Your role as God’s priest

Some of you may look at today’s title and say, “I’m not a priest. This has no relevance for me.”

But if you are a Christian, you are God’s priest. Peter says of you and me,

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. (1 Peter 2:9)

And so this passage is very much relevant to you and me as Christians.

Here, God rebukes the priests because they were not doing what he had called them to do.

Their problem was the same as the rest of Israel: they were failing to honor God with their lives. But God particularly rebuked them because of their position.

Because they were priests, they were held to a higher standard than everyone else.

God talked about the covenant he had made with the priests, “a covenant of life and peace” (Numbers 25:12–13). And he told them,

This called for reverence and he revered me and stood in awe of my name.

True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin.

For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty and people seek instruction from his mouth. (Malachi 2:5–7)

What does God expect of us as his priests? And what is our role? Here, it is clearly laid out for us.

First, he expects us to revere and stand in awe of him. In short, to honor him.

Although God calls us his friends, he is much more than that. He is our King and our Lord as I mentioned in my last blog.

Gordon MacDonald once noted that “The most costly sins I have committed came at a time when I briefly suspended my reverence for God.”

As God’s priests, we can’t afford to do that.

Second, he expects us to walk in peace and uprightness before him. This flows from the first expectation. If we honor God, we will walk righteously before him and in peace with him.

Unfortunately, that’s not what these priests did. They had suspended their reverence for God, and as a result had no qualms about offering him sacrifices that were lame and diseased.

What is our role as God’s priests?

We are to be people that instruct others in God’s ways.

People ought to see God in our lives and seek to hear God’s word from us. Obviously, if we are not honoring God with our lives, no one will ever do this.

Our lips should preserve knowledge.

But that will be impossible to do if we don’t know God’s word. So linked with this role is the idea that you study God’s word and know it intimately so that you can share that knowledge with others.

This is not just the role of the pastors in the church. Every Christian should be doing this, because all of us are his priests.

We are to turn people from their sin.

When we see others falling into sin and going down the wrong path, we are not to just ignore it and pretend everything is all right. God calls us to warn them.

They may listen. They may not. But God requires us to warn them. (Ezekiel 33:7–9)

The priests in Malachi’s day failed miserably in these things.

Instead of turning people from their sin, and instructing them in God’s way, they caused the people around them to stumble.

What about you? What kind of priest are you?