Sermon Tone Analysis

I saw it just this week in a Facebook post: “Does a Christian HAVE to go to church?”

The debate raged hotly.

And of course, we need to ask just what one means by the question: Do you mean it technically?

Or actually?

So in one sense - it depends.

Let me ask a different question for clarity’s sake: Can a person be married if they never talk to their spouse, ignore their needs or wants, live in another location, fail to grant conjugal rights and date other people?

Well technically married?

Yes.

But can they have a marriage?

That is quite different thing isn’t it?

Maybe we should ask it this way: Can one voluntarily and habitually abstain from Church and be a Christian?

Sure.

But not much of one.

And the Biblical reasons why not are quite compelling.

Interestingly enough, this was one of those topics proposed to me to cover in this little break we’re having from our usual systematic study of a book of the Bible.

And it is a vitally important one especially in today’s world where the internet and other media access have given rise to what we might call “the virtual church.”

Don’t get me wrong: I love the access technology has given us to preachers and teachers we might otherwise never have the opportunity to learn from.

Although that does have inherent danger to it as well.

It is tempting to think all I need for my spiritual health is to listen to the best preachers I can on the web.

But of course all the rough and tumble, the scraping and abrasion that comes from actually having to interact with people each week - having to forgive them, see my faults, overlook their faults, and serve them gets lost in the process.

The stuff of real growth.

A few years ago Sky and I attended a funeral where the pastor of the Church was not a little bitter about this trend.

In what was NOT a good display, his sermon went down a by-path when he went off on folks.

He was bemoaning the fact that here he was conducting an actual funeral for someone he knows, when as it is, lots of folks from week to week stay at home and get their “church” on TV or on the computer.

That’s when he said something to the effect of: “So the next time your loved one dies or is in the hospital, call your celebrity pastor and ask him to sit by their beside or pray with them.

Call the TV preacher when you want to get married.

See if the one you’re sending your money to across the country will come and preach this funeral for you!”

As I said, he was a bit bitter.

But he did have a point of sorts.

For those who are shut-ins or otherwise unable to meet with a local assembly - with you, I find this technological access could not be more valuable.

But just as those who for some medical reasons may not be able to eat regular food can have their life sustained by feeding tubes and other means - these are never meant to be permanent arrangements except under the most extreme conditions.

And from the Biblical models we’ll see this week and maybe the next several weeks, the supplement we may receive from being able to go on line, listen to podcasts or watch videos etc., is wonderful - but it is not meant to be the norm for a host of reasons.

Beyond all that, I want to unpack what I believe to be the foundational reason for the necessity of gathering with the saints in public worship out of our text in 1 Peter: That of the call, right, privilege and sacred duty of Priesthood of the Believer.

ESV / So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.

Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.”

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Did you catch verses 5 & 9? 5 - you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ…9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

You may not consider this very often, maybe no one has ever taught it to you at all - but when you became a Believer in Jesus Christ as your sin-bearer, you were ordained into the priesthood of the Believers.

This recovery of the priesthood of each believer back from the Medieval captivity it suffered under Romanism, was one of the keystones of the Protestant Reformation.

The essential reality of that recovery wasn’t to destroy the need for preachers and teachers in the Church - numerous places in the New Testament reaffirm the necessity of those roles along with certain structures like Deacons and Elders.

But what the Reformers were seeking to recover for folks is that we need no mediator, no human go-between between ourselves and God - especially in prayer and for the forgiveness of sins.

But there is more to this Priesthood idea than that.

Now it is as true with this issue as it is with anything else: it can be taken to extremes.

People can begin to imagine themselves as Church unto themselves and that they do not need the rest of the Body of Believers.

Trinitarian theology isn’t built around a human “me, myself and I.”

Paul puts the decisive nail in the coffin of that idea in ESV / For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

For the body does not consist of one member but of many.

If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.

And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.

If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing?

If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?

But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.

If all were a single member, where would the body be?

As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”

And our text today mitigates against that thinking too -

5 - you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ…9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

We are not just “priests” as though we can be rogue or lone-ranger priests - we are part of a priest-HOOD, built together as a “spiritual house”, a “race” and a “nation” and a “people.”

These are all collective and communal terms.

No single person is a whole house, a race, a nation, a people or a priesthood.

No one is a priest unto or by themselves, but are part of a priesthood.

This of course is borne out in the Old Testament typology of Israel’s priesthood.

There was no such thing as a lone priest who served whenever or wherever they felt like.

They all ministered together as a group.

And that, only in the context of the Tabernacle first, and then in the Temple.

They functioned in the context of gathered public worship.

The only time that pattern was not followed is in the tragic accounts in where we have 2 bizarre and gruesome illustrations of what happens when a Priest goes independent.

The Priests labored TOGETHER, never independently.

And the language of our text today clearly indicates that same reality for the New Covenant Priesthood.

What then are the constituent aspects of our Priesthood?

What does that look like?

Peter is going to mention just 3 in this short passage I want to focus on this morning.

One of them especially bringing us right to the Lord’s Table today.

The Word

Sacrifice

Proclamation

Peter see the Believer’s priestly role in regard to the Word of God, offering up sacrifices and proclaiming the excellencies of Christ.

The Word

Sacrifice

Proclamation

In the portion from Leviticus we had read for us already, we confronted a most stunning chapter in the history of Israel and it’s Priesthood.

Aaron and his 4 sons had just been ordained to the Priesthood when 2 of them, Nadab and Abihu decided to go rogue.

And they were killed for it by fire coming down out of Heaven.

explains: ESV / Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them.

The admonition given by God in Ch. 16 in the aftermath of this tragedy helps explain the problem.

The Law said only the High Priest could enter into the holy of holies and that alone, and only once a year - on the Day of Atonement.

Full of themselves, these 2 just thought they could play fast and loose with the worship of God and be really innovative entering together.

Additionally, offerings had to be employed as proscribed by God - just waltzing in with fire for the altar of incense was unacceptable.

God’s instructions were clear - the fire had to come from coals off the altar outside.

They apparently skipped this which is why it is called “strange” or “unauthorized fire”.

So notes: ESV / Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’

” And Aaron held his peace.

God is to be sanctified - set apart - by our observing how He WANTS to be worshiped, and not just willy-nilly, according to our whims.

And it is up to us to find out what that looks like from what He has revealed.