A Kingdom of Priests (16)

 

 

This coming Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent; what does Advent look like in our lives and in the lives of our congregations? Is Advent an idealized time of looking back to Bethlehem 2,000 years ago and celebrating it today as a memorial? Is it a recognition that God came to earth 2,000 years ago, lived and died and rose again, and ascended to heaven and that we expect Him to come back someday?

 

Or, is it that God in Christ not only came to earth 2,000 years ago, but that in actual fact He continues to live on earth within His People, His Body, His holy and royal Priesthood? That is, do we see Advent as a season that has been unfolding since the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem, and do we see ourselves as participating in the Advent of Christ? Do we see Advent as Christ causing us, His People, His Bride, His Body, to grow up into Him in all things (Ephesians 4:11 – 16)?

 

This is more than romantically saying, “Jesus lives within my heart.” This is declaring that God, the Trinity, lives within His People, His Family. So that, in the words of Athanasius, “He became as we are so that we might become as He is.”

 

In John 14:17 Jesus says that the Spirit of truth (the Holy Spirit) will be in us, and then in 14:23 He tells us that He and the Father will come and live within us. In John 17:23 He says to the Father, “I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one…”

 

In Ephesians 2:21 – 22 we see that we are “…a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.” This image, in turn, leads us to the “holy and royal Priesthood” passage of 1 Peter 2:4 – 10, in which we read, “…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…you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession…”

 

The Gospel is about so much more than being “saved” from punishment, from sin, from death; it is also about being saved from these things so that we might belong to Jesus Christ as His sisters and brothers, so that Jesus might be “the Firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29). The Gospel is about our calling and purpose in the Trinity, it is about us being a Priesthood in Jesus Christ, with Jesus as our High Priest; it is about us being sent by Jesus Christ even as Jesus Christ was sent by the Father, it is about us not being served by others, but about us serving and laying down our lives for Jesus Christ and others…giving our lives, by His grace, as a ransom for many…a mystery of mysteries.

 

On the Day of Pentecost God raised up a New Temple as the Holy Spirit came to live within the People of God – and those who are in Christ today are an extension and continuation of this Holy Temple, this Holy Place where the Trinity lives and touches the lives of those around us. This is, my dear friends, a continuing Advent.

 

By all means let us have manger scenes, but let us be faithful in making the connection between the manger scenes and what He looks like today in His People. Let us not simply dress our children in the likeness of Mary and Joseph and shepherds and Wise Men – let us teach our children to be clothed with Jesus Christ. Let us not simply tell the world about Jesus coming to earth 2,000 years ago, let us show the world what Jesus Christ looks like today, as His continuing Advent shining in darkness, His continuing Advent set upon a hill, His continuing Advent touching the untouchable and loving the unlovable.

 

As Christ’s holy and royal Priesthood, we are to not only serve the Bread and Wine at the Lord’s Table, we are to be, in Him, broken Bread and poured out Wine for others – His continuing Advent, His coming into the world and for the world.

What does Advent look like in our lives?

In our congregations? 

 

 

 

 

A Kingdom of Priests (15)

 

“I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.” John 17:15 – 19.

 

John Chapter 17 has been termed, “Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer.” While it is that, for we see the Son offering Himself as both Priest and Sacrifice, out of the High Priestly Prayer flows a Prayer of Commissioning for us, the kingly Priesthood in Jesus Christ. In John chapters 13 – 17, Jesus Christ gives us commissions of love, unity, and priesthood. We are to love as He loves, live in unity with one another as He and the Father live in unity, and serve as sacrificial priests, sent by God, as He serves as our High Priest sent by God.

 

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34 – 35).

 

“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.” (John 17:20 – 21).

 

“As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” (John 17:18; see also John 20:21).

 

Let’s be clear about something as we read these passages, we are not given the option of saying, “Well, that is Jesus and these passages cannot be fulfilled in my life, or in the life of our congregation, because I (and we) am not Jesus.” Jesus Christ is clear, we are to love as He loves, we are to be in unity with one another as He and the Father are in unity, and we are sent even as He is sent.

 

Now then, while it is true that we are not Jesus Christ, it is not true that these passages cannot be fulfilled in our lives, for in John 15:1 – 11 Jesus teaches us that He is the Vine and we are the branches, that He is our sole source of Life. In fact, Jesus says that “apart from Me you can do nothing.” Throughout John chapters 13 – 17 we see the theme of the indwelling Trinity, of God living in His People, of us being the Place where God lives. Therefore, we naturally ought to be loving as God loves, living in unity as God is One, and serving and going and giving as God in Jesus Christ goes and serves and gives.

 

As the Father is the Way of Life for Jesus Christ, so Jesus Christ is our Way of Life.

 

“Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” (John 5:19).

 

To be transformed into the image of the Firstborn Son (Romans 8:29), is to be transformed into the cruciform, it is to live with arms outstretched to both embrace humanity and to receive its nails – this is the body (Body) language acceptable to God in our Lord Jesus Christ. Hence Paul writes, “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

 

Jesus gives us the posture of our commission when He says, “…just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).

 

Here’s the thing dear friends, this is to be our Way of Life whether we are at work, with neighbors, involved in civic life, with family, in marriage, at school, at recreation or entertainment, or gathered with the saints in worship and koinonia and outreach. This is to be the Way of our bank accounts, our calendars, our resources, and the gifts that God has given us – the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ should form and inform all that we have, all that we do, all that we are; our marriages, our families, our friendships, our congregations, our missions.

 

As a holy Priesthood in Jesus Christ, we are both priest and sacrifice, and as such we are called to be set apart, sanctified, devoted, consecrated, for the sake of others, that they may be sanctified in truth (John 17:19; Romans 12:1 – 2). We are to present ourselves as living sacrifices, not being conformed to the present age, but being transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that the perfect and acceptable and good will of God may be worked out in our lives, so that with Jesus we may say, so that in Jesus we may say, so that Jesus in His Body may say, “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do” (John 17:4).

 

Is this the Way we are living?

 

Is this the Way our congregations are living?

A Kingdom of Priests (14)

 Intercession (9)

With the following proclamation, Yahweh proclaimed His glory and His ways to Moses:

 

“Yahweh descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of Yahweh. Then Yahweh passed by the front of him and proclaimed, Yahweh, Yahweh God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:5 – 7).

 

Keeping the above in mind, let’s consider Numbers chapters 13 and 14. Here is the account of Israel sending twelve spies into the Promised Land and, upon their return, choosing to believe the ten unbelieving spies rather than the faithful two witnesses, Joshua and Caleb. While the ten saw the same things as the two, they interpreted what they saw differently – isn’t this the way of life? So often life is not a matter of circumstances, it is a matter of how we respond to circumstances; it is a matter of whether our lives are anchored in the True and Living God.

 

The People of Israel chose to take the counsel of the ten unbelieving spies and reject the command of Yahweh, and the counsel of Moses, Joshua and Caleb; the people chose to return to Egypt. Once again Yahweh tells Moses that He will destroy unbelieving Israel and make a great people from Moses, and once again Moses intercedes for Israel. (Please read the full account of this so that you can see these Divine dynamics; also note the similarities between Moses’s intercession in Numbers 14 and his intercession in Exodus chapters 32 – 34, there is much to see and learn and emulate).

 

The thing I want us to see is what Moses says to Yahweh in Numbers 14:17 – 19:

 

“But now, I pray, let the power of the Lord be great, just as You have declared, ‘Yahweh is slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations.’

 

“Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of the people according to the greatness of Your lovingkindness, just as You also have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”

 

Can we see what Moses is saying to God, when he says, “…just as You have declared”? Moses is repeating back to Yahweh the very words that Yahweh spoke to Moses in Exodus 34:5 - 7 when God revealed His glory and His ways to Moses. In other words, the glory and ways of God, which God revealed to Moses by what He spoke to Moses, became the basis for Moses’s intercession in Numbers chapter 14.

 

There are those who see the acts of God, and there are those who learn the ways of God. As a holy and royal Priesthood, we are called to learn the ways of God so that we might not only have an intimate relationship with Him, but so that we might also live intercessory lives and engage in deep intercessory prayer.

 

Do we not see the Nature of God in Moses? As Moses sees and imbibes the glory and ways of God, the Way of God, is he not transformed into that image? Does not the Nature of God live in Moses? Can we see Christ in the cry of Moses, “But now, if You will, forgive their sin – and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written!”? (Also note Paul in Romans 9:1 – 3).

 

O dear friends, what a tragedy that American Christianity has been traduced into a religion of the Great Self, of “What’s in it for me?” What a greater tragedy that we are exporting this teaching into other nations. Can we not see that this is the spirit of the very antichrist that “takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God” (2 Thess. 2:4)?

 

What of the Gospel of which Bonhoeffer wrote, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die”? Of Elliot who wrote, “He is no fool, who loses what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose”? Of which Christ proclaims, “If anyone will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me…” (Mark 8:34ff)?

 

Can we see Christ in Moses and Moses in Christ? Can we see the intercessory Christ in us, as individuals and as His People? Are we learning the Way of the Intercessory life of God in Christ?

 

Are we coming to know, to deeply know, the Word of God and the God of the Word? The basis of our intercessory praying and living must be the God of the Word and the Word of God; God has proclaimed His glory and His ways through His Word.

How shall we pray…and live…today?