In Exodus 19:5-6 God initiates a covenant partnership with the nation of Israel.
God declares that Israel is to become a kingdom of priests. Not a kingdom with some priests, but a kingdom made up of priests. Everyone in this people of Israel has a priestly role to play.
What is it? What role do priests play?
They go between God and the people of the world. They reflect/reveal God to the nations.
Every Israelite, and therefore Israel as a whole, is to play the part of a priest, representing Yahweh to the nations and being a blessing to the entire world.
And if they are successful in this partnership, the Israelites will bring to fulfillment God’s promise to Abraham to bless the world through him (cf. Gen. 12).
Do you see what’s at stake here?! God promises blessing for listening!
Can you imagine a world in which nobody ever lied to anyone? – Life and Blessing!
Can you imagine a world in which nobody was ever treated unfairly? – Life and Blessing!
Can you imagine a world in which children obeyed parents? – Life and Blessing!
Imagine a world in which your employees worked as if the company was their own? – Blessing!
If Israel can pull this off and listen to the voice of God, this will bring the blessings God promised to Abraham!
This is what the world needs!
But there’s a problem. And it’s one small word. Everything hinges on the first word of 19:5 – “if.”
“If you obey my voice” recalls Eden, when the failure of humanity to listen began the tragic avalanche of human disobedience.
Beginning with Eden, the narrative argument of the Bible is that listening to God’s voice has been an exercise in futility.
But God once again presents the opportunity for Israel to listen.
Tragically, Israel is no different than anyone else. In fact, we often can’t tell the difference between them and the wicked nations around them!
This is the major plot conflict in the Bible.
So what is God going to do about it? How is this covenant with Israel going to work? How will God fulfill His promised blessings to Abraham for the world through Israel?
Or is the world just always going to be filled with wicked selfish people who go their own way and do their own thing?
The answer lies with one faithful Israelite, one who would listen and obey the voice of God. The solution to human failure depends on one faithful descendant of Abraham, one who would become the ultimate priest of God, perfectly reflecting God’s blessing to the nations.
Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal Son of God, became human in order to uphold the human end of the Covenant. The partnership that was established at Sinai between God and Israel will only be fulfilled in Jesus, the God-man.
Yes, the only way in which humans will listen and obey God’s voice is if God Himself comes to do it. In Jesus, God comes to listen to God’s voice and to create a new covenant people.
In His death and resurrection, not only has Jesus provided full forgiveness and atonement for sin, but He has also, by the power of His life-giving Spirit, established a kingdom of priests who can now actually listen to God’s voice because their hearts have been transformed.
Jesus has brought into existence a true “kingdom of priests” (that’s us) who, through the power of the Holy Spirit, are able to extend God’s blessing to the world by the way we live.
This is exactly what the NT writers tell us (see 1 Peter 2:1-12).
So today, because of the transformative work of Jesus, we are empowered to do what Israel failed to do. Through His Spirit, we are empowered to be a kingdom of priests and to represent God to the world in the way we live.
So what does your priestly role look like every day? In what ways are you representing God to the world?
In what ways can you live the kingdom for the benefit of your coworkers? Are you gentle and gracious? Is there life and blessing flowing from you? Or only anger and complaining?
What are you like to your classmates at school? Are you looking for ways to be a priest?
How would those in your own home and in your extended family describe you? In what ways are you a blessing to them?
The death and resurrection of Jesus has opened up a whole new dimension of humanity in which we can now, by the power of God’s Spirit, live the way of Jesus and be a blessing to the world.
We are a kingdom of priests.
Israel couldn’t do it. But a new era has dawned, and Jesus has opened the way. In union with Jesus and through His resurrection power, we can learn to live as a royal priesthood, reflecting God’s love to our neighbors in everyday activities.
New life awaits us. Union with Christ brings more than God’s forgiveness. Union with Christ fulfills the story of Abraham. In Christ the kingdom of priests is established and God’s promised blessings come true for the world.
Praise be to the name of Jesus who has done this for our world!
So as we prepare to leave this place this morning, we must do so in the resurrection power of Jesus and the Spirit in order to fulfill our priestly duty so that the world today may receive the blessings God promised long ago to our father, Abraham.