I'll be here, won't you?
Would you take your Bible now please and turn with me to Revelation chapter 1.
We're looking together at this subject of the names of believers, that is those titles
or names given to us in the New Testament.
And this evening we look at this interesting title found in verse 6 of Revelation 1, that
we are priests unto God.
It says, and He has made us to be a kingdom, priest to His God and Father.
To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever.
Amen.
When we see this name, priest, the word immediately creates certain mental images.
We think of a select group, for example, within a church.
When we hear the word priest, we think of cloistered halls, of secrecy, of ritual, of
a particular color style perhaps, or of black suits, maybe colorful vestments.
And yet all of those mental images are out of step with the New Testament concept of
what a priest is.
A priest is one who is involved with the worship of God.
I believe it can be correctly said that the Christian life is a life of worship.
Worship being defined as giving God the honor to do Him because of who He is and what He
has done.
The priesthood of the believer, that is our worship of God, should be extended to every
realm of life, including on the one hand our daily routine.
For in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 31, the apostle says, whatever you do, whatever
you drink, whatever you eat, do it all for the glory of God.
Whatever is a part of your daily routine, let that be an act of worship because for
us there is not that which is sacred and then that which is secular, but everything about
our lives is sacred because we have been set apart as priests unto God.
So every part of our daily routine is to be an act of worship.
But then in 1 Peter 4 11, he says more specifically that in the use of our spiritual gifts, we
are to worship God.
He says, 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.
Now why should he do this?
Why should each one who has received a special gift employ it in serving one another as good
stewards, the manifold grace of God?
Well he says, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.
Why are we to exercise our spiritual gifts to one another?
So that God may be glorified, so that in our doing that we will worship God and give him
the honor and the glory that is due him.
We should remember that in the old time, under the old covenant, that was Israel's purpose.
May I take you back to the book of Exodus for a moment, to chapter 19.
We come here to that fearful scene at Mount Sinai as God spoke to his people and to their
leader Moses.
In chapter 19 of Exodus in verse 5, this is what the Lord says to his people, 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, says God, to the sons of Israel.
He says, you shall be to me a kingdom of priests.
You will notice that's very similar wording to what we read about ourselves in Revelation
1 verse 6.
Israel's purpose was that as a nation they were to be priests worshipping God on behalf
of the entire world and it would seem that to some degree in the millennial kingdom to
come that will be the role of the Jewish people, those who have been saved.
They will enter into the kingdom to serve as priests.
Now there will be certain ones who will act in bringing the sacrifices to that millennial
temple, which by the way I see as being literal, that is a literal temple and literal sacrifices.
They will be offered in remembrance of the great sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ much
as we observe the Lord's table together now.
Those animals that will be brought in sacrifice then will be in remembrance of his sacrifice
for our sins once and for all.
But according to Isaiah 61 and verse 6, there will be a role for the nation of Israel acting
as priests unto God in that time period.
But in this period of time when the nation of Israel has been set aside and God is doing
a new thing and calling out a people from Jews and Gentiles alike for his name, we who
are saved are called a priesthood.
And our priesthood is a holy priesthood.
Keep your finger here in Exodus because we're coming back to Exodus 29 in just a minute.
But go with me to 1 Peter chapter 2 where again we see some words about our priesthood.
I'm thinking of 1 Peter chapter 2 and beginning with verse 4 where he says,
And coming to him as to a living stone rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight
of God, he says, 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.
Now he really incorporates two pictures here.
He says in the first place that we are a spiritual house.
God does not dwell now in a temple in Jerusalem.
God does not in fact dwell in this building.
He is here when we are here and he leaves with us.
For we are a spiritual house in which God dwells and we are like living stones being
built.
And I think that can well be applied to a local assembly, a local church that we as
a local expression of the universal body of Christ are being built up and built together.
We are living stones and each of us plays an important part in that construction of
the house where God lives.
But he says not only are we the temple, the house, but he says as well we are the holy
priesthood.
By holy he means set apart.
Not that we are sinless.
We know that we are not.
Sin still dwells in us and we still do sin.
But we are a holy priesthood in the sense that God has set us apart for this special
purpose and therefore we want to live pure and godly lives.
All believers are priests unto God in this age.
You will notice that he does not speak here about a particular class of Christians.
He does not isolate a certain group of men or of women for that matter who are to act
as priests.
But he says all of us are living stones and all of us are a part of this holy priesthood.
I would like to talk tonight first about our consecration to the priesthood.
How is it that we, all of us, are fitted to serve the Lord as priests?
Now I want you to go back to Exodus with me to chapter 29.
We are going to see here the establishment of the Aaronic priesthood in the days of Moses.
This is how those priests were fitted for that service.
We are just going to select verses for time's sake out of chapter 29 which will begin with
verse 4.
He says, Then you, Moses, shall bring Aaron and his sons to the doorway of the tent of
meeting, that is the tabernacle, and wash them with water.
And you shall take the garments, which have been described before this, and put on Aaron
the tunic and the robe of the ephod and the breast piece, and gird him with the skillfully
woven band of the ephod.
And you shall set the turban on his head and put the holy crown on the turban.
Then you shall take the anointing oil and pour it on his head and anoint him.
And you shall bring his sons and put tunics on them.
And you shall gird them with sashes, Aaron and his sons, and bind caps on them.
And they shall have the priesthood by a perpetual statute.
So you shall ordain Aaron and his sons.
Now it seems to me that there were four steps in the consecration of these people to the
priesthood.
First, they had to be born into the right family.
They didn't have a choice about that.
Either they were born as sons of Aaron and the tribe of Levi or they weren't.
But they had to be born, first of all, in the right family.
Secondly, they had to be washed.
Thirdly, they had to be properly attired in the robes of one who was a priest.
And finally, they were anointed with oil.
In those four steps, certain people were set apart as priests unto God, unto the Old Covenant.
Now there are parallels that are striking, which apply to us today showing that we, in
a similar way, are consecrated or fitted for our priesthood.
In the first place, we have to be born into the right family.
The family that one has to be born into in this age is the family of God.
It is not enough to be born into a Christian home or to have a certain ancestry, but one
has to be born again spiritually through faith in Jesus Christ.
One has to be born into the family of God and be his child.
Secondly, he has to be washed from defilement.
One reading of Revelation 1-5 is that he has washed us from our sins by his blood.
In 1 Corinthians 6-11, after talking about some of the ungodly people in the world, including
those who were guilty of sexual sins, those who were thieves, swindlers, etc., he says,
and such were some of you.
But he says, you were washed.
You were justified.
You were sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
When you and I were saved, God bathed us, as it were.
He washed us from our defilement so that we are then fitted to live as priests.
In Titus 3-5, he speaks about the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy
Spirit.
So, we have been washed from our defilement in the eyes of God.
Thirdly, we have to be properly attired, and our attire is righteousness.
We are found in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, according to Philippians 3-9.
We have laid aside self-righteousness, which comes through the works and the ritual of
law keeping.
We have forsaken that, realizing that we can never earn our own way, and having trusted
Jesus Christ, we are, as it were, now robed in his righteousness.
We are found in the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, says the Apostle
Paul.
So, we've been properly attired.
And finally, we have also been anointed.
First John 2-27 says that we have received an anointing from God, and he identifies that
anointing as the Holy Spirit.
Now, more particularly, in the Old Testament, the priests, when they were anointed, were
anointed on their right ear, on their right thumb, and their right big toe.
Those three spots were anointed by oil, indicating that whatever they were to hear, whatever
they were to do, wherever they were to go, they were to remember that they were priests
unto God, anointed to that special service.
And may I say to you, my fellow Christian, that we have been anointed by God so that
whatever we hear, whatever we do, wherever we go, we cannot escape the anointing that
we have received of him unto our priesthood as well.
And so, just as fully as those priests were consecrated to their priesthood, so have we
been consecrated to our priesthood.
And just as Aaron was the high priest of that order, so we have a high priest in our order,
and that is Jesus Christ.
He is the final, eternal, great, high priest after whom we serve.
What are our privileges as priests?
Certainly those people of the Old Covenant had certain privileges, for it was they alone
who could enter into the area of the Tabernacle and more specifically enter into the Holy
Place.
You will recall, of course, that the Tabernacle, the tent of meeting, was 15 feet wide and
45 feet long, and that two-thirds of that was called the Holy Place.
In the outside of that tent, there was a brass altar where sacrifices were brought.
Between that brass altar and the door leading into the tent was a laver.
Now, we get our word lavatory from that same word.
It was a place for washing.
Before they could enter into that tent, they had to wash themselves.
And then they would enter into that first compartment, and all who were priests could
enter into that part.
In there on the left side was a magnificent golden candle stand.
And on the right side was a table with the loaves of showbread.
And then up toward the curtain, which divided the larger compartment, the holiest, from
that cubicle called the holiest or the Holy of Holies, up near that curtain was an altar
for incense, which was offered up in worship to God.
Inside this inner compartment was the Ark of the Covenant.
And only the high priest was allowed by God to enter into that compartment.
And then, but once a year on the Day of Atonement, very select, isn't it?
And very ritualistic, all of it highly symbolic.
Those who were set apart as priests could enter into a certain part of it, but only
the high priest into that final compartment where the Shekinah, the glory, dwelt above
the altar, or rather above the Ark of the Covenant.
Now, what privileges do we have as priests?
Well, in contrast to that priesthood, where the priest could only go so far, but then
were separated from God, from His very presence.
You and I are privileged by the Lord to enter into the very Holy of Holies, to what is described
in the New Testament, the throne of grace.
That veil has been separated.
It has been broken, torn in two, so that no longer are we required to stay outside of
God's very presence.
But as priests unto God, we may come unto God Himself.
We have free access, according to Ephesians 2.18.
By Him we have access.
In chapter 5, verse 1 of Romans, He says that we have access, by faith, into this grace
in which we stand.
Christ, our great high priest, has gone before us and opened the way so that now we may come
into the very Holy of Holies.
Don't ever take for granted what a privilege that is.
We talked this morning about the fact that our privileges do not guarantee automatically
blessing from God.
We can't take for granted our privileges and waste them.
And this is one we may waste.
And what a tragedy if we do.
If we neglect the holiest, if we fail to come to the throne of grace to obtain mercy and
find grace to help in the time of need.
Do you come into God's very presence daily?
Is there a time set apart when you consciously, as a priest unto God, enter into the Holy
of Holies, as it were, and there pray and commune with the Holy God of the universe?
That, my friend, is your privilege.
Please do not abuse that.
Please do not overlook that privilege.
But on the other hand, make use of it.
Come before Him with thanksgiving.
And so our privilege is that we have free access to God, but it also includes the fact
that we will reign with Christ in His administration.
Would you go back to 1 Peter 2, 9, just to pick up a thought with me?
This is a little further down in the chapter that we read from a few moments ago.
He says in verse 9 of 1 Peter 2, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood.
A royal priesthood.
Now before He said we're a holy priesthood, but now He says we are a royal priesthood.
Now what does royalty do?
Tell me.
It reigns, doesn't it?
Royalty reigns.
That's why it's called royalty.
He says that as a priesthood, we are royalty.
There are a couple of thoughts connected with this found in Revelation 5, 10 for one, where
He says, and thou hast made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God.
Now notice the similarity here to Exodus 19 where He spoke to Israel.
Except here He speaks to believers, those who have been saved by the blood of the slain
lamb of God.
And He says, thou hast made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God.
And notice the next sentence.
And they shall reign upon the earth.
Now if you look at the context here, He is talking about those of us who have been saved
in this age, the church.
And He is saying that we are a kingdom, we are priests unto God, and we will reign upon
the earth.
A similar thought is found in chapter 20 verse 6.
Jesus Christ is both prophet, priest, and what?
And king.
He is a priest after the order of Melchizedek.
Melchizedek, the name, means what?
King of what?
Of righteousness.
And He served as a priest under the most high God in the Old Testament.
That Melchizedek, which is a type of Jesus Christ.
So Jesus Christ is a priest, but He is also a king.
And beloved, we are priests unto God, but we will serve somehow and some way in the
administration of the kingdom of our King, the Lord Jesus Christ, when He reigns on the
earth.
We are going to come back to the earth during that thousand year millennial reign of Christ
and serve with Him in His governing of the nations.
That's your privilege because you are a royal priesthood unto God.
We must go on to talk just briefly now about the sacrifices.
One sacrifice is found in Romans 12.2.
What is it?
12.1 rather.
Present your what?
Your bodies, a living sacrifice.
The Lord Jesus Christ was not only the sacrifice, but He was the priest as well who offered
up His blood.
You and I are also both sacrifice and priests.
We do not sacrifice ourselves in death for sin as Jesus did.
That was a price He alone could pay.
But we sacrifice our bodies in life as priests.
We offer up our bodies as living sacrifices to God.
How does that apply?
Well, it means that when God wants to deliver a message to somebody, this is the tongue
He is going to use.
When He has a word of encouragement or of rebuke, this may be the tongue He will use.
When He has some encouraging deed He wants to perform, these are the hands that He wants
to be made available to Him.
When I offer my body to Jesus Christ, it means I am saying, Lord, use me in all of my capacities
in what I can do, what I can say, what I can create.
In any way I can serve, I am a living sacrifice, use me.
Are you offering up your body daily to the Lord?
Or are you offering up the members of your body to sin, to serve sin?
We can do that, but what a tragedy.
And how fruitless it is.
Oh folks, how important it is that each day, if not in word, at least in spirit, we present
our bodies to God as part of our priesthood.
That body is a living sacrifice to God.
We are saying, God, this body is your body, live in it.
Express your life through it.
Express your holiness in my body.
I present it to you as a living sacrifice.
But then in Hebrews chapter 13 we have some concentrated words about sacrifices.
We looked at these a year ago this very month.
Let's just review them.
One sacrifice is our bodies as living sacrifices to the Lord.
In Hebrews chapter 13 and in verse 15 he says, through Jesus Christ then let us continually
offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that give thanks to his
name.
There is no place for murmuring and complaining amongst us who are Christians.
There's not a place for a griping word.
When I gripe, I'm in the flesh.
When I complain, that is not a sacrifice unto God.
It is a fulfillment of self.
I am to offer unto God words of thanks.
I am to offer up the sacrifice of praise.
I'm to put my lips to work saying, Lord, thank you.
Are you thankful?
Do you tell the Lord you're grateful?
That is a sacrifice that you're to offer as a priest unto God.
In verse 16 he says, and do not neglect doing good.
Here we have our service for the Lord.
In Philippians 2, 17 the apostle pictures himself in his service as an offering being
poured out on behalf of the Philippians.
What a graphic picture that is.
He says, I am like a sacrifice in my service for you.
What I do in your behalf is an offering being poured out before God for his praise and his
glory, your service for the Lord.
What you do for him, that becomes a sacrifice that you offer as a priest unto God.
Do you have that attitude about it?
Or is it something you do to have to get done?
You've committed yourself to it and I guess you're going to have to do it no matter what
or what will people think.
What funny attitudes we sometimes get about serving Jesus Christ.
And then he says, do not neglect doing good and sharing.
And here he has in mind a financial sharing, our giving.
Again in Philippians chapter 4 this time, the apostle makes a reference and I need to
read that.
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, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable
sacrifice, well pleasing to God.
You see what he's saying there?
He's saying you Philippians in sending that gift, in sending that missionary support,
you have actually offered unto God a sacrifice which produces an aroma like incense which
comes up before God and pleases him well.
Do you look at your giving that way?
Your giving for the Lord?
Let us never begrudge what we give to Christ.
If we do, what we give is meaningless anyway.
But rather as we give, let it be with a willing heart and with a joyful heart that we have
the privilege of giving to God.
And then let us realize that when we do that, we are offering up a sacrifice that causes
God to be well pleased.
It's a sweet aroma to him.
Remember in our stewardship campaign as we talked about the various aspects of our stewardship,
one of our key phrases was not equal gifts but equal sacrifice.
You see it's that which pleases God.
When it is a sacrifice to us, when it is something that costs us, when it is taking from perhaps
what I want and saying, Lord, nonetheless I'm giving this to you, then that becomes
to God an acceptable offering and is a sweet aroma to him.
Let me close with just two applications.
Number one, as priests unto God, we need to be regularly cleansed for service.
Do you remember this brass laver that I mentioned that stood between the brass altar and the
entrance into the tabernacle?
That brass laver of water became a place where the priests would wash themselves before they
entered into the tabernacle so that they would be free from any defilement.
That is a picture, beloved, of our being cleansed from the defilement of our daily lives.
The cleansing, the offering for our sins was offered once for all and pictured in this
brass altar where the blood of God's Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, was shed for us.
That offering never needs be repeated, but as we come into the presence of God as priests
and do our service, we need to daily cleanse ourselves.
That is pictured, by the way, in John chapter 13 when Jesus was washing the feet of the
disciples.
Remember, Peter said, Lord, you're not going to wash my feet.
And Jesus said, if I don't wash you, Peter, you don't have any part with me.
He used a word there which meant if I don't bathe you.
And the import of that is that we have no part in him unless we have been bathed or
completely washed from our sin through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
That is our salvation experience.
But then Jesus went on to tell Peter that he needed to be washed, not bathed, but washed,
have his feet washed.
And Peter said, Lord, wash me.
Just wash me.
And you see, while we have received once and for all that cleansing from the stain of our
sin, you and I still do commit sins, don't we?
And our fellowship with God is interrupted by that.
And we need to be washed at this brass labor.
We need, in other words, to come before God in confession.
The moment we are aware of any defilement of thought or of action, we need to come before
God right then as priests unto God and wash ourselves by confessing our sin to God, acknowledging
it, admitting it, owning up to it before Him so that He can cleanse us faithfully and justly
as He's promised to do, 1 John 1.9.
And so that application is be careful to be regularly cleansed for your service as a priest.
Because finally, I want to warn you against presumptuous service.
I realize we're a little over time.
I'm going to take about two minutes and we'll finish.
But Leviticus chapter 10 is my thought here.
I hope that was not hyperbole when I said two minutes.
Leviticus 10 verses 1 and 2, now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective
fire pans.
Are you all there?
Leviticus, did I say something wrong?
Did I say Leviticus?
Okay, I hear some still turning yet.
Leviticus 10 verses 1 and 2, now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective
fire pans and after putting fire in them placed incense on it and offered strange fire before
the Lord, which He had not commanded them.
And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them.
And they died before the Lord.
And Moses said to Aaron, it is what the Lord spoke saying, by those who come near me, I
will be treated as holy.
And before all the people I will be honored.
So Aaron therefore kept silent.
Number one and number two sons had just died.
And Aaron was not to grieve because they had transgressed presumptuously in their service
for the Lord.
Now you put it all together here with some other texts and here's apparently what happened.
Just before this fire had come down from heaven and started on that brass altar.
And they and their service in the tabernacle and offering up incense were to take fire
from that altar, fire which had come from heaven and to go in and offer it before God
in burning their incense.
But instead these two men got fire somewhere else, not from that altar.
Furthermore there is a suggestion because of what is said later here in this text that
the two men had been drinking.
And that carelessly in their drunkenness they took this strange fire into the holy of holies
where they were never to go in that order.
And having transgressed and gone with strange fire into the very presence of the holy God
where the Shekinah was, God struck them dead immediately because they transgressed.
Now beloved there is a lesson there for you and for me.
We dare not be presumptuous in our service of a holy God.
When God was initiating that age with Israel, He evidenced His holiness by the killing of
these two men as a reminder to beware that He is a holy God.
When God was instituting the new age after Pentecost, there were two other people who
died, Ananias and Sapphira, who were careless and untruthful in their service for God and
being presumptuous thinking that they could fool God and pretend to be something that
they weren't.
God struck them dead as an example to us in this age that He is a holy God.
So let us not think that we can be careless and fool around with sin and like those two
men defile ourselves with intoxicants and think that somehow we are going to please
God.
Let us not think that we can treat God as common and that this priesthood that we have
is anything less than a holy priesthood for God is holy and He says, be ye holy in all
manner of conduct.
And Peter goes on to say, so if we call on the Father who judges every man according
to His work, let us conduct ourselves in this pilgrimage with fear, realizing the holiness
of the God that we serve and that we call our Father.
Let's pray.
I don't know where you are tonight, but God knows.
And likely you know where you are in your walk with Him.
And like those two careless men, you may be presumptuous and thoughtless and careless
as a Christian.
I am not in a position to say to you, God is going to strike you dead.
He may.
He warns us of that.
There is a sin unto death which applies to a Christian.
It's physical death.
But I am in a position to warn you that careless living receives His chastisement and His judgment.
How much more for our good is it that we judge ourselves and confess our sins, that we be
not judged with the world?
If you need to do business with God as a priest, because you are a priest unto God, will you
do that tonight?
Father, I pray that every one of us will understand the solemn and holy purpose you have for us
in our priesthood.
May we see it as the important duty and privilege that it is and keep our lives in check and
offer up faithfully the sacrifices that you have commanded of us as priests in this age.
Wherein we may be short tonight, wherein we may be less than we know we ought to be, and
we are living unfaithfully, at that point bring conviction and give us hearts of repentance
and confession.
Thank you for this blessed and glorious privilege that is ours in Jesus' name.
Amen.