TODAY’S SCRIPTURE Exodus 19:1-9
At some point, most of us have traveled several hours to bundle up in freezing weather and watch our favorite team play a football game. If our team won, we celebrated and talked about all of the things “we” did. “We” played great. The refs made bad calls against “us.” But, all that matters is that “we” won. In reality, “we” didn’t do anything. “We” sat on the bleachers. The players did the work. They had done the work for months. We were just spectators.
Christians can easily fall into the trap of spectator Christianity. In spectator Christianity, laypeople depend on the professional Christians, the clergy, to do the job. “We” go to church once a week, get excited, but then go home and let the professionals do the real work the rest of the week. It’s the spectator Christian’s job to pay, pray, and get out of the way.
The Jews might have been tempted to fall into spectator mode because priests were the official representatives between the people and God. In Exodus 19, though, God calls them to be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” As a nation, they were to be God’s priests or mediators between God and the nations. The nations would see Israel and immediately be pointed to God. They were not just spectators. As a nation, they were God’s special representatives.
Peter echoes Exodus 19 in 1 Peter 2: “But you are a chosen race, 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 into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). Christians are not spectators. We are priests who have special access to God through the blood of Jesus. We are representatives of God intended to “proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” Christians are not spectators. They are participants. They are priests.
Today, I will…participate in God’s mission and proclaim His excellencies by telling one person the difference God has made in my life.