Confident - Our Identity in Christ (2)

Week 3 - A Royal Priesthood & Holy Nation

When it comes to our identity in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have covered

Lively Stones - because we have been to the Living Stone, He has made us into lively stones that are being built into a Temple for Him. God is building us into something that can be used for Him

Redeemed and Chosen Generation - We have been chosen by the Lord Jesus Christ! Despite our sin and unrighteousness, He desired to have us and paid the ultimate price to purchase us! We belong to Him!

This week we look at another aspect of our identity in the Lord Jesus Christ and that is that we are a Royal Priesthood and a Holy Nation.

Before we get into the message, lets read Hebrews 9:1-10 for context. The book of Hebrews is a commentary on the book of Leviticus and it is the Book of “Better Things” and shows how Christ is better than all the Old Testament Laws and ordinances.

~~~Draw the Tabernacle and illustrate the different pieces within it according to the passage~~~

I. Christ - Our Mediator

Hebrews 9:11-15.

Christ, through His sacrifice on the Cross, became better than the High Priest because what He accomplished never has to be done again! There is no more need for sacrifice, for Christ Himself was the Sacrifice! There is no more need for the shedding of blood, for Christ shed His own blood!

Hebrews 4:14-16.

And now Jesus is our Great High Priest that is so much better than the High Priests of the Old Testament. Why?

No other High Priest was called Great

No other High Priest passed into the heavens

No other High Priest is the Son of God

He is a Great High Priest that can sympathize with our weakness

While He is God, He also understands what it is like to struggle as a human. He understands emotions, feelings, pain, hunger, thirst, etc

A person is always more helpful and encouraging when they have experienced the same things you have. There are things you guys face or have faced that I have no idea what that is like. I can try to help you, but I wont be as effective as one who has been through the same struggles.

This is why Jesus is such a Great High Priest, because He is NOT just a distant God who has no idea what the human experience is like. He knows everything you face because He also faced it and can sympathize with you!

He is a Great High Priest that can sympathize with our temptation

“Sometimes we think that because Jesus is God, He could never know temptation the way we do. In part, this is true: Jesus faced temptation much more severely than we ever have or ever will. The Sinless One knows temptation in ways we don’t, because only the one who never gives into temptation knows the full strength of temptation. It is true that Jesus never faced temptation in an inner sense the way we do, because there was never a sinful nature pulling Him to sin from the inside. But He knew the strength and fury of external temptation in a way and to a degree that we can never know. He knows what we go through and He has faced worse.”

But He is not a Great High Priest that can sympathize with our sin

but we should not think that this makes Jesus LESS sympathetic to us, and that He could understand us better if He had sinned

“But listen to me; do not imagine that if the Lord Jesus had sinned he would have been any more tender toward you; for sin is always of a hardening nature. If the Christ of God could have sinned, he would have lost the perfection of his sympathetic nature.” - Spurgeon

And because of this we can come boldly to the Father in prayer

Bold does not mean proudly, arrogantly, or with presumption

It means we can come constantly

It means we can come without reservation

It means we can come freely, without fancy words

It means we can come with confidence

It means we should come with persistence

And when we do we obtain mercy (restraint from what we deserve) and find grace (a giving of what we dont deserve)

II. A Royal Priesthood - Our Position

Now because of Christ’s sacrifice and Him becoming our Great High Priest, we have now become a Royal Priesthood in Him.

We have become part of His family, and the High Priest was a family business. Only the lineage of Aaron could be the High Priest and only the Tribe of Levi could serve in the Tabernacle.

We are Royal because Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords! When we got saved, we became part of the Royal Family!

But we are also a Priesthood. We, like the Priests of the OT can now enter into the presence of God, but not just once a year, we can enter at ANY time we want! We can come boldly to the throne of Grace!

As this Royal Priesthood we are to

Offer up spiritual sacrifices (1 Peter 2:5)

Prayer, Praise, worship, and service

Live to a higher standard (Malachi 2:5-7)

The Priests were held to a higher standard than everyone else in Israel because they held such a high and holy office.

We are to revere and honor Him “for the fear wherewith he feared me”

We are to walk in peace and uprightness “he walked with me in peace and equity”

Communicate the Truth (Malachi 2:5-7)

We are to instruct others in the ways of God “They should seek the law at his mouth”

We should know the Word of God “for the priests lips should keep knowledge”.

We are to warn people to abstain from sin “and did turn many away from iniquity”

III. A Holy Nation - Our Conduct

- 1 Peter 1:15–16 “ But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.”

Now that we have been saved and been made his Royal Priesthood, we are expected to conduct ourselves in a certain way. God’s priests in the OT were commanded to be Holy and Pure when they entered the presence of God, and now that we are His priesthood, God calls us to holiness as well.

The main idea behind holiness is not moral purity, but it is the idea of “apartness”. The idea is that God is separate, different from His creation in His essential nature and in The Perfection of His Attributes. But instead of building a wall around His holiness, God calls us to share in His holiness.

Holiness is not so much something we possess as much as it possesses us

Therefore, God is calling us to be Separated from this world and unto Himself.

Holiness is also not something we can “muster up” ourselves, for we have no ability to just “be holy”. We can only be holy when we are depending on the Lord Jesus Christ by using our Priesthood to come boldly unto His throne of Grace!

V. 15 says that we are to be holy in “all manner of conversation” which simply means “all ways of life”. God expects us to be Holy in the way we conduct ourselves in every single facet of life.

The way we walk

The way we talk

The way we love

The way we serve

So how can we be holy? Well how did the priests do it?

They washed themselves at the laver - we confess our sins

Why does God expect us to be Holy? because He is Holy and because Christ is Holy! The whole point of the Christian Life is to become more like Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

Your identity in the Lord is that you are a Royal Priesthood and a Holy Nation and with that comes

You have free access to God at any time

You have a responsibility to offer up spiritual sacrifices and communicate truth

You have a calling to be holy as He is holy