In the Old Testament, the priest was in charge of leading worship, teaching the Word to God’s people, because of their public responsibility they were always in the public eye. They became the role models for the people. God gives requirements for the priests, there are 3 general laws.

1) The priest’s purity – if the priest is made unclean he cannot serve in the tabernacle
2) The priest’s adequacy – suitability for the job. For example: if he has a blemish, broken hand, or blind, he cannot serve
3) The priest’s loyalty – above all else the priest has to be loyal and obedient to God

God did not give these laws to give the priest an elitism above the rest. God gave these laws to create in a priest a sensitivity to the holiness of God.

They are in charge of the worship service, that is why they have to be holy. If the sacrifice was holy and acceptable to God, the sins of the people are forgiven. God wants to be reconciled to the people, that is why God says to the priest to be holy, keep themselves clean, for the sake of the people.

1. Spiritual leaders must serve from the pure heart

They cannot touch dead bodies, and cannot even bury their dead parents (Leviticus 11:10-11). 

If any priests were made unclean either through eating unclean animals or skin disease, or bodily discharge, they are banned from serving in the sanctuary (Leviticus 22:3-9).

Death is the consequence of sin, so death and sin are related. If a priest comes into contact with death, he is unclean for 7 days. A priest has to wait 7 days + 7 days before serving in the temple again. When God talks about impurity or uncleanness, He is referring to ritual uncleanness, it is symbolic. It is not referring to germs and bacteria. It is of course important to be clean physically when we come to church.

The symbolic uncleanness represents the inward uncleanness of heart. If our heart is clean, our words will be clean, our actions clean. If we focus only on the outward cleanliness, we will make the same mistakes as the people who crucified Jesus, like the Pharisees and religious leaders. If we focus on outward actions, our hearts become sour. The Pharisees became so ritually clean that they looked upon others with contempt, thinking they are better.

More than the Pharisees, Martha was another person in the New Testament who also made the same mistake. She is the kind of woman who gets things done, Mary is the kind of woman who knows what Christ has done. Unless we are clean on the inside, we cannot serve on the outside. Unless we choose to be clean like Mary (with God’s Word), we cannot serve on the outside in church. But sometimes my heart is unclean with bitterness, anger. Our emotions are like spiritual fire alarms. What happens if you are on fire? We need to stop, drop and go. Stop what you are doing, drop on our knees, and have our hearts go back to Calvary. We need to go to the place where we can find refuge from the fires of hell.

In other words, the secret is to rejoice in your salvation, before rejoicing in your service. That is how you can serve God with a pure heart.

2. Spiritual leaders must serve from the humble heart

Any man with a blemish shall not serve in the temple (Leviticus 21:21).

God’s priests represent Him in the temple. If there are priests disabled serving the Lord, it is a poor reflection of God’s perfection. The wrong way to understand this passage is to understand the physical blemishes as the focus point. The right way is to consider our own spiritual blemishes.

If John the Baptist is not worthy to untie Jesus’ sandal straps, then we too are unworthy to clean even the church toilet. Only in Jesus’ name can we serve God in the church. The priest can only serve if they are born in a priestly family, likewise Jesus by the Holy Spirit has made us born again not into the lineage of Aaron but into the lineage of Jesus. He is our high priest, He has taken our blemishes unto Himself so we can serve in confidence (2 Corinthians 3:4-5).

First we can have confidence to serve God in Jesus’ name, not in our name, not because of our efforts and our titles. We serve only in Jesus’ name.

Second although Jesus has taken away the consequence of our sins and blemishes, we still need to fight the good fight and work out our salvation with fear and trembling just as the physical blemishes of the priest reflected poorly on God, our spiritual blemishes reflect poorly on God too. We can become stumbling blocks to others.

Some of us become proud easily, some are proud to be humble, some of us are easy to anger, some anger other people easily. We need to reflect on the kind of blemishes we have and work on it. We need to ask God for grace to fight the sin within me and put it to death.

3. Spiritual leaders must serve from a resolute heart, a firm heart

Leviticus 22 gave very specific commands with regards to holiness of the people.

(i) The priests are to protect the food from whoever is not to eat of it.
(ii) Priests are to make sure that the holy offerings are acceptable to God
(iii) We must be resolute to keep the church holy.
(iv) We must be resolute to keep the worship services holy.
(v) We must be resolute in keeping ourselves holy

As spiritual priests and leaders, we have the task of keeping the holy things holy. We have to be sensitive towards the invisible holiness of God, just as doctors are sensitive to germs. If not, we might end up hurting the people we serve.

I pray that as spiritual leaders, we will serve God from a pure, humble and resolute heart.

May the Lord of heaven and earth like receiving our worship.

AMEN.