A Royal Priesthood | The Bridge Church – Full Sermon

[Music] what's up everybody merry christmas happy thanksgiving good to see you guys glad that you guys are here and uh those of you here in spring hill welcome everybody those of you at our columbia location welcome to you as well everybody watching worshiping online we're glad you are here my name is chris i'm one of the pastors here and it's an honor to have all of you here um some of you are here maybe from out of town visiting for the holiday weekend and lots of you are here for the very first time so bridge family can you help me welcome everybody who's joining us for the first time right now thanks for being here you guys welcome home everybody well if you have a bible go ahead and grab it open to first peter chapter two that's where we're gonna look today first peter chapter two so you can open it or uh click to your bible app on your phone or whatever if you don't have a bible the verses that we talk about are gonna be on the screen here in just a second and uh while you're turning there i just wanna remind you of something you just heard that's exciting that's happening in the life of our church you know as a church leader one of the things you always do is you're always kind of listening to the lord and asking the question god how are you moving in our body how are you working and how can we as a body join you in that work and a few years ago as we asked that question we just began to recognize that there was this groundswell when it comes to adoption it's just passion for adoption and so we began to see that the lord was giving us this passion and movement toward both physical adoption and spiritual adoption through salvation and so we just put a name to it we called it no more fatherless and that sort of became the rallying cry for our church for about the past three years or so and we over the those three years just started hearing from other pastors he would say guys we see what the lord is doing at the bridge in terms of your adoption culture like how can we establish that at our church can you help us do that and unfortunately the answer to that question when they would ask was we don't really have the resources to help right now we want to but we don't have the resources for that and so uh that's what this new non-profit that we're going to start called no more fatherless is all about it's about helping all of those pastors and so many more across the world that want to establish a no more fatherless culture in their church to eradicate both physical and spiritual fatherlessness and so man we're just praying that the lord will raise up a hundred churches that establish a no more fatherless culture we get the opportunity to be a part of that we're gonna be giving the no more fatherless offering in just a couple of weeks on december 13th and i say giving on purpose because as we give all of that is going to go through the bridge to kind of be the base foundation for the startup admin cost for this new non-profit that we're going to start to help resource other churches and their adoption culture and also it'll help us double down on our adoption culture here so that's what the offering is all about and as for my family vanessa and i right now are just praying god how would you have us participate in the no more fatherless offering and so what i want to ask you to do as our church family is just join us in praying that god how would you have us participate what would you have us gift for some of you it'll be the biggest gift you give this year we'll be to no more fatherless and for others it'll be super sacrificial and so would you just pray and then be obedient to whatever god says and we'll come together on december 13th and then just celebrate what god's going to do as he spreads and multiplies no more fatherless all over the world sound good all right cool well today we are finishing a series that we've just been we've been calling identity theft and uh what we're doing in the series we're talking about who god says we are and the reason that's important is because i think the enemy's primary strategy uh as he attacks us is to convince us to live in an identity that's no longer ours the bible calls him a a condemner of the brethren if he can condemn us and get us to live in identities that are no longer um ours he'll get us super off track with our lives and so over the last several weeks we've just been anchoring our lives in who the bible says we are and so we started this series and we said that in christ the truest thing about you is that you've been adopted as god's very own son or daughter that was week one week two we said if you're a follower of jesus you're his son or daughter that means that you are no longer slave to your sin rather you've been set free from slavery um to sin galatians says it's um for freedom that christ has set us free that was week two week three we talked about how if you're in christ you're not just in christ you're not just a follower of jesus you're also an ambassador for christ and today we're gonna tie a bow on this series and talk about a fourth aspect of our identity that i think is super important and also i think it's something that we don't talk about um very much and so let me set it up this way and then i'll tell you what it is uh a couple years ago i was on an airplane and now what i've learned in travel over the years is that there are two types of people on the airplane all right there's the person um who wants to talk to you the entire flight and then there's the person who hates the person who talks to you the entire flight and i know some of you in the room right now uh you are that person who's the talker on the plane and so can i just be lovingly blunt with you right now and just disciple you in this moment nobody likes you okay nobody likes you uh and so don't do that anymore all right um so anyway i got on this plane and i was sitting next to this guy who was that guy who wanted to talk to me the entire flight and it's cool like when we're still on the runway on the tarmac maybe you know in little stall where are you from whatever but once we get going and once i put my earbuds in man leave me alone right and so this guy didn't know he wanted to talk the whole time and so we get going in the conversation he was asking where are you from you know nashville area where are you going i was going to speak at a conference somewhere and he's like oh that's cool or what what do you do and so he starts asking me this question and when people start asking me that question like what do you do as a church leader as a pastor i often don't know how to answer that question because it's it's super uncomfortable because i don't know what people's preconceived ideas are about what pastors are right do they think pastors are like the guy that's on the street corner with the repent now the end is near you know sign does he think i'm that guy does he think i'll like wear a suit and tie everywhere and you know carry my king james 1611 bible around and bless you brother bless you praise the lord you know all the time like is that what he thinks sometimes you tell people you're a pastor they'll shut down on you if they accidentally throw out a profanity it's like oh sorry pastor reverend i know you know whatever i'm sorry you know and to do that and so i just don't know and so i i'm going through this whole process in my mind like what do i tell this guy and so finally i just said i work at a church back in the nashville area and he was like cool so you're like a priest or whatever and i'm like kind of like i don't know you know i don't know what he's thinking but the reality is that what the bible says about me and what the bible says about you is that you technically are a priest and so am i so that's what we're going to talk about today this idea of priesthood the bible says about you that you are a priest and when you hear that you go what that didn't even make sense to me because you think of priests you think of this guy and you think of like he's got like this aura around him and you know he's like oh you know just that music just follows him around everywhere like an angel choir singing around him and you know he wears the collar and the robe that's what you think of but regardless of what your preconceived ideas of a priest is the bible says that you are a priest and god wants you to know that you are a priest and so we're going to unpack this concept today um from first peter chapter two first peter chapter two verse nine and we're only going to read just a couple of verses today we're really going to hone in on this one verse let me show you first peter chapter 2 verse 9 it says but you you you you are a chosen race here it is a royal priesthood a holy nation a people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness in to marvelous light the bible has just told us peter has just said hey hey god wants you to think of yourself as a priest when you think of yourself and you think of how god thinks about you and what your identity is in him you think of yourself as a priest there's a reason he says that there are some heavy implications around that there's some reasons why he wants us to think of ourselves as a priest and i'm going to give you four of those reasons okay four reasons four implications of our priesthood number one it's this he wants you to think of yourself as a priest because you have unrestricted access you have unrestricted access to god did you know that in the first century the roman world thought that christians were atheists they actually accused christians of being atheists and there's a reason for that um see the christians they were in those days they weren't overtly religious right they they they didn't go to like big ornate temples to offer their worship there they mostly met in homes actually they didn't have formal professional priests they didn't offer sacrifices and so the roman world really couldn't fathom this idea of of worship of access to god without a temple without priests without sacrifice and the reason the roman world couldn't kind of conceive of that is because in the old testament if someone wanted access to god it always happened in a temple always happened at a temple specifically there was a part of the temple that was behind a big veil and it was called the holy of holies and the the only person with unrestrained access into the presence of god which resided inside that veil was the high priest and he could only go in one time a year on what's called the day of atonement so he would go in and he would offer not only sacrifices for his own sin but he would also offer sacrifices for everybody else to stand he was the only one with access to the presence of god and man people like uh prostitutes and people like lepers or anyone who was considered what the bible would call unclean like those kinds of people they weren't in uh like it didn't have access to the holy of holies or the inner courts or the outer courts or any part of the temple whatsoever they couldn't even come to the temple if they show up at the temple they were denied access altogether get off the property completely anybody who was considered unclean was ushered out of the property but what happened is when jesus died on the cross something spectacular and supernatural happened at that exact moment see what the bible says is that the moment jesus died on the cross the ground began to rumble and shake and when the ground began to shake supernaturally the veil that separated the presence of god from everybody else was ripped from the top to the bottom dividing the the veil and opening access to god to anybody anybody even the unclean even those types of people prostitutes and lepers and people with uh physical ailments all for that's why the bible would say whosoever will let him or her come right and so what happened when jesus died was because of jesus god was declaring to the world that there was no more going to priests there was no more making sacrifices because through jesus now you and i and everybody whosoever will has access unrestricted access to the presence of god as a priest listen as a priest you have you a priest has unrestricted access not only that but you have look you have unmerited acceptance as a priest you have unmerited acceptance um did you notice in the passage and this is a little phrase that sometimes can throw people because there's some difference in theological perspective around this little um phrase and the phrase is chosen because you are a chosen or but you are a chosen race a royal priesthood now what theologians point out about this verse is that the priesthood royal priesthood phrase is like the hub and all of these other phrases are like the spokes from that hub that modify the idea of being a a royal priesthood okay and so what he's saying is that you're not just a priest you're also a chosen priest you are chosen um now the reason that he says that is because in the old testament he's kind of he's kind of talking about what would happen in the old testament in the old testament the nation of israel was divided into 12 tribes but there was only one of those tribes that was a chosen tribe that was a special tribe that was called the tribe of the levites and they were chosen to be priests they were the ones that were chosen to have access to god to have unlimited access to god and so that wasn't something listen that wasn't something that was earned by merit that wasn't something that you could become or you could gain or if you do enough good stuff you could accomplish no listen it was by god's sovereign choice that the levites were chosen and now what peter is saying is as a priest i don't want you peter says just to think of yourself as a priest with unrestrained access i want you to think of yourself as a priest who's been chosen who has unmerited acceptance and listen that is very very very good news for us because we all to some degree struggle with rejection with the opposite of acceptance with rejection um some of you felt that this week you wanted somebody to be at your home for the holidays and they weren't there for your thanksgiving meal because your relationship with them is broken and you feel rejected by that person for some of you uh maybe it's at work you feel rejected by your boss you keep getting passed over for the promotion you keep getting passed over for you know the the sale leads that you really want and so you feel rejected by your boss or by somebody else at work maybe your marriage is in trouble right now and you're feeling rejected by your spouse maybe your kids are rebellious you're feeling rejected by your kids maybe you're a teenager and there's somebody really important in your life and you're feeling rejected by that person listen to me the height of acceptance is being chosen the height of acceptance means listen the bible is saying to us you might be rejected by everybody else but you are not uh rejected by god you were accepted by god he chose you he chose you um a few years ago i had the really cool opportunity to be a part of a publishing project that honestly i really don't know how somebody with an alabama education got to be a part of uh i uh there's this guy who was a football coach named joe gibbs and about half of you know who that is and the other half of you have no clue who joe gibbs is he was the coach of the washington redskins for years and years won a few super bowls the washington football team sorry uh for for years and years and uh and won a few super bowls now he owns a nascar team and uh so he wrote this book uh called the game plan for life he's a strong christian wrote this book and so i was a part of the publishing team that published this book so we fly to charlotte where his nascar team like resides or whatever and there's this thousands of square foot shop where they build these race cars and his offices are there and everything and so we sit down in the boardroom the publishing team and him and some of his team and we're talking through the book and mapping it out you know whiteboarding some stuff and then at the end of the day about two three o'clock he says to everybody hey you want to tour the race car shop and of course i'm from alabama i was like race cars yeah let's do this you know and so uh we get up and we we walk around through the shop and he's showing us all this there's this museum there and all his super bowl rings are there his nascar championships all these helmets from football teams and also nascar drivers are all in there super cool and so we're walking through this this thing and he's showing us where they set the aerodynamics for the car you know where they build the engines uh they make their own oil which blew my mind it's crazy showing us all this stuff and i got so enthralled with this tour that there's this group of about 10 of us and we're walking around and coach gibbs is showing us everything you know and i got so enthralled with some part of the story of the tour that i like zoned in so much that the group left me and i'm looking at this thing whatever it was and i look up and they're all gone and they had gone through a door where there was restricted access it's like oh shoot so i leave and i go to that door and i start to try to open it and it won't open and so i start pressing on the door it won't open knocked on the door and this guy peeks his head out uh through the window of the door and i said i need to come in and he opened the door it was a security guard and he said uh i'm sorry sir you can't get through here you you don't belong in here and coach gibbs heard that and he was they were only just around the corner he heard it and he walked around and he looked at me he looked at the guy looked at me and looked back at the guy and he said chris is with me this guy's with me he can come in and see this is what the bible is teaching that when god chooses you that basically what god is doing is he's looking at all of you and i who might be rejected by everybody else who don't belong here right and he looks at us and he says he's with me she's with me and it's not just coach gibbs a super bowl winning you know coach or a nascar champion team owner it's the god of the universe right like looking at you and me and through jesus saying he's with me she's with me guys that is good news that's goodness that's unmerited acceptance because of jesus you have uh unrestricted access you have unmerited acceptance to god and those two things together are an incredible incredible privilege but listen with great privilege comes a great responsibility right let me show you in the passage peter actually says that we are a chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation a people for his own possession that you might proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into marvelous light and what peter is saying right here is not only do you have those two other things but as a priest you also have a unique assignment you have a unique assignment um you see in the old testament the idea of priesthood in the old testament priests had access they not only had access to god but they also had responsibilities that nobody else had see uh it was the priest's responsibility to be experts in the levitical legal system of the day it was the priest's responsibility to be experts in the rituals that they were to execute for the people uh it was the priest's responsibility to know how to make the sacrifices it was his job in fact if you were a person who just decided i'm going to skip all that and i'm going to just build my own altar in the backyard and offer up a sacrifice to god by law you could actually have been executed in that day it wasn't your job it was the priest's job to make the sacrifice for you the professionals did the work everybody else was just passive but listen in the old testament isaiah 61 the prophet isaiah speaks up and he has this incredible prophecy where he says god is raising up for himself a generation a nation of priests and peter says in this passage that we've been we're a holy nation a chosen a nation a royal priesthood peter's basically saying hey that prophecy in isaiah 61 it's fulfilled now in a group of people called the church what jesus said is jesus said hey hey i've been sent on mission and i'm raising up matthew 16. i've been i'm raising up for myself a church a people on this rock i will build my church the word is ecclesia in the original language it means army i'm raising up for myself an army of people jesus would say at another place he would say just as the father has sent me so i'm also sending you i'm raising up for myself an army a people a people who will live sin that i'm sending to fulfill that prophecy in isaiah 61. and peter now says it's here it's called the church um just as jesus said just as uh i've been sent so i am sending you every member jesus is saying and peter is saying every member is a minister we all have a unique assignment theologians call this the priesthood of all believers the priesthood of all believers and the idea is that the world won't change because of uh a community with a gifted pastor no no what what changes the world is not a community with a gifted pastor what changes the world is a community of gifted people who understand and live out this idea that just like jesus they too have been sent to live as a priest they too you too we too have a unique assignment to proclaim as the verse said to proclaim the excellencies of the one who brought us out of darkness into marvel it's like listen some of us are called to do that formally pastors but all of us every one of you if you're a follower of jesus you're a priest the bible says so therefore though all of us are called some of us are called to do it formally all of us are called to do this relationally all of us you have a unique assignment um one of my favorite verses that really unpacks this if you've been around for any length of time you've heard me quote this in fact i think i quoted it last week uh ephesians chapter 2 verse 10 it says you are his workmanship created in christ jesus for the purpose of good works which god prepared beforehand that we should walk in them you're his workmanship poema is the greek word masterpiece you're his masterpiece created in christ jesus why created for what for the purpose of good works that god prepared beforehand that we should walk in in other words god's been having a dream about redeeming the world and his dream about redeeming the world involves you and so therefore he created you as a masterpiece he wove you together exactly the way you want it he wanted you and you're his masterpiece and he created you so that you would join him in the good work of redeeming the world and listen you weren't an accident he's planned beforehand that you would do that and that you would leverage those things you would walk in those things in other words let me say it this way god has given you and me and all of us who are followers of jesus unique abilities and unique passions and unique experiences that make you a unique masterpiece to minister to others listen in only a way that you can nobody you listen you're a terrible somebody else you are a 10 out of 10 you right god has made you two of y'all are excited about that guys that's good okay so god has made you a unique masterpiece to minister to people in only a way that you can listen listen listen um there are people that only you can minister to there are needs that only you can meet there are hands that only you can hold right because because of your uniqueness because of your passions and abilities and experience you see the world differently than everybody else and so there are people that only you can reach and listen the vulnerability in a church this size is that it's really easy to kind of slip in and slip out and hide and not completely live in this and leverage this because it's it's good it's it's like normal to think not good but normal to think that man of church that size they have a lot of gifted people volunteering and on staff and whatever they don't need me but see what the bible teaches when it says that you're a masterpiece and that you're a priest and that we should walk in those things what the bible is saying is that there are people that need to be reached in spring hill that if you don't leverage your your uh gift and identity as a priest they may not be reached that there are people here who need to be ministered to that may not be ministered to that there are hands that need to be held and people need to be loved and valued that may not be unless you walk in the masterpiece that you are that god has created and leverage who he says you are a priest and proclaim the excellencies of the one who brought you out of darkness into marvelous light that's what god's calling us here listen that's why i love people like my brother craig aldonna craig goes to our columbia location volunteers and serves there and uh i love craig aldonas some of you even here in spring hill you know him craig's a personal trainer huge guy really strong took me to work out one time at the gym around the corner here from our spring hill camp guys i couldn't keep up with craig this dude is he's incredible he's a personal trainer and but he doesn't see his responsibility as just being a personal trainer he sees that as an opportunity for him to proclaim the excellencies of the the one who called him out of darkness into marvelous light and so he's what he does is he'll kind of make his way around the gym getting to know people and over time they'll say hey i've got a group of people that we hang out after we work out we hang out back in the yoga studio we circle up some chairs we talk about jesus and what he's doing in our lives would you want to be a part of that i don't know what he calls the group i'm going to call it bods for god because i think that's awesome so the craig's bod's for god here so last couple weeks ago we had baptism sunday and craig baptized somebody from that group and i can tell that story many times over how craig aldona is ministering to people proclaiming the excellencies of the god who brought him out of darkness into marvelous light in that domain that he finds himself in he's not just a personal trainer no he's a priest sent to that domain not to proclaim those excellencies formally from a stage but relationally in that domain my friend kirk played football in high school and in college and because uh he played in college he had some opportunities to learn some things and gain some expertise that a lot of people didn't have and so here's what kirk does he's an insurance agent now but he'll leave work in the fall at about two o'clock three o'clock in the afternoon and go over to the local high school and volunteer as the special teams coach and the chaplain for the local high school football team why not just because he loves football sure he does that's his passion but he has this experience that nobody else has he has these abilities that nobody else has therefore he sees needs that only people that only he can see and so he's using all of that together to in that domain proclaim the excellencies of god who brought him out of darkness into marvelous light he's been a priest in that domain and kirk has baptized high school football players because he's leveraging those opportunities i could keep going i have a friend jeff who's a deer hunter he loves to deer hunt but he doesn't love it just for the sport of the kill he says i never go without taking somebody with me and when i pick them up from their house until the time i get to the deer stand i have a captive audience and so i'll spend that time investing in them building relationships and pouring my life into them i use my passion for deer hunting to proclaim the excellence he's the one who brought me out of darkness into marvelous light do you see this this is him living as a priest he has a unique assignment and so do you and the church misses out the community misses out if we sit by passive while the professionals do the work of ministry they're people that only you can reach and maybe you connect with that emotionally you go man i can do that that's awesome but you go but i don't really know where to start here i want to get super practical for the last few minutes of this sermon i want to give you four practical ways you can begin to live out this idea of your unique assignment four practical ideas they won't be on the screen but if you want to jot them down here they are number one is you simply reteach what you're learning you find somebody at work somebody that just you know they like you they kind of lean in they want to learn from you or they want to have conversations with you and during conversation you're just talking about what the lord's teaching you you're re-teaching what you're learning sometimes when we think about making disciples we think we have to know you know have memorized the pentateuch the first five books of the bible or know the four spiritual laws or have all this theological knowledge that's not i mean that can be discipleship you know what discipleship really is reteaching what you're learning re-teaching what as you've been discipled you begin to leverage that to disciple you're simply reteaching what you're learning and so as god speaks to you in a sermon god speaks to you in a book you're reading your personal devotion or maybe you're a bridge group you just simply hang out with somebody have it on your mind reteach what god's teaching you that's it that's it super simple that's number one number two leverage your greatest hardship if you've been around for any length of time you've heard me say this a dozen times your greatest misery will often become your greatest ministry maybe for you your greatest hardship is your marriage was on the rocks maybe you lost a marriage maybe you've lost your job maybe you had cancer or some other kind of disease we've all had unique hardships because of the the brokenness of our world but listen uh what the enemy has meant for evil god wants to use for good so what if we leverage those hardships and start pouring into people who also are struggling with the same thing this is like my my grandmother um she uh has been in heaven for several years now but she had cancer twice and after she had it the first time she made it her ministry to go to doctors oncologists office and places where they would do chemo and radiation treatments and simply walk around the room work the room that's kind of woman she was she'd work that room and she'd find somebody that was hurting and she'd sit down with them and she'd love on them and she'd share with them she'd proclaim the excellencies of the one who brought her out of darkness into marvelous light listen i learned more about relational ministry for my grandmother than i ever learned from a seminary professor my grandmother recognized her gift as a her identity as a priest and she was leveraging her hardship to live in that identity so leverage your hardship that's number two number three being a bridge group being a bridge group and you go many of us think about being in a bridge group and we think well but i don't really get anything out of it it's i don't have time i don't get anything out of that but listen what if we thought of it not as a consumer what we can get out of it what if we thought of being a bridge group as an opportunity for us to pour into people to use our abilities and our passions uh you know and our experiences to to serve people to reach people that others can't reach to hold hands that others can't hold to minister to people that others can't minister to so maybe be in a bridge group the fourth thing this is super easy and low hanging fruit for all of us invite somebody to christmas at the bridge did you know people are exponentially more interested and uh open to attending a worship gathering during the christmas holidays than any other time of the year so just say man if i don't get anything else i'm gonna leave this place i'm gonna walk out of here and i'm gonna invite somebody to christmas at the bridge because i'm a priest with a unique assignment so you have uh in your identity as a priest unrestricted access you have unmerited acceptance but number three you have a unique assignment so the question is where do you get the strength the courage where do you get the motivation and the freedom to walk in this well i'm glad you asked it's because number four you have an unwavering anchor an unwavering anchor you in fact you see that earlier in uh first peter chapter two in verse four it says how do you gain the confidence how do you have the courage how do you have the motivation you come to him you come to jesus a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of god chosen and precious you yourselves are like living stones being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood there it is again to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to god through jesus remember earlier in the sermon i showed you that picture and that picture is not just a stock photo of a model of a priest that's a real priest his name is michael judge and michael judge as a priest was a priest in new york city and uh he had done that for years and was actually the chaplain for the new york city fire department and one tuesday morning just before nine o'clock they get a call and uh he hops on a ladder truck or whatever and he rides with the firemen to lower manhattan to the site of what they thought at the time was a an accidental plane crash into one of the towers of the world trade center and some of you who are old enough you remember exactly where you were when that news broke about what happened at the world trade center michael judd's hops off that ladder truck and it goes into the lobby of the tower and the firemen are just rushing everywhere taking care of people uh and uh michael judge walks around the lobby and he said it was his responsibility he thought to walk in the lobby and pace back and forth back and forth and just intercede for the people that were in trouble above him and so he's walking back and forth just praying interceding for those people that are headed toward death they didn't know it about 10 30 the ground begins to shake around michael judge as he's interceding for those people that are in trouble in danger and you know the rest of the story uh the tower crumbles on top of him and the weight of the building crushes michael judge and actually michael judge this priest became the first verified death of the 9 11 tragedies now here's why i tell you his story because what peter has just told us and what the bible teaches is that 2 000 years before michael judge there was another priest and this priest's name was jesus and this priest was on the cross and what he was doing on the cross the bible teaches is he was interceding for you and me people who are in danger people who are in trouble because of our sin and while we were yet sinners roman says christ died for us died for us see it wasn't the weight of a building that crushed jesus it was the weight of the sin of the world that crushed him and what he was doing is he was interceding for us giving his life for us so that we could have unrestricted access to the father so that we could uh be accepted by the father so that we would have then a unique assignment to pick up jesus said i've been sent now i'm sending you so when jesus went to the cross when we anchor our lives in the unwavering anchor of jesus what we're saying is we're also we're not gonna be passive with that we're picking up the mission that jesus left for us and we're continuing that mission until it's complete and that mission is bringing heaven to earth that mission is reaching every people group on the planet with the message of the gospel with the with the excellencies of the one who brought us out of darkness into marvelous light right that's what it means to be a priest and what the bible has just said to us is when you understand that and when that grips your heart when you run to him when it grips your heart you can't help but run to him and then you offer yourself as a sacrifice to him that's acceptable to him through jesus deal moody was one of the greatest preachers of his day and dale moody talking about this passage and this idea here's what he said he said i want to be that kind of person here what is that his exact quote he said the world has yet to see what god can do through one man fully consecrated to him and he go on to say by god's grace i will be that man he's saying when it comes to being a priest when it comes to understanding my unique assignment and offering myself to the to the unwavering anchor of jesus i will be that man and the world's never seen anything like it now i would say that d.l moody was short-sighted i would say that uh what dl moody was not thinking about was this community of faith that we call the bridge church and i would add to what d.l moody said i think man the lord has done incredible things in our past and in our present as a church but the greatest days of the influence of the bridge church are ahead amen the greatest days are ahead and i think if i would add to dl moody what i would say is the world has yet to see what god can do through 3 000 men and women teenagers boys and girls strong who are fully consecrated to god and who understand their identity as a priest you are priests bridge family let's walk in that as we leave this place and embrace the mission that god's called us to the world will never be the same let's walk in and that's my prayer for us today okay let's pray father thank you so much that jesus was willing knowing that he would be crushed by the weight of our sin to go to the cross and pay the price for us god would you today right now in this moment wherever we are captivate our hearts with that again [Music] jesus thank you you don't just call us to that to sit passively on the sidelines but you give us a drive and a passion to embrace the mission that you've called a student so father i pray that you would give every man and woman boy and girl in this place my brothers and sisters the grace to embrace that mission anew and afresh that god we recognize that you want to do incredible things more than we could ever ask or imagine through us so god would you use us in this community and all around the world for the sake of your glory jesus we love you but we thank you that you love us so much more and it's in your name that we pray amen amen well hey thank you so much for watching the bridge church youtube channel we're so glad you joined us we hope that you felt the welcome home of christ right through your screen here at the bridge we believe that the gospel is good news worth sharing and so we'd love for you to subscribe to our channel to share on social media and you can tag us at bridge church tn that's at bridge church tn and if you'd like to give to this ministry you can do so by clicking the link in the description of the video hey once again thank you so much for joining us if you want to find out more information about the bridge church you can go to bridge.tv that's bridge.tv and we hope to see you here soon

Channel: The Bridge Church

Views: 374

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Spring Hill, Spring Hill tn, Nashville, Nashville TN, Church, Churches in Nashville, God, The Bridge Church, sermons, preaching, Jesus, who is Jesus, Christ, Arm bravato chicken, identity theft, priesthood, priest, 1 Peter 2, chosen, a royal priesthood

Id: -XNdkh8qP4I

Length: 38min 53sec (2333 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 30 2020