselves; we are returning and offering up that sacrifice of praise.
Every day of our life ought to begin this way. It is so vital and essential to have that time set apart—not occupied even with what we have ahead of us for the day, but occupied with Him and offering up that praise and sacrifice to Him.
This is the element where it speaks about the holy priesthood offering sacrifices acceptable to Him. That is the holy priesthood going up; it is ministering to our Lord.
How this is so lost in the days we are living in because of the pressures of life, because so many things press in upon us. So often we say, “I do not have time.”
Would the Lord really recover the beauty of that time before Him, the beauty of that quietness, the beauty of the secret life, of that abiding life before Him? Would we be able to start every day there?
One of the things about our wonderful Lord is that the more we minister to Him, who gets the blessing? We get blessed. As we come into His presence and behold His beauty, He loves us so much that He pours out His blessing upon us in ways we never even asked for or thought about.
Oh, brothers and sisters, would we regain the beauty of the sons of Aaron going into the tabernacle every day? We do not have time to go through all that went on within the tabernacle, but everything within it speaks of one thing: it is a picture of Christ.
Every thread, every peg, every vessel in there directs us and speaks to us of Christ. That is what is upon the Father’s heart: that we would behold our Savior, behold our Lord, in the quietness and hidden times we have before Him.
It was only after the sons of Aaron had spent time in that quiet, hidden place with Him that they could go outside to the outer court. After they had gone and ministered to the Lord, then they could go outside to that outer court, where there was the altar of burnt offering.
All the people would come there and have their sins forgiven and offer different sacrifices. But all of this came after those priests had ministered to the Lord.
That is where we see the Levites. The Levites were out in the outer court. They could not go in; only the sons of Aaron could go in. But the Levites were out there in the outer court.
If you want to look more at the Levites, look at Numbers 3-4 and Numbers 8. But in Numbers 3:5-8, we see the call upon the lives of the Levites:
Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
“Bring the tribe of Levi near and set them before Aaron the priest, that they may serve him.
They shall perform the duties for him and for the whole congregation before the tent of meeting,
to do the service of the tabernacle.
They shall also keep all the furnishings of the tent of meeting,
along with the duties of the sons of Israel,
to do the service of the tabernacle.”
We can see that the tribe of Levi was to assist the sons of Aaron in the care of the tabernacle. Also, when people came up to offer their sacrifices at the altar of burnt offering, the sons of Levi would be there helping.
They would help people as they brought their offerings. They would help the priests cut up the offering. They were there assisting and helping people.
In many ways, we can say that the ministry of Aaron was vertical: they were ministering to the Lord. In a general way, we can say that the tribe of Levi was ministering to all the other people of the nation of Israel. It was more horizontal. It was going both ways: vertical and horizontal.
That is a general statement. There are exceptions throughout that we do not have time to touch on today. But one thing you will see within the tribe of Levi is great diversity—many different things and ways that they could help.
We can see a clear picture of the Lord separating the function of Aaron and the function of Levi in Numbers 4:15:
When Aaron and his sons have finished covering the holy objects and all the furnishings of the sanctuary,
when the camp is set out,
after that the sons of Kohath shall come to carry them,
so that they may not touch the holy objects and die.
These are the things in the tent of meeting which the sons of Kohath are to carry.
The tribe of Levi was there to help, but they could not touch the holy objects. Even though these people had been faithful, there was still a separation for them. It was only this special group, Aaron and his sons, who could touch and minister to the Lord and touch all these holy objects that were set apart.
But praise God, brothers and sisters, as we have been sharing today, there is no longer this distinction. There is no longer a distinction between those within the body of Christ who have the ministry of Aaron and those within the body of Christ who have a Levitical ministry.
No, we have all been made priests. We have all been made a holy priesthood. We are all a royal priesthood. Praise God, we can all enter into the holy priesthood.
It says in 1 Peter 2:5 that the holy priesthood is to offer up spiritual sacrifices. That is open to each and every one of us. There is not a special group within the body of Christ that alone can do that, while the rest of us handle what we might call the practical things.
Praise God, there is a royal priesthood to proclaim the excellencies of Him. As we look upon this matter of the holy and the royal priesthood, the holy priesthood is offering up sacrifices—ministering to the Lord—and each and every one of us can come and minister to the Lord.
The royal priesthood is proclaiming the excellencies of Him. Yes, we proclaimed the excellencies of His great work this morning, but we also go out and proclaim the excellencies of Who He is to our brothers and sisters.
When a brother or sister is hurting, when they are going through difficult times, how do we help them? We proclaim the excellencies of Christ. We bring Christ into the situation.
We proclaim the excellencies of our Lord to a lost world. That is the spirit of the gospel going out. So there is still the horizontal and the vertical, but we are all called into both.
I know I got horizontal and vertical backwards that time, but I was just seeing if you were watching. I could tell by the expressions on your faces. You said, “Oh, look at that dummy. He said horizontal and vertical.” So you do not think I am watching you?
But if we see this, we are all called into it. It is one life, and we manifest these two aspects together.
If we look at Acts 13:2, there were those within the church ministering to the Lord. They were there with one heart and one purpose: to minister to the Lord. They were ministering to the Lord, fasting, and we do not know all that they were doing.
But in the midst of that, as they were ministering to the Lord, He said, “Set apart Paul and Barnabas to do the work.” He sent them out to proclaim the excellencies of Him Who had called them out of darkness.
As they were there before the Lord, they were in a place to be blessed and sent out. That is how they knew where to go. They were not there saying, “Lord, where should we go?” Their object was not their own idea, and their prayers were not centered upon themselves. But as they ministered to Him, He spoke to them and said, “Go out.”
In Acts 16, there is another beautiful picture of this. Paul and Silas had brought the gospel to Philippi, and they were there in prison. They had been beaten. They were in horrible circumstances, the worst conditions they could find themselves in.
How are Paul and Silas described? They were worshiping the Lord. They were praising the Lord and singing hymns unto Him, ministering to the Lord in the worst circumstances they could find themselves in.
What did the Lord do? He brought an earthquake. He set them free. Then, as that Philippian jailer was getting ready to kill himself, they said, “Do yourself no harm,” and they brought the gospel. They proclaimed the excellencies of Him to that jailer and his whole household.
They did not stop to ask, “Now, am I a holy priest or a royal priest?” There was a life that came out. As they were ministering to the Lord, that life was expressed.
So often, I think, within my own heart, two of the greatest challenges we wrestle with today are these. First, we do not spend that quiet, hidden time with the Lord, but we still try to serve one another.
Second, consciously or unconsciously, we still think there are special people within the body of Christ who have a spiritual service, while our service is just practical. We need both of these lies, these myths, shattered.
How can we really minister? How can we really help our brothers and sisters if we have not spent time with the Lord? How will we know what He wants? How will we know what His desire is?
We look around us today, and there are so many needs—so many desperate situations. There are companies going bankrupt, people losing their jobs, cancer in so many places, illnesses, and families being torn apart. You feel like, “I have got to do something,” and so we just go do something.
What happens is that we become man-centered. We are looking at all the needs and being driven by needs. But if we do not step back, quiet our hearts, and minister to the Lord every day in the quiet hiddenness of His life, how will we see and hear what He says for us to do?
I love the testimony of the story of our Lord Jesus and Lazarus. They came to Him and said, “Lazarus is dead.” Praise God, our Lord was not need-driven. He waited four days.
Now, we would have been there right away. I know my natural self: I would have gone, “Boom, there we go. We have got to get there. We have got to comfort them. We have got to provide assurance. We have got to do this. We have got to do that.”
Quite often we do, and I am not saying that when someone dies, we stay away four days. But we allow the Lord to lead us and guide us, because He wanted to show forth the glory of God.
The Lord had such a place of communion, and this is where He wants us to be: that we would not be so driven by the needs of men, so need-centered and man-centered, but would really know the leading and guiding of our Lord in everything we do.
When our Lord looked upon this earth, He saw all the needs. But only when the Father said, “Go,” did He go. We can be overwhelmed with the needs around us; they can weigh us down. We can be overwhelmed by the condition of Christianity in these days. We can be overwhelmed by so many things if our eyes are fixed on them.
But would our eyes be upon the King? Would we spend time being strengthened in Him, so that when He sends us out, there would be that word in season to bring forth blessing and healing in a way we might never have considered before?
The second thing we have to work through and get over is this division between spiritual service and practical service. Really, this division is created by man.
Within the economy of God, true priestly functioning is all spiritually practical. True priestly ministry is spiritually practical. There is not this division.
But we divide things because we often divide them according to what we are more comfortable doing. Some of us are more comfortable doing practical things. Some of us are more comfortable doing so-called spiritual things.
When we divide things into these categories, we are actually falling back into an Old Testament pattern. We say, “There is this special class that does this, and this group does that.” We have taken a whole step back to come under the law again, instead of living by grace, living by His life, and allowing Him to direct us and lead us into the fullness of what He has.
How do we function as priests? Look at Romans 12. This chapter begins with verses on consecration. We are not going to read the whole chapter, but as we look at it, it begins in the spirit of consecration.
Then it says in Romans 12:6:
Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us,
let each exercise them accordingly.
Brothers and sisters, each one of us has received the grace of God. Each one of us has received a gift from God, and He desires that each one of us would be functioning priests within the house of God.
Yes, perhaps there are those who prophesy, those who teach, and those who exhort. But even within that, there is great diversity. Those who prophesy are telling the mind of God. We see within this chapter a great diversity in the way the body of Christ functions and operates.
We have to ask ourselves: are we comfortable with diversity? Are we comfortable with diversity? Really, most of us are not.
Most of us have a realm of comfort. We are more comfortable with uniformity, or with people who have the same temperament, personality, gifting, and actions as we do. We love uniformity. There is a comfort there; it is within the natural man. The natural man always tries to make things uniform.
But God, in His design of the body—we need only look at our physical bodies or around this room—has created great diversity. One of the things that can be so lacking today within the body of Christ is not diversity of ourselves, but the diversity of His life being expressed through individual brothers and sisters.
He is yearning that there would be those who prophesy, those who teach, those showing hospitality, and those caring for the sick—on and on throughout this body.
But even within this chapter, we can say, “Well, these are the spiritual sections, and this is the practical section.” Would the Lord shatter that mindset within us? We are all called as priests unto our God, and whatever we are doing unto Him, that is our priestly function.
We elevate certain things above other things. But when the Lord returns, what is He looking for? Faithfulness. “Well done, good and faithful servant.” You were faithful in what I gave you. You were faithful in what was entrusted unto you.
Even though we may be gifted in a certain area—perhaps you have a gift of teaching or some other gift—we do not allow even our gifting to limit our service. Again, that is falling back into the Old Testament way, where each priest had a certain role, did this, and everybody else did something else.
We can think, “I am gifted in teaching. This is what I do. There is a brother sick in the hospital, but I do not do that. Somebody needs a meal, but I cannot do that.” But no.
One of the things I love about having a meal together is that we immediately come and all offer up the holy sacrifice acceptable to Him around His table. We are ministering to the Lord. We hear the Word of God, and then every one of us starts picking up chairs and putting up hymnbooks. There is not a special group that does it.
We all serve. We all come before the table and offer up a sacrifice. Then we all turn around and help set up the tables and serve the food. It is flowing in life, and one is not higher or lower than the other.
Let us not limit ourselves by saying, “My gift is teaching children, and I cannot do anything else,” or, “I am involved in the music, and I do not do anything else.” No, brothers and sisters. Praise God for the gift He has given you.
Praise God for the gift of hospitality that has allowed you to open your home to so many. Praise God for the gift of teaching that has encouraged so many. But there are times, too, when you teach, and then there is a visitation, a phone call, or caring for one another. It is His life going out.
There is the vertical, but there is also the horizontal caring for one another.
One who testifies of this great ministry we have to the Lord and to one another is Peter. We have read how Peter testifies that we are a holy priesthood and a royal priesthood. But if we look later in 1 Peter 4, he says, in effect, “This is who you are. Now you need to serve one another in this.”
There is one goal: that in this God would be glorified. In 1 Peter 4:7-11, Peter says:
The end of all things is at hand;
therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another,
because love covers a multitude of sins.Be hospitable to one another without complaint.
As each one has received a special gift,
employ it in serving one another
as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.Whoever speaks, let him speak as it were the utterances of God.
Whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies;
so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ,
to Whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever.
Those of us who are really functioning as that holy priesthood are offering up sacrifice. Those entering into the recognition of being a royal priesthood are declaring Who He is, bringing His name and the kingdom of God within our midst.
It is all with the view that Jesus Christ would be glorified. It is the desire that the One Who has made us holy, the Holy One, would receive the glory. It is our desire that the King would come and dwell within us in a fuller and greater way.
How is this ministering done? As Peter reminds us, it is done as we love one another. He first loved us, and as He has first loved us, we return and love one another.
One of the greatest ways we love one another is by ministering to the Lord. Often we look within our homes: the greatest way a husband can love his wife is by strengthening his relationship with the Lord. The greatest way we can love our brothers and sisters is by ministering to the Lord and strengthening that relationship.
We reach out and care for one another, and then we allow that love of Christ to go forth.
To me, one of the most precious groups of royal priests is young mothers. They have one of the hardest jobs any of us could ever think of. Yet they are there as royal priests within the home, proclaiming to their young children the excellencies of Him Who first took them out of darkness.
They desire that their children would be raised in that same way. Our priesthood is not limited to time or space.
As young mothers minister to their children, as we are in school with our classmates, because we are in that class, the kingdom of God is there, and we are royal priests. In our workplace, as royal priests, the kingdom of God is there. In our homes and in our neighborhoods, we are able to declare the excellencies of Him Who has called us and allows us to enter into all He has because we have had that time of ministering to Him.
As we consider this whole matter of the priesthood during this month, I pray that the Lord would really open our eyes to the honor of it, to its privilege and responsibility. It really is a great calling.
It sounds unnatural for us to think this way, but would the Lord break down those unnatural barriers? Would we see His heart for us to be a kingdom of priests? Would He give us a greater vision of His desire, so that we could enter into this and it could be more fully recovered—not just the truth of it, but the very practice of it?
So often we ask, “How can I function?” I am not saying that we never ask it. But when someone says, “How can we function?” we should ask them first: “Have we been before the Lord? Have we ministered unto Him? Have we asked that question of Him?”
He is the One we ask first. He is the One we come to first, and then we allow Him to direct us. We are a priesthood under our great High Priest.
It is interesting that in the New Testament, no individual believer is referred to as a priest. The only Person referred to as a priest is our Lord Jesus, our great High Priest.
We are not out here individually doing things on our own in an independent way. We are under the great High Priest. As our great High Priest directs this way and that way, He does it through a divine order that brings glory and honor to His name and allows the body to be built.
Let us make a distinction here. We can know about being priests, but sometimes we resist when it comes to this matter of being a priesthood and functioning together.
We can think that we can go out independently on our own, but the Lord says no. I think that is why, in the New Testament, He never refers to any individual believer as a priest. It is always in the plural: the priesthood of all believers.
Would we learn to come under His headship and allow the Holy Spirit, through the working of the cross in our lives—again, see how all these are interrelated—to bring us to say, “Not I, but Christ”?
The Holy Spirit guides us, and as we come under His headship, we can enter in and allow the greater manifestation and greater release of His life within our lives together. May the Lord do this in the days that we have.
Let us pray.
Lord, again, we want to return and thank You that it is You Who have first loved us. Lord, we thank You for this tremendous blessing and privilege that You have given us: this priesthood.
We have to confess that, in many ways, it is a foreign concept. But we pray, Lord, that we would allow the reality of it to be worked within our lives.
We pray, as we meditate in Your Word, that there would be more and more of the reality of it expressed in our lives. Lord, allow us to break through even the unconscious barriers that we have to functioning, where we put up partitions and areas and say, “I am over here and not over there.”
Lord, shatter all of that and allow us to come under Thy great headship. Allow us in a fresh way to know You as our great High Priest, directing us here and directing us there, so that Your house can be built and Your return would be very soon.
In Jesus’ name, amen.