The three offices are the office of prophet, priest, and king.
As we observed last week, our Lord Jesus Christ wonderfully fulfills each of those offices.
He is the prophet spoken of by Moses in Deuteronomy 18.15 when he told the people that there would
come a prophet from among them and that they should give close heed to what he had to say.
At least twice in the book of Acts, the apostles clearly understood that to be a prophecy of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the prophet.
I remind you of the band of men sent from the priests and Levites in Jerusalem to inquire
of John the Baptist as to who he was.
They said, are you the Christ?
He said, no.
They said, are you then Elijah?
He said, I am not.
What then?
Are you the prophet?
Thinking of that verse, he said no.
And they said, well who in the world are you?
He went on to say, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the
Lord.
You see even those men sent out from the priests understood who the prophet was to be.
The Lord Jesus Christ is that prophet.
Then the Lord Jesus Christ is the great high priest.
Jesus, the Son of God, has passed through the heavens and there in his heavenly session
he intercedes before the throne of God for us as our great high priest.
He is the leader of our priesthood.
And then he is the king.
The Bible calls him the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
When he returns to the earth at the close of the tribulation period, it will be as the
king.
He will come on his white charger and across his body will be emblazoned King of Kings
and Lord of Lords.
And he will put down all other authority and will rule with a rod of iron as prophesied
throughout the Old Testament.
He will establish the kingdom for a thousand years upon the earth.
Because you and I who have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ in this age are identified with
him, there is a sense in which we too have responsibilities relating to each of those
offices.
Our key text for this thought is found in 1 Peter chapter 2.
I invite your attention there to the ninth verse.
First Peter chapter 2 verse 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.
Now we see there that we are called that we may proclaim God's excellencies.
That's the work of a prophet, isn't it?
One who proclaims, who tells forth the glories of the Lord.
And so there is a sense in which we are called to be prophets in that general sense.
And then he uses the word royal.
He says we are a royal priesthood.
To Timothy the apostle writes and says, if we suffer with him we will also reign with
him.
We have that privilege by the grace of God to be joint heirs with Jesus Christ of all
that he will inherit, including the kingdom, so that we will reign with Christ.
And so we have in a sense the office of king or of royalty sharing the throne with our
Savior.
And then he uses that very noun priesthood.
He says we are a royal priesthood.
As that thought that we're zeroing in on on these Sunday nights, you and I who have trusted
the Lord Jesus Christ are priests.
We often think of ourselves in various roles.
We think of ourselves as servants or as ambassadors of Jesus Christ or as good soldiers who fight
the good fight of faith.
But we don't often think of ourselves as priests, do we?
And yet our priesthood is one of the most important aspects of our function in this
world.
You are a priest.
Male or female, it makes no difference.
Young or old, we are all called to be priests.
There is not a class of people who are set aside to be the priests.
All of us together are priests.
That's why we talk about the priesthood of the believer.
As we saw last week, we have been consecrated by God to that office.
We drew a parallel between the Old Testament priesthood and ours.
In the Old Testament, those who were priests had to be born into the right family, didn't
they?
They had to be of the tribe of Levi if they were to serve in the tabernacle, and if they
were to be priests, they had to be born into the family of Aaron within the tribe of Levi.
Likewise, you and I, by our birth into God's family are priests.
Every one of God's children at this age is consecrated to that office by birth.
And then in the Old Testament, those priests, as they were set apart to their office, had
to be washed.
They were bathed.
Likewise, you and I have experienced a washing.
It is called the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit in Titus 3.5.
We have been washed from our sins in the precious blood of Christ.
So we are qualified and consecrated in that sense as well.
In the Old Testament, the priests had to have proper clothing.
That clothing was fashioned by God.
It was prepared, and the people wore it.
You and I have clothing spiritually by which we stand before God.
It is the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
That is the desire of the apostle in Philippians 3.9 where he says that his desire is to be
found in Christ having his righteousness.
The psalmist ties together with that in Psalm 132, verse 9, when he says, Let thy priests
be clothed with righteousness.
And finally, the Old Testament priesthood was anointed to the office with a very special
anointing oil.
And as we saw last week, we too have been anointed by God.
And the anointing that we have is the Holy Spirit who is in us as our teacher.
He is our anointing by which we have been set apart by God to this high order of the
priesthood.
And so we have been consecrated to that office, every one of us, just as surely as the sons
of Levi and Aaron were set apart in the Old Testament.
And because we have been consecrated and set apart, we have the privilege of full access
to God.
We stand in such wonderful grace that God allows us to come into his presence at any
time we desire.
The word access in the New Testament refers to one who is given the privilege of standing
before royalty because of his connections.
He stands there because of somebody he knows who has gotten that access for him.
And of course, because the Lord Jesus Christ has passed through the heavens into the very
presence of God where he stands at the Father's right hand, we have one who has opened the
way for us and has given us access in the presence of God.
And so as priests, we are consecrated to the office and we have been given full access
to God himself.
No longer is there a veil that shuts us off from God.
No longer must he hide himself from us because of his holiness, but because of the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ and his resurrection.
The way has been opened into the very presence of God and we, by his grace, are fitted to
enter into his very presence and to commune with him.
Marvelous privilege.
And now tonight we want to take up this matter of our responsibilities as priests.
The Old Testament priests had the responsibility of offering up sacrifices and there were many
different kinds of sacrifices.
Most of the sacrifices involved the shedding of blood, but not all of them.
There were drink offerings, there were meal offerings, there were offerings of she's,
of grain, but whatever the offering was, the person who brought the offering brought it
to the tavernacle, later the temple gave it to the priest and then it was the priest's
responsibility to carry through with the sacrifice, through the offering up of whatever the gift
was that the person had brought.
The priests of the Old Testament made their living doing that.
They had no land to farm.
When the nation was divided up among all the tribes, the tribe of Levi got nothing, but
yet God provided for them in a very wonderful way through the sacrifices that were brought
to the altars.
They were able to take from some of those sacrifices to provide for their needs, for
their families.
That was God's way of providing for the priests of the Old Testament.
Now we today have sacrifices that we are to offer up too.
We are not to bring turtle doves and lambs and goats and bullocks to church and sacrifice
them on the communion table.
Indeed, the table that we have before us here, before the pulpit, is simply a reminder to
us of the Lord's table, which is a memorial of the great sacrifice offered once and for
all.
There is no longer a need for the offering up of that kind of a sacrifice for sin.
Jesus Christ has offered himself once and for all.
He has dealt with sin.
That is over.
When he comes back the second time, it will be not to deal with sin, but to bring salvation
for those who look for him.
What then are the sacrifices that we are to bring?
Would you turn?
Well, we're here in 1 Peter.
Let me just back up to verse 1 of 1 Peter 2.
In the context, you'll see that it speaks about the spiritual sacrifices we're to offer.
Therefore, putting aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and all slander,
like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that you may grow in respect
to salvation if you've tasted the kindness of the Lord.
When 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.
So it clearly says here that we are to offer up sacrifices, but there's that adjective
describing them.
They are spiritual sacrifices.
They're in the realm of spiritual things.
It affects the material, but we don't bring blood or meal or sheaves of grain.
We bring to the Lord spiritual sacrifices.
Very real.
Now turn over to Hebrews chapter 13 where we pick up this same theme.
What a marvelous book Hebrews is.
So much of it is tied together with Old Testament imagery that unless one has some kind of a
background in the book of Leviticus particularly, it's difficult to understand the book of Hebrews.
It has a lot of Jewish connections to it.
And that is true with the passage we're going to read which is in chapter 13 verse 10.
He says, we have an altar, we Christians, we have an altar from which those who serve
the tabernacle have no right to eat.
Now because of what I've said previously about how the priests were provided for, perhaps
that gives you some insight as to what this verse means.
We have an altar and that altar is the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
It clearly says that those who still serve the tabernacle, that is that earthly Judaism
with all of its ritual and ceremony, those who are still a part of that system, he says,
have no right to eat, spiritually speaking, of our altar, the Lord Jesus Christ.
They cannot share in Christ because they are involved in that Judaism.
He says, for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the
high priest as an offering for sin are burned outside the camp.
That is true.
You go back to Leviticus and you'll see that God ordered that in the sin offering, which
is one of the offerings brought, the body of the animal was to be burned outside the
camp.
The blood was brought inside the tabernacle and offered in the prescribed manner, but
the body burned away from the camp.
Now why was that?
Was it because the body represented that which was unholy?
No.
It's because that it was a holy sin offering and the camp was unclean and God didn't want
it coming into the camp.
So he ordered that that body be burned out there outside the camp.
That's what he's referring to in verse 11.
Now he applies that.
He says there's a meaning that we are to get from that, verse 12.
For Jesus also that he might sanctify the people through his own blood suffered outside
the gate.
Of course, his blood was offered before the Father and through that blood we are set apart
unto God.
But it says that Jesus also suffered outside the gate.
Of course, geographically that was true, wasn't it?
It was outside the city walls of Jerusalem where he died on Calvary.
But there's a spiritual meaning to that.
He died outside the gate of Judaism.
He was rejected by that religion and those who followed it with those rituals and the
ceremonies.
He died outside the gate of that legalistic religion.
And so he says, hence let us go out to him outside the camp bearing his reproach.
And actually what the writer here is saying to these people who were believers but who
were still tempted to be a part of the Judaistic rituals, he says to them, leave those rituals.
Leave it behind and go outside the gate.
It'll mean suffering reproach, but that's where you belong because that's where the
Savior died.
Leave behind that legalistic religion in which you've been involved.
There's a tremendous application here for us folks.
I believe that we as believers today need to leave dead religion behind.
There are some people who try to put their foot into two camps, among the Lord's people
and then among those who deny the Lord.
And I believe that that is inconsistent with New Testament teaching.
The command from God to us is that we too should go outside the camp bearing his reproach
beyond the walls of legalistic religion, beyond the walls of religious systems that deny the
work of Jesus Christ for sin.
Leave that behind, have nothing to do with it anymore and bear his reproach.
He says, for here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is
to come.
The city of Jerusalem is very, very important to the Jewish people because of all that it
entailed.
But he says the city that we're concerned about is not a city in this world, but we're
looking for a city whose builder and maker is God, the New Jerusalem.
And then in verse 15 he goes on to say, through him, that is through the Christ who offered
himself for our sins that he might sanctify us.
Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is the
fruit of lips that give thanks to his name.
And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
Now if you look closely at those last two verses that we read, you will find three spiritual
sacrifices which we are to offer up as believer priests.
The first one mentioned is the sacrifice of praise, of praise to God.
He says, in other words, what I mean is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.
He speaks about praise or thanksgiving as being the fruit of the lips.
In other words, somewhere there's been seed sown that now is bearing fruit on the lips.
And where is that?
Well, it's in the heart.
The seed has been sown in the heart of gratefulness to God and appreciation to God.
And because that kind of good seed has been sown, he says, let it bring forth fruit on
our lips now giving thanks to the name of God.
What a marvelous thing it is to praise the Lord.
It is a pleasant thing.
It will lift the spirit.
When you are down, and all of us go through emotional cycles when we are up or down, when
you are emotionally feeling down, that is a good time to praise the Lord.
Because through that praise, God will lift your heart.
And then when you are emotionally on top of it, what a pleasant thing it is to allow that
praise just to overflow from your life, to express it to God.
When was the last time that you created your own spiritual song and sang it to the Lord?
God doesn't care if you're on tune.
God doesn't care if it rhymes.
The next time you are alone driving the car, maybe it should be alone the first time, or
perhaps you are in the shower where nobody can hear you, why don't you try to sing a
song out of your own heart to the Lord, a spiritual song, a song that comes out of your
own spirit.
Be a composer and allow that song of praise to bless you and to bring honor and glory
to God.
Music is a part of praise.
I think it's very difficult to separate the two.
We can speak our praise and we should do that, but music is such a natural augmenter to praise.
We see this in the Old Testament a number of times.
You look at Psalm 150.
It is a psalm of praise to God over and over again.
Hallelujah, hallelujah.
And then it says, praise the Lord on the various instruments that it lists.
I look forward to the day when Skip will be able to have an orchestra here, even for our
services, and people who will just regularly be playing along with our hymns.
It blesses me whenever we have instrumental accompaniment and when we have special music
on instruments.
We may not always know the words.
When we do, and I think it's important that those who play instruments remember that it
helps us to appreciate the song more when we know the words.
But we can allow our spirits to soar to the Lord as we hear that music.
I love to hear Mark play the organ.
He's able to lift our hearts in such a marvelous way in the prelude and during communion.
I know many of you have expressed that.
How music causes our hearts to be caught up to God.
Just turn back with me a moment to 2 Chronicles 7.
Here's a worship service I doubt that we'll ever be able to duplicate.
In some respects, we wouldn't want to.
In 2 Chronicles 7, the temple has been finished, and Solomon has prayed a great prayer of dedication.
We knock Solomon sometimes because of the latter years of his life.
Certainly he declined, and it's tragic to see what happened to that man who learned
from his father David to fear the Lord and then turned from that.
But there was a time in his life when Solomon walked close to God.
As a matter of fact, after he finished praying this prayer, there was fire that came down
out of heaven.
I don't know when that happened to you the last time, but I don't remember the last time
it happened to me.
Now it says that Solomon offered a sacrifice of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep.
Do you know how much blood that is?
The blood was flowing through the temple.
And then in verse 6 it says, And the priests stood at their posts and the Levites with
the instruments of music to the Lord, which King David had made for giving praise to the
Lord, for his loving kindness is everlasting.
Therefore he gave praise by their means, while the priests on the other side blew the trumpets,
and all Israel was standing.
You get the picture here?
There's a great praise service going on.
The animals are being sacrificed in obedience to God and as an indication of the people's
love and trust in the Lord.
That's a marvelous thing.
And then you've got all these priests standing around with musical instruments and trumpets
and they're blowing them in a great chorus.
It wasn't practice.
It wasn't tune-up time.
They were all playing and someone was conducting it and the music was lifting the people's
praise to God.
What a marvelous thing that is.
One of the reasons that we are exploring new formats for worship here on Sunday night is
because we believe that as we hear from God and his word, that it causes us to want to
respond to the Lord.
And it seems like it would be a natural thing, doesn't it, as we hear from God and the word
then to spend 15 or 20 or 25 minutes singing to the Lord and reading scripture and praising
God.
Doesn't that seem like the right thing to do?
At least it does to me.
And with the instruments playing and the people joining and singing, the fruit of lips giving
thanks to God.
But it's not just when we're together that that is done.
It's any time at all we may offer the sacrifice of praise to our Lord.
Now back to Hebrews 13 where we see the second of the sacrifices.
He mentions our service for the Lord.
Verse 16, and do not neglect doing good.
Bearing the Lord just by doing good works, that is a sacrifice.
Have you ever thought about that?
That cup of cold water, so to speak, that you share with the person in need, done in
Jesus' name, is a sacrifice unto the Lord.
It is good work that brings praise to him.
That meal that you prepare for the one who is sick, or that card of encouragement that
you send, or that Sunday school class that you teach with faithfulness, that small church
where you're involved in evangelism or in the visitation of people who are part of the
class or the guests who visit in our church.
All of the things that we do, these are good works which are sacrifices on our part unto
God.
He says, and do not neglect doing good.
He mentions even in the first part of this chapter such a simple thing as showing hospitality.
He says, let love of the brethren continue.
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without
knowing it.
That's an interesting comment, isn't it?
I think this involves, too, the exercise of the spiritual gifts that God has given to
us.
Again, over in 1 Peter we have these instructive words in chapter 4 and verse 10, as each one
has received a special gift, talking about the special Spirit-given ability that God
has given us to serve him for the benefit of the church.
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 it 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.
Amen.
You see, as we exercise the spiritual gifts that God gives to us, whether they are gifts
of speaking or gifts of serving, as we faithfully employ those gifts, God is glorified.
He's worthy of that.
He's worthy of all glory forever and ever.
As believer-priests, we offer up to the Lord sacrifices as day after day we do good works.
The kind deed that you do in the office there, which is unprompted, maybe even undeserved
by the person who has been spiteful to you, that extra forgiveness that you express to
the one who has offended, the patience that you show, the faithfulness by which you care
for those in your charge, your children perhaps, your wife, your husband, the good works that
we do, each one of those, God counts as a sacrifice.
Throughout the day then, we offer up sacrifices of good works.
And then he mentions again in Hebrews 13 a third sacrifice, and here it is the sacrifice
of our substance.
He says, and do not neglect doing good and sharing.
He's talking here about our money.
He says that we are to share.
Turn over to Philippians chapter 4 verse 18 where the apostle speaks to those dear people
about how they had shared with him.
In Philippians 4 18 he says, but I have received everything in full and have an abundance.
I am amply supplied having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent.
In other words, they had sent a gift.
As a matter of fact, they had sent two gifts to Paul to help him in his ministry.
And then he goes on to say, what you have sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice,
well pleasing to God.
Do you understand that when the offering plate is passed and you put into that offering plate
your gift, that that is a sacrifice to God?
It's not a tip for God.
It's a sacrifice.
It's not something to soothe our conscience.
It is a sacrifice unto God.
We are giving our substance for the work of the ministry.
Turn to Ephesians chapter 4 verse 28.
It's back a couple of pages here.
Let him who steals, steal no longer.
What a terrible thing to write to Christians.
There are interesting ways that Christians steal, even from God.
He says, let him who steals, steal no longer, but rather let him labor, performing with
his own hands what is good.
There were some loafers in that day.
The Roman government did not have a welfare program that cared for them.
And so the church cared for the needy in its fellowship.
And there were some people who were loafing and in that sense stealing from other believers.
And so the apostle says, let those who are stealing stop it right now and let them work
with their own hands doing what is good.
And then he goes on to give the reason so that they can be rich, no, in order that he
might have something to share with him who has need.
The reason that we are to be gainfully employed is to care for ourselves and our needs and
so that we have leftovers that we may share with others who have needs.
Have you ever thought about that as being a sacrifice unto God?
Some of you have because you have shared with people within our fellowship who have had
financial needs.
That is well pleasing to God.
We need to learn the grace of giving in that way.
And some of us may need to learn the grace of receiving in that way.
When we have need, being willing to humbly say thank you and accept that as a provision
from God for us rather than being humiliated or embarrassed that someone may have seen
that we had need and gave us a gift.
The sacrifice of our substance to the Lord.
I think it is worthwhile for us to turn to 1 Timothy chapter 6 where he says in verse
17, instruct those who are rich in this present world.
Now of course we think that that immediately leaves out all of us here.
But it doesn't because you see if you took the general population of the world and put
all of us in some kind of a chart we would find that every person here tonight is rich
compared to the average Christian in the world.
We are fabulously wealthy in this land.
Most people in the world do not earn in a year what most of us here earn in a day.
That's the facts.
We are responsible folks to God for the wealth that we have.
It's true it costs more to live in this land.
God knows that.
But God also knows that we are blessed above any other people in the world with material
things.
And he says, but those who are rich in this present world not be conceited or fix their
hope on the uncertainty of riches but on God who richly supplies us with all things to
enjoy.
That's a marvelous thought isn't it?
We ought not to be on a guilt trip.
God gives us the things we have to enjoy.
But we are not to go overboard on the enjoyment of our own things that we forget those who
have need.
That's his point.
And he says in verse 18, instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous
and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the
future so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.
As you and I give to the Lord of our substance and we offer up that sacrifice to him, actually
what we're doing is establishing a savings account in heaven.
We are sending on ahead what we cannot keep here anyway.
We are investing for the future, for eternity and how wise that is.
We are to offer up the sacrifice of our substance.
Are you doing that?
Can you honestly say before God that what you have given him today on this Lord's Day
has been a sacrifice?
Has it cost you something?
You remember that David on one occasion, he was offered a piece of ground upon which to
put the tabernacle.
The owner said, you can have this.
I'd just be so happy if you'd take it.
And David refused it.
He said, I will not offer unto God that which cost me nothing.
You see, David refused to offer unto God a sacrifice that did not cost him.
He had to involve a sacrifice on his part.
That's the kind of sacrifice of substance that pleases God and is acceptable to him.
Now finally I'd like for you to turn just briefly to Romans chapter 12.
And I say briefly because we'll be getting here to Romans chapter 12, oh, in a year or
two or three.
So I'm not going to go into a lot of detail.
I just want to show you that there is one more sacrifice that the New Testament specifically
says we are to offer.
And this is a familiar verse.
He says, verse 1, I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies
a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
The offering up of our bodies to the Lord is a worshipful sacrifice.
He calls this sacrifice a living sacrifice.
Now the priest of the Old Testament offered up the blood of dead animals because of the
law.
Because of the mercies of God, we are to offer up our bodies as living sacrifices.
Now it's interesting, isn't it, that our bodies, we are in our bodies, we are called priests
and so we are.
Our bodies are also called the temples of the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians 6, 19.
That's where God lives today.
God does not live here in this church.
Did you know that?
If you want to write God, don't write him in care of Grace Church because he doesn't
get his mail here.
God does not live in this building.
God lives in you.
You are his temple, his sanctuary.
We are the priests, we are the temple, and we are the sacrifice.
Isn't that interesting?
The Lord Jesus Christ is the same.
He's the high priest.
He offered himself as the sacrifice.
In John chapter 2, he called his body the temple that would be torn down and raised
again in three days.
What he is, we are.
We are to offer up our bodies as living sacrifices.
That's the way the apostle looked at his own life.
Over Philippians chapter 2, he pictures himself as an offering, in this case a drink offering,
which was poured out by the priests upon the altar.
He said, if I am poured out as an offering upon the altar of your sacrifice and your
service, then I rejoice.
He looked upon his life as an outpouring of a sacrifice.
Again over in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, he says, every day we bear about in our bodies
the dying, the death of the Lord Jesus.
He says, we are persecuted, but we are not destroyed, and so on.
Every day we go through death to self.
We experience death because of the reproach of the world.
He says, we experience death like a sacrifice, but it's so that the life of Jesus may be
manifest through us.
Do you see your body as God's body, or do you claim it as your own?
It's his temple, and it's a sacrifice to be offered daily to him.
That's why it's important to keep our bodies clean and pure.
That's why it's important not to be involved in sexual immorality, which God forbids.
That's why it's important we not drug our bodies and destroy them.
Every day we are to offer up bodies that are clean and pure and acceptable and holy unto
God so that he can live his life through us for his living sacrifices.
Do you see tomorrow that way as you go to the office?
I hope you will.
We as believer priests have responsibilities.
Among those, the offering up of spiritual sacrifices.
Let's offer them up faithfully this week.
Father, teach us what it means to fulfill our priesthood.
Along with our serving, our soldiering, help us also to be offering up sacrifices that
are acceptable and well pleasing to you.
We pray in Jesus' name, amen.