So I will not be preaching on 1 Peter 1, 13 through 16. Instead, open your Bibles and turn to Exodus chapter 28. Read Exodus chapter 28, the entire chapter, but I'll also be making references this evening to Exodus 29. I won't read that chapter for the sake of time. Exodus 28, if you're using a pew Bible, you can find that on page 86. I'll read the entire chapter, verses 1 through 43. First, let's go to our God in prayer. Gracious God, we thank you that you speak. Through your speech, you shed your light into our darkness, that we might follow that light into the way of peace. We thank you that that light has come to us in Christ, the one who is our prophet, our priest, our king, the one mediator between God and man. We do ask, Lord Jesus, that you would come and meet your people this evening in the reading and preaching of your word, that we might behold your glory, enlarge our affection for you and for the Father and for the Spirit, and walk more willingly, yielding up our lives as a living sacrifice to you. We ask these things in your name. Amen. Exodus 28. Then bring near to you Aaron, your brother and his sons with him from among the people of Israel to serve me as priests. Aaron and Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ephemar. And you shall make holy garments for Aaron, your brother, for glory and for beauty. You shall speak to all the skillful whom I have filled with the spirit of skill that they make Aaron's garments to consecrate him for my priesthood. These are the garments that they shall make. A breast piece, an ephod, a robe, a coat of checkerwork, a turban, and a sash. They shall make holy garments for Aaron, your brother, and his sons to serve me as priests. They shall receive gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet yarns, and fine twined linen. And they shall make the ephod of gold of blue and purple and scarlet yarns and of fine twined linen skillfully worked. It shall have two shoulder pieces attached to its two edges so that it may be joined together. And the skillfully woven band on it shall be made like it and be of one piece with it of gold, blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen. You shall take two onyx stones and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel. six of their names on the one stone and the names of the remaining six on the other stone in the order of their birth. As a jeweler engraved signets, so you shall engrave the two stones with the names of the sons of Israel. You shall enclose them in settings of gold filigree and you shall set the two stones on the shoulder pieces of the ephod as stones of remembrance for the sons of Israel and Aaron, shall bear their names before the Lord on his two shoulders for remembrance. You shall make settings of gold filigree and two chains of pure gold twisted like cords, and you shall attach the corded chains to the settings. You shall make a breastpiece of judgment and skilled work in the style of the ephod. You shall make it of gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet yarns, and fine twined linen shall you make it. It shall be square and doubled, a span its length and a span its breadth. You shall set it in four rows of stones, a row of Sardius, topaz and carbuncle shall be the first row and the second row and Emerald, the Sapphire and a diamond and the third row, a Jansen and agate and an amethyst and the fourth row, a barrel and onyx and a Jasper. They shall be set in gold filigree. There shall be 12 stones to the names according to the names of the sons of Israel. They shall be like signets, each engraved with its name for the 12 tribes. You shall make for their breastpiece twisted chains like cords of pure gold. And you shall make for the breastpiece two rings of gold and put the two rings on the two edges of the breastpiece. And you shall put the two cords of gold in the two rings of the edges of the breastpiece. The two ends of the two cords you shall attach to the two strings of filigree. And so attach it in the front shoulder pieces of the ephod. You shall make two rings of gold and put them at two ends of the breastpiece on its inside edge next to the ephod. And you shall make two rings of gold and attach them in front to the lower part of the two shoulder pieces of the ephod at its seam above the skillfully woven band of the ephod. And they shall bind the breastpiece by its rings to the rings of the ephod with a lace of blue, so that it may lie on the skillfully woven band of the ephod, so that the breastpiece shall not come loose from the ephod. So Aaron shall bear the names of the sons of Israel and the breastpiece of judgment on his heart. And he goes to the holy place to bring them to regular remembrance before the Lord. And in the breastpiece of judgment, you shall put the Urim and the Thummim. They shall be on Aaron's heart when he goes in before the Lord. Thus, Aaron shall bear the judgment to the people of Israel in his heart before the Lord regularly. You shall make the robe of the ephod all of blue. You shall have an opening for the head in the middle of it with a woven binding around the opening like the opening in a garment so that it may not tear. On its hem you shall make pomegranates of blue and purple and scarlet yarns around its hem with bells of gold between them, a golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate around the hem of the robe. And it shall be on Aaron when he ministers and its sound shall be heard when he goes into the holy place before the Lord and when he comes out so that he does not die. You shall make a plate of pure gold and engrave on it like the engraving of a signet, holy to the Lord, and you shall fasten it on the turban by a cord of blue. It shall be on the front of the turban. It shall be on Aaron's forehead, and Aaron shall bear any guilt from the holy things that the people of Israel consecrate as their holy gifts. It shall be regularly on his forehead that they may be accepted before the Lord. You shall weave the code and checkerwork of fine linen, and you shall make a turban of fine linen, and you shall make a sash embroidered with needlework. For Aaron's sons, you shall make coats and sashes and caps. You shall make them for glory and beauty. You shall put them on Aaron, your brother, and on his sons with him, and shall anoint them and ordain them and consecrate them, that they may serve me as priests. You shall make for them linen undergarments to cover their naked flesh. They shall reach from the hips to the thighs, and they shall be on Aaron and on his sons when they go into the tent of meeting or when they come near the altar to minister in the holy place. lest they bear guilt and die. This shall be a statute forever for him and for his offspring after him. Praise God for the reading of his word. There were two men who belonged to the same social club, and they had been quarreling with one another for several years. And this had become a fairly well-known, notorious fact to the other members of the club that these two men loathed one another. But at a New Year's Eve party, Hosted by their social club, one of the men was urged by his friend to try to reconcile with the other man, to begin to attempt that reconciliation, at least with the smallest gesture of kindness. And so his friend entreated him just to simply approach his longtime adversary and merely wish him a happy new year. And so, after much pestering, the man finally gave in to his friend's desires. He walked across the party to his enemy. He looked him square in the face and he said, I wish you a happy new year, but only one. There's a lot of talk about peace and reconciliation around the holidays. Every year we hear John Lennon's anthem play on the radio with its chorus of children declaring to us, war is over if you want it. That is a very lofty aspiration, however, we know full well that is hopelessly naive. The rush of Christmas brings to us many painful reminders that peace and reconciliation are difficult goals to attain. If you dare to venture out to shop in December instead of staying at home and clicking those buttons on Amazon, you need to steal your courage for the inevitable reality of these parking lots that are seething with cars like a swarm of fire ants on a lollipop, driven by people giving gestures to one another that do not exactly communicate peace on earth and goodwill to men. Many will sit down at holiday dinners filled with extended family members who have longstanding resentments towards one another, praying they can make it through just one meal without a major outburst. War is over if you want it. Give us a break, John Lennon. If we cannot even manage to create peace and reconciliation in the parking lot of a mall or at our family tables, What makes us think that we can find lasting peace on a global level? Despite the grim cynicism we may feel towards Pollyannish declarations of peace and reconciliation from sappy holiday songs, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the truth that we memorialize at Christmas is about peace and reconciliation. But it is about a peace and reconciliation that is far removed from any sort of sugary naivety. The peace on earth that is heralded by the angels who announced the birth of Christ in Luke's gospel is a peace that strikes at the heart of humanity's problem with all of its fractious, warring enmity. standing behind the perpetual conflicts that we manage to have with one another is a more fundamental sort of hostility that is the hostility between us as rebellious sinners and the thrice holy God from whom we have alienated ourselves in our insurrection against him. The announcement of peace that adjoins Jesus' birth is a pointer to the resolution of this conflict, the resolution of the conflict Jesus has come to accomplish in his reconciliation. As the hymn so aptly puts it, it's the announcement of God and sinners reconciled. And the reality which makes that reconciliation possible is far from anything resembling saccharine sentimentality. The advent announcement of peace on earth is a declaration of the arrival of one who is a priest. And the biblical work of priests, as we see laid out for us in the work that Moses describes in these oracles in Exodus 28, and we'll reference Exodus 29 as well, shows us that that reconciliation and peace is brought about by priestly mediation, and a priestly mediation that is spattered in blood and solemn as death. The truth I want you to see is this. Worship the God. who has reconciled us to him through the priestly work of his son. Worship the God who has reconciled us to him through the priestly work of his son. Three points we'll consider. First, the glorious priest. Second, the representative priest. And third, the kingdom of priests. The glorious priest, the representative priest, and the kingdom of priests. So we'll begin with our first point, the glorious priest. Exodus 28 and 29 is part of a discourse from the Lord to Moses as he goes up on Sinai to receive instructions from him. And here the Lord lays out in what we may think to be tedious and painstaking detail as we try to read through it in our Bible reading plans, the functions of the office of the high priest, the one who will serve in the tabernacle of the Lord. And the meticulous quantity of specifics about the priest's garments are like the meticulous quantity of specifics that we find in the description of all the features of the tabernacle. They stress the reality of the holiness of the Lord. All of these scrupulous, precise details in these chapters, they press upon Israel and they press upon us the fact that God in His sovereignty, God in His holiness, controls and prescribes how He is to be approached by sinners and worshiped by sinners. We do not get to dictate to Him the terms of our fellowship with Him. He does. However, the meticulous details of the garments of the high priest that we find here also underscore something else that God explicitly states here in verse 2 of chapter 28, that these garments of the high priesthood, God says they are for glory and for beauty, for glory and for beauty. Indeed, I want to the Israelites around the second century B.C. is recorded as describing seeing the clothing of the high priest come out of the temple. And he says this, he says, their appearance makes one awestruck and dumbfounded. A man would think he had come out of this world and into another one. And the glory and the beauty of the high priest's clothes, they were intended to convey exactly that thing. That in the place where this man ministers, one is standing on the threshold between heaven and earth. The threshold of another world. This is precisely what the tabernacle was. The intersection of heaven and earth. The place where Yahweh had come down to make his dwelling among his people. And so every detail of the tabernacle communicated this otherworldly nature of the sacred precincts that were within it. And the high priest's garments communicated the same thing. The color, brilliant colors described in here, all these materials listed in the creation of his attire. We could see a sampling in the breast piece. Verse 15 of chapter 28, gold, blue, purple, scarlet, those colors parallel the same materials God commanded the tabernacle itself to be constructed of, if you look at other places in Exodus. Hence, as one commentator puts it, by being decked out as the tabernacle itself, the high priest in his service becomes the focus of God's presence for the people of God, a mini tabernacle, as it The high priest was a mini tabernacle in himself. Interpreters have convincingly argued that many of the details of the garments of the high priest, they were intended to point one to the heavens and their colors. We read in verse 31 of chapter 28 here that the robe of his ephod was to be made of all of blue. He resembled the color of the sky. The breast piece that's detailed in verse 15 and following, it's lined with these rows of precious stones that mirror the stars in the heavens. The Jewish philosopher Philo said that the priest was made to represent the world, that he was a microcosm, a miniature of the cosmos. And the beauty of the precious gems was a feature of some of the visions that we have in the scripture of God's heavenly glory. In Exodus itself, when Moses goes up to the mountain in Exodus 24 and catches a glimpse of God there, under his feet is this work of paved sapphire stone, like the very heavens in its translucent beauty. And the presence of the 12 precious stones on the breastpiece of the high priest then communicated this reality that the glory and the beauty of heaven had descended to earth to dwell among men. And so the list of the precious stones that are set here, they also communicate one more reality, one more biblical connection. In Genesis, Genesis 2, 11 through 12, We read that near the rivers that are flowing out of Eden are mentioned lands where gold is present, and then the same onyx stones that we read about here in verses 9 and following of chapter 28 that are set on the shoulders of the high priest. In Ezekiel chapter 28 verse 13, the prophet speaks of Eden. And there's this catalog of precious stones there. And in that catalog, nine of the 12 precious stones that are on the high priest's breastplate are mentioned by Ezekiel in Eden. We also see here in verse 33 of chapter 28, that there's these ornamental pomegranates that hung from the hem of his garments. Further garden imagery. You see, what's happening here is that the glory and the beauty of the details of the high priest's garments, they stood as a reminder of all the details that the tabernacle itself communicated. And that is that here, in this dwelling place of God, what humanity had lost in Eden is now restored. Fellowship with the Lord who comes to make his home with man. Because of our insurrection against God, we lost that intersection of heaven and earth. And yet, God's redemptive program ever since Genesis 3 has been in the business of restoring humanity to this divine fellowship that we forfeited in our sin. Furthermore, as God describes the clothing of the high priests in Exodus 28 verse 2, he uses these three key adjectives. They are holy, they are glorious, and they are beautiful. As such, the high priest in his attire reflected those things as they are characteristics of God. God is the archetype of holiness, the archetype of beauty, the archetype of glory. And the high priest's clothing were to reflect those attributes of the Lord whom he served. He was an image and likeness of God. In the holy, glorious, beautiful attire of the high priest, we are given a window into what humanity is and is meant to be. You and I, as those made in the image of God, we were made to be glorious and beautiful and beautiful in holiness unto the Lord. Humanity was made to be this reflection of the glory of God. That's why Adam is made in the image of God. That language in connection with the biblical arc communicates that Adam, among many things, was to serve as priest in Eden, living in this temple that was the garden as he served and ministered to the Lord in fellowship with him. And redemption has been about restoring that which is lost, this holiness, this glory, this beauty of this priestly image. Now the ministry of the priest given through Moses of the Old Covenant pointed to the restoration of this heavenly beauty and glory as the priest who bore that image and reflected the likeness of God's original beauty and glory. But that priestly ministry of Aaron and his sons, it was never final, it was never ultimate, of course. It was just a shadow that points forward to the priestly ministry of the one who reflects the beauty and the glory of God in an utterly unique way, an utterly ultimate way. The book of Hebrews reflects extensively on the superiority of Jesus as the high priest over all of this old covenant order of the Mosaic priesthood. And it speaks of that superiority, not just because Jesus is the final priest, but because of his eternal dignity of who he is, as he is very God. So we find in the opening of the book of Hebrews, in Hebrews chapter one, verse three, the author tells us that Christ is the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of his person. He is God the Son. The glory and the refulgent beauty of the image of God finds its original pattern in Jesus as he is begotten of the Father before all worlds. The eternal Son of God, God of God, light of light, very God of very God. Jesus is the image of the Father's glory and beauty in a way that far surpasses anything we as humans could ever aspire to attain, and that he is God, the same in substance with the Father, identical in his essence, equal in power and glory, and he is the pattern then for what it means for us as humans to reflect him in our own created way as the image and likeness of God. And in his priestly ministry, as one who is God and man together, we find one who reflects the image of God in an eternal way, in a transcendent way. But we also should remember that Jesus is truly man, as well as truly God. He has these two distinct natures, but in one person. And that's what Christmas commemorates. God the Son taking to himself a human nature. Jesus shares in all that it means to be human, all that it means for you to be human except your sin. And in our shared humanity as our high priest, Jesus regains for us this holiness, this glory and beauty of the image of God that was supposed to be true of man as he was a priest unto the Lord. And what's more, Jesus paves the way for us to enter into what the tabernacle of Moses was just a faint picture of. The tabernacle of Moses and the priesthood of Aaron were intended to impress upon Israel the communion that exists between heaven and earth, that is established by God's gracious condescension to be among his people. But as the author of Hebrews reminds us, that whole priestly ministry in the tabernacle, it was just a copy, a faint copy of the heavenly reality. As he says in Hebrews 9, verse 24, for Christ has entered not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. The glorious priestly ministry of our Savior has raised us up with him and seated us in the heavenly places. And so with the tabernacle and the temple in which Aaron served, And his son served in the Old Testament. They were just copies of this, of what Jesus has entered into, finally, irrevocably. And he's entered into that as not only as God, but as man. And as we sing, he has opened heaven's door and man is blessed forevermore. And so humanity's blessed beatific communion priestly communion that God grants is established in the heavens through the work of Christ, but only as he is our representative. And that brings us to our second point, the representative priest, the representative priest. The high priest is a representative of the people before God. As such, he must be one of the people. That's impressed on us by the choice of words Moses uses in verse 1. of chapter 28. Now take Aaron, your brother, and his sons with him from among the children of Israel. From among the children of Israel. In order to function as the priestly delegate who stood in the place of Israel, Aaron and his sons must be from among Israel. That's how representation works. I grow up in Texas. I live in Texas. I cannot serve as your representative in Congress. I have to be from Illinois, or at least pretend to be by getting a fake address here. In order to function as the priestly delegate standing in the place of Israel, Aaron and his sons had to be from among Israel. That's how representation works. The delegate who stands on behalf of the people must be a member of the one he's representing. And so the further the representative function of the high priest, it's highlighted in the details of his clothing. Chapter 28, verses 9 and following, God instructs Moses to put these two onyx stones, one on each shoulder of the high priest's garments. And on those stones are to be engraved the names of the 12 tribes of Israel. The function of those engraved names is explained explicitly in verse 12. So Aaron shall bear their names before the Lord on his two shoulders as a memorial, a remembrance. Then another element of the high priest's wardrobe has the same feature to it. The Lord tells Moses in verse 17 and following to have inset on the breastplate these 12 stones. Each row has Three stones, four rows, three times four equals 12. See, who says pastors can't do complex math? And then in verse 21, Yahweh instructs Moses to have those stones engraved, each with one with the name of a tribe, according to the 12 tribes of Israel. And then down in 29, verse 29, the function of the breast piece of these 12 jewels is explained to do the exact same thing as the onyx stones on the shoulder of the priest. The repetition here of the memorial engraving of the names of Israel, it does what repetition does throughout all of the Old Testament. In Hebrew, if you wanted to emphasize something, you repeat it. It's like when my wife knows that if there's something important that she needs me to remember, she has to repeat it several times, lest in me pondering obscure theological matters, I forget things she needs me to do. You can remember that quote from Herman Boving, but you can't remember the milk from the grocery store. She needs sometimes to tell me things a few times. Repetition does this. It emphasizes and aids remembrance. That's the point of these engraved names, not just once but twice on the priest. These onyx stones and the breast piece, they are a memorial before the Lord. They're for remembrance. Of course, this is necessary not because Yahweh is absent-minded and prone to forget things like I am. The repetition is not really for God, actually, but for the people. To remind people, the people of Israel, of what the high priest is doing as he represents them in the tabernacle before the Lord. He's there for this express purpose of bearing the names of God's people into his presence, representing them on their behalf as he stands in the presence of the God who has come down to dwell in the tabernacle. And the high priest does that in connection with the central focus of his office, that is to offer up sacrifice. If you go to Exodus 29 and read that, which we didn't this evening, Moses outlines what's necessary to consecrate the high priest for his work. It involves the sacrifice of these three different animals that are listed in verse one of chapter 29, a bull and two rams. And in the sacrifices of these animals, we read in chapter 29, verse 10, verse 15, and verse 19, that in each case, Aaron and his sons must come and lay their hands on the heads of these animals before they slaughter them and sacrifice them. And that was a symbolic ritual that indicated identification and transference. These animals are standing in the place of Aaron and his sons. Their sin is being cleansed, expiated in their sacrifice. Something very visceral and very jarring happens to accentuate all of this. God instructs Moses to take the blood of these animals in chapter 29 in verse 12 and in verse 16 and in verse 21 and to put it on the horns of the altar and the base of the altar. Then in verse 20, the Lord instructs Moses to take some of the blood of the ram and put it on the tip of Aaron's right ear, his right thumb, and his right big toe. The point being that as Aaron walks among the holy precincts of the tabernacle with his feet, serves there with his hands, and listens to the Lord there with his ears, he does so in a way that has been consecrated and purified by the sacrificial blood. That's more in verse 21 of Exodus 29. The Lord tells Moses to mix some of the sacrificial blood with the anointing oil and then to sprinkle it on Aaron and his garments. Picture this scene. God instructs Moses to bedeck Aaron in this magnificent priestly attire. cover him in fine linen, garments woven in rich colors of blue and gold, scarlet, purple, fit him with a breastplate that is embedded with precious jewels, bells of pure gold, to have a plate on his turban of pure gold, to stand Aaron up, arrayed in this beautiful splendor of all of this finery, and then to fling blood on him. The juxtaposition of these two realities is jarring when you think about it. The ornate grandeur and the loveliness of the tabernacle, for all of its beauty, was a scene that was constantly spattered in gore and reeking of the metallic stench of blood. It would have been quite the olfactory experience for you to go to the tabernacle. The grizzliness of it all stood as this ever-present reminder of the cost that is attached to sinners coming to fellowship with a holy God whom they have sinned against. Aaron and his sons were unholy by nature. They were too. They were profane rebels who had committed iniquity. And they could only come into the presence of the thrice holy God by means of a sacrifice that would cover their unholiness and their sin. They themselves first had to be cleansed by the blood of the sacrifices in order for them to go and do what they did as the representatives of Israel. Which we read in chapter 29 verses 38 through 42 was to offer every day on the altar slaughtered lambs as burnt offerings for the whole people. This is what Christmas is about. For all of the fuzzy nostalgia and the tinsel and the eggnog, we cannot ever afford to lose sight of this gruesome reality that forces itself upon us when we ponder the significance of the Christ child in the manger. Nails, spears shall pierce him through the cross he bore for me, for you. The very point of the name of the Christ child draws our attention to this fact in his priestly office. From his very conception, the angel instructs Joseph, Matthew 1, verse 21, you shall call his name Jesus. Why? For he will save his people from their sin. Any Israelite ought to have known the moment they heard those words that that salvation from sin could not happen in any other way than through sacrifice and bloodshed and atonement. Christmas is about the grisly work of a priest, the fellowship that is established between heaven and earth, between God and his people, the fellowship to which the whole representative office of the high priest in the tabernacle pointed is a fellowship between God and sinners that has been one of reconciliation. God and sinners reconciled. A fellowship in which the enmity of sin, the hatred of sin has been put away through the blood of sacrifice. The peace that comes. to earth through Christ is a priest that can only be purchased through the priestly work he comes to execute. The priestly work of one who comes to lay to rest the hostility that exists between us and our Creator. And like Aaron and his sons, Jesus comes from among us. He's a brother Israelite. He's the Son of Man. The Incarnation is about Jesus taking to himself a human nature exactly like ours in everything but sin so that he can do this, so that he can be our high priest, bearing our names on him as he constantly represents us in the presence of God in this memorial. But without God the Son taking to himself a human nature, This could never be. It is as simple as this. No incarnation, no high priest. No high priest, no salvation. And Jesus, Jesus does not need to stand and offer sacrifice for himself. That is a substantial reason for the virgin birth. The Holy Spirit overshadows Mary In this virgin conception of Jesus, it ensures that in him there's a child who is born who is in no way implicated in the sins of our father Adam. A new humanity is created afresh by the work of the same spirit who came and breathed into the nostrils of man originally in Eden. And the virgin birth then is about one who comes who could live a life wholly harmless and undefiled, and not only serve as our high priest, but serve at once as our sacrifice as well. He offers himself up. He's a priest who doesn't come to offer up something else, but himself. And the virgin birth is unto this end of Jesus' obedient death. Mary bears in her womb one who would not only be priest, but also the Passover lamb. And to be that, he had to be wholly unimplicated in human sin, completely uninvolved with the fall of man. And Jesus does not enter into earthly copies to offer up the sacrifice. He enters into heaven itself to be our representative. And now Jesus ever lives above in our human nature that he took to himself with our names, your name, engraved upon him as it were. Standing there representing you, not as a hypothetical believer, but representing you as one of God's elect. One whose very name has been written down before the foundations of the world. in the book of the lamb who was slain. Your name is graven on your high priest as he stands in heaven to represent you, you specifically before the father. Peace on earth has come, not because we've managed to create it through our own political efforts, but because God himself has created it. The most fundamental kind of peace possible by reconciling us to himself in this priestly work of the Christ child who comes to Bethlehem. But Jesus not only serves as our high priest, through his work he makes us into a kingdom of priests. And that brings us to our third point, the kingdom of priests. Notice a key feature of the work of the priests which God mentions at the end of chapter 29. In verse 46, God explains this conclusion and goal of the whole priestly ministry in the tabernacle. They shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God. The priestly ministry and tabernacling fellowship of God in it was, this was the goal of the Exodus. The whole reason that God commanded to go to Pharaoh in the first place. Israel is my son, my firstborn. So I say to you, let my son go. Why? That he may serve me. Without the priestly mediated fellowship and service in the tabernacle, the end goal of the exodus wouldn't have been achieved. It would vanish. Fellowship with God is this end goal of redemption. It is necessary for you as a human. It's what you were created for. That need for fellowship with your maker is intrinsic to the essence of what you are as one made in God's image. God does not stand in need of priests to serve him. break it to you, God doesn't need you. The sacrificial work of the priest is not supplying to God something that he lacks. The service of the priest is to supply something to you, something that you otherwise would lack. You need mediation. You need sacrifice. You need to worship God and to know his presence and his fellowship. And in order to do that, you need a high priest. The establishment of the priesthood in Aaron and his sons was for this ultimate goal of making Israel herself as a nation into a kingdom of priests. Those who worshipped and served the Lord. That was the goal of the first exodus. And that is the goal of the second exodus as well. The son of man, the new and greater Moses has come to make us into a kingdom of priests. And that means several things. First, it means that we are to cherish worship. We're to cherish worship as Israel cherished worship. The continual services of the tabernacle, that's what they were. They were this formal corporate worship service. As Israel gathered to be before the Lord, a solemn assembly, the church under the old covenant. Our priestly activity is those who've been grafted into Israel, as Paul puts it in Romans 11, it is the same. It consists primarily in worship. The advent of Christ as our high priest is about the establishing of our ability to fellowship with our God corporately as we assemble to be his people, Lord's day after Lord's day. The incarnation establishes this thing that we are doing now as it establishes the basis for Christ's high priestly work. It's impossible without that. It's impossible without Jesus doing what he's doing right now in that human nature he has taken to himself as he stands before the throne of the Father. Because he has entered to heaven once and for all, spattered not in the blood of animals, but spattered in his own blood. Because of that, we can enter and follow him into the presence of our God, to hear his word, to offer up to him a sacrifice of praise here in this worshiping assembly that is itself an intersection between heaven and earth. And our worship of God is impossible without what Jesus continues to do in heaven. Because without what he continues to do, our worship is stained with our sin, with our weakness. And notice something. integral about the priest's work mentioned in Exodus 28. Look at verse 38 of chapter 28. The engraving of holiness unto the Lord upon the plate of Aaron's forehead, it was so that Aaron might bear the iniquity of the holy things that were the children of Israel's gifts, that they may be accepted before the Lord. Israel's very offerings and gifts that she brought to worship the Lord were tainted with their iniquity. Nevertheless, God accepted them. He accepted those sacrifices of worship because of the purifying work of the high priest. And the New Testament, in several places, makes this same connection for us. Peter says this. In 1 Peter 2, verse 5, that we are to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices, but then he goes on to say that those spiritual sacrifices are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, through Jesus Christ. Our spiritual sacrifice, our worship, is acceptable to the Lord only because of what Jesus is doing as our high priest now as he stands in heaven. You see, Jesus does not only need to come to cleanse you of your bad works, he needs to come and cleanse your good works as well. Ask yourself how many Sundays you come to worship the Lord and you do so in imperfection, in distraction, thinking about all the other things going on in your life, worrying about all the other things going on in your life. Contemplate how many times you You drift away in sleepiness or in boredom when you're supposed to be offering yourself to the Lord as a living sacrifice to Him, a sacrifice of praise. Think of all of the ways your worship is tainted by your vanity, by your concern for something else other than the glory of the Lord, by your pride, by your idolatry. And yet, through all of that, through all of that weakness and sin that still clings to your worship, nevertheless, it is acceptable to God. Not because it is perfect in how you execute it, but because it is offered to him through Christ. The high priest who stands with holiness unto the Lord written on his head, ensuring that in himself he has borne away not only the iniquity of our sin, but even the iniquity that clings to our worship. So that now, even that simple act of worshiping the Lord is acceptable to him through Jesus. Furthermore, Paul also informs us that there's a way in which the whole of our lives is this, a sacrifice unto the Lord. That's what Paul says in Romans 12.1. Our worship to our God, our priestly service to him, it extends across every square inch of our existence. When you go to school and you study, when you go to your jobs and to your work, when you come home to live with your family and to love them, whenever and wherever you are called to be obedient to God in some way, all of the moments and all of the stations of your life There, you are a kingdom of priests to the Lord. And there, for all of the weakness and all of the iniquity that still taints your obedience, still corrupts your good works, still the Lord is pleased to look upon them in his Son and accept what he is working in you by his Spirit, pleasing in his sight, through Jesus, your high priest. There is no Christian life without God the Son taking flesh to be born as your high priest, because the whole of your Christian life would be completely unacceptable in God's sight if it were not for his work. All of your labor of all of your days, it would be nothing but vanity, but in him, it's not. Even those acts of obedience that are tainted, even those things that are seemingly vain, seem to accomplish nothing. As we act them out in faith, they are still imbued with the imperishable eternal significance of what our high priest is doing. So that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain. God has restored our fellowship with him through the priestly work of his Son. Amen, let's pray. Oh Lord, we thank you that our Savior has taken to himself our very nature, that through him we once again might have fellowship with you, to know you, to worship you, to live lives of living sacrifices unto you, that all of this is invested with the meaning that comes from Christ's continued activity as he forever acts as our high priest. Lift our eyes to the heavens that we might see him by faith. Be encouraged and continue to labor for your glory. We ask these things in his name. Amen.