The Posture of a Priest (Pastor Judith)

This week Pastor Judith talked about having The Posture of a Priest

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Good morning. It's always a privilege to speak. Never easy. How we're ready to hear the word of God. You look ready. Can I read to you some scripture first and foremost? I'm gonna read from First Peter chapter two, verse four and five. It says, as you come to him, the living stone, rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him, you also like living stones are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we adore you. Everything is about you, everything is for you, everything that we do. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you that it changes us and shapes us and molds us into who you call us to be. Holy Spirit, I pray now that you would overtake, that you would bring about everything that you want us to hear this morning, Lord. We thank you, Lord. We thank you for what you're doing in this house. And I just pray that right now, God, all through this message, your name would be magnified above all else. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So as Matt um dropped in a few minutes ago, it was Matt's birthday on Friday. And obviously, we this December we'll have been married. We'll have been married 15 years this December. It's been a while. Before we got married, we we were dating for about 18 months. But when we were, he's pulling a face at me, but we were. I don't know if she'll remember. I said, what do I what do I get him? Like, I don't really know him that well, but like I need to like get him something. I decided, right, I know I'm gonna make him a homemade card. I know, I don't know why, I don't know why that's what was in my head, but I love homemade things. Does anyone else? Um I love homemade things. So um do you want do you want to see the card? I can't believe I'm doing this to myself. Um this is what I made him. Can you see it? It says the writing on the front, it says it's got a little top, it says happy birthday, and then it says Merlot of the Lewis variety. It's a bottle of wine. He doesn't even like Merlot, there you go. Now, so if you don't know Matt, right? Matt tends to go into times in his life where he gets really obsessed about certain things, and he'll admit it, right? So when we first started dating, he loved red wine, doesn't even like it now, but he loved it, right? And then he's loved coffee. He definitely used to make me lots of cups of coffee. He went through loving DJing. Um, what else? Barbecues, like, and he'll get very, very engrossed in that one thing. So I thought, well, well, Matt, he loves red wine, like it's really thoughtful. I thought it was really romantic. Anyway, I gave him it in like he was like, oh, thanks. So anyway, every single year now, you know, when you post up memories on Facebook, every year Matt revitalizes the post. You do look, let's look at the first comment. I posted this up. I posted this card up and I said, How romantic was I? Matt reply, I like why knockards. You know, so anyway, that a few years later he decides to embarrass me by sharing the memory again, and this time it's I appreciate it more now than I did then. Right? And then every year I'm like, this is so embarrassing. Why didn't I make him a homemade card? And then he does it again and goes, I appreciate it even more now than I did every year. Let's just say I've learned that Matt doesn't appreciate homemade cards. Because Matt likes what he likes. I like what I like. And have you noticed that in relationships, how easy it is to give according to what we like rather than what the other person likes? Have you noticed? Have you read the book Love Languages by Gary Chapman? If you haven't read it, it's a great book. But we are so different in how we feel loved. So for so long, I would speak my love language and expect Matt to feel loved by that, and vice versa. So in our relationship, right, I've had to learn over time what he likes, what Matt appreciates. So am I doing better now? 15 years down the line. Am I doing better? We've all done that. Taking someone out to your favourite restaurant when it's their birthday? What about when um when I take my little girl to the shops? Charlotte loves anything blingy, the most sequiny sparkly dress. I don't like bling. So I'm like, hey Charlotte, what about this beautiful vintage-y retro pair of trousers? No, mammy, I want the sparkly dress. But that's what she likes. So I want to get her what she likes. What about when you buy a joint gadget for the house? I was so close to doing that this time, honestly. You nearly had an ice cream machine. I'm like, well, I like ice cream. I was like, no, I really, really want to make sure that I am not bringing something and giving something that is about my preferences. And I wonder how many of you know the uncomfortable truth that we can do the same with God. Prayer can become so much more about what we want than what he wants. Our praise can be so much more about what we feel like bringing rather than what he's worthy of receiving. Church can become more about what we get from it than what we bring. Serving God can be more about us being seen than him being glorified. Worship on a Sunday morning can be more about what we like than what God delights in. It's so easy to slip into it, isn't it? I've been there, I've done it, where our preferences take precedent, and we all have preferences, that's okay. We can have preferences, but when we come to the Lord and when we come into his house, we need to remember that we're here for him and his preferences and what he likes. If we go back to the scripture that I read at the beginning again, I'm gonna read it again. As you come to him, the living stone, rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him, you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God, not acceptable to us. And we know it's only through Jesus that we can bring an acceptable sacrifice, it's only through him we could bring the best of the best of the best of the best, and it's only Jesus that makes that a perfect, acceptable offering. But still, does that mean that it doesn't matter how we show up, it doesn't matter what we bring? Because God's worthy of us bringing our best to him for him to make that offering ultimately perfect and pleasing. Amen? You know, when we receive the gift of salvation, we receive a brand new identity. We become a new creation, a child of God, a citizen of heaven, and many more go and study, go and study about your identity in Christ. But you know what else? Do you know who else we become? A priest. We become a priesthood together. I'm a priest, you're a priest, you're all priests. And I wonder if that might help us remember what we're here to do, what we're here to bring when we remember who we are and what God's called us to be. See, for over thousands and thousands of years, only a select group of people could be priests. If we look back in the Old Testament, you couldn't volunteer to do it, you couldn't join the priesthood team at the temple, you couldn't study to do it, you couldn't aspire to do it. God had chosen one tribe, one family to minister before him, one select group of people who had that role. Everyone else that wanted to come to God had to come through that priesthood. But everything changed when Jesus came and he became our high priest. He offered himself as the perfect sacrifice, the curtain of the temple torn in two, and the barrier between us and God was removed. Access to God is no longer only for a priestly few, it's for all of us who have given our lives to Him. And why do I remind you of our identity? Why am I even going there? Why am I talking about the posture of a priest? Because when we remember who we are, it changes our posture in how we approach the Lord. When you get up every single day and go to work, you're a priest. When you come into church on a Sunday morning, you're a priest. Yeah. When you go to the gym or the doctor's surgery or college or uni, you're a priest. It's easy to forget, isn't it? And a priest's first calling, a priest's ultimate responsibility, both in the Old Testament and right now, is to minister to the Lord. To stand before God in his presence. The Old Testament priests would bring sacrifices and put them on the altar. They would burn incense before the Lord, keep the lamps burning. They had a job to do. And as New Testament priests, it's not the same. We don't need to bring an animal and sacrifice the animal on the altar for the forgiveness of sins, that's been taken care of. We don't have to do anything to be able to come to Jesus, that's been dealt with. But we do, as New Testament priests, have responsibilities. Would you agree? As you come to Him, the living stone, rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him, you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house. We're a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus. I love the beginning of that scripture. As you come to him, like that's our first job. To come to him. Our first job to minister to the Lord. Come to him and bring an offering. And I love that song that we've just sang before. That wasn't planned, but that song that Jade so beautifully led before. Like, we want to bring our offering, don't we? An offering that cost us something. An offering that is acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. I'm so glad that we don't have to bring a bull. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Like, I honestly would not cope well. Am I making sense so far? Yeah, awesome. Jesus is the reason that we can come to him. Jesus is the reason that we can bring an offering and they're accepted. We're not trying to get God to accept us with what we bring. That's not what I'm communicating. Our offerings and our spiritual sacrifices, they're an overflow of what God's already done for us and in reverence of who He is. That's what we can base our offering on. Hebrews 12, 28 to 29, it says this. Therefore, since we are receiving a king, a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. So what offerings then do we bring? If we're not bringing goats and bulls and grain and everything else, what do we bring? You ready? We bring our praise. Our praise genuinely is an offering. You know, like when at the beginning of a service when we do prayer and praise, we don't just do it to do a nice thing. Like we bring praise to bring an offering to the Lord. We thank him for what he's done and who he is. First Peter 2 9 says, 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. We've sang all of this this morning. Hebrews 13 5. Through Jesus, always through him, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. One of our spiritual sacrifices is the fruit of our lips. The things that we say, the things that come out of our mouth that proclaim his goodness, that's an offering. It's so easy. And again, I've been I've done this so many times. When oh we all have those times when the last thing we want to do is bring a shout of praise. But to just lift up a shout of praise, like, oh shut up, Judith. We all have those, right? Where maybe you're tired. Sometimes it can be hard when your mind is focused on other things, or the hardest thing is when I've been in a difficult season, and sometimes the hardest thing is to praise his name and lift up your hands when you are just brokenhearted and tired. And that's where we get around our friends and we help and lift their arms up and help them praise. But the fruit of our lips is sacrifice, it's an offering. And so we can easily stand here and go, Well, I'm not gonna sing, but I'm worshiping because God knows my heart. And we put and he does, and he looks at the heart, doesn't he? He looks at the heart, but it says the fruit of our lips, speak it, proclaim it, sing it. It's an offering, and it's not always easy. Our lives, like I said before, are an offering. Romans 12:1. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. Take your everyday life, that is your living sacrifice. And the Old Testament priests would bring an animal to the altar. As New Testament priests, we live on the altar, don't we? It's our lives, our everyday living. That is an offering. Do you know when do you know when we do come into church sometimes and we can all do it and have our preferences about different things, can't we? Is it just me? That can be tricky, but it's not to say that we shouldn't ever have preferences, and the goal is to just get rid of them all. That's not what I'm saying. But can we come into church and practice putting those preferences to one side, focusing in on what we know God delights in over what we delight in? And I remember once I'd hadn't I wasn't in the best place, and I'd gone along to um a women's conference with a couple of friends, and uh I'd walked in, I was like, oh, this is a bit different to what I'm used to. Oh, oh, this is a bit, oh, you know, and you you straight away start to go into that kind of looking around, judgy mindset of like how it's different to your church. I'm like, oh, carpet's a bit uh carpet's a bit uh scruffy. I don't think they're hoover here, like they obviously don't look after the building like we do. I'm just gonna be honest. I'm like, oh, it's dark, it's dark, it's really dark, can't see how that's really dark. It's quiet, it's really quiet, couldn't turn it off. I genuinely had shifted into this mindset of like, well, I'm here for me. I don't like this worship song, and I'm like it's rubbish, and I honestly I cringe telling you this because my attitude was awful, and I remember the worship started and people were worshiping God very extravagantly, but very different to what I was used to, right? Because the expression of the house that I was in was just a bit different, so I was just remember stood there, not really singing, already in a really foul mood. And I was like, Lord, I might just go home, I don't like it, and I just felt in that moment, I was like, I don't like it, Lord, and I just felt the Holy Spirit go. I like it. I like it, I delight in this. I'm like, Lord, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for when I've made it about me and not you. I'm sorry that I've forgotten that I come to the house of God as a priest. I'm sorry that I've come as a customer and a person who's going to be critical and review everything. Lord, I'm sorry, and I I choose to come as a priest. And we all have those moments, right? We're human in every other aspect of our life. When we go out to dinner, when we go, I don't know, to use a service somewhere else. Like we we're customers, we're consumers in every single thing. But church is different. There's another offering that I want to talk about that we bring, and that is our love for others. Hebrews 13 16 goes on to say, and do not forget to do good and share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. Our generosity, loving others, sharing with others is an offering to God. And if you notice, there's that one word that comes up all the time in nearly every single scripture sacrifice. Sacrifice. Bless God with a praise that costs me. Priests have a posture of sacrifice. As living sacrifices, we won't always feel like sacrificing. It's not always meant to feel easy. I think of the ultimate sacrifice, Jesus, our Saviour in the garden. Lord, if you're willing, take this cup from me, but not my will. Yours be done. Do you know that we can bring an offering? We can bring something that doesn't honour the Lord. In the book of Malachi, there were some priests that um they were taking blind and lame sacrifices to the altar. It didn't cost them anything. Those animals were gonna die anyway. So they brought the lame ones instead of their first fruits, the best sacrifice they brought the animals that actually didn't really cost them anything, but they still brought something. Our offerings are supposed to cost us something. Not because we're trying to buy anything, I'll say it again, but only. Out of overflow of thankfulness of what he has so freely given and who he is. Do you know that when you do bring an offering, especially an offering that costs you something, not everyone in your life will understand it. People will criticize your offering. You might have people in your life now that are like, I don't know why you spend so much time at that church. I don't know why, like you you give your money. I don't know why you do this. Like, oh just you yeah, you don't need to give all of that, you don't need to do all of that. People are taking advantage. But again, it reminds me of of Mary in the Gospels breaking the perfume jar and pouring that nod all over his feet. What does Judas do? What a waste. Why did you do all of that? We could have used that for something else. There'll always be a Judas in your life, especially when you've taken a step forward in faith and brought an offering that cost you something. There will be something or somebody that will say, Oh, what a waste. I want to encourage you today. Stand firm in that offering that you've chosen to bring to the Lord. What did he say? Leave her alone. She did a beautiful thing to me. It's a beautiful thing to the Lord. So just in my last couple of minutes, what does God actually want from us? What does he want from us? Our whole heart. But he wants us to bring that sacrifice, an offering that cost us something. Not what we think he wants, not what is comfortable to us, not what we like, what God delights in. Not what culture says is acceptable. It's like our worship, it just can't be about self-expression. It's always got to be about surrendered response. And I stand here with my arms lifted. I don't always feel like raising my hands. I don't always feel like doing it. But I want to bring God something that has cost me. And I would urge you and encourage you to go away and study. Go and read through the Psalms as well and read. I've been studying the life of David, and oh, that was a man after God's own heart. He was a worshiper. Go and read about the things that he did and how he worshiped the Lord and get to know the Lord. Get to know what God loves and likes. Get to know what he's asking for. Just like through that relationship with Matt and I, over time we learn, don't we? We learn about that other person. We need to spend time in his word, getting to know him, growing our relationship with him, and bringing something meaningful to the one that we know. You know, it can be quite tricky sometimes to listen sometimes to a message that talks about sacrifice and think, oh, and again, this is never about telling off or anything like that because we have a hope in Jesus, we have freedom, like Otto said before, there is no condemnation. We're not trying to perform, we're not trying to do religious duties. This is about us coming to the Lord as you come to Him. Bringing those spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Only by Him. I just wonder if you could close your eyes with me just for a moment. Lord, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you that you have made it possible for us to boldly approach your throne of grace with confidence. I thank you that we, through Jesus, have direct access to you, God the Father, that you've made us clean, washed us white as snow, Lord. So today, God, we choose, we choose to come to you, not empty-handed, but with something that costs us, Lord. We bring our offerings every single day. Not just a church on a Sunday, but on a Monday and a Tuesday and a Wednesday, we take our everyday life and we place it before you as an offering. In the tough times, Lord, when it might look different, when it feels different, sometimes when we feel like we haven't even got the strength to lift our hands in praise, we bring you something that costs us. We come, Lord. I pray, Lord, that you would help us to come and remember who we are. That every single day we'd remember that we are priests. Set apart. That we've been given a job to do, Lord, for your glory. We thank you for this privilege, Lord. We thank you for everything that you are and all you've done. In Jesus' name.