Greg Ford - How We Should Show Up to the World
We’re in a series of messages that we’ve been doing for the last 10 weeks called «Cover to Cover.» If you’re just showing up today for the first time, you’re kind of jumping into something that’s been rolling for about 10 weeks. I’d encourage you, if today is interesting to you, to go back and look at the other weeks. We’re taking on a challenge in 15 weeks; we’re trying to look at the whole Bible. Today, we’re going to cover a large swath of particularly the Old Testament. We’re going to be in the Old Testament this week and next week, and then we’ll move into the New Testament. Again, there are many things I don’t want to re- preach from those messages, but to give you a summary, we started in Genesis 1 and 2 in the Garden of Eden. What you see in those texts is critical for understanding the whole Bible because they present to us what we call the meta-narrative or the big storyline of the Bible: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration.
Creation — God creates opportunity; he creates an ecosystem. The Fall is related not just to sin but to the flesh. Certainly, sin falls under that category, but there are things in your flesh you do that you know are wrong, yet you do them anyway. I do that. There are times it’s like, «I know better, but I didn’t do better.» Sometimes your flesh isn’t necessarily trying to mess things up; you think you’re doing a just thing, and in the moment it feels just. But in hindsight, you look back and see it was unjust. With all this free will happening simultaneously, we end up in complicated situations where people are in pain and suffering. It’s the complexity of human relationships. That pain is not the end of the story. We see that even in the errors of the Garden of Eden; God brings them grace and redeems and ultimately restores. They lose the opportunity of Eden, but their opportunities don’t dry up. God leads them out of Eden into new opportunities.
That’s sort of the meta-narrative of our lives; we have new opportunities. We have flesh that gets involved, and God redeems and restores us to new opportunities. You see this throughout the Bible, and the Book of Genesis tells the story of humanity becoming at war with one another, and all that flesh creates a lot of fall. So, God says, «You know what? I’m not going to leave the world hanging. I want you to know I haven’t given up on people; I love people. I want people to be in right relationship with God, with themselves, and with the world around them, which is what he intended all along.»
He decides to make a covenant with Abraham. He says, «Abraham, I’m not giving up. I’m going to make a covenant with you, and this promise is going to be connected to my purpose. My purpose is to set humanity to rights. I want community to operate the way I’ve intended. I’m going to use you and your family to make a nation out of you. I’m going to give you law, designed to help you understand conduct in worship, morality, and even civic and judicial law. Then I’m going to give you land, and I want you to live this way.»
He goes on, «I’m going to separate you from the world, not forever, but for a season. I want you to step away, because the world, flesh, and fall will impact you unless you do. I want you to step away and live the way I’ve intended for you to live. Once you get it down, I’m going to send you into the world.» And that’s how I want the world to function.
That’s what we’ve been looking at. We went through the process of Exodus and ultimately into the Promised Land in the Book of Joshua and Judges. This week, we’re going to look at prophets, priests, and kings. We’re going to look at these roles not just from an academic standpoint of what they were, but what’s the why behind the role? Why did God set this up? I think once we really look at that, we’ll see what that has to do with our lives and how we live in the here and now.
I’ll start with priests. The concept of a priest and a priesthood actually started in the Book of Exodus with a guy named Aaron, who came from the tribe of Levi. So when you see Levites in the Bible, think of them as the tribe that the priesthood comes from. It’s really in the Book of Leviticus and Numbers that the priesthood is defined. I’m going to give you a summary quickly. I’ve shared this before, but I’ll bring it back so we understand what was the priest’s job-what were they supposed to do?
Four responsibilities of the priests were:
1. To put God’s character on display.
2. To help people navigate atonement.
3. To intercede for others.
4. To facilitate resource distribution.
The first responsibility was to put God’s character on display. If you see an artist’s rendering of a priest or a high priest at that time, they wore a unique garb-an outfit that meant something. Each part of the outfit was designed to display the character of God. Every stone, every tassel, everything was designed not to draw attention to the priest but to draw attention to God so that we don’t lose calibration to who God really is and to his character. Even their outfit was putting that into the world.
The second was to help people navigate atonement. Back to the meta-narrative, flesh is inevitable; failure is inevitable. We all fall. When that happens, how do we not get stuck in our sin? How do we not get stuck in our failure? The priest was there to say, «Look, hey, it happens to all of us. Don’t run from it. Come deal with it, and let’s work through it.» They led different sacrifices of repentance, sorry, and gratitude.
The third is to intercede for others. When you think intercede, that’s prayer, but it’s also bridging the gap. They were intercessors, helping connect people to God-not repelling people away but drawing them closer.
The fourth responsibility was facilitating resource distribution. Part of their ceremonial law included tithes. Everybody would give a tenth of their income, and the priest would then distribute to those in need, ensuring everyone had what they needed.
In Exodus, when God is making a covenant with Moses, he says in Exodus 19:4-6, «You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you out on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself. But if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you’re to speak to the Israelites.»
Think about that. He says, «You’re going to be a kingdom of priests.» In other words, he’s saying, «Look in your community. You know how you go to the priest for atonement, to navigate atonement, or to serve as an intercessor and for resource distribution? You, as a people, my people, are going to function to the whole world in that way.»
In 1 Peter in the New Testament, Peter reiterates this. He reaches back to Exodus 19 and says in 1 Peter 2:9, «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.»
Context matters here because Peter is primarily talking to Gentiles. He’s saying that this is now a shift in the world. This is a change in what Yahweh is up to. What he started in the nation and said would be a kingdom of priests is now about being part of the kingdom of God, open to not just Israelites but to all people.
It’s boundless in terms of where you’re from, your culture, your race, your gender. Everybody is invited into this royal priesthood. What we see started there, we now understand that all the things in Leviticus and Numbers that the Levites did-we are now commissioned and called to do: put God’s image in the world, help people navigate atonement, be an intercessor, draw people closer to God, and help meet needs around us.
We are all part of a royal priesthood. I’m not like the priest, and you all come to me. No, you are part of a royal priesthood. This is your, my, and our responsibility. Within all this, I’ll touch lightly on the Tabernacle and the Temple.
What’s the Tabernacle? It showed up during the time of the Exodus. They were a nation of nomads. The Tabernacle was a portable structure that, when they set up camp, would be at the center of the 12 tribes of Israel. The center of the Tabernacle is the Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the Covenant was and where they viewed the presence of God to be.
Visually, your whole camp is a circle, and at the center of that community is God-the presence of God. God gives the Tabernacle and the law because he says, «I want to dwell among you.» The Tabernacle means «dwelling place.» He wants to be in your presence. He wants to be in your midst. In their minds, the presence of God is at the center of our community in the Tabernacle.
Eventually, they would build a temple, a permanent structure when they got into the Promised Land. It was temporary while they were nomads, but after they seized the land and the walls of Jericho came down, Solomon built the temple. It was destroyed, and Zerubbabel rebuilt the temple.
Now, when Jesus shows up, think of how they viewed the temple, this geographic location where the presence of God is. Jesus says in John 2:19, «Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.» They replied, «It’s taken 46 years to build this temple, and you’re going to raise it in three days?» Verse 21 clarifies that the temple he had spoken of was his body.
Jesus is starting to shift the paradigm that in the New Covenant, the presence of God isn’t in a building, isn’t in a box; the presence of God is in the body. This is why, in 1 Corinthians 3:16, the Apostle Paul says to the Corinthians, «Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s spirit dwells in your midst?»
Think of the visual of the Tabernacle in the middle of the community, and now place it on the body of believers. The spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in you. Don’t you know you are the temple?
We often think, «I don’t cuss in church!» It’s like, «C’mon! You don’t cuss in church; it’s God’s house!» Some of you just got a little PTSD from your childhood. You are the house of God.
So know ye not, ye are the temple. We shouldn’t compartmentalize. We come to church, do the holy church thing, and then go back to our regular lives. No, the spirit of God, the Holy of Holies, is inside of you. You are the temple. Everywhere you go, the presence of God is there.
I bring this into all my relationships. I bring it into how I do business, how I handle conflict, how I do family, and all the choices I make-the things that come out of my mouth and the things that don’t. Everything I do, I do knowing that I am the temple. There’s really nothing special about this building, other than the fact that you’re here and that the spirit of God is inside of you.
This is a huge paradigm shift. I’d like to keep going, but we have to move on. Now, I want to look at prophets and kings. I' ll start with prophets. The prophets were primarily messengers who spoke on behalf of God. If you think of priests as the mouthpiece from the people to God, think of the prophet as the mouthpiece from God to the people. They spoke on behalf of God, calling Israel to repentance, offering divine guidance, and sometimes predicting the future.
Now I want to look at the definition and the role and function of the king. The king was expected to lead the people politically and militarily, uphold the law, and maintain justice. In 1 Samuel, the nation asks for a king. They want a king; they look around at other nations, and everybody has kings- charismatic leaders taking territory and showing power. They say, «We want a king.» Ultimately, it was a rejection of God because God said, «Actually, I want this to be a theocracy. I want to be your king.»
But they didn’t want God to be their king; they wanted a king. So God said, «Alright, I’ll give you a king, but we’re going to set up a system with accountability.» Why? Because absolute power corrupts absolutely. If you give someone absolute power with no accountability, you’ve got flesh that is prone to fall, and when they do, the collateral damage is unbelievable. Everybody gets hit by that.
In fact, 1 John 2:16 says, «The world offers only cravings for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father but from the world.»
You might have read it in the past as the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. The NLT describes it as cravings for physical pleasure, cravings for what you see, and pride in achievements and possessions. We’re all prone to this; you know who’s really prone to it? Kings. Because kings have access and power, when you have that and no accountability, the lust for flesh and what you can have takes over.
This is the warning God gives in 1 Samuel. He says, «Look, if you let this human being lead you, they’re going to use your sons and daughters so they can accumulate their possessions, build up their resumes, and get their trophies.»
What God says is, «I’m going to set up this relationship between kings and prophets. The king is not above the prophet. The prophet often speaks the truth to power. The health of the nation-the righteousness of the nation-will be in the accountability between the prophet and the king.» You’ll see throughout the historical narrative that some kings were accountable and some weren’t.
When they weren’t accountable, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life took over, causing damage in the nation. Let me give a few examples. The first king in Israel is Saul, who was to be held accountable by Samuel, who functioned as a judge and a prophet. They were supposed to be accountable to one another.
At one point, Saul goes into battle, and he’s supposed to wait for Samuel to come and light a sacrifice. Samuel is running late, and Saul goes, «I’m not waiting on Samuel; I’m the king!» He takes himself above the law and goes ahead and lights the sacrifice. Samuel shows up and says, «What did you do?» Instead of saying, «I was wrong. I was scared.» He blames Samuel, getting defensive and deflecting responsibility.
He allowed fear and pride to overtake him, so God says, «I’m going to remove you. I’m looking for a man after my own heart.» He looks and finds David. David was a shepherd out in the field, responsible for sheep, but he loved them. A story tells of David facing a lion that had one of his sheep in its mouth. The text says that David went and grabbed it by the jaw and beat it to death with a club.
Just imagine being at the zoo and a zookeeper says, «Come on in; grab its jaw.» I don’t think I would do it-even if they tranquilized it. David grabs a lion’s jaw while it’s in the middle of a meal. Why? You only do that if you love them. It’s a reckless risk otherwise. It reminds me of Jesus saying that God loves us so much he’s like a shepherd who leaves the 99 for the one. Before Jesus says that, Yahweh was looking for someone willing to grab a lion by the jaw for a sheep he loves.
Frankly, none of us would do that for a sheep, but you would do it for a son or a daughter. It’s this heart of a shepherd and the spirit of a warrior that God sees in David. Now David becomes king; however, when you become king, your flesh, lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, and pride of life come into play. As king, you have options you didn’t have as a shepherd. Heart health must be maintained. My heart today is only as healthy as the decisions I made yesterday, and today’s decisions will affect my heart health tomorrow.
Now David, while a shepherd, has a great heart. He becomes king, finds himself in a high position, sees a beautiful woman married to another man, and decides to take her. He puts that man on the front lines, knowing he would die. This good guy, with the lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, and pride of life, lets his heart go bad.
Prophet Nathan comes to David and says, «Hey, I’ve got a story for you. There’s a guy who had one lamb he loved. He raised and named that lamb and had affection for it. But another man with many sheep stole this man’s lamb. What should we do?» David says, «That’s awful!» Nathan replies, «Thou art the man! This is about you.»
David has to decide: will I be like Saul and say, «Get out of my face,» or will I cry out, «Create in me a clean heart, O God»? David knew how to repent. He knew how to be accountable. If you put the sins on a scale, most would say David did worse. But David knew how to deal with it when he crossed the line.
You’ll see in the story of kings in 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles that sometimes they listen, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes there’s conflict. You’ll see King Ahab, who is seduced by the altars of Baal. He brings Baal temples into Israel, and when Elijah says, «What are you doing? We have a temple, a system, a law,» Ahab tries to kill him.
When the accountability between the prophet and the king works, it’s good for the nation. When it doesn’t, the collateral damage leads to exile. They fall so low that eventually the Babylonians come in, take them off their land, and exile them to Babylon. This is where the prophets would contextualize timeless truths into dynamic environments.
God’s character and purpose are timeless. His purpose has always been to bring shalom to the earth- peace with God, self, and those around you. However, when they go to Babylon as exiled people, the community asks, «What do we do? Should we rebel, boycott, or separate?»
Prophet Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 29:11–one of the most famous verses-says, «I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you, not to harm you, to give you hope and a future.» This was written in exile in Babylon. Jeremiah says, «Build homes, businesses, and work for the shalom of the land I’ve sent you into exile. When the city prospers, you will prosper.»
God would use the prophets to explain the timeless purpose of God in real-time and help them contextualize it.
Now, take this into the New Testament, and you start to realize that all the roles of prophets, priests, and kings are fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus is the high priest; he is the one we just looked at. He understands our weaknesses; for he faced all the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. This is describing the character of the priest. If you went to the priest with your sin, part of you might be nervous about being judged. But Jesus understands our weaknesses.
In Hebrews 4:15–16, the writer mentions this high priest of ours understands our weaknesses for he faced all the same testings we do but did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy and find grace to help us when we need it most.
Jesus is our high priest. He is the prophet who came to disrupt the status quo and helps us understand how to contextualize in the world. He is perfect theology. He is our King.
As we think about these roles of leadership and how they function here, it’s not so much that people have a role; it’s that the spirit that raised Christ from the dead is in us, and those functions happen in a few ways. Often, the Holy Spirit will act like Nathan did with David. It might be in worship, prayer, or studying God’s Word.
It might be when you least expect it, like when you’re driving down the road, and you feel a still small voice convicting you-not trying to demoralize you-but to lead you to be honest with yourself. «That was wrong.» And now something that’s been a blind spot is suddenly significant, and you realize it needs to be dealt with: «Create in me a clean heart, O God.»
Sometimes that might just happen in private with you and the Holy Spirit, but what we do here as a church is create a community filled with the spirit that raised Christ from the dead. Often, as we deepen our relationships and dive deeper into God’s Word, God will use us in each other’s lives to speak truth, bring conviction-not condemnation-reminding each other that we cannot continue this way.
This is why we have to be careful as a church not to grow so wide that we don’t know each other. I can’t run around holding everyone accountable, but within this community, you are the temple. All the Old Testament symbols are embodied within the body. We need to develop relationships deeply enough to know how to contextualize timeless truth in a dynamic world.
In 1 and 2 Kings and 1 Chronicles, you see the term «sons of the prophets.» Historically, Elijah and Elisha created a kind of school of prophets. Don’t think of it as a formal academic institution, but they established cohorts for people called by God. The training involved gathering to discuss who God is, what he has done, praying, and reflecting on his character.
The more they did this, the more they calibrated to God. In turn, they could look into the world and discern what was Yahweh and what wasn’t. When my wife and I started dating, she had a great-grandfather, Grandpa Brinley, who had passed away before I met him. She loved her grandpa and spoke highly of him, telling me how amazing he was.
After a couple of weeks of dating, my wife said, «Grandpa Brinley would have loved you.» I took that as a big compliment. But how could she know what he would have said? She had spent so much time with him, listening to him talk, making decisions, and knowing his values. Therefore, when she saw me, she recognized those values.
In the same way, the prophets were able to discern messages from God, test them against God’s character, and contextualize timeless truth into a dynamic world. Friends, we have even more of an advantage-the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in you. What are you hanging your head for?
The spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in you. He guides, leads, and we have access to the entirety of God’s word. The more we dig into it, the more we develop our senses. We begin to recognize what is and isn’t Yahweh. As a community, we have to wrestle through these things together in healthy ways. Amen?