Sunday Sermon

 

Priest of the Lord

Isaiah 61:6

You will be called priests of the Lord; you will be named the servants of our God. You will have riches from all the nations on earth, and you will take pride in them.

A few years ago a study was done that revealed a truth about human nature that Jesus long ago explained in The Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew chapter five verse thirty-seven Jesus tells us to just say yes or no and He adds that any more then that is from the enemy of our souls. This study reveals that a basic part of a good society is that people trust each other. When people trust each other they are more willing to take risk and to build bigger and better projects. On the opposite side is the problem of low trust societies. In places where people feel corruption and lawlessness rule people are much less likely to take risks. This trust-risk factor is really all about human nature and how we as people understand something very basic about the universe. I myself have learned that I do not trust large corporations but I am willing to trust a person in that organization. Knowing about this trust-risk factor is really helpful to our faith because it tells us a truth that Jesus told us two thousand years ago. Our faith is built on a trust in the living God. Either God is who He says He is or He is not and so we either trust in God or we live without any certainty in the universe. Trusting in a God we cannot see and we cannot control is not easy but that is why God has given us material to test and see if God is real and true. God hands vast amounts of stuff that we can look at and learn from and then test to see if what God says is true and real. The reason the Ten Commandments is so essential is because it lets us test what God is saying and see if it is true. When asked no one says the bottom six commands are not how the world should work. Only an idiot would read those words and say they are filled with foolishness. From that we can then move to the top four commands and know they explain the reality we find in the study of the universe. Once we have a basic understanding of the commands we can then see they express the basic fundamental morality of the creation. What is really cool is that we can do this for every thing God speaks about. Our God is true and speaks what is true and so we can trust in this God. The reason God calls us to speak only what is true is because it builds trust that we need to get through each day. That verse in chapter five that Jesus speaks is also linked to the closing verses in chapter seven where Jesus speaks of digging down and building on rock instead of sand. To learn to trust God will take work and it will require that we be honest with ourselves but it is worth all that it takes. God wants us to trust Him and longs for us to know what is true so that we can and will trust in the living God. The reality is that if we do not trust in the God who is trustworthy there is nothing that we can really trust in and that makes our lives in a terrible state that I don’t want to think about.

I was reading something a few months ago that really put my faith in a new light. It never had occurred to me to use the words that were said but in fact they were true and a point that I knew in my heart. The idea that was stated was that we believe in the supernatural. My first thought was to reject that line of thinking because to believe in the supernatural was to abandon reason and critical thinking but as I thought about what I believed I did believe in the supernatural. This did cause a little trouble at first because it made me have to reorder how I understood the universe and the faith I held. In fact we do believe in the supernatural but we have a God who explains Himself and teaches us what is real even if it reaches beyond what we consider physical reality. A spiritual world exists outside the physical world and the fact is that we all know it to be true. When we call something good or bad we are reaching for a standard that is outside all of us and has no form in the physical world but it is still as real as any object we can touch. Our faith is in a promise that we have no way of proving but is central to all we hold as faith. God speaks to us about sin and how terrible sin is which should scare us and make us very afraid but God also says He has dealt with our sin and we can be certain of that. There is no way to test the promise and that is why we have to test the truth the God gives us. If God is right on all these other things then we can be very sure that God’s promise about dealing with our sin is also true. The idea here is that we do not trust the promise but we trust the one who makes the promise and that is as powerful as we can get. Let us hold on to the belief in the supernatural not because we are ignorant but because we are well informed about the God who is out there.

When I was growing up there was a TV show called the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. As you can guess, it was supposed to show people how the rich lived. What it actually showed was all the stuff people had. Yes, there was some talk about what it took to live like this but mostly it was just showing off their houses and all the stuff they owned. It would have been much more interesting to see the day to day struggles each of those people had and how they managed to get through life. Of course that might not have been so exciting as seeing people’s stuff. Rich people are no different then any other people. They face the same battles we all do. The human condition has not changed in all of history and that is why we need to build trust in the living God. We have a God who calls to us and tells us He has the answers to life’s issues and He offers to transform us from broken people to shining beacons of light in a dark world. That is why the verse we are looking at has so much power to draw us to the living God. Grasping how much of a change happens when we start our journey of faith is astounding. We start out as sinful people who are broken because of our sin and God calls to us to not only be good people of faith but to be priest of the living God. Think about that, God wants us to trust Him so deeply that we become the bridge between God and other humans. The idea of a priest is that he stands between man and God and connects the two. This is the ultimate state of our faith short of standing in eternity itself. God calls us to represent God to other humans who do not yet trust God and to help people be better connected to God. When we read about the power of the priesthood and what it means it becomes clear that God is asking something big and it will take real trust in God to do what God is asking us to do. A priest declares God’s word and directs people to know God in a deeper way. Our faith is not about just trusting God but it is about living as God calls us to do. You might call our faith a “Life Style” based on our trust in what God tells us about how to live. Priests live a different kind of life because they know the power of God’s work in the world. Being a priest is being able to help guide people to live as God calls us to live. In the Old Testament priest were the people between God and other people helping them to learn how to carry out the things God calls us to do. That same work is still given but now it is given to all believers. Each of us are priest that God has set aside to teach the world about the God who loves them and wants to redeem them. Do we have the faith to trust God that much and to live as priest?

The next part of the verse reinforces what the idea of priest really is because it speaks of being servants and that is a great definition of what a priest is. To be named a servant of the living God is the highest thing that can happen to a person. It also speaks to what our real purpose is as humans. We were not made to rule but we were made to serve and when we do our best service we become priest to stand between man and God to help people learn to worship the God who loves them. What I like best about this verse though is the last part of the verse because it speaks to the consequences of faith, service and the priesthood. I do believe that there is a blessing the comes from God that when we live as God calls us to and there are physical effects to living in faith. There is a reason that the western world is richer and more powerful then any other part of the world and it has to do with the power of faith. But the real riches that God offers are not physical wealth but a spiritual wealth that can be seen. I now come back to that study I started with because is has real meaning here. People of faith create high trust societies because they trust in the God who teaches them what is real and what is true. Faith in God has a real effect on our lives and the lives of people around us and even the culture we live in. Rich societies are not rich with great physical wealth but with deep trust in each other. History tells us that those who spend decades to build a church have a different view of the world and the people around them then those who do not have faith in the living God. It is God who wants us to know the riches of faith and the wonder of what faith can do in a world of people who to trust a promise that cannot be test from a God who can be tested and trusted.

This verse points us to an idea that challenges our faith in ways that help us grow and develop as humans. Every person of faith is called to become a priest and to be an agent of change in a world that is broken. When we move to be the kind of people God longs for us to be we will have a powerful impact on what is going on in the world. Our faith should shape the world we live in and it should help to build a better world. We build this better world not by obeying rules but learning to trust in the God who makes promises to us. As we learn to trust God we will start to live by God’s ideas because those ideas make sense and they bring healing to broken lives. There is this God who wants us to be rich in the things that actually matter and to help us do that this God calls His servants to live as priests who teach about a God who saves us from the destruction sin brings.