OPENING: On the overhead projection we put up a cartoon showing a crazed man being led away from a church in a straightjacket. On the steps of the church building the preacher comments to another man “I’m going to miss Louis - he volunteered for everything.”
COMMENT: As funny as that cartoon is, there are many people who believe it is humorous because it depicts reality. They believe it is possible for a person to volunteer for so many things within the church that it can literally “drive them crazy.”
But that’s not true, and I can prove it. For, if it were true - that being “too involved” is what makes people “crazy” - then every preacher in every pulpit of every congregation in the land would need to be outfitted with straightjackets.
Of all the people within a church, the preacher is often THE most committed and involved of any. I knew of one preacher who was so driven that he set up his treadmill with a book stand so that he could read his Bible or other study books while he did his daily walks.
And if this cartoon depicted reality, then many of you within this congregation would be irritable and difficult to be around, because many of you are highly committed to serving God.
No. It’s been my experience that the “more involved” a person is in ministry, the more satisfied and fulfilled that person is - not the other way around.
People do get frustrated serving God. Sometimes it’s because they are faced with difficult circumstances, or difficult people, or a shortage of resources. But even those frustrations can be overcome if God’s people understand two things:
1. Who they are, and
2. Why they are doing what they do.
Peter addresses that issue by telling us that God has given us a special status in His kingdom:
1 Peter 2:5 "...you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."
1 Peter 2:9 "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."
You and I are priests of God.
Back in the Old Testament, a priest was a very special person.
o They were “go-betweens” for men and God
o They led in worship and taught from the Scriptures
o They wore special robes that distinguished them from other worshippers
o Only they could handle the holy things of God (incense, sacrifices, the furniture of the tabernacle – anything related to worship)
o They had a distinctive initiation before entering their office
§ They bathed in water
§ Put on a new robe
§ And were anointed as marks of their office (ex. 29)
o And not just everyone could become a Priest - you had to born of the tribe of Levi
AND now, Peter tells us that we are a “a holy priesthood” (vs. 5) and a “royal priesthood” (vs. 9)
Peter was not the only one to tell us that. John wrote in Revelation: Jesus “… has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father…” (Revelation 1:6)
And Isaiah prophesied hundreds of years before Jesus was born in the manger, that under the New Covenant you and I would “be called priests of the LORD, you will be named ministers of our God...” (Isaiah 61:6)
So, how have we become like the Old Testament priests?
We have been born of the line of Jesus – our High priest.
And we were set apart for priesthood when we were saved. Just like the Priests of old we were
washed with water and anointed with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38 “repent and be baptized…and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”)
And just like those priests we have put on a new garment. Galatians 3:27 tells us “all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”
And now because we are priests of God, we have a right to handle the holy things of God.
We have the privilege of coming before God in prayer
We have the right to touch and partake of communion
We have the right to baptize others into Christ
We have the responsibility of knowing and teaching the Word of God
AND we have no need for anyone other than Jesus to intercede for us before God
That’s what Peter meant when he wrote that you and I are a royal and a holy priesthood…
I. There are people, however, who have problems coming to grips with this idea of priesthood.
When I talk to people that desire to become Christians, I often ask if there is someone who has been important (in their decision to belong to Jesus) that they would like to have baptize them? Occasionally, they’ll look at me in surprise and say, “But, I thought you had to do the baptisms!”
Theologically, they think that I am the priest and that only I am allowed to do the holy things. “No,” I tell them, “anyone who is a Christian is a priest, empowered by God to do all kinds of things, including baptizing you into Christ.”
Others who haven’t quite understood this “priesthood” concept will say to me “what do we call you, Reverend or Pastor?”
I smile and reply “Oh, you can call me Jeff.”
“Jeff?”
“Yeah, you don’t need to call me anything special. Besides, in the Bible ‘reverend’ refers only to the name of God (Psalms 111:9). To “revere” means to “hold in awe”, and I don’t really want you to hold me in awe. Also, in the Bible, “Pastor” is a description of Elders in the Church, and I’m still not qualified as an Elder.”
In our church, we believe that special titles undermine the teaching that we are all priests of God. And besides, it seems that Jesus taught that titles were not things Christians should pursue:
“ But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” (Matthew 23:8-12)
II. Now, these are just a couple of “theological” reasons why people have trouble understanding this “priesthood of all believers” idea. But there is another, even more underlying reason people have difficulties with the priesthood of all Christians: And this next issue is not so much theological reason as it is practical one.
There is a haunting belief that when you have a hired preacher or youth minister, “ministry is their job.” After all we’ve hired a youth minister, so “Why should I be involved with the youth… that’s his job.”
OR, “why should I visit the hospital, or the nursing home, or pray with people… that’s why we hired the preacher.
ILLUS: The 1st church I was hired in – that was their mentality. And, I’m ashamed to admit, it was my attitude as well. I did everything:
I preached the sermons
Sang in the Choir
Led the singing
Gave the opening and closing prayers during worship
Gave the meditation at the Lord’s Table
Diana and I ran the youth group
AND I mowed the grass every week during the summer.
Now, I don’t mean to complain – I enjoyed all that. In fact a lot of preachers end up doing “everything” and they enjoy it as well. After all - if I do it, I know it will be done the way I want it done.
BUT I robbed that church. I robbed them because I allowed myself to do everything. I didn’t do my job right… I failed in my responsibilities.
Ephesians 4:11-13 tells me that my job, Brad’s (our youth minister) job, the Elders’ job, and the job of teachers is to:
“PREPARE God’s people for WORKS OF SERVICE, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
You see - when a person was a priest in the Old Testament – it meant they had a job to do. AND not every priest had the “high profile” jobs of handling the sacrifices and burning offerings before God - that was only for the descendents of Aaron.
In addition to the family of Aaron, there were 3 other families of Levites who had other jobs to do (Numbers 4):
1. The Kohathites – who took care of all the furniture in the tabernacle
2. The Gershonites – who cared for the coverings and the curtains
3. And LASTLY, the Merarites – who cared for the poles, the ropes, the bases and the cross bars.
III. Now you might say, Jeff, that’s all very interesting – but why are you telling us this?
I’m telling you this because I want you to understand that EVERY PRIEST had a job to do. Every priest ministered unto God, and many of those priests had very basic jobs they did.
In last week’s sermon, we talked about the fact that God expects us to grow up/ to become mature.
Read again what it says in Ephesians 4. It says, if I & Brad & others do our jobs right, we will “prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become MATURE, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (vss. 11-14)
Part of growing up - part of becoming mature - is learning to take on responsibility.
ILLUS: In my house I have two young children. Jonathan age 7 and Naomi age 5. Now as any parent can tell you, children have an innate ability to scatter toys and papers and various other clutter throughout the house. There have been times when I have entered the living room and found toys and other matter scattered all over the floor and I’ll say to Jonathan: “Would you clean this room up for me?”
Can you guess what his response often is? “I didn’t do that. Naomi got those toys out.”
What he’s saying, in essence, is “it’s not my job.”
Now, let’s say that I’ve taken the kids somewhere for a day and my wife is home alone. She walks into that same living room and she sees those toys and clutter all over the room. What does she do? She picks them up. Why? She didn’t put those toys there. It’s not her fault that stuff ended up on the floor. But she picks it up anyway – because she’s the adult. She’s a grown up. That’s what grown ups do.
ILLUS: One of the more dynamic churches in our brotherhood is the SE Christian Church in Louisville, KY. It has a membership of over 10,000 people. They hold about 5 or 6 worship services every weekend. Dozens of Bible studies are going on every week. And their offerings per person are phenomenally high. John, one of the preachers from around here, went to visit their Sunday worship service and when he came back he went to a preacher’s meeting and told us why he thought they were such a dynamic congregation.
I smiled and said “OK John. Why are they such a dynamic congregation?”
He said, “What you have to do, is you’ve got to visit them during their worship service and go into their bathrooms.”
“Okaaaay. Why would I want to do that?”
He said that while he was there he’d gone into one of their many bathrooms and what he saw amazed him. It was a big bathroom. And along one wall there was a long row of sinks (about 10 in a row). At those sinks he saw 8 men washing their hands and checking their appearance in the mirror. But what caught his attention, he said, was that as he watched 6 of those men took paper towels and wiped up the water around the sink or cleaned the mirror.
It made such an impression on him that when he got back with his wife – who’d gone into the women’s restroom about the same time he asked her: “Did you notice anything unusual?” “Yes,” she said – and she went on to comment on exactly the same conduct by the women in her bathroom.
Why did these people act this way? Because they had “grown up” as Christians. They were acting like adults. This was their church and as far as they were concerned, when something had to be done there, they saw it as their responsibility – not the janitor’s, not youth minister’s not the preacher’s – but theirs.
Now – I’ve said all that because we have jobs to do here in this church we need help on. At the back of the room you’ll find a sign up sheet giving some suggestions of things you can do to serve God here.
CLOSE: As a church we’ll only attain our full strength when as many of us as possible realize we are priests of God. When we realize that as God’s ministers that jobs need to be done – and we’re the ones to do them. And when we realize that we are called by God to work together (as Ephesians 4 says) so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
It happened in a Vacation Bible School as a new little boy was brought into the room to join the others in a closing ceremony. The teacher, noticing that the little boy had only one hand, feared that the others might embarrass him by some of their remarks. But she went on with the ceremony because she would have only drawn attention to his problem if she tried to warn the children now. "Now, let’s all build our churches," she said as they came to the close of the service. "Put your hands together now, here is the church, here is the steeple . . . . " And suddenly, she was aware that she had done just what she feared the children would do. After a moment of awkward silence, the little girl seated next to the boy with one hand held hers up and said, "Here, let’s build the church together."
OTHER SERMONS IN THIS SERIES
Almost Perfect = Matthew 5:43-5:48
The Mature Minister of God = 1 Peter 2:4-2:10
Speaking Like An Adult = Hebrews 5:7-5:14
A Good Imitation = 1 Corinthians 4:12-4:12
