Glenn Martinez 02/23/2020 CM101 - Basic Elements of Preaching Response: I found Prof Carr's presentation of the principles of homiletics to be very valuable in examining and re-examining my preaching ministry. My approach to the course has been fundamentally practical in that I try to apply the principles that Prof Carr presents in my occasional preaching at church. In this response, my objective is to post a sermon that I preached recently that highlights the principles that I have learned in the course. A Covenant People Hebrews 8:11   Introduction Last week we considered the author of Hebrews use of Jeremiah 31 in Hebrews 8. We focuses particularly on how the new covenant is established. If the old covenant was written by the finger of God on corruptible stone, the new covenant is put into the mind and written on the heart by God’s indwelling Spirit. We argued that this radical transformation of our hearts and minds, furthermore, establishes God as our God and makes us a people unto him.   Today, we are going to consider verse 11 of Hebrews 8. What we discover in this verse is that the change that God works in our minds and hearts as his covenant people does not only redefine our relationship with God but also shapes our relationship with one another. You see, as the people of God we are a covenant people and we deal with one another through the same covenantal minds and hearts that bring us into communion with God through Christ.   The concept of the Christian as a covenant people grates against the cultural milieu of our day. On the one hand, the rampant individualism that defines success in practically every endeavor of our culture might lead us to imagine the successful Christian as the one who of his/her own initiative leads a godly life pleasing to the Lord. On the other hand, the elevation of tolerance as the maximum virtue in our society encourages us to keep our religion to ourselves. Don’t flaunt your beliefs lest you become an offense to those around you – that is the message that our culture seems to send from the school yard to the newsroom to the boardroom.   As a covenant people, we are qualitatively different from this world, however. We cannot simply pretend that we are “one of the guys.” We are, as the Apostle Peter says, “sojourners and exiles” in this world. Along these same lines, John Piper once characterized the Christian experience as the experience of being far from home. We are not at home in the world as Christians because we have something that makes us different. And that something is the knowledge of God. We know God and knowing God we cannot be the same. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:14-16)   So, as covenant people we are different because we have the knowledge of God put into our minds and written on our hearts. And as covenant people we have no choice but to let the light of the knowledge of God shine out from us. God makes his covenant with us by changing our minds and hearts. And through these renewed minds and transformed hearts, we fulfill the purpose of this knowledge which is to bring glory to God through our interactions. My purpose today, then, is to compel you, people of God, to live in the knowledge of God and to fulfill its purpose.   In order to compel you to live in the knowledge of God and to fulfill its purpose, I would like to consider with you Hebrews 8:11: "And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest."   What is meant by this covenant decree? Does it mean that each person is to live the Christian on their own without the intervention and interference of others? Or is it, rather, a declaration of a radically transformed relationship among ourselves because of the change that God has wrought in our hearts and minds? I am obviously inclined to the later explanation. This is not a prohibition against teaching one another. The New Testament encourages us to teach one another repeatedly, so in Colossians 3:16 the Apostle Paul encourages us to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.” What this text is saying, then, is that because of the work that Christ has done as “such a high priest,” we all now have direct access to him and thus are, ourselves, priests and servants of the Lord. It is this priesthood that the author of Hebrews alludes to when he encourages us in Hebrews in 4:16: “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need.” Or again in Hebrews 10:19: “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” We are constituted a priesthood for God through the work of Jesus Christ and this both gives us direct access to God through Jesus Christ and also requires that we minister the Word of Christ to one another.   In order to draw out the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers from this text, I will consider three key points. First, I will consider the constitution of the priesthood. Second, I will consider the extension of priestly service, and finally I will look at the structure of the priesthood.   The Constitution of the Priesthood  When God calls a people unto himself, when he offers his friendship and fellowship in a covenantal relationship, he also establishes them as his priests. In Exodus 19:5-6 we can see this clear link between being God’s covenant people and being his priests: "Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."   The knowledge of God is always purposeful. God makes himself known to us, so that we can make God known in our lives. In his book The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, John Frame addresses the purposeful knowledge of God as follows: “Knowledge of God,” he writes, “essentially refers to a person’s friendship with God. That friendship presupposes knowledge in other senses – knowledge of facts about God, knowledge of skills in righteous living and so forth. It therefore involves a covenantal response of the whole person to God in all areas of life … It involves, most focally, a knowledge of God’s lordship – of his control, his authority, and his present reality.”   The connection between knowledge of God and priesthood is also made evident, from a negative point of view, in Hosea 4. In Hosea 4:1 we read: “the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of this land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love and no knowledge of God in the land.” And then in Hosea 4:6 we read: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me.” So, knowledge of God and the priestly function are intimately intertwined. Knowledge of God compels us to priestly service. And lack of knowledge of God debars us from such service.   But, what is the priestly function that the purposeful knowledge of God requires of us? In 1 Peter 2:4-5, we read: "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."   So, the purposeful knowledge that God implants in our minds and in our hearts compels us to offer spiritual sacrifices to the Lord. In Romans 12:1, the Apostle Paul tells us that our bodies are a spiritual sacrifice to the Lord. We enact our priestly duties when we present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God. This means that we give up the pleasures of the flesh and that we do so joyfully, not as some sort of ascetic ritual, but rather as a gift to God. I think this also involves the wise use of our time. In Ephesians 5:15, Paul admonishes us to “look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time.” We present our time in spiritual sacrifice to God by making time for the exercise of spiritual disciplines, for the study of the word and for prayer. Finally, our spiritual sacrifices include the submission of the whole of our daily affairs to the Lordship of Christ. Abraham Kuyper put it well when he said: “no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry Mine!”   But our priesthood is more than the presentation of sacrifices to God. As we continue reading in 1 Peter 2:9: “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.” Our priestly function is also to communicate God’s work in us to others. Our priestly work is ministerial – we are to minister the Word of God to others. T.M. Moore sums this up well in his book I Will Be Your God: How God’s Covenant Enriches Our Lives. He writes: "As God’s priesthood we are called to the ministry of His Word, beginning in our own lives, then reaching out to everyone around us. To us it is given to embody and proclaim the Good News of God’s covenant victory in Christ, and to call others to enter more deeply into that glorious lifestyle with us. We shall never be able to know and enjoy more fully the joy, peace, and power of living in God’s covenant without a renewed commitment to his Word – knowing his Word, bringing our lives into joyous conformity with it, and teaching and proclaiming its truth to those around us each day."   So, far from releasing us from duties, the knowledge of God that is put in our minds and written on our hearts makes significant demands on us. It demands that we offer up our bodies, our time and our mental effort as spiritual sacrifices acceptable to him. It also requires that we minister the Word of God to those around us through teaching and proclamation.    The Extension of our Priestly Service In Hebrews 8:11 we read: And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying ‘Know the Lord.’ The Greek word for neighbor here is polite and has been translated variously as ‘fellow citizen,’ ‘fellow townsman,’ ‘friend’ and ‘another.’ This word covers a wide range of meanings in contrast to the next word ‘brother’ or adelfos. What is meant by this contrast?   God’s covenant is, and has been from the very beginning, a world-wide covenant designed to bring forth from every tribe and tongue and nation and people the covenant people of God. In Isaiah 49:6 we read: “I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach the end of the earth.” In Revelation 15:3 we read that the words of the song of the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, are: “Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations!” The covenant community of God is not the covenant community that we design. It is the community that God has set aside for himself. And it includes those who are near, our adelfoi, and those who are far off, our polite.   Our priestly service, then, is a priestly service that is not confined to our homes and to our circle of friends. God bless the missionaries who offer up their bodies, their time and their mental energies as spiritual sacrifices for the sake of the nations. And God bless those who minister the Word to the thousands who arrive on our doorsteps and live within our gates. Our knowledge of God – the knowledge that he has put in our minds and written in our hearts compels us to the ministry of the Word among the stranger within our gates.   The Structure of our Priesthood In Hebrews 8:11 we read: And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying Know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least to the greatest. The phrase ‘from the least to the greatest” indicates no limitation of status, no distinction based on age, lineage or personal qualities. And this is the structure of the priesthood of all believers. We all have access to the Father through the work of our great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. No one has special privileges or singular abilities to offer spiritual sacrifices and to minister the Word of Christ. And that is why we do not refer to pastors and elders as priests in Reformed churches. The office of the priesthood in the Christian church is held by every believer, not only the pastor. The responsibilities of the priesthood also extend to every believer. Roderick Campbell in his book Israel and the New Covenant explains the structure of the covenant community saying: “All God’s true people will be, under Christ, prophets, priests, and kings. There will be no need for any person or office to stand between the believer and the One in whose Person these three offices have been fully and finally vested.” And this is why the Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 4:11: “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.”   Brothers and sisters, beloved congregation, we are all called to fulfill the purposes of the knowledge that God has implanted in our minds and written on our hearts. This is the reality of the new covenant. There is no status. There is no special privilege. We are all one in Christ and fully equipped to offer spiritual sacrifices and minister the Word to those around us.   Conclusion So, what are you doing with the knowledge of God implanted in your mind and written on your heart? Are you offering spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ our Lord? Are you offering your body as a living sacrifice? Are you setting aside time for the pursuit of spiritual disciplines? Are you putting your thoughts captive to the Lord on a daily basis? And are you ministering the Word not only in your own circle but outside of it? Or are you sitting on the sidelines and waiting for the professionals to take action?   Let’s pray that the Lord would work powerfully in our congregation so that each one of us, who have blessed beyond measure with the knowledge of God through his initiative and his work upon our minds and our heart, might fulfill the priestly purpose for which it has been given to us.