This sermon was preached at Wesley United Methodist Church on Sunday, June 11, 2023.

1 Peter 2:9-12

2 Corinthians 5:11-21

You Are a Preacher

Are there any preachers in the Lord’s house this morning? I said, “Are there any preachers here this morning?” Amen. That’s better. You are a preacher, if you are a Christian. And we are encouraged to preach with our lives the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, we use words.

You Are a Priest

Well, that was last week’s message. But this morning the Apostle Peter tells us another remarkable truth, that you are a priest. I’m going to say that again, because I bet that’s even more surprising to you than that you are a preacher. You are a priest. Peter says,

“As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God, and precious to him—you also, like living Stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ…But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:4-5, 9).

Peter tells us that we are priests. If you are a Christian, you are a priest. Theologians call this “the priesthood of all believers,” and it means that every single believer in Jesus is a priest who ministers before God and to God and ministers to the world, mediating between Christ and the world, maybe put better, representing Christ in the world. Christ is the Great High Priest, capital P, who mediates between God and humans, and we are called to be like Christ as priests with a lower-case p. We represent him here and now.

And a priest is someone who stands in the gap—a mediator between two estranged parties. A priest is someone who helps two different groups or people meet in the middle and make amends. And in the Bible, a priest specifically meant someone standing in the gap between God and sinful humans. A priest atones for sins and makes sacrifices on behalf of the guilty party, thus forgiving them of their sin and restoring the relationship between the two parties, between God and people. And this priestly function brings about reconciliation. That is the true purpose of a priest: reconciliation, seeing the two parties be reconciled to one another, and having their relationship restored.

The Ministry of Reconciliation

And in 2 Corinthians, Paul talks about how God has given us the message of or the preaching of reconciliation. A preaching of priestliness, if you will. He says,

“We try to persuade men…For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:11, 14-20).

Friends, if you are in Christ, if you are a Christian, number one, you have been reconciled to God and are a new creation. And number 2, you have been given this same kind of priestly ministry of reconciling people to God on their journey to becoming new creations in Christ as well. We are Christ’s ambassadors and God is making his appeal through me and you. We are preachers and we are priests, all of us, called to preach reconciliation and called to bring about reconciliation between God and people who are far from God.

And so, I say it again: you are a priest. You are a priest! You stand in the gap between God and other people. We all do this, not just our pastors and church staff. But each of you, because we all are Christ’s ambassador’s on earth, the priesthood of all believers. God uses us to plea with the world, “Come back to the Living One! Come back to the Fountain! Come back to your Creator who loves you!” We are priests, and we stand in the gap, and we represent Jesus in this world.

So, who is listening? Raise your hand if you are a priest. Good! Every believer is priest, and we represent God to the world, and that is one of the most important parts to being a preacher—representing God by preaching through our words, yes, but especially through our actions and attitudes. Preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary use words. That’s how you are a preacher and a priest.

The Ethos of Preaching

And there’s a fancy word for this. It’s called ethos. It’s the Greek word for trust, rapport, getting on someone’s good side, and gaining someone’s goodwill. Ethos. We get the English word ethics from this Greek word, ethics having to do with morals and morality, and what is right and wrong, good and evil. So, ethos has to do with getting on the good side of people, getting right with people, being right and reconciled with people in a way. Starting the relationship off on the right foot. And it truly is about the relationship, being in a good relationship with those around us. That is ethos.

And to preach the Gospel, we need ethos. The ethos of preaching is gaining the trust of our audience, which is the world, non-believers, non-Christians. Every Christian needs ethos in his or her toolbox when preaching with their lives and words. It could even be argued that ethos is the most important thing for a preacher to have; to have the full trust of the audience. The preacher knows their audience, and the audience knows that the preacher is reliable and trustworthy.

But without ethos, it is very difficult for a preacher to have any effective or meaningful communication with his or her hearers. I mentioned that old adage last week: “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” Nobody wants to hear the Gospel from you unless they know that you actually care about them. If you as a preacher care about those around you and know those around you, that gives you ethos, goodwill, and rapport with them. And this will make them more open to the message of the Gospel. You, as a preacher, have to earn the right to speak into people’s lives. And that might be the most important thing needed in the church today.

The State of Affairs

The church for decades has been riddled with scandals. An affair here, adultery there. We’ve seen these things all over the news for decades. And the conclusion that it often made is, “See, Christians can’t be trusted. Their lives are riddled with scandal and hypocrisy. They don’t practice what they preach. So therefore what they preach about Jesus must not be true.”

We have little credibility, little ethos in the world’s eyes because of these things. I believe that this is one of the most important and crucial tasks of our day and time, to gain ethos and the goodwill of the world. If we are going to reach this generation and the people in the times and places in which we are living in the 21^st century, if we are going to reach the world for Christ today, then recovering our ethos is the most important thing that you and I can be doing. Regaining our credibility. Recovering our trust with people who are prejudiced and predisposed against us as Christians.

Commanded to Love…

The way to do this, to regain our ethos is to live out Christ’s love. We are Christ’s people who love the people in the world. Jesus said that the world would hate us, because it hates Jesus and therefore hates the Father. But instead of instructing the disciples to hate the world back, Jesus gave them and us a new command, a command that is radically different than the way the world works. The way that the world works is, “Love those who love you. And sometimes you don’t even have to do that. Sometimes you don’t have to love at all. Just love yourself.” But church, body of Christ, we know a different way, the way that God works. Jesus commands us to love one another. To love our neighbors as ourselves, to love even our enemies and those who hate us. That is Jesus’ new command.

We are a people who are called to love God and to love one another and to love our neighbors and to love our enemies and to love the world as Jesus does! That’s the mission of Wesley United Methodist Church. It says it right here on the GPS and Bulletin every single week: “to love God with all our heart and to love the world as Jesus does.”

…Not To Condemn

But you know what? Christians around the world are not known for their love. We aren’t known for loving the world as Jesus does. Instead, Christian are renown for their condemnation and judgmentalism. And that’s sad. I’ve seen it firsthand. I’ve been on the receiving end of overly critical and judgmental and condemning Christians. It’s no fun and it’s not right and it’s not the mission of Jesus.

John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” And do you know the very next verse? John 3:17 says, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him!”

I was an atheist during my early teen years. I didn’t believe in God. I thought that God was the source of all my problems and pain. Why would God have let this, that, and the other happen to me? And I had a group of friends, my best friends, and they were all Christians. They loved me, even though I was nasty to them. I spewed hatred for Jesus and Christianity, and they loved me all the more. It didn’t matter what I did. It didn’t matter what I said. They still loved me and cared for me. They didn’t judge me. Yes, they called me out on my sin, but they didn’t condemn me for it. They urged me to turn from my sinful life and turn to Christ. And I eventually did just that. I was loved into the kingdom. It wasn’t a judgmental spirit that brought me to Christ. It wasn’t condemnation that made me want to follow Jesus. It was their love for me and seeing their love for God that made me want to become a Christian. Love saves. God’s love saved me, and I am eternally grateful for the Christians in my life who are still my best friends to this day for how they walked the walk and talked the talk. They took the time to get to know me and they loved me enough to speak the truth, and they did it in love and gentleness. Had they done it in harshness and beat me over the head with the Bible and preached fire and brimstone to me, I probably wouldn’t be here today. They had ethos. I trusted them, because they genuinely loved me and lived lives of integrity.

We are not called to condemn the people of the world, my friends. That’s not evangelism. That’s not preaching the Gospel. We are called to love the people of the world, just like Jesus did. God did not send Jesus to condemn. God sent Jesus to love and save. Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35). As the hymn says, “They will know that we are Christians by our love.”

To Love the World as Jesus Does

But friends, the world does not know us for our love. They know us for our condemnation. O that John 3:17 would become the favorite Bible verse of Christians today! God did not send Jesus to condemn the world, but to save it through him. God is not in the business of condemnation. That’s the business of Satan! Satan is called the accuser, the one who condemns. But for those who are in Christ Jesus, “There is now, therefore, no condemnation” (Romans 8:1).

And as God’s priests entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation, we need to be about Jesus’ business of love, bringing people back to God, helping restore that relationship through us as Christ’s ambassadors on earth. Doing this in love with a tender, gentle spirit will win people over. That will gain ethos, and that will bring people to Jesus. That’s where we’ve got to start, and we’ve got our work cut out for us.

Loving people is what Jesus did. That’s what I want to do too, and that’s what I want to see us at Wesley United Methodist Church do more and more as well. I want to see us carry out our mission to love God first and then to love the people in the world as Jesus does.

Gaining Ethos

So friends, preach with your words, but even more so preach with your lives. That’s what the world needs to see more than ever before. We must recover our ethos and credibility in the world. We must recover people’s trust. We must build bridges to earn the right to speak into people’s lives. Paul said, “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some” (1 Cor 9:22). The Book of Hebrews says, “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord” (Heb 12:14).

And that’s the heart of ethos. Not that people see our goodness or hear our words, but that people will see the Lord’s goodness and hear the Lord’s words through us. That’s our goal as God’s priests; that’s what we want to see—people reconciled to God.

But without living lives of integrity and genuine love and care for those around us, people aren’t going to trust us. And if they don’t trust us, then we can’t speak God’s truth into their lives. And without God’s truth in their lives, the world is lost, and that is not God’s plan for the world. That’s Satan’s plan for the world. I pray almost daily, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” God’s will. God’s plan. We want to carry out Christ’s plan of saving and loving the world, not Satan’s plan of condemning it and leaving it lost.

Live Such Good Lives

So, Peter charges and exhorts us,

“Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in this world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Pet 2:11-12).

Live such good lives among the pagans. That is ethos. That is the ethos of preaching. And that is what we need as preachers and as priests in the world today. You are a preacher. You are a priest. Go preach the Gospel with your lives. Go represent Christ wherever you go this week. Go and be reconciled to God. Go and join in Christ’s work of reconciling the world to God. Let’s pray.

Prayer

John 17:1-26 (Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer)