A Holy Nation
About this series:
Throughout 2023 all our teaching series will be looking at The Kingdom Of God. The essential goal is to help people understand the Bible’s teaching on the kingdom of God and raise confidence in God’s plans for his kingdom’s expansion / multiplication.
Our first series on the kingdom starts with an introduction to the king and his kingdom and then develops that biblical theme from the establishing of God's kingdom in creation to his choosing of a special people who would be set apart for him, how God's kingdom clashes with that of the world and the choices we therefore have to make, how we're to be a blessing while we live in the world but not of it, the promise of a coming anointed king bringing to reality the rule of God in / through the life of his people, the coming of the kingdom in a new way in Jesus as promised in the OT, what Jesus expected life in the kingdom of God to look like, what Jesus taught about the kingdom in parables, how the church relates to the kingdom and the future kingdom.
Preaching about The Kingdom Of God is a great way to address life as a church community - this is how life together under God’s reign should look like. And to address our lives in the world - demonstrating to those in our sphere of influence the reality of God and what life looks like when God is your king.
About this talk:
Scripture: Exodus 19:4-6, 1 Peter 2:4-5
Exodus 19 records God’s encounter with Moses on Mount Sinai just ahead of the giving of the ten commandments in Exodus 20. Exodus 19:6 contains a biblical theme that began with the call of Abraham and continues through to the end of Revelation: “Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation”. Out of everything that belongs to him, God had graciously chosen a particular people to belong to him and through whom his reign would be expressed as that people lived in submission and obedience to him.
So from the earliest times, while the tribe of Levi were specifically called to function as priests, everyone was, in a very real sense, a priest - everyone served God and ministered to him; knowing him, loving him, obeying him. And while every nation belonged to God, this one nation was called out to specially belong to him as his chosen people.
As we move from the Old Testament to the New, we find that this kingdom of priests, this holy nation is no longer an ethnic people, but all people who put their faith in God through his Son, Jesus Christ. So:
1 Peter 2:9: “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession.”
Revelation 1:5-6: “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, 6 and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father - to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.”
Revelation 5:10: “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God.”
This has huge practical implications for those who follow Jesus: we have been decisively called out from the world and called to belong to God - called “out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession” (Deuteronomy 7:6). Being his “kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” we are therefore called to a distinctive trust and a distinctive lifestyle in obedience to his Word. And especially for this series, we are the people who have been transferred from one kingdom to another - “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves” (Colossians 1:13).
We look at:
How this theme of God having a particular people in whom he reigns runs through the Bible.
What does it mean to be a holy people, those called out from the world to belong to God?
How can we live as those called out from the world while we still live in the world? What does that look like?
Audio only
