Good morning to you my ‘Walking with Jesus” friends,
Did you notice the date today? It’s Friday the 13th of January. I wonder if you know any superstitious people who would like to hide under their bed all day today in hopes they survive this day unscathed. In contrast to that fearful approach to life, I hope today to give you a very encouraging life perspective.
Come with me again to Rome, in the middle of the first century, where the fairly famous disciple Peter is writing the first of his two letters to Christians who are scattered by persecution all over the Roman Empire. Peter’s fame, as being one of the disciples who was closest to Jesus, does not mean he was living an easy life. On the contrary, the opposition against Christianity in the first century often focused on those known to have been closest to Jesus.
By the time Peter was writing, some of his fellow disciples had already been killed and within 25 more years, all of those disciples and many others will have died as martyrs refusing to deny their relationship with Jesus or their claim that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, Emmanuel, God incarnate, and the only Savior of the world. Did you know that even today in many parts of the world, persecution is horrific, and death is frequent among those refusing to deny Jesus Christ?
Look, Peter is unrolling the parchments. He’s looking at what he wrote yesterday and reading it out loud to himself imagining how these words will be received by fearful Christians in many parts of the Roman empire. “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. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.” (1 Peter 2:9,10) Yesterday we considered the power of the phrase ‘a chosen people’ and the remarkable truth that God draws people to Himself for a wonderful relationship in which we can live everyday here on earth and forever in heaven, in God’s presence, after our earthly life ends.
“Royal priesthood and holy nation” were phrases almost unthinkable to Christians in the first century. Royalty was something everyone understood. It was seen both in politics and religion. The Roman Caesar was the undisputed most powerful man in the world and his royal authority was felt even in the furthest reaches of the Empire through his military and Caesar’s appointed and empowered regional and local leaders everywhere. The Herods and Pilate would be examples of such powerful political leaders in the Palestine region in the days of Jesus. The Jewish High Priest, the ruling Sanhedrin, the Pharisees and Sadducees would all be examples of ‘royalty’ in the religious world of Peter’s day. It would have been almost impossible for the average Christian, in Peter’s day, to imagine themselves as anything remotely close to ‘royalty‘, except for the fact that through Jesus Christ, these people now had a relationship with Almighty God, the Creator of the Universe, and Jesus had told His followers that they could call God “my Father” (John 20:17) and consider themselves adopted into God’s Family! (John 1:9) Now that takes ‘royalty‘ to a whole new level doesn’t it, my friends?! But please consider one other perspective on the phrase ‘royal priesthood’ which would have been prominent in the hearts of first century Christians: corruption in leadership! Sadly, then as now everyone knew both political and religious leaders could be greatly influenced with a bribe, in fact in some parts of the Roman empire corrupt leadership was the norm not the exception.
But here Peter is challenging all Christians to consider themselves both ROYALTY and PRIESTLY because they were chosen by God to be living in relationship with God and they were being transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit within them. Priests were everywhere, in every town and city in the Roman Empire. Then as now, people assumed priests had special relationships with God and were blessed by God. It wasn’t easy to become a priest and often it required that you were born into a particular family line. But here Peter was claiming that EVERY authentic Christian should consider themselves a Priest, and a Royal Priest at that! Now, what did Peter mean?
The role of the Priest in the first century was to be a representative of God in society. He was the person to whom people went with their questions about God and God’s Truth. People went to Priests asking for prayer and help in their search for God. People assumed and expected that Priests had a deep passion to consistently pursue knowing God. People came to Priests for help in their worship of God.
And so here Peter was making the shocking statement that ALL Christians should see themselves as Priests of Almighty God! That ALL Christians should be people to whom others can come with their questions about God or for help in their search to know God. All Christians should be people who pray and will be quick to pray for anyone who seems in need of God’s help or God’s touch. All Christians should be people with an unquenchable passion to know God and keep deepening their relationship with God!
Now ponder that a moment friends, what if that were true today, of all Christians everywhere in the world? May I ask us all a personal question? Are those phrases, which describe priests in the first century, true of you and me? Should they be?
Peter was reminding all Christians in the first century that God had used the phrase ‘a kingdom of priests’ when speaking to those Hebrew slaves at Mount Sinai. (Exodus 19:5,6) It meant God wanted His people to bring the Presence of God into their communities, their businesses, their families! It meant God wanted His people to be a people of prayer interceding with God on behalf of their families, their neighbors and friends, even their local officials, yes even the corrupt ones! It also meant God wanted His people to speak His truth into the daily life of their world, every day, whenever God’s truth was needed to bring light into the darkness of evil attempting to overtake our world. It meant God wanted His people to see themselves as royal because of their relationship with God and to have an insatiable appetite to pursue knowing God and growing that relationship. That’s why Peter used the phrase “a holy nation, a people belonging to God.”
Now what would that be like my friends, if you and I considered ourselves to be part of a KINGDOM of people, living in every part of the world, whose KING is Jesus? And what if we understood that God’s expectation for us is that because HE is HOLY every person in His Kingdom is living a HOLY life? That’s what Peter had written earlier in this letter when he wrote: “Just as He who called you is Holy so be holy in all you do, for it is written, ‘Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am Holy.” (1 Peter 1:13) As we close today my friends, I leave you sitting with Peter, pondering the far-reaching implications of these brief but very powerful statements which God wants to be applied as describing every authentic Christian in the world! And then this final statement written by Peter “… a people belonging to God.” I invite you to repeat that statement to yourself all day today, Friday the 13th, if you consider yourself to be an authentic Christian! “…a people belonging to God.”
Now let’s join the Brooklyn Tabernacle choir in worship of our HOLY God…
Today’s Scripture is 1 Peter 2:9, 10.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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