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.
1 Peter 2:9

Introduction

There is something that every human being has in common, a distaste and dread of rejection. Rejection means being an outsider looking in. It’s a place of loneliness and darkness. It is a longing to belong but a denial of one’s belonging. If you have applied for a job and have been rejected, you have been told that what you bring to the table, your gifts, talents, personality, intellect, are insufficient. If you have applied to colleges and have been rejected, or have been rejected by someone whom you have asked out on a date, or have been told by fellow classmates that you can’t play because you don’t hit the ball well enough, or have been told by a sibling that you can no longer tag along because you’re a drag on his style, you understand rejection.

Rejection, alienation, and distance should have been as foreign to God’s good creation as physical pain, suffering, and death should have been. But the reality is, when sin and rebellion against God entered the world, so did rejection. Since humanity would reject God as God, He would have no other recourse than to reject humanity. But just as we learned last week that God decided to choose His people, despite their rejection of Him, we also learn from the same passage of Scripture today that God bridges our rejection and subsequent alienation by drawing us near to Himself. He does this by making us a royal priesthood in order that we might enjoy and proclaim the Gospel together.

Now a Royal Priesthood (v. 9)

So first, let’s look at 1 Peter 2:9 again to examine our new identity as a royal priesthood. Peter writes: “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.” What in the world does Peter mean when he tells us that we, the church, are a royal priesthood? For those of you who come from a Roman Catholic background, the concept of the priesthood is probably very familiar for you, as it was for me. You see, my parents sent me to a Catholic school for 12 years and I remember first stepping into the Catholic Church for mass and seeing the grand, gothic architecture inside the church. Everything appeared to be very solemn and holy. As the mass began with an organ playing, the people would rise as the processional began with an altar boy carrying the cross, followed by more altar boys and then the priest would enter. He was dressed in a full gown with all sorts of vestments and sashes. He would make his way to the front where he would stand behind the altar which was far removed from the people by distance, and then an inner railing, and an outer railing. At this time in Roman Catholic liturgy, he would say mass with his back to us and the whole mass was spoken in Latin. You walked away feeling as though this man was very far removed from the people. You see, the Roman Catholic priest was the human mediator between a group of sinners (the people) and a holy God and everything about the priesthood, from the clothing he wore, to the words he spoke (Latin), to the fact that he alone was to consume the remaining Eucharist following communion, to the architecture of the church which separated God and the priest from the people, all of this was intended to convey how removed God’s holiness and sinful people are from each other. We see this structure paralleled in the Old Testament, which is what the RC priesthood is modeled after. And to understand the significance of the priesthood and the implications of Peter’s words in our text, we need to keep this transcendent distance in mind as also revealed in the Old Testament.

In Exodus 19 after God had delivered Israel from the Egyptians, they arrive at Mt. Sinai in the desert. And here God makes this incredible statement to Israel through Moses:

You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now therefore, 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; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

You could see the similarities to what Peter has said in 1 Peter 2:9. God is telling Israel that they will be a special people, a people He has chosen, again as I shared last week, not because of anything they had done, but simply out of God’s mercy. And the means by which they will be special is that they will be a “kingdom of priests.” That is, they will be represented by a priesthood that will bring them near to God in a way that has been impossible before this time.

Before Israel, there was no way to directly encounter God. Once Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden, once they had rejected God as God, people could no longer dwell in God’s presence. Genesis 3:24 speaks these tragic words: “He drove the man out,” and that was symbolic of the ongoing relationship between God and humanity. God even told Moses, the man who was called a friend of God (Ex 33:11), “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live” (Ex 33:20). But even though no imperfect, sinful, rebellious person could stand in God’s holy presence, God came up with a way that the people could still come to Him without being utterly consumed by His perfect holiness, and He does this through the priesthood. But even the priesthood had its limitations.

For example, when the Temple was built, the high priest could only come so far into the Temple. Once a year on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), the high priest could go inside without fear of death. In fact, according to Hebrews 9:7 which says, “But into the second [section of the Temple, the Most Holy Place]only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people,” when the high priest enters once a year, he must go in with his own blood sacrifice for his own sins or else he would be destroyed. This is how far removed a holy God was from sinful people. So essentially, when we think of the priesthood, we should think not only of mediation but also separation. If there is a continuing human priesthood, there also means that we are completely unable to enter into God’s presence without a constant mediation by another.

So let’s go back then to 1 Peter 2:9. What is Peter telling us? He’s saying, “You are a chosen race, [you are a] royal priesthood.” The ‘you’ that Peter is referring to is not a group of men designated to represent the church or mediate for the church. No, he’s referring to each one of you, and to be even more specific for our context, he’s saying you, Wellspring members. Peter is telling us that every person is not only a priest, but a royal priest. What are the implications of being a royal priesthood?

It means that you were brought near to God.

Remember what the priesthood symbolized. It symbolized separation from God. You and I were so far off from God because of our rejection of Him that we deserved to be separated from Him. The priests in the OT were there to bring us near to God, but only as a mere representative. Well, when Peter tells us that we’re now the priests, he’s telling us that we don’t need human mediation any more to come into God’s presence. It means we can come fully into God’s presence without any fear of rejection or angry repercussions from a holy and just God. One of the great joys I have in life is to hug my children and kiss them goodnight after family worship. They long for that affection and they are not one bit afraid of rejection when they come to me with lips puckered. And so I grab them in my arms and pull them tight and hug and kiss them. They come freely and without fear because they are my children and I love them. The implications of this verse in 1 Peter is dramatic. The whole Old Testament was about people who hated God despite His love for them, and their inability to ever see Him or enter His presence because of their sins. But now, this is no longer the case because God draws us near to Himself.

And the reason this is no longer the case is the second implication of our priesthood, it means you were brought near through the blood of Christ.

There was a cost to us bringing us near. Remember Hebrews 9:7. Even the high priest could not enter into God’s presence without a sacrifice of blood, because He Himself was sinful. Sin needed to be paid for and it would require blood. The priesthood has at its core, mediation through the sacrifice of another. Someone had to atone (pay and cleanse) for the sins of those who would be welcomed freely into God’s presence. After all, how could those who hated God be forgiven by God if God was to still remain perfectly just and righteous? There had to be an atoning for that rebellion against God, for God to remain God. And the only means by which that atonement could occur would not be the blood of bulls and goats as in the Old Testament. No, there needed to be the perfect substitute for the terrible and horrible nature of sin. Eternally horrific sin and rebellion needed to be met by perfect righteousness for that sin to be wiped out. And the only perfect substitute would be God’s Son, Jesus Christ. Hebrews 9:12-14 then describes what Jesus did:

He [Jesus] entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

In other words, if the Jews believed animals’ blood temporarily removed sin, how much more would the blood of Christ completely purify our souls apart from works! We don’t do anything to now be able to enter God’s presence. We can come to God freely. In fact, listen to what Hebrews 10:11-13 says about what Jesus’ work on the cross:

And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

This is how powerful the atoning sacrifice of Christ’s substitution for us is. That one act on the cross has forever ended the need for anything else to atone for sin. We don’t need to sacrifice animals. We don’t need a priest to stand before God to mediate for us. We don’t need to do penance to receive forgiveness. We don’t need anything more than Christ’s sacrifice, which was once and for all. Look at verse 14, “He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified,” those being His church, me and you!

And look at these incredible words in Hebrews 10:19-22 as a result of Jesus’ atoning work:

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.

How can we come to know God? Is it through a priest? Is it by cowering in terror? Look at the words that the Hebrews writer has used, ‘confidence’ and ‘let us draw near’ and ‘full assurance of faith.’ We don’t come cowering in terror that we will be destroyed when we come to God. We can enter confidently into God’s presence through the blood of Jesus and with Him as our great high priest who mediates forever in heaven before God for us which is what Hebrews 8:1 contends: “We have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven.”

Do you know how powerful these words are? What do you think it means for you, Wellspring, when Peter says you are a royal priesthood? It means that when you never feel good enough before a holy God, when you find your quiet times are not good enough, your anger creeping in on you, when you feel ashamed by your lack of mercy and grace for others, when you feel guilty for your impatience towards your spouse or children, when you feel as though faith is far from you, and when you turn to God in Godly sorrow over sin, Jesus stands at the right hand of the Father and tells Him that your debt has been paid for by His blood. When Satan accuses you before God telling you and God that you are a worthless, pathetic excuse for a Christian, and you slowly begin to believe that to be true, Jesus mediates for you and tells His Father that His blood has paid for you. 1 Cor 7:23 tells us that we were bought with a price. It also means that as a church, we come together boldly into God’s presence. It means we’re welcomed even when we’re ‘not ready’ or ‘good enough.’ It means we are to continually remind each other of the Gospel, that our works as a church, not our size, or our snazzy programs, or the worship band, or the leader of the church, or its structure, is what ultimately draws us near to God. This is not Sam’s church, or the members’ church. We exist only because Jesus Christ mediates for us as an eternal high priest through His blood. And we never forget to sing, preach, study, proclaim, and live in light of this truth. We rejoice together because of it.

The third implication of our priesthood is that you are royalty.

Why is it a royal priesthood? Because the King of kings, Jesus Christ, considers the church His family as Hebrews 2:11 reminds us: “For he [Jesus] who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers.” Galatians 4:6-7 add: “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” We are God’s sons and daughters. This is how fantastic the Gospel is. God doesn’t just accept those who have rejected Him. God doesn’t just tell us now we can come into His presence. God doesn’t even stop at just saying it would take His Son’s own sacrifice to accomplish this. God says that He will now welcome us as His children. Remember the illustration I gave earlier about my kids coming with their lips puckered. Well, outside of my wife, most of you know I’m not a big hugger, and I’m not a big kisser as well. But when my kids come puckered, I will kiss them all, even Jack (at least for now), because they’re my children. I love them. They’re mine. They belong to me. They have my genes. And so it is my joy to love them and to express that love. It is my joy to provide for them and I enjoy the time spent together. It’s not that I can’t feel that with other children. But they were given especially to me by God as mine. And there will always be a unique of relationship that I will have with them that will differ from any other child. How much more than will a gracious, good, and perfect God delight in His children, the church.

What does God’s delight look like? I have been going to a lot of softball games these days. And while I root for all of the girls who play on my kids teams, when they come up to bat, my eye especially watches them. I am focused on how she does, ready to cheer, ready to encourage, ready to help when needed, ready to be excited when she hits one. Well, God is the same towards His children. Psalm 33:18 says: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love.” And Psalm 34:15 adds: “The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry.” God watches His children with delight, those who fear Him, whose hope is in Him, who cry out to Him Abba Father as we see in Galatians 4:6-7. (ILL Lauren saving Calvin in the pool as a mother closely watching her child). And He will never let us go. And Wellspring members, we exist to remind each other of this reality, that we’re family. If God’s eyes are for those whom He loves, we never forget that as well. People are not projects or responsibilities. They are more than friends. They truly are our family. And so we suffer deeply when others are suffering. We rejoice with others rejoicing. We enjoy others’ successes and mourn when those are grieving. Giving of our time and energies to make a meal, to welcome people in our homes, is not a burden or a duty, but it is a welcoming and caring of our family. May we see a new perspective of the church through the lens that we are living with and encountering a royal priesthood in our lives.

The Royal Priestly Response

So, if God should love us in such a way by making us a royal priesthood, then how should we respond? It’s pretty clear from 1 Peter 2:9 which says: “[you are] a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him,” just as we learned about our understanding of our chosenness as a church should naturally lead to a proclamation of the Gospel, so too, as we understand the full implications of what it means to be a royal priesthood, we should desire to proclaim Christ and the Gospel. That is, unless you realize that you were far, far off from God, but Christ brought you near and into His family, you won’t have a desire to proclaim Christ. You’ll see your faith and church-going and Christianity not as a miraculous event (which it was, regardless of how you were saved), but rather as plain and ordinary, just another part of your life. One person put it this way, “When I first became a Christian, I was a poor beggar telling other poor beggars where to find bread. Gradually, though, I became an ex-beggar telling poor beggars to find bread.” (Jack Miller, Powerful Evangelism for the Powerless, 44.) Do you see the difference? One tells others out of their own personal experience as a beggar. The other simply doesn’t see his need any more but only sees the needs of others. The ex-beggar is self-sufficient and morally superior, there to help others become better.

The reality is that the more you understand what you have been saved from and just how good the good news truly is, the more you will long to tell someone else about it. After all, what woman after taking a pregnancy test to find out she is pregnant with their first child, will not delight in telling her husband the good news? If you have been waiting to be accepted into the school of your choice, will you tell others non-chalantly about your acceptance? If you have been out of work for a long time and applied for a job and actually received an offer, would you casually tell your wife that you finally got the job with indifference? If you did any of these in this manner, wouldn’t that betray whether you really believed the news was ever good at all? No, if it is good news, you can’t help to tell someone. You are bursting to tell another. True Good News is meant to be shared. Well, if you truly understand and believe the Good News of the Gospel, if you understand deeply what it means to have been once been rejected by God, but now brought near, you will long to tell others.

Two practical ways you can tell others is by first, attending the Gospel Evangelism Seminar that Wellspring and Christ Church will be holding in the building that Christ Church will be meeting at in SF. Toby and I want to spend some time in equipping you to actually proclaim Christ and I hope as a result of your understanding of what it means to be chosen and a royal priest, you will attend this seminar, not because you have to, and not because you need to be better at ‘evangelism,’ but rather, you long to take what you believe about the Gospel and simply live it out. Another practical way we can proclaim the Gospel is to invite people to church. We made some church cards that give our info that are in the back and we hope you will use them to invite friends, coworkers, people who you associate with in sports programs or mothers groups, etc. Don’t do these things again, because you have to as a Christian. May these and so many other practical tools always be a natural outflow of what you know about who God is and what He has done for you.

Also, if we understand the full implications of our royal priesthood, we will enjoy Christ and His people. Look at the word Peter uses to describe Jesus. He says that understanding our priesthood is so that “you may proclaim the excellencies of Him.” There is something that is so pre-eminent about God, so delectable and delightful in who He is and what He has done, that Christians, by definition as a Christian, delight in His excellencies. We actually enjoy God, and we enjoy God together or as Psalm 34:8 says: “Taste and see that the Lord is good!”

Some of you know of Blaise Pascal as the brilliant French mathematician. But perhaps many of you might now realize that he also loved the Lord with a passion. He had been far from God until he was 31, where he came to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. He wrote the following words down on a parchment and sewed it into a coat so that he would never forget his day of salvation:

Year of grace 1654, Monday 23 November, feast of St. Clement . . . from about half past ten at night to about half an hour after midnight, FIRE. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of philosophers and scholars. Certitude, heartfelt joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ. God of Jesus Christ. “My God and your God.” . . . Joy, Joy, Joy, tears of joy. . . Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. May I never be separated from him.

He’s only repeating what Scripture makes so clear about those who understand their royal priesthood, that we must be a people of joy because we know what it means to have once been separated from God, but now brought to Him through Christ. Hence, the Bible is full of texts like Matthew 13:44: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field,” and Psalm 16:11: “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Our fellowship as a church therefore should be joyous in that we long to be together, not to be insular, but as we delight in worshipping God together, it makes us more excited to proclaim Christ to others. And when others see our worship, our caring for one another in times of need, our desire to go overseas to serve the poor, our welcoming visitors with joy, our practice of hospitality, our desires to pray for the depressed and ill, they see an ingrained joy that is experienced not from duty but from desire.

So practically, this means we enjoy our fellowship together on Sundays and in Homegroups. We exist not just for our own joy, but also for the joy of others. We fight for joy because there is a firm foundation for it, Christ’s blood. It means we are not critical first, but encouraging first. It means rather than finding something that’s wrong with a person or situation, we first remember the blessings. It means for the worship team, that we do not merely play instruments, but we worship God with joy to make others joyous. We go to places like Africa and Asia because we long to see those who have no hope, see the incredible joy of Christ. We send forth friends and even family from this church to plant other churches for the joy of others. And we believe the full promise that in doing so, we will enjoy God even more and enjoy life even more and enjoy others even more.

Finally, if we understand the full implications of our royal priesthood, we will always remember Him who has brought us out of darkness into light. In other words, get into the habit of preaching the Gospel to yourself daily. We will remind ourselves of what we have been saved from and what we are saved to. The Gospel-centered life is humble in that it is quick to confess sin and seek forgiveness and it is a forgiving heart which is quick to forgive another. It is always ready to repent over sin and always ready to forgive others when sinned against. That’s the message of the cross where even on the cross Jesus forgave those who placed Him there, including me and you. A lack of tenderness in our heart, an unwillingness to yield and forgive, is essentially a heart that has not reflected on his or her own royal priesthood. He doesn’t understand just how much it took God to save him.

And why are we together as a church? To live out together, not everything that goes perfectly, but to remind each other that I am a sinner saved by grace, I need others to help me remember this reality, that I can’t do this unless I have others in my life to teach me through life’s experiences and God’s Word, and by doing this together, we delight even more in our royal priesthood. We need each other or as Hebrews 3:12-14 tells us or we will forget that the Lord brought us out of darkness into His marvelous light. So let our conversations have some reminders of the Gospel for each other, not just when times are difficult, but also when times are well. Is it weird for you to talk with people in the church about Christ and the great hope we have? May this never be. The only way to break this weirdness is to simply do it without any regard of what you think people will think of you.