A Kingdom of Priests
School is starting back, so I thought we would begin with an educational introduction to this morning. Summer is over and no more movie quotes. Well that probably won’t happen, but I do want to go back to high school literature for a bit and plot development and the primary figures of a story or plot development. These are the characters that drive the plot forward.
The first figure is most well-known, the protagonist (hero). The central character who faces a conflict or challenge and undergoes growth or change to accomplish the goal. Example: Luke Skywalker (Star Wars), Daniel LaRusso in Karate Kid.
The second main figure is the antagonist (villain or opposing force). This is the one who opposes the protagonist’s goals. Can be a person, enemy, system, inner flaw, or even nature. Example: Darth Vader (Star Wars), Johnny Lawrence and Cobra Kai in Karate Kid.
But there is also another role that often gets overlooked. That is the mentor. This is the character who guides, teaches, trains, or equips the protagonist to overcome challenges or to reach a new level of maturity, skill, or understanding. The mentor imparts some knowledge and takes them to a place they were not able to get to on their own. This is Yoda or Mr. Miyagi.
We all want to be the hero, but a close second is the mentor. The one who helps the others. Often as we get older we move into that mentor or coach role. In your life some of your greatest moments will be when you come alongside someone as a mentor and help them overcome challenges or hurdles. It often gives us a great sense of accomplishment, purpose and satisfaction.
We live in a time where many people lack purpose and often feel their lives are not very significant. Some feel nothing they do matters. Some will quit everything, change careers in order to find a more fulfilling role.
I don’t believe you need to do that to have a fulfilling life. You simply need to have your eyes opened to God’s purposes and the opportunities all around you. As we talk about God’s mission and our purpose this touches on something God calls us to do.
It may seem odd to hear this, but this mentor figure functions in a priestly role. Priests were those who were to show others the way, specifically the way to God. Help them find their way back. They mediate to the people for God. What is more significant than helping a person in their walk with God?
God designed his people to function as priests in the world in order to expand God’s presence and bring more people into what he is doing. They were to have the greatest influence on the world through that priesthood, and when we understand this calling and God’s purpose it gives meaning to our lives.
Four Ways We Can Minister to Others as Priests
1. Ministry of God’s Common Grace
The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it (Gen. 2:15).
When you first read this it may appear that Adam is little more than an insignificant farmhand, working the garden and naming animals, but his task is much more than gardening.
This isn’t an ordinary garden. The name eden means delight; some translate it as paradise. It’s full of wonderful and precious things, but even more, there is imagery used of this garden that is only used later on of temples. The Garden of Eden is in the east and temples were always oriented to the east. God meets with man in the garden and he meets with them in the temples. The tree of life is there and things like gold and other precious stones that adorn later temples are present in this garden.
The words work it and keep it are the primary calling given in this passage and those two words are only used together when talking about priests (numbers 3:7-8, 8:26, 18:5-6).
Work: to labor or serve, worship, and conveys expending considerable energy and intensity in a task or function. Keep: Shamar. keep, guard, observe.
Adam and Eve were to work in cultivating this beautiful garden to be a place that is worthy of God to meet with his people. They are also to protect and guard it. Think about your garden. It requires attention, caring for the soil, pulling up weeds, branches, protecting from storms or birds. And so we would say their work is two fold. Cultivating and protecting.
One of the things that we see in their calling is a ministry of common grace.
Common grace is the grace of God that we all experience. Whether you are a Christian or not you experience the goodness and grace of God on a daily basis.
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matt. 5:44–45)
God provides for all people. His acts allow us to plant crops, grow them, harvest them, sell the proceeds, make money, build houses, send kids to school, take vacations, pay for emergency room visits, eat and have feasts. You also get to see the beauty of the sunrise and sunsets, the joy of a cool wind moving in and the refreshing that comes with the rain. That is the grace of God. Some see it and give thanks. Others do not. His common grace is what gives us time to repent.
As they are to work this garden they are to extend its beauty, orderliness, and provision to others. The common grace of the garden is part of their work. We saw in Genesis 1 that we are to image God in our dominion by bringing order, light, goodness to the world and by restraining darkness, chaos, evil. This furthers that idea.
Consider what you are called to do in the workplace. The web designer is trying to make the website appealing and desirable while also restraining evil from stealing people’s information. A police officer is bringing order to the world by removing evil. A cook is making good food that is healthy and delicious. A teacher is trying to help her students know how to function and thrive in the world. They are cultivating good and restraining evil.
It also is part of investing in people. Teaching one how to do karate, how to restrain evil, teaching one how to use a light sabre, drive a car, or read and speak a language. These are all good things that can enhance a person’s life.
Extending common grace is most of what we do in work, and I want to show that this can be a part of what God calls his people to do. We are conduits of his grace. We help people thrive in the world, but it’s only part.
Ministry of the Word
And that brings us to a second very important point from this passage. We see the important place of God’s word in our work.
In the middle of Adam’s world and calling was not himself but the very presence of God. The tree of knowledge symbolized his own limitation as a creature [Paraphrase of Bonhoeffer in K. A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11:26, vol. 1A, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 202]. He would only be successful as he heeded God’s word, and life or death was at stake in it. Two ways to live.
Adam’s and Eve’s failure was ultimately a failure with the word of God. This is where they blew it. When you read the account of the fall. God spoke his command to Adam, and he was to lead his wife in knowing it. In the account of their fall it is clear she doesn’t know it, and from the way Adam is lurking in the background and hiding from God after they sin, it’s clear he did not do the things God commanded him to do. People fail in private long before they fail in public.
God gave them all that they needed, and he gave them one prohibition. Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They failed. So typical of the human heart and human weakness.
God’s command was to govern what they did and didn’t do. God did not suggest. He did not plea. He commanded. He is in charge and he gives a command that is to be fully obeyed. We treat God’s commands like an option or a suggestion. That is absolutely what got Adam and Eve into trouble, and they died.
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Gen. 2:16, 17)
So first we see that while a ministry of common grace is important, it is not sufficient in and of itself. Through common grace we will never know how to find life again. This only comes through the word of God. And we see the greatest work is not simply with people having a better environment, but with their hearts and minds coming to rest in Jesus Christ. This is how the presence of God truly expands.
The great hope of the gospel is that while our disobedience brought death Jesus’ obedience brought life. We have hope to return to the garden because Jesus suffered in a garden.
God gives us his word so that we can know what he has done for us. He gives us his word so that we know how to live life. We know how to encourage and lead people. His word makes us all guides and mentors. And this means that sharing the word with other people and helping them see what God has done for them and how it can shape and guide them is one of the most important ways we can mentor people.
Common grace is often the foundation that sharing the word can happen on. When people see quality work done, that you care for them and others, they often become interested in what you have to say.
We need to minister with both the word and common grace. Mission trips. Some people just want to preach the gospel: Here is the good news that Jesus died for your sins. I'm sorry that you have no food or clothes, but this is most important. That doesn't work. But also the trend in secular society is to meet people’s physical needs and ignore spiritual needs. We do work for the poor, save endangered species, but it goes no deeper. If we are going to do work that is truly significant it will require showing people how the only way we truly find life is through the way God has provided.
This sounds a lot like another commission God gave his people. The one shortly after Jesus was resurrected from the dead.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. (Matt. 28:19–20)
The great commission and cultural mandate complement, not compete against, each other. It also shows that we are to have priestly dominion with words and not just works.
What is more important than helping someone see what God has done for them, or see how they can do their work to the glory of God? Some of the most impactful and meaningful ways of life can be done right where you are, but you have to embrace God’s design for your life.
If we are going to prove faithful in our calling to have dominion we must prove faithful with God’s word. We must see that we need it like we need food and air. It is essential for life. Too many today treat it like it’s optional and unimportant.
Bob managed a sales team. While some people were only focused on revenue this guy loved business, loved working as a team. Loved his employees. He wanted to succeed, he wanted his employees to know the product and sales technique but he also realized people are their own worst enemy. He would review performance with them and look to talk through issues. He was careful. He would often draw from the Bible, but not quote it directly unless asked. He would go to lunch to talk about personal matters. He knew oftentimes people’s greatest struggles were them not having peace, security, or guidance in life. He would share what Christ had done and how it changed everything for him. Some came to faith. All were bettered by his work and words.
If you are a mom or dad you need to speak to the spiritual issues of your kids. God’s word is the only way to discern those. You are a priest. They need you to minister to them with truth and light.
If you are dead to God you are not going to see the spiritual needs of others. If you don’t work hard to know him, you will not bring the life he calls us to bring to others.
You will also begin to see that people have significant needs, needs for life, and they will begin to seek ultimate meaning and deliverance from things that cannot provide it. Some people have pointed out that secular societies still have priests.
“Our age is not one in which people are less religious, but one in which religion has been repurposed, privatized, and redirected. The new priesthood wears lab coats, business suits, and yoga pants.” (Ross Douthat, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious)
People fear death so they go to their doctor to heal them in every way, and he is never able to meet their demands. Perhaps it’s education and you look to your professors as though they are going to give you the idea that saves you, or you pass an exam and enter into the promise land of upper class society where there are no problems.
How are you doing sharing the word? As a grandparent do you just get your kids desserts and leave them impoverished concerning the word of God? As a manager do you see how people are their own worst enemy and the solution is not a PIP plan but knowing their own spiritual struggles and needs. If you want to invest new meaning into your work then look at how people could thrive in the world through a relationship with Jesus Christ. God has placed you in the chaotic world to bring his peace and light and love.
3. Ministry with the Church
Let me also say this passage shows the importance of church community.
The first time God says something is not good is here, when it speaks of the man being alone. He makes woman for the man. He makes them dependent on each other to accomplish the mission. That is true in marriage. It’s true of the larger community as well.
God creates people and blesses them to have dominion. To bless is to empower. He empowers them to have dominion. We see in other parts of the Bible that God gives different gifts and aptitudes to people: serving, leadership, governing, healing.
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4:10–11)
The task of dominion over the world can’t be done by one person. It was always God’s intent to have a kingdom of priests.
You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. (Exodus 19:6)
God is using people to advance his kingdom.
Want to call us back to the basics of the faith. Want to call us back to God, back to the word, back to the church. The church is a gathering of believers committed together and committed to making Jesus known. It is people who are giving themselves to this purpose. Churches are waning and dying because Christians are not committed to God. They are not committed to showing up supporting what is going on.
This is where we grow in knowing the word of God, knowing how to live by it, reminding one another of the truths, and the place we can bring others to know God’s word and experience a believing community. You can learn things on AI, but this priestly work is not given to computers but to people. You need to learn from people who feel the emotions, know the challenges, and know what it means to walk with God. You can learn facts from AI and that is helpful. But you are also to learn from the example of others, and AI cannot give you that.
The work being done in the garden as priests, coupled with the cultural mandate of Genesis 1 to have dominion over all the earth, suggests that people’s primary goal is to extend the temple of God to the ends of the earth. They are to make the entire earth the temple of God and at some point that will require leaving the nice safe space of the garden to go to the dark and chaotic areas to bring order and light. You are going to have to do that. And you can only go out into the darkness when you have a center that is anchoring and strengthening you. Only then are you able to stand strong. Only then are you able to stay faithful in the attacks of your coworkers, your neighbors, your own family.
Most are failing or being ineffective in their outer ministry because they are not being strengthened in the church. I want to see people thriving so they can go out and shine in the world. That’s what I want to see happen in our discipleship as a church. Where we are impacting the world. I don’t want to be a repository where we keep people safe and unused. I want to be a launching pad that sends people out to impact others. And yes a hospital too because life and ministry hurt.
4. Ministry Through the Fruit of Work
Let me also say this. People would work in the garden and live off their work. It’s good to earn a paycheck. God said he who does not work shall not eat. It’s also from the blessing of our work that we are able to bless others. God called his people to tithe from the work of their land. This is what sustained the ministry of the temple.
Every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the Lord’s; it is holy to the Lord. (Lev. 27:30)
In the New Testament the ministry of the church went forward because of people giving. Some gave out of poverty and some out of abundance. The Gospel of Luke may very well have been written because of a wealthy benefactor who financed Luke in doing the work.
Jesus called his followers to sacrificially commit to each other in advancing the work of ministry. The church is the pillar and buttress of truth. Churches are struggling today because of people. Consider: If everyone did what you are doing, would the church be here or would it close its doors?
We and other churches are laboring to make the gospel known. It gives meaning to your life. A place kids can be discipled. A place strangers can know and feel the truth and love of God. Small group and someone saying the highlight of their week was Sunday and being together as a church.
God prescribes a rich life to us. It is not short of meaning and significance. He shows us his grace and invites us to share that grace with others and to be on a team of people striving toward that same task.
You don’t have to quit your job and move to a new country to be used by God. And in fact if your eyes are not opened here they probably won’t be opened there.
The world scoffs at God’s word, scoffs at church, scoffs at tithing, scoffs at Jesus. If we let the world’s voice influence our thinking we will have little interest in the Bible, church, or giving, and we will feel purposeless and insignificant. But if we let God’s mission define us then we can flourish in our purpose of bringing others to know him.
Discussion Questions
- How does the call to cultivating and protecting the garden connect to priestly work? How does your work connect to priestly work?
- How can you minister to others through common grace and the word of God?
- How does the church strengthen your ministry and how do you strengthen the church?
