Thank you, Eugene.
Thank you for allowing me back. And as the Israelites of old stood, we now stand in honor of God's Word from Exodus chapter 19 verses 5 and 6 and then 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 9. First from Exodus chapter 19 verses 5 and 6. Now therefore says the Lord God, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all 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 to the people of Israel. And then flip over to 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 9. Peter writes to the church, to you and me saying, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God abides forever.
May he add his blessing to the reading and preaching of his Word. Please be seated. This is the KGB who spied on the United States from 1978 to 1988. However, when he was told that his cover had been compromised and that he had to return to Russia, Barsky disobeyed. He ended up lying to his superiors because he wanted to stay in the United States.
Eventually, he even helped give information to the FBI about the operations of the KGB, and the FBI helped Barsky become a U.S. citizen. Regarding his new citizenship, Barsky says, I had a home again, an official home. You always want to belong to something.
This is one of the basic things that make us human. Now, I had a country again, and that felt really good. Our passages tonight teach us that we as Christians belong to a country as well. We have a home. But it's not an earthly home.
It's not an earthly country. We belong to a spiritual kingdom. So tonight, we're going to explore what it means for the church, for you and me, to be a kingdom of priests. We'll focus on kingdom, and then we'll focus on priests. What does it mean that we, the people of God, are a kingdom? As it says in the Old Testament, or as Peter quotes it, he calls us a royal priesthood.
That royal being the kingly idea. If you study human history, you will notice that every nation, every country, every kingdom that has ever existed in the history of mankind has had three basic components. A government, whether it's one or many, laws, and citizens. Government, laws, and citizens.
These are the three basic components you need to have a nation, to have a kingdom. And the same is true for God's kingdom as well. We have a spiritual government. God himself is our ruling authority.
We have spiritual laws, the moral law of God. And you and I are spiritual citizens of this heavenly kingdom. First our ruling authority is the triune God himself. He is our king. Psalm 10 16 declares the Lord is king forever and ever. There will never be a time when our God is not king. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that Christ must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. Jesus Christ is the king of kings and the Lord of lords, meaning there's no one higher, there's not a higher king, there's not a higher governing authority than our Lord God. He is the head of and the governor of his people, the church. That means we are called as his people to submit to his rule and to his reign in our lives.
We are to submit our thoughts. We are to submit our desires, our will. Indeed we are to submit the entirety of our lives to our king. So Christ has this invisible rule and reign as a spiritual kingdom but Christ also makes this rule and reign visible. He makes it visible within his church by giving ministers and elders to the church.
To exercise church government on behalf of Christ himself. Christ takes what is invisible but we cannot see and he makes it visible to us through the officers of the church. The same Peter who calls us a kingdom of priests writes a little later in chapter 5 that elders are to shepherd the flock of God by exercising oversight over the sheep. Christ is the great shepherd but elders and ministers are under shepherds called to make Christ governing authority visible within the visible church, the visible manifestation of his rule and authority. Hebrews 13 17 states obey your leaders. He's talking about ministers and elders. Submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls.
I know people don't like to hear this today. Our inclination especially today in our American context is to rebel against any and every authority over us but folks elders and ministers are here for your good and for your protection. To watch over your soul. To guard you from wolves in sheep's clothing. To guard you from false teaching. To help warn you and bring you back if you begin to stray as sheep are so often want to do. They are to pray for you. They are to encourage your growth in grace. So we submit to the Lord God as his people and we are to submit to the offices of minister and elder that he has instituted for the good and benefit of his people.
Part of their job duty as ministers and elders is to be a visible manifestation of Christ's invisible governing and ruling of his church. And so as we submit ourselves to the Lord and as we submit ourselves to those authorities that he has placed over us in the church we do so in accordance with his law. And he has revealed his law to us in his word to guide us and to guard us. In both the Old and New Testament we have God's moral law what we know commonly as the Ten Commandments. These laws are always to be in the forefront of our minds. These are the law that God has instituted to rule and to govern his people and they never change. And these laws do not just govern our external actions they also govern our heart as well.
Our thoughts, our motives, our desires. You know the Sermon on the Mount Jesus equates hatred in the heart with murder and lust in the heart with adultery. That's not enough to think you've kept God's moral law externally. That was the problem with the Pharisees. That was the problem with so many who encountered Jesus in the Gospels.
The rich young ruler. I've kept all these from my youth. Have you really? God's law must be kept both externally and internally. So how do I know? How do I go about submitting my thoughts, my desires, my will, and my actions internal and external? How do I submit these things to God?
How do I submit to his rule and his reign? By using his word as a mirror for our souls. God's word is a mirror to hold up to ourselves to examine our thoughts and our desires and our speech and our actions. God's word evaluates what we do as either good in line in accord with his word or bad out of accord with his word. And the truth that God has revealed to us is that we have all broken God's law because we're all born in sin.
We're all born guilty because of the sin of Adam and Eve. We've been plunged into ruin and darkness, but God in his infinite mercy sent forth his son at the right time. And his son kept his holy law internally and externally. Jesus Christ kept God's moral law perfectly so that he could be the spotless lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Without blemish. It's what allows Jesus to offer himself up unto God as the great high priest and as the sacrifice so that God accepts it in our place. We were deserving of death as law breakers, traitors, spies against a holy and just God. And yet Christ died that death in our place so that we could receive everlasting life so that he took his sin, our sin was placed upon him, it was imputed to him and his perfect righteousness, his perfect law keeping is imputed to our account. So now for all of us who are in Christ, the guilt of sin, the power of sin, the condemnation of sin has been broken. Whereas formally we only wanted to do evil, now we've been given a new heart and we want to do and we want to strive to do those things that are pleasing unto the Lord. We want to do his holy will and think his thoughts after him.
Why? Because we no longer belong to ourselves. We've been bought with a price. Our master and our king has redeemed us from slavery to sin. So now we are enabled by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us to walk the path of wisdom, to walk the path of the straight and the narrow, to do those things that are in keeping with God's law.
And when we do sin, to confess it and to repent of it knowing that we have an advocate who ever lives to intercede for us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Just as it is with earthly rulers and earthly laws, there are penalties that come with breaking God's law. And so God tells us as a good heavenly father that he is, that when we sin as his children he's going to discipline us. Proverbs 3, 11 through 12 says, my son do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof for the Lord reproves him whom he loves as a father, the son in whom he delights. And that verse is quoted in Hebrews chapter 12. Just like our earthly parents are to discipline us when we disobey them as children, just as governing authorities discipline us when we break their just laws, so our heavenly father disciplines us as his children when we stray from him. Scripture has plenty of examples of this. Think of David, the discipline he had to endure because of his adultery with Bathsheba and the subsequent murder of her husband Uriah. Think about when David took a census of the people which angered the Lord in 2 Samuel chapter 24.
Paul's thorn in the flesh in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 was to keep Paul from sin, to keep Paul from being puffed up with pride. I don't know where you are tonight but perhaps you're going through a dry spell, perhaps your first love has grown cold, perhaps you feel far from God or rather God feels far from you. You are out in the wilderness. Your prayers don't seem to be heard let alone answered. You're struggling spiritually. It could be, not always, but it could be that that is the discipline of the Lord meant to draw you back to him, to long for that communion, to long for that love that you once had for him. The withdrawing of God's countenance from you can be his discipline so that that dry spell causes you to long for restored communion.
I don't like where I am. Oh Lord God, search me and know me. Forgive me for any hidden sin, for any presumptuous sins. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. And like a good father, he is there with arms wide open. Come back to me my child.
He's the father of the prodigal son who ran and embraced him. Don't let the devil deceive you and trick you into thinking God could never forgive me for this. God will never accept me again for this.
Because that's just not true. Just like the officers of the church make visible Christ's invisible reign within the church, there's also a visible manifestation of God's discipline of his children. It's called church discipline.
Friends, church discipline is for your good. It's to restore a sinner to the communion of saints. It's to draw you back from heading down the path that leads to destruction. It's for your good and benefit that you can be reconciled to God. And if this involves somebody else that you can be reconciled to your brother or sister in Christ. It's also for the good of the church that the peace and the purity of the church may be maintained. That Christ's honor may be vindicated. We know that no discipline is pleasant, but it is ultimately for our good.
Don't ever lose sight of that. So we submit ourselves to God's law. We submit ourselves to God's governing authority made manifest in church order, in church offices, and when we go astray, God disciplines us either directly or indirectly through the process of church discipline. But in this kingdom, we also have a citizenship. Because Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, our citizenship has been transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.
That's what Peter says. That you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has transferred you or called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were a citizen in the kingdom of the evil one, we were all Jack Barsky working for the bad guys. But because of the work of Christ, we have a new citizenship.
It's been transferred. And our ultimate allegiance is to our spiritual kingdom, to this spiritual country, and to our spiritual ruler who is Christ. That's why in Acts chapter 5, when told that he could no longer preach Jesus, Peter replied, we must obey God rather than men. We can obey the governing authorities, our earthly authorities, when they have just laws, when their laws line up with God's law, but when they tell us to disobey God's law, when they enact unjust laws, and we're seeing that before our very eyes in our own nation, we must obey God rather than man. That's our true citizenship. That's our true allegiance.
Our ultimate allegiance is not to the United States of America. As blessed as this nation has been, I honestly don't know how much longer it will continue to remain blessed. It could be for another hundred years.
It could be for twenty years. We don't know. God knows. Our ultimate allegiance is to the kingdom of God and to proclaim to others that Christ is our King. Submit to him. Our citizenship is in heaven, Paul says in Philippians chapter 3 verse 20. And as citizens, we have all the rights and privileges that come with heavenly citizenship. A governing authority, a ruler, whether it be a king, whether it be a democratic republic such as we have, part of their task is to defend their citizens.
That's exactly what Christ does for you and for me. We have protection and defense because our king is the Lord of hosts. That word host literally means armies. He's the Lord of armies, the Lord of a legion of armies. Our God is a warrior king who will protect his people. After witnessing the destruction of Pharaoh and his armies in the Red Sea, Miriam sings in Exodus chapter 15, The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name. And we see this same theme in the book of Revelation. The Lord Jesus Christ on his return leads the armies of angels against Satan and his legion of demons.
Why? Because we are citizens of his kingdom and he will not let one of his citizens ever be lost or conquered by the enemy. That's very encouraging, is it not? That our God defends us. He defends us against the slanderous accusations of the evil one.
He's always praying and interceding for us as our high priest. So we are citizens of a kingdom, submitting to our king, living under his rule, experiencing discipline when we break his law, but enjoying the rights and privileges of that citizenship. This is what it means that we are a kingdom, that you and I as part of the church are a kingdom. What does it mean that we're a kingdom of priests, a royal priesthood? I want to focus on two aspects of what it means to be a priest. First, we as believers are to intercede. Priests in the Old Testament interceded on behalf of man in the presence of God.
And so there are two ways that we intercede today. We intercede for those inside the church and we intercede for those outside the church. Within the church we pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Galatians 6 calls us to bear one another's burdens and one of the ways that we do that is by lifting them up in prayer and interceding on their behalf through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who gives us direct access to God's throne of grace and mercy. We pray for the physical healing of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We pray for the physical protection of our brothers and sisters in Christ, especially around the world, those who are working and serving and ministering in hostile and restricted nations.
We pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ when we see them going astray. We pray for growth and maturity in one another. We pray for the growth of the church, this church and for all faithful churches wherever they are to be found and whatever nation they are to be found. We pray for the growth of the church. As priests we have direct access to God the Father through God the Son by the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit and so we pray to God directly on behalf of our spiritual family and so we intercede in that priestly task of intercession. But we also intercede for those who are outside the church. We intercede before God on behalf of the world of unbelievers. We pray, do we not, that God would subdue his enemies by converting them?
Converting them from rebels to children just as he did for you and me? We pray that God would hold back the works of the evil one, that he would restrain the evil in this world. We pray that if God is not going to convert the unbeliever, if God is not going to convert the wicked, then let them fall into their own traps. Let their own snares catch them just as the gallows that Haman built for the Jews.
He and his sons were hung on those very gallows. We pray that God would remove apostates and hypocrites from his visible church that she may be more pure and more holy. And so as priests we are to intercede. We pray for those inside the church.
We pray for those outside the church that they may be brought into the church or else that their works may be frustrated. So whenever you pray, morning, middle of the day, evening, whenever you pray, wherever you pray, you are interceding, you are carrying out a priestly task. Another thing priests do is they offer sacrifices. But because of the sufficiency of Christ's atonement, we do not offer sacrifices now to atone for sins. So what kind of sacrifices do we offer now as new covenant people? According to Romans chapter 12 verse 1 we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God which is our spiritual worship. We offer up our whole selves and all of our actions as a sacrifice to the Lord God. In our bodies and in our actions we are to refrain from and avoid sin.
Those are the things that the flesh wants to do. Do we not every day we battle with our own flesh? That sin that remains within us that has yet to be conquered fully, finally and completely. So it is a battle, it is a struggle, it is a war, it is a sacrifice. Because sometimes doing the right thing according to God's word is going to cost us.
Maybe financially, it may cost us fame or recognition, prestige or power. It's at least going to cost us those evil desires that we are wanting to act upon so that those evil desires are not fed and not given into. So we offer up ourselves as a living sacrifice, a free will offering both body and soul made holy by Christ and ever growing in holiness by the power of His Spirit. So that whatever we do in our vocation, in our vacation, whether we eat and drink, our desire is always to do all to the glory of God so that He may increase and we may decrease. We no longer live to serve ourselves, we no longer live to please ourselves, we live to please God and to serve God and in that we find our greatest delight.
And our souls are filled with joy. Another kind of sacrifice we offer up is our tithes and giving as an element of worship. Paul says in Philippians 4 18 that he had received from Epaphroditus the gifts that the church at Philippi had sent and Paul describes their gifts using this language, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. When we cheerfully and joyfully give our tithes to the church and use our money for other godly endeavors, whether it's supporting missionaries or supporting doctrinally sound parachurch ministries such as Ligonier, there are many others out there. When we send financial aid to our brothers and sisters, when disaster strikes them, scripture says that is a kind of sacrifice. That's a priestly act. We are taking from what we could use for ourselves and we are giving it for the sake of others.
It feels like we here in America are especially prone to want to hang on to our money, do we not? I know I face that temptation myself. At times we are hesitant, but Jesus praises even the smallest amount given such as the widow's might. Not because it was little, but because it was everything. It was a sacrifice. Barnabas sold a field and gave all the money to the church. That was a great sacrifice on his part and it was acceptable and pleasing to God. So I would encourage you, if you do not currently have this practice, I would encourage you to look at your family budget. Don't just have a line item for tithes, as good as that is and as sacrificial as that is, but have a line item for additional giving. Take from some of what we here have the luxury to call disposable income and use it for the glory of God. To serve God rather than to serve yourself.
It could be to support missionaries that you personally know or missionaries that are part of this denomination. It could be to give to Ligonier or to RTS or Samaritan's Purse. It could be set aside for those opportunities where in God's providence you come across somebody in need.
Think of the good Samaritan. The reality is that we will not take our money with us after death. So we use it now even at times to our own detriment for the sake of others and in service to God as a priestly sacrifice.
First Timothy chapter 6 verses 17 through 19 says this, as for the rich in this present age, and that's who we are, we are rich in this country. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future. So we offer up our bodies as a living sacrifice. Our ties and our givings beyond the ties are an acceptable and pleasing sacrifice to God. Finally, according to Hebrews chapter 13, we are to offer to God through Jesus a sacrifice of praise, which is a mouth that acknowledges the name of Jesus.
The primary focus of this sacrifice is the sacrifice of prayer and the sacrifice of singing. Remember what Paul and Silas were doing as they were imprisoned? I try to think about what would I do if I was ever in prison. If I was in prison for the gospel, heaven forbid it be for any other reason. My temptation would be to self-pity, to bemoan my situation. Oh God, why have you done this to me?
Why, why, why, why me? What were Paul and Silas doing? They were singing at midnight.
They were singing. What does Job say when his wife is antagonistically saying, curse God and die? He says, blessed be the name of the Lord. The Lord gives, the Lord takes away.
Blessed be His name. Why would our prayers, why would our singing privately, if you do family worship, corporately together as a church, why would these be called a sacrifice? It's because in our sinful flesh we like to take glory for ourselves, do we not? We want people to praise us. We want to accumulate thanksgiving to ourselves for the things that we have accomplished in our own strength and power, rather than viewing it as all praise and glory belonging to God.
To Him be the glory. It's hard for us to acknowledge God's hand in all that we have and in all that we experience, whether it's good or bad. If it's bad, we bemoan ourselves and fall into self-pity and despair. If it's good, we take the credit for ourselves rather than giving the credit to God. It's hard to adore God in song and in prayer when we want to adore ourselves. So why does all of this matter?
Why does it matter to know and to go so in-depth on two words? Kingdom priests. Because every day is a new opportunity for you and for me to display our heavenly citizenship, in submitting to God's Word, in giving Him all the praise and glory that He deserves, in sacrificing of our time and our talents, in service to Him. We can display our true citizenship and submission to Christ as King by working hard in our jobs and doing things the right way, rather than cutting corners or stealing or being lazy. As Christians, we can pray for our bosses, or if you are the boss, you can pray for your employees. You can pray for your co-workers, that either they would grow in grace if they're inside the church, or that they would come to know the grace of our God and Father, of our Lord Jesus Christ, if they are outside the church. Students, you can display your true citizenship and submission by studying diligently and researching and writing in accordance with God's truth and all that He has created. Pray for your teachers, pray for your professors, pray for your fellow students, that they would either grow in grace if they are inside the church, or that they may know God and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent, if they are outside the church. Children and teenagers and young adults, you can display your true citizenship and submission by honoring and obeying your parents and the Lord.
If your parents are not believers, you can intercede for them before the throne of grace and mercy, that God would open up their hearts to believe. Grandparents, you can display your true citizenship and submission by nurturing your grandchildren in the faith, praying for them if they are not in the faith, praying for your adult children if they are not in the faith, praying for them if they are in the faith, encouraging them in their walk with the Lord. Every day is a new opportunity for us to show that we are a kingdom of priests, that our citizenship is not of this world, that our ultimate submission is to the Lord God above all earthly powers.
And it's good to be reminded, is it not, that like Jack Barsky, you have a home. You have a nation. You have a country or a home. It's a heavenly kingdom.
It's a heavenly home. You belong to this heavenly kingdom. God has made you a citizen of this kingdom. And He calls us to submit to and to serve Him. What a great privilege that is to serve the God of the universe. All because Jesus Christ has changed you and me by His grace and mercy from being a traitor to being a citizen through His perfect life, death, resurrection, and ascension. So now you and I together with all of our brothers and sisters in Christ are a kingdom of priests, living together, praying for one another together, praying for the world together, while using our lives and money in service to the Lord.
That's why it matters. Let us go to the Lord in prayer. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Lord, we thank you for this reminder of who and what we are as a church, as Christians living in the kingdom of God. Oh Lord, would you use your word by the power of your Holy Spirit to grow us in these endeavors, to revive our hearts if we have grown dull or cold, to spur us on, to continue to run the race that you have set before us, trusting and depending upon you that you will bring us to the end. And in doing so, may you receive all the glory as we offer up the sacrifice of ourselves, the sacrifice of our tithes and offerings, the sacrifice of our praise and our prayers. In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
