A Royal Priesthood

I'm gonna start reading in 1 Peter chapter 2.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

If you don't have your Bible, don't worry.

Every verse I read will be on the screen.

Uh, no problem.

By the way, if you do want a Bible, uh, we have some and we're giving them out.

And if we run out, we'll buy more and give them out.

We want you to have a Bible.

Um I I I told everybody in first service, if they didn't have a Bible, go to the welcome tent, and we might have given them all away for all I know.

Nobody told me to stop saying that.

So what I'm gonna say is go to the welcome tent, get you a Bible.

All right.

If you don't, like if you already have a physical copy or something, and uh you haven't yet taken advantage of the digital Bible app uh was created a long time ago.

They have had several iterations, they've really made that thing great, and so uh encourage you to download it.

You can actually as uh a bazillion translations and they actually read it to you.

So if you're you know on your commute or you're out and about, you can listen listen to chapters of the Bible uh at a time, and so I would encourage you to do that if you have not yet done it.

First Peter chapter 2, verse 9 says, but you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

1 Peter 2:9

Uh this week I had a cool opportunity to go back to my alma mater where I graduated from in just south of Dallas, Texas.

Uh spent uh time there, was able to graduate from that school.

They actually recently changed their name uh to Nelson University.

It used to be Southwestern Assembly of God University, now they changed it to Nelson, named it after the founder.

So I am now a proud uh Nelson grad.

Got some apparel while I was there, and I'm part of the change.

Change is inevitable in life, and so embrace that.

Um I uh while I was there, I was able to serve in, they have a master's of leadership program as part of their uh grad program, and um I've done it now three times.

What they do is they'll bring in a practitioner twice a year to sort of supplement the teaching of the professors, and you essentially come in and talk about the principles they've been talking about in theory, and you talk about that in the reality of your context.

And so I I enjoy it.

I I love teaching the Bible, it's my favorite uh doing what we're doing now.

But I also enjoy talking about leadership.

I enjoy talking about healthy culture, I enjoy talking about systems and processes and all of that type of stuff.

And uh a lot of their students aren't even necessarily working in churches, they're they're uh entrepreneurs or they're um people that manage or lead or own businesses, and there's just a whole lot in common.

And so uh I've done it now three times, and apparently I did good enough.

They kept asking me back.

I keep trying to make the content better and uh really enjoyed the conversation.

One of the sessions we talked about staffing and healthy staffing and healthy staff culture, and um uh within that conversation, I I was kind of using the concept of just um communities or entities, whether it's a municipality or a corporation, you have citizens, you have people that are a part of that community.

And in any community that you are a citizen in, uh you have two things going on.

You have rights and you have responsibilities.

Rights and responsibilities.

Your rights really are kind of where you start, and and the rights are that every citizen, you know, has some unalienable rights, right?

Like the what we in our country would say, uh the right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Okay, and um uh in an organization, you have you have rights as as a citizen of of that um that place.

And so in a in a team or any again, entity, the more secure that you are, right?

Your rights are designed to give you value.

Uh that we're you matter here, no matter you know, where your compensation level, wherever you fall in the org chart, you matter, you're valuable, uh, that you're safe, that you're secure in that environment, and that you're free in that environment, that you have liberty.

And so once you have established that level of trust, okay, again, whether it's in your community or whether in your job, you will then start to focus naturally on your responsibilities.

What contribution do I make here?

Unless you're just a total taker, unless you're just one of these people that's completely entitled and it's all about you, uh, which you know, most people once we're safe and secure, we want to give back.

We want to use our strength to serve the greater good.

Well, once I've I've sort of you know can trust that that I'm valued, that I'm free, and that I'm safe, now I'm gonna look at my responsibilities.

When we started this conversation about the kingdom of God, we started talking about okay, what Jesus meant when he said, Hey, I am uh I'm here to tell you the good news about the kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God is at hand.

And we started the whole conversation talking about the difference, like a contrast between empire mentality, which is built on the love of power and the power of fear.

The fear from the top proliferates through the entire uh uh entity to where they're driven by, people are driven by fear.

And fear is a powerful thing.

And so we talked about the empire mentality, and Jesus comes not with the uh the love of power or the power of fear, but the power of love.

And what we have is, as we talked about last week, an authoritarian Jesus, an authority figure, Jesus, who creates value, safety, and freedom, who the Son has set free, the word says, is free indeed.

That Jesus came and took on our flesh, understood and took on our sin, okay, died as us, came as a sacrifice, not to be served, but to serve.

And so he put value on us, he put freedom on us, he put security on us, showed love to us.

And so it's now that I understand my rights, I understand that uh I've been given the right to be sons, we've been right uh to be children of God, that we now have access to his provision, his protection, and now I start to think about what are my responsibilities.

The verse that we just read in 1 Peter is written by the Apostle Peter, and it was written decades after Jesus was gone, and it was trying to help them understand the responsibilities of being a citizen in the kingdom of God.

And the same explanation that he gives them in 1 Peter is totally relevant to us today.

This is some really good stuff.

Now let's look at the context of 1 Peter.

Peter is uh writing to the church, sorry, I had a hangnail.

Uh church in Asia Minor.

It was gonna, I have ADD, it was gonna bother me all service.

Um the church in Asia Minor, which is modern day Turkey, okay?

And he's writing to a mixture of Jews and Gentiles, but it's predominantly Gentiles.

At this point, this region is some Jews but a lot of Gentiles.

And so they're taking what's this Jewish religion, and they're going, but it's not about a religion, it's about the kingdom of God.

And so what he does is he uses the main parts of the Old Testament storyline of the nation of Israel to talk about the new thing that God is doing.

So he uses things like the Exodus.

They came out of slavery, they came out of bondage, and he's like, in the same way, we've been delivered from sin.

And he talks about the old covenant that God makes with the nation, the Old Testament.

He goes, but now we have a new covenant.

He takes the tabernacle or the temple and talks about the elements of the temple.

And now he's saying, now we are the temple.

And now he talks about the priesthood from the Old Testament, and he comes up with this funny line here, at least it seems funny.

He says, You're a chosen people.

Now he's saying this to Gentiles as well as Jews.

So he's saying the thing that started with this nation is now open.

Okay, God's doing a new thing, he's opening it to a kingdom that's as diverse as all the people of the world.

And so he says, uh, you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood.

A royal priesthood.

Okay, um, let's look at what this means.

If we go back to the story arc of the Old Testament, in the book of Genesis, chapter 12, uh, through Father Abraham, God begins, uh makes a covenant with Abraham and starts the nation.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

And then uh this is just real quick cliff note version, but it's uh Genesis 12, 1 through 3.

God says to Abraham, I'll make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

And I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse.

And look at this, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

Let's look at that.

He's he's telling him his rights and his responsibilities.

I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna make you a great nation, and here are gonna be your rights, okay?

I'm going to bless you, okay?

I'm going to protect you.

Those who curse you and come against you are coming against me.

So he's saying, I'm going to protect you.

I'm I'm I'm going to uh ultimately uh bless you, and then he says, but there's a responsibility, it's not about you.

So your responsibilities are that all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

This isn't about me uh elevating you to be domineering or superior.

This is, I'm going to start something in you that's ultimately going to flow through you because I want to touch the whole world with it.

Okay, so so that's Genesis 12.

In Exodus, the next book, okay, uh God's speaking through Moses, and he's giving them him an uh uh essentially a prophecy.

This is a prophecy of what's to come, and it says, You will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation.

You will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation.

This is the message you must give the people of Israel.

Okay, so now we're we're starting to get this really old Genesis Exodus language and matching up with this New Testament, like post-Jesus through Peter language of a royal priesthood.

So Exodus 19 says you're gonna be a kingdom of priests.

1 Peter 2 says a royal priesthood.

What in the world?

That's a weird thing to say, a kingdom of priests, a kingdom of priests.

You would think a kingdom or a country or a nation would be a nation with priests, not a nation of priests.

And so they were a bit confused.

What is he even talking about?

Well, if you keep reading, okay, you go from Exodus to the book of Leviticus.

All right.

How many of you spent a lot of quality time this week in the book of Leviticus?

All right, you're just like, you're like, it's my favorite.

Okay, you're lying.

Okay.

You're lying.

Most people don't even know what Leviticus is.

Okay, if you've heard anything out of Leviticus, it was somebody telling you that tattoos were a sin or something, and they used a verse out of context in Leviticus.

Um, you're like, what are what is Leviticus?

Okay, glad you asked.

What I'm gonna do today is I'm going to show you some stuff out of Leviticus, and you probably hadn't seen much out of Leviticus, but you're gonna see some stuff today out of Leviticus and you're gonna be able to apply it.

It's like a magic trick we're gonna do today, all right?

We're going to make Leviticus come alive.

All right, so Leviticus is essentially a book of the Bible that defines the priesthood, defines the priesthood.

So God gives the law to the nation, and he's like, yeah, the law is pure, the law is right, the law defines correct conduct, but the world is full of humans, and humans are going to need to navigate uh the law and their ability to keep it and not keep it.

And so um he defines the priesthood, and there in the book of Leviticus, there are four responsibilities of the priest.

Okay, are you following me here?

What we're talking about is we have a responsibility as kingdom citizens as a royal priesthood, a kingdom of priests, and we're gonna look at what are the responsibilities of a priest.

So here's what's laid out in the book of Leviticus.

The first responsibility of a priest is to put God's character on display.

To put God's character on display.

Um, notice the term they use.

Uh he says, I'll make you a holy nation.

If you were to take that word and you were to look at it in the original language, it means to be set apart.

You're gonna be different.

And so the one of the roles of the priest was to put God's character on display in the world.

And one of the ways that they did that was they did it through the the clothing that they wore.

And so they wore uh a Levitical priestly robe.

So go ahead and bring up uh we have an image here that would give us an idea of what that would look like.

Um they wore uh basically uh this outfit that every single part of it, like to us, it looks abnormal, it looks a little bit like a funny outfit, but every single thread of this outfit meant something, and it was in some way putting God's character on display.

Everything from the ephod to the 12 stones on the chest, there the tassels, every part of it.

There's nothing on there wasted, and every single thing is symbolic, and it was taught to the people.

This is what this means, and this is what this means.

So that when you're walking through the marketplace, you're walking down the street, you see the priest walking with this outfit.

It's not about uh the outfit, it's about what the outfit represents, and it's putting the character of God in the world, and it's to be set apart to be different.

And this is important to think about because uh what this started as was to go look in the world, you're you have flesh, you have empire, you have empire mentality that isn't even just about nations, it's about localities, it's about anywhere there's a collection of people, that empire mentality can show up with two, three, four people.

I want you to look at the the God's character, the values of God, and and I want you to align your life.

I want you to be willing to be different, to be set apart.

And so that was part of the job of the priest.

By the way, the nation was always gonna battle this, like we do.

We still battle this, we still battle this to be set apart, we still battle this to take the kingdom of God mindset over the power structures that are around us.

They're so tangible, they're so visible, they're so visual, their results are so obvious to us.

Um, the nation was going to struggle with this all when they decided they wanted a king.

So at this point, the structure of the nation is they were a theocracy, which means they were ruled by God.

God was their king.

And so in the book of Judges, if you read the book of Judges, it's about God would raise up a leader.

Don't think judge like Judge Judy or Judge Joe Brown or whatever.

Think judge like God would raise up a leader, and instead of having a dynasty that's gonna be handed from this person to this person, it's God's going, I'm gonna pick the one and I'm gonna raise him up.

And so they would have judges and not kings.

And so in the book of 1 Samuel chapter 8, okay, uh, I'm just gonna summarize it.

1 Samuel 8 · chapter mention

Don't bring it up because I'm I don't want to run out of time.

But but basically, the the nation got frustrated, and instead of looking at God, instead of looking at the priestly garb and thinking about the character of God, they started looking around at the other nations.

And the other nations had kings, and those kings were charismatic, and those kings made empires, and they decided we want one of those.

And so they go to Samuel and they say, Give us a king.

And Samuel goes to God and said, The people want a king, and God said, They've rejected me.

See, the priestly robe was meant to put this in front of them so they never stop thinking about the character of God.

But it's the same temptation we have now, even when the character of God is in front of us, often we pick up an empire.

And that's what they did.

And it be and it was part of um a bad decision in the history of the nation.

So put God's character on display.

Number two, to help people navigate atonement, to help people navigate atonement.

This is the second responsibility of the priest.

Okay?

There's no question, human beings are going to fail.

Human beings are going to make a mistake, and we've all done it.

And what happens?

Well, when you make a mistake, you're embarrassed.

You're ashamed of yourself.

Uh often people go into hiding.

Often people try to conceal, maybe get defensive.

Um, you might try to sweep it under the rug, pretend like it didn't happen.

A lot of patterns that come from this, right?

Like sometimes people they get so caught up in their own shame, they self-sabotage, or they just can't let go of it.

They're walking through life carrying this shame that's unresolved mistakes, unresolved sin.

Or sometimes people they they they don't take it seriously.

They're like, eh, it wasn't that big a deal.

And because they don't take it seriously, it lingers and it just does way more damage than they even think it's gonna do.

So what what you have in the first seven books of or sorry, seven chapters of Leviticus are how to navigate atonement.

It talks about five different types of sacrifices.

Three of them are sacrifices to say, I'm sorry.

And so the priest's job is for you to have a safe place to come when you've messed up so that I can deal with it.

And they came through this process of sacrifice.

The whole point is redemption, the whole point is atonement.

The whole point is to work our way through it in a healthy way so we can move on and not be bound in it.

So, what do you what do you have to do?

You got to take it seriously.

So their sacrifice process, frankly, you've probably heard of it before, but if you really think about it, it's pretty uncomfortable.

Like they killed an animal, okay?

They shed an animal's blood.

And if you've ever seen an animal die, a bloody death, like it's awful.

And so you you know, again, I'm not trying to, you know, get PETA up in here, but I'm just gonna tell you what happened.

Like, you sin, you go, and you go, look, I'm ti I gotta deal with this, man.

I got a guilty conscience, and I want to be able to move on, so you take it seriously, and you this animal dies because the wages of sin is death, and so death that's what happens.

Sin brings death, man.

Sin brings death to relationships, lying brings death to relationships, anger brings death to relationships, it brings death to people.

It hurts, our sin hurts, it hurts us, it hurts the people around us.

This is why we take it seriously.

Not trying to be legalistic, we're trying to be free, man.

I want to be free, you want to be free, so we don't want to be bound in this.

So, what happens?

You go see this animal die for your sin, and it's kind of traumatic, and you go, okay, I took it seriously.

Now, I don't want to just have a whole bunch of goats, like a whole bunch of dead goats, because I couldn't get myself together.

So, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna think about, I'm gonna take it real serious, and now I'm gonna think my way, pray my way through this called repentance.

Now I'm going to repent, I'm gonna get to the root of it, and I'm gonna turn away from it.

And now I have this tangible evidence that I've dealt with it.

So I took it seriously, I prayed it through, I thought it through, I got to the root of it, I changed my mind, and now I'm changing my behavior, and that little voice that would try to tell me, Well, you haven't done enough.

I'm like, did you see the goat?

Okay, that I have tangible evidence that this thing has been dealt with, it's been atoned for, and so now I can move into my future.

So that was part of the role of the priest was to do that, to help people do that, so they didn't get stuck in their shame or they didn't just sweep things under the rug.

This is uh in the book of Hebrews, so now again we're jumping ahead after Jesus, where the writer of Hebrews is explaining the new covenant and atonement, and it says uh in Hebrews 10, 1, the old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow.

In other words, what I just described to you with the animals wasn't, he's like, it wasn't ideal.

He said it was a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves.

The sacrifices under that law were repeated again and again.

In other words, people kept sinning and we kept having to kill animals over and over again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship.

If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped.

So if it would have worked according to the way I just explained it, it would have been it would have been okay.

People would have quit sinning, he said.

But uh for the worshipers would have been purified once and for all, but their feelings of guilt would have disappeared.

But instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year, for it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

And so then he goes on in verse eight to describe, right?

He's going, what happened is people, you know, it was supposed to sober you up.

It was supposed to make you take it seriously, repent, get to the root of it, move on with tangible evidence that it's dealt with.

But what happened is people just started, you know, they just kept sinning.

And so now every time I see this, I just keep feeling more guilty and more guilty.

I can't get out of my shame.

And so he says in verse 8, for Christ said, You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings or burnt offerings or other offerings for sin.

In other words, the the thing laid out in Leviticus, it served its purpose at its time, but it wasn't the best.

It said, Nor were you pleased with them.

And this parenthetical here, I didn't put this in, this is in in Hebrews, though they're required by the law of Moses.

Verse 9.

Then he said, Look, I have come to do your will.

He cancels the first covenant in order to put the second into effect.

For God's will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.

So in Leviticus, there was that process of atonement that was a responsibility of the priest.

And now Hebrews describes Jesus as that high priest.

Verse 15 says, we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, for we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet he did not sin.

Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we can receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Hey, let's do this.

Usually we save this for the end.

I got two more points and whatever, but I just don't even want to wait.

Let's just get priestly right now.

Let's just navigate our atonement.

Maybe there's some of you that came in and there's something that you've been sweeping under the rug, uh, you're just embarrassed about it.

Uh, maybe you've been confronted about it, and you've gotten quite defensive, or you've come up with some sort of alibi uh that's kind of kept you off the hook with people, but deep down it's really a sense of shame.

And it's time to actually take it seriously and to actually pray it and think it through to its root, to repent, to turn from it, and then to allow the blood of Jesus, what he did on the cross, once and for all.

We don't have to bring any animals up here today.

Jesus paid for it all.

His grace is enough, his desire is for atonement and to be reconciled to you.

And so let's before we even get to number three, let's just take a moment right now.

Lord, we come to you in Jesus' name.

In Jesus' name.

Lord, we know it is your desire to set us free from sin, from the bondage of sin.

And Lord, the reality is since the beginning of human beings, we have needed to navigate atonement.

Often we have a hard time forgiving ourselves because we look at the things we've done.

We violated our own conscience, we were in a moment of weakness, we were in a season of weakness.

Maybe we're going through intense emotions, and we needed some kind of anesthesia, some kind of pressure release valve, and we turned to something other than you in that moment.

And Lord, often it's in those moments that we feel like we need to hide from you.

But today, Lord, we know we don't need to hide from you.

We have such a great high priest who knows how to navigate atonement.

We have a sacrifice greater than any sheep or any goat or any Levitical code.

We have the ultimate sacrifice.

And so today, Lord, we take you at your word.

We lean into the blood of Jesus and the grace provided to us by Jesus today.

We accept it.

So we've taken it seriously, Lord.

We want to turn, we want to turn away from where we are.

And yet today we don't want to hang on to shame.

We let go of it.

It's been dealt with by your finished work on the cross.

In Jesus' name.

In Jesus' name.

Everybody said amen.

Number three, the third responsibility of the priest was to intercede for others.

Intercede for others.

When you hear intercede, sometimes in church it means go away and pray for somebody.

You know, so in intercessory prayer or interceding for someone, you're praying for someone, almost sometimes praying like as that, I'm praying for that person.

I'm standing in their need.

I'm being a bridge to God.

Um and so the priest's role in the book of Leviticus was to be a bridge from people to God and from God to people.

So they would share messages from God to the people, and then they would go and sometimes even make sacrifices on behalf of the whole nation.

Okay, and so the point, again, is to help people get to God, to be a bridge to God.

Now it makes a ton of sense why in the book of Matthew, chapter 23, Jesus is so ticked off, Jesus is so upset by the fact that the religious leaders are pushing people away from God.

Matthew 23 · chapter mention

Here's some texts we've we've read these in the last few weeks, but it's talking about the Pharisees.

It says they crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.

He's like, man, they need God, they want God, and they're right there, and you're actually making it harder for them.

It says in verse 13, what sorrow awaits you, teachers of religious law, and you Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces.

Look at that pictorial Jesus uses.

He uses the image of someone standing at a door, they're trying to get to God, and he's like, you're slamming it in their face.

And the reason Jesus is so upset is because job description number three, role number three, is to do everything to bring people to God, connect them to God.

You you want to be a part of getting them to God, not making it harder for them to get to God.

So that the idea of interceding for others.

And then number four was to facilitate resource distribution.

Basically, you people would bring sacrifices to the temple, they would bring money to the temple, they would bring things to the temple that uh often people would give, you know, who had an abundance, and they might have a little bit extra, or they might have a lot extra, and they would bring that, and it was the priest's job to go, look, we've got people here who have more than they need, some have way more than they need, and then some people who don't have what they need.

And so I'm gonna be a facilitator.

I'm gonna get, okay, what what we have here to somebody who's in need and to help to distribute those resources, and that was a huge part of their responsibility to meet practical needs.

Okay.

Um some of you have been around a while, you know we're doing some building projects.

This time last year, uh, we I shared the projects with you.

I showed pictures of what we're doing.

We're basically doubling the parking, we're building a new auditorium that'll double the seating.

Um, we're redoing all the kids' spaces, and then we're doing over 2,000 square feet of uh sensory spaces for our kids with families and people, individuals with special needs.

And so I shared those projects with you, and uh at the end of it, I was like, hey, you know, we we need to know we got to pay for this stuff, and here's what it costs.

And can you guys help me?

And by the way, in a few weeks we have some more updates we're gonna uh share.

We've been working feverishly behind the scenes.

Uh they told me what before we started this to like just so you know it's gonna take longer than you think.

I'm like, you don't know the God I serve, and it's taking and it's it's taking longer than we thought.

Uh little humble pie.

Okay.

Um we're gonna get it done.

We're gonna get we're gonna get there, and I'm gonna I'll share more with you uh in the coming weeks when we have we have some things come together.

But um, all that to say, I remember when it came time to pledge, asking people to communicate what he what he planned to do.

And um we set that morning up, you know, we had some jars, and so you come up and you would uh drop a communication card.

This is this is what you can count on on me or us for, and then you you take a jar that was symbolic, and okay, so I I'd kind of thought through the logistics of kind of how to move people and and all this, because I um, you know, in terms of like you didn't want people running into each other, creating a bunch of friction, frustration.

And so I kind of thought about how's this gonna, you know, how's this gonna move and all of this, but I didn't think at all about how I was gonna feel when it was going on.

And so in each of the services, we get to the end and I'm standing over there, and people are coming up and we're worshiping God, and people are coming up and they're pledging, and they're putting their pledge cards in, and I have no idea what it they what it is, how much or whatever, but they're just going, look, I'm you I'm in, you know, whether it's for little, you know, uh we had somebody pledge a dollar, you know, that's what they could do.

They're like, I'm okay, I'm in this thing, man.

I'm in with you.

This is what I got, this is what I'm gonna give.

And a lot of people say, This is what I'm gonna do, but I'm hoping to be able to do more and all this.

Okay.

So I'm standing there and I'm watching this happen, and I did not think about how emotional I was gonna feel.

And I'm feeling tremendously emotional watching this happen.

I'm watching some people I go way back with.

Some people who've been here since pre-launch, since we were setting up tearing down in a charter school, and some people who I've met along the way, and then a whole bunch of people who I don't know, who I hadn't even met.

And I'm, you know, this church has outgrown me a long time ago.

And it's, you know, I've, Lord, it's out of my hands, Lord, it's in your hands a long time ago.

But I'm standing there watching, and this is what was hitting me at a deep level was I realized as people were going up, every person that said, Hey, I've got some some extra, and I'm gonna give, I'm gonna be a part of it, they were trusting this community.

They were trusting the kingdom of God here.

So, what they're saying is, we trust that you're gonna get this in the right place.

You're gonna build the right stuff, that you're going to distribute the resources the right way.

People are gonna come to us that aren't gonna come to you, and so I'm gonna I'm gonna help do that.

They're trusting that.

I took that responsibility.

I've always taken that very seriously, but I I mean it just hit me fresh.

And then it was also a sense of trust, like, hey, I have some extra now, but next year I might not.

Five years from now, I might not.

And so today I'm coming and I'm gonna, if I didn't trust this community, I'd hold on to, I'd hold on to it because I'd think, well, if no one's gonna help me when I need help.

And and yet people were giving because they're like, you know, I believe help's gonna be there when I need it.

Now, I I I want to say this in a very practical way, just as a church town.

I don't know if everybody knows this.

We have a lot of care ministries, we have a lot of areas where we help people emotionally, we help people spiritually, we help people work through, pray through things, we coach people through things, we help, we have some financial services.

I always want to be careful.

I don't get over overpromise, under deliver.

You know, if you have an$85,000 bill, we're not gonna be able to help.

Okay.

Well, I mean, we can help, okay, but we ain't gonna be able to do that.

And you go, Pastor, you said you guys would be there for me, okay?

Okay, don't come shoot me with this, okay.

But but we do have support.

If and a lot of times, okay, people think, well, the church is big and it's growing, and I don't even know that many.

Okay, reach out, okay, and here's how you reach out one dot church slash care.

One dot church slash care.

We have systems, we have processes, we have brought together to be able to support the church.

We're we want to take as a church our priestly responsibility of being able to generate or distribute resources, whether they be tangible or intangible resources, to the community, okay, that God has here.

So if there's something that you need help with, reach out to us.

If we can, we will.

If we can't, we'll try to help you in any way that we can.

Okay, now here's where we end.

Back to 1 Peter 2.

1 Peter 2.

To the new covenant believers in Asia Minor, and the new covenant believers, a mixture of Jew and Gentile people, an incredibly diverse church in Asia Minor, an incredibly diverse church in Columbus, Ohio.

You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood.

You are a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.

God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

And so I have three questions for you as we wrap today.

First question is this Do you think of yourself as part of the royal priesthood?

Because in Exodus, when he said you'll be a kingdom, not with priests, a kingdom of priests.

Okay, they're like, what in the world is that?

Well, we know now.

We know now what that means, that we are a royal priesthood.

And often people think, yeah, I go to church and I have a pastor, I go to church and there's a priest and whatever.

No, you are part of the royal priesthood.

And so then that brings up the second question: how are you doing with your four priestly responsibilities?

Let's go back over them.

How well are you doing putting God's character on display?

I'm not even talking about your outfit.

I'm not talking about your haircut, I'm not talking about your fashion sense, I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about when God, when people see you, do they see empire, do they see kingdom?

Do you look more like Caesar?

Do you look more like Jesus?

Okay, do you look more like 1 Samuel chapter 8?

1 Samuel 8 · chapter mention

We're looking at everything the world's doing and trying to match that, or we're going, what is God saying?

Or are you putting God's image, his character into the world?

Two, how are you helping people navigate atonement?

When you see people dealing with shame, when you see people who have messed up, are you somebody that helps them take it seriously?

And sometimes that means maybe calling it out.

Are you helping them take it seriously?

Are you helping them work through the process of repentance?

And are you helping them bring closure to it and the grace of God to move forward?

How are you doing with number three?

Are you interceding for others?

Praying for other people, standing in the gap, but also being somebody who helps people connect to God.

Are you shutting the door in people's faces?

Are you putting heavy burdens on them?

Or are you making it those who are ready to meet him?

Are you helping them to connect to God?

And number four, uh facilitating resource distribution.

I said, here's some things we can do as a church, but let's just think about it logically.

We can do so much out of accounts and things with the church.

But think about the royal priesthood.

Think about the royal priesthood.

Think about if all of us are doing these things, and and a lot of what's gonna happen from this royal priesthood isn't gonna show up in the year-end report.

It's not gonna be even filtered through the church.

You're gonna see a resource need.

You're gonna go, I have some extra.

I'm gonna help with this, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take care of this, and you're gonna distribute those resources in the right way.

So, how are you doing with this?

And then the last question is: Are there any changes you need to make?

Lord, we come to you in the powerful, awesome name of Jesus.

Lord, we thank you that you have invited us into the kingdom of God, to enter the kingdom, to be citizens in the kingdom.

And being citizens in the kingdom means that we are part of a royal priesthood.

For some of us, God, that's uh kind of new information.

We didn't think of ourselves that way.

When we thought of priests, we thought of the picture we looked at, the outfit, the hat, we thought of a role for a specific person.

We were thinking actually more like the Old Testament.

And Lord, today, through the new covenant, the new testament, we understand that we've been invited into that kingdom of priests.

So help us, Lord, to do our part in these four responsibilities, to put your image in the world, to help people, Lord, to navigate atonement, Lord, to intercede and to distribute resources to meet practical needs.

We thank you, Lord.

God, we don't take for granted what you've done through this body.

I hear stories all the time of the way people are showing up for each other, and so we thank you for what's being done.

And yet, Lord, we ask you to continue to add to our number.

Lord, as we do our best to be a kingdom of priests, I pray, Lord, you would continue to bless us with more resources to be able to be able to be a blessing to more people.

We thank you, we praise you, we love you in Jesus' name.

Everybody said amen.