All right. So, I play squash, and I play somewhat regularly. And I had a match, this was over the summer at one point, but the guy that I was playing against, when he got there, he told me a story about when he was driving to the squash court. So, I should tell you first, he knows I'm a pastor. I often get asked, it's a very common question, right? What do you do? Right? So, I often tell people, oh, I'm a pastor. And I get all sorts of different reactions to that. And one of the most common reactions I get is an immediate apology for the language they just used on the court for the last 20 minutes.
Anyways, I was playing against this guy and he told me, on his way to the squash court to play me, he was driving with his teenage daughter and he was telling her that he's got to be careful because he's playing against me. So he's got to, like, watch the language as he gets in there. And she, in typical teenage girl fashion, just kind of dryly said to him, "I wouldn't worry too much about it, Dad. Can't he, like, absolve your sins and, like, cleanse your soul or something like that?" And he was like, well, he didn't really know how to direct her or what to say, but he was like, "Well, I think he's a pastor, not a priest." Anyways, that was kind of how he explained it. And I left that alone. I did not say anything in that moment. I just enjoyed the story.
And our word this morning is priest. And I think the word priest means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But maybe you'll notice it's not a title that we use around here so readily, right? We have a pastor. We have elders. We have deacons. We have a youth group coordinator. We have an office administrator. We have a ministry associate. We have all these different roles and titles. But we don't have any one person walking around this place that we say, there is our priest. So the question this morning is, why is that? Why is that? What's going on here?
And it's an important question, especially when we profess to be a Bible-believing church. And when we look at the Old Testament, we see that the role and function of the priest was central to the way that the church, or sorry, the way that the Israelite nation functioned as followers of God. The role of priest was absolutely essential. It was inside covenant, even as we talked about last week. We heard from Rob how central covenant is to the things that we believe. He worked through four of the major covenants through the Old Testament. And I don't know if you noticed, but he even talked about priests in there and the connection between covenant. Does anyone remember when that was? Was it in the second covenant that he explained? I have the verses right here, actually. Exodus 19, verses 5 and 6. This was referenced by Rob just seven days ago.
"Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations, you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." And these are the words that were given to Moses to speak to the Israelites. They had a really important job. And it's not just man-made. This is ordained by God, this role of priests, and we learn about it. If you want to get in the weeds this afternoon, read Leviticus chapter 9 and 10. And you'll see the priests that are ordained by God as they started their ministry. It's the tribe of Levi. It's the descendants of Levi, so it's the Levites, and one of those descendants is Aaron. Aaron is the first high priest that God ordains into the role. And we know quite a bit about him.
But through those chapters, we can build a bit of an understanding of what the role of the priests was. And I kind of found four really important things that they were part of or responsible for. And the first one was atonement for sins. Okay, atonement for sins. Now, are the priests the ones atoning for sins? No. God atones for sins. But God used the priests to facilitate this through covenant, through cutting. There was sacrifice that happened, and the priests were used so that the people's sins could be atoned for, or could be forgiven. They were given the instruction to discern what is holy, know the difference between what is holy and unholy. This was the role of the priests. And they had very specific jobs in order to understand what this means.
And a third thing that they're told and they're ordained and tasked with is teaching the people. They were called to teach. Some of these religious leaders, that's a priestly role: to teach, to educate, to make sure that people know who God is and who they are and what their calling is. And then they were also part of preparing for, or facilitating, or giving witness to the glory of God. All right. Now, the glory of God, a good way to understand the glory of God, it's more physical than we tend to think. We like to spiritualize it, but the glory of God, I like to think of it as the manifestation of God's presence.
So when the temple is built and the priests have to move out of the way because God's glory comes down and manifests in the temple, that's the glory of God. Anytime God is physically, tangibly present, that is the glory of God. So when we give glory to God, we're inviting his physical presence. Okay? And that is part of what their job is, facilitating, giving witness to God's glory being seen, experienced by the people firsthand.
So what happened? Okay, if we don't have those people in our church today inside that role, why not? How do we get from there to here? Because we have the New Testament, yes, but we must still hold the Old Testament. We must understand the Old Testament through the New Testament. The New Testament is what gives us knowledge, wisdom, insight in order to appropriately discern what the Old Testament means for our lives today. So what happened?
All right. Well, we get a story in John chapter 1. So, now we're moving to the New Testament. Okay. The priests existed all through Israel's history, all the way up until we get to the New Testament. And one of the first stories in the New Testament is about a guy named Zechariah. Zechariah is a priest. In fact, the text identifies him as a descendant of Aaron. Very specifically, that is highlighted in there. So, let me read that to you. Actually, this comes from Luke chapter 1, which we've covered quite a bit as we've looked at John the Baptist, as we looked at the first two chapters of Luke through our Advent series a while ago. We've covered this quite a bit, but this is what the text says.
The angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah. Your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and a delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink." We've talked about that. That's the role of the Nazirite. But it's also a priestly rule that they also used to have. "And he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." And Zechariah asked the angel, "How can I be sure of this?"
So he's got questions about this, right? He says, this seems not possible. Now, something I learned in studying this week: I always thought the prophecy that Zechariah received about John was profound, that he's going to do all of these things. But what I realized is this prophecy is actually what Zechariah would have been praying for, because Zechariah is a priest and he wants to have a son who would then be a priest. This is what priests do. So none of this is shocking or surprising to Zechariah. In fact, this is what he had hoped for, to have a son that would live out the priestly role, that would live out these priestly duties.
The part that's surprising for him, we get in the second half of his question. He says, "How can I be sure of this? I'm an old man and my wife is well along in years." So the issue for him was his age. It was the physical limitations that he saw in front of him. It was not the fact that his son would carry a priestly duty and role, which is pretty interesting.
So John comes, right, and he points towards Jesus and he says, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." And now this is different, right? John is living out this calling that the angel gave to his father Zechariah, but not in the way that Zechariah would have anticipated. He would have expected John to function in the way of the Old Testament priests, in the way that we see laid out in Leviticus chapter 9 and 10. There's all sorts of stuff in there about exactly how the priests were to dress, what they were allowed to do, what they weren't allowed to do, and how they served God through sacrifices and offerings and in the temple. But he doesn't live that way. The way that he lives is by calling to repentance and simply pointing to Jesus.
And he does that because Jesus, of course, is the atoning sacrifice for all people in all times. Jesus came to rescue the entire world. He came to restore creation. He came to make good on all these promises that God made throughout the entire Old Testament, that God has been making since the very beginning. And so Jesus goes to the cross and he himself becomes the sacrifice. And in this, Jesus becomes and is the temple. He's the meeting place between God and his people. And he's also the high priest. He is the one that stands for all of Israel, all of those chosen and called by God, and he stands in the place of us who cannot keep our end of the bargain.
And we get this in Hebrews 4, verses 14 to 16. And I would encourage you, if you want to spend more time with this, I mean, reading Hebrews 4 to 8 lays this out beautifully, the role and function of the priest in the Old Testament and who Jesus is. It says here in chapter 4, "Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."
So Jesus is established as the new high priest. Now, high priests, there was only ever one at a time in the history of Israel. There was one high priest and a lot of other priests. The high priest was only replaced either really late in life or when they had passed away. Well, praise God, Jesus will never pass away. Jesus rose from the dead and is alive today. So Jesus was the high priest appointed in his time and is the one and only high priest that is ever needed for the rest of time. This is the good news of the gospel. All of this atoning happens in and through him. You are forgiven. You are sanctified. You are cleansed. You are claimed by God because of, and in and through, the blood of Jesus Christ.
So that is why we don't have priests. Or maybe some of you are drawing that conclusion, right? No priests, because we have Jesus the high priest inside the new covenant through Jesus Christ. We no longer need a mediator between us and God. We can just pray simply to Jesus. We don't have to go to a temple. All of these religious practices have been set aside inside this new covenant. Except that's not quite exactly right, because there is a role and function for priests yet today.
So we get this in our text this morning, which we can put up on the screen now, Andrew. It's 1 Peter 2, verses 9 and 10. This is a message for the church. This is a message for us. "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, 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. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us."
All right. Now, who is this written to? Who is being called a royal priesthood? Is this a letter that's written to the Levites in the New Testament? No. In fact, it's identified in our text. It said, "you who are exiles, you who are foreigners." And we get even more description from the start of the book, where Peter, in 1 Peter 1, verse 1, says this: "To God's elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood."
All right. So, who is the royal priesthood? Who are the priests under the new covenant? Well, as Rob was talking about last week, Jesus extends his hand. And for all those who have put their hand in the hand of Jesus, who have accepted those promises, who have identified themselves as chosen and are living inside the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, those are the priests. Those are the priests. That means we are all priests. All of us who are in a relationship with God and know who Jesus is, and we make the same profession that's been made here today, we experience the same baptism that we witnessed here today. We are those that are part of this royal priesthood. So we don't identify any one person inside the congregation as a priest, because we are all priests.
Now, what does that mean? If we're to take the New Testament, if we're to take this news and work the Old Testament understanding through it, we can really look at these four things that we understood about the Old Testament priests. Atonement for sins. Now, do we atone for sins? Do we forgive sins? No, we don't. But we are called to be part of what God is doing. We are called to let a hurting and broken world know that their sins are forgiven, that there is a God that is reaching out his hand to them.
The second thing was discerning what is holy. What does that look like for us here today? Honestly, I don't know if this one's always been tough, but it feels like in 2026, this one's really tough, in the culture and climate of the world that we live in, understanding the difference between clean and unclean. In some ways, in the Old Testament, they had it good, right? God identified what was clean and what was not. Different kinds of animals that you could look at and you just know that one's clean, that one isn't. It's hard for us today. We need the power and presence of the Spirit of God in order to do this well. This is a priestly duty that we are called to, that we are only capable of through the work of the Holy Spirit.
The third one is teaching the people. This is something we all do. This isn't just Rob's job or my job or Sonia's job. This is all of our jobs. It's Remy's job when he sits here, because he knows we're supposed to pray. Now, we all carry this work together.
And the fourth one is preparing for, or facilitating, the glory of God. The Holy Spirit lives inside of us. We are God's temple. God's temple is his meeting place with the world. The church is God's meeting place with the world, corporately, but also individually, as we go out, as we go from this place, even as we're in this place. As we offer acts of service, love, kindness to others, we are acting quite literally as the hands and feet of Jesus. That is the manifestation of God's presence. That is the glory of God on display here and now in this world. That is a priestly duty that we are all called to.
It's not an easy thing to be a priest. It's a word that might be one we're not entirely comfortable with wearing. I think it's unlikely, you know, if you're meeting someone new and they ask you, you know, what do you do, unlikely you're going to tell them about your job and then say, "Oh, and I also volunteer as a priest." The word comes with a lot, but it's important and it matters. And God will use you. God will use you in the ways that he's blessed you and he's called you, individually, uniquely. He has plans and purposes for you.
Let me pray for you. Lord God, as we continually try to understand what it means to live out our priestly calling and duty in this world, we know that we need an extra measure of your grace and of your Spirit. And Lord God, it's probably wrong to say, give us more. It's maybe more appropriate to say, Holy Spirit, show us how much there is. Help us to grow in awareness of how good you are. Help us to look for opportunities to see how vast and wide your mercy and forgiveness goes. And help us to live that out to a world that is hurting and broken and struggling. Lord God, thank you for all of this. And Lord Jesus, we invite you to come back soon. In your name, amen.