This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “I Samuel 1-7” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, June 1, 1997.

This morning we are reading 4-Hour Scripture, 1 Samuel 2, beginning at verse 12. We will also be reading from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22. First of all, this portion of Scripture, 1 Samuel 2, at verse 12. I give you attention to God’s word. Now the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord and the custom of the priests with the people.

When any man was offering a sacrifice, the priest’s servant would come while the meat was boiling with a three-pronged fork in his hand. Then he would thrust it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot. All that the fork brought up, the priest would take for himself. Thus they did in Shiloh. to all the Israelites that you shall give it to me now, and if not, I will take it by force. Thus the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord, for the men despised the offering of the Lord.” When the hour had come, Jesus reclined at the table and the apostles with him.

And he said to them, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I say to you, I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And when he had taken a cup and given thanks, he said, take this and share it among yourselves. For I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes.’

And when he had taken some bread and given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And in the same way he also took a cup after they had eaten, saying, This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. But behold, the hand of the one betraying me is with mine on the table.

For indeed, the Son of Man is going as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betraying.” And they began to discuss among themselves which one of them it might be who was going to be the strength. There arose also a dispute among them as to which one of them was regarded to be greatest. And he said to them, the kings of the Gentiles mourned over them, and those who have authority over them are called benefactors.

But it is not this way with you. The one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and believer like the servant. Who is the greater? The one who reclines at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? I am among you as one who serves. You are those who have stood by me in my trials, and just as my Father has granted me a kingdom, I grant you that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

When we come to these verses in 1 Samuel 2, the ones that we have read this morning, it is impossible to avoid the subjects of the ministry and sacraments. Both the ministry and the sacraments are grounded so deliberately and so deeply in the person of God. And because we are to see him so profoundly behind both the ministry and the sacraments, at work in both, the sense of blasphemy and profanation is heightened for us when we look at these two sons of Eli, Aphni and Phinehas. In the Old Testament, the ministry of the priesthood is inaugurated. And this ministry of the priesthood moves in two directions.

In and through the priest moving things in one direction, the people draw near to God. You may recall that the high priest wore the breastplate decorated with twelve gems. Those gems on his breast represented the twelve tribes of Israel, as the high priest approached God for the people, carrying as it were the people with him in his service. The people also brought their sacrifices and their offerings to the priest, which he prepared a representational presentation of that worshipper to his God. So the priest represented the children of God as they would draw near to their Lord. At the same time, the priest expressed the opposite movement, the reciprocal direction. That is, God’s drawing near to his people. Therefore, the movement was not simply the people drawing near to God, but God drawing near to the people.

And here in view is the remarkable service God performs by humbling himself for the sake of his people, that they might be blessed by him. An example of this is found in the blessing which the priest pronounces upon the people. At the end of Numbers chapter 6, such a blessing is recorded. And in this action of blessing, we are told at the conclusion of that chapter, God is doing nothing less than placing his name upon his people. In other words, God in his name has now been joined to his people for the sake of their blessedness in him.

The sacraments of the Old Testament themselves are not just the approach of the people to But that means by which God would confirm his people in the sign of his promises to them, and in the seal to them of his union with them. And most particularly, as has been stressed this morning in our prayer, moving off of, working off of Psalm 103, as those signs and seals speak to us about the forgiveness of sins. It is this latter matter, and because of it, the forgiveness of sins, that we are able to appreciate the interconnectedness of the two directions involved in the ministry of the priesthood. that the people of God are drawing near to God, and God is drawing near to them. You see, God’s condescending service to Israel, his humble approach to them, is in order that, is so that they might draw near to him. If we have already established a priority within the economy of God with regard to His people concerning the forgiveness of sins, we are establishing this priority as well. That before the people can draw near to God, He must draw near to them. This is to say, The people’s ability to approach God is laid within God’s own service and his own gracious provision in drawing near to them first. It is this dimension of ministerial service that receives such great attention, particularly when it comes to the ongoing ministerial service that belongs in and to the Church.

Not that we don’t find language by New Testament ministers in which They speak about their labors as the means for the church to draw near to God. Paul, for instance, talks about his own ministry. Interestingly, as a priesthood in which he offers up the Gentiles to God.

Romans 15 verse 16. He will also speak about the offering he makes of himself, as if through that offering those for whom he labors might be presented to God, might in fact draw near to God. Such language as this is found powerfully expressed in Colossians 1. Paul there says that he does his part in filling up the afflictions of Christ. He speaks further in explaining his ministry, that he is focused and concentrated, doing everything that he might present these people, complete, soul, whole, unto God. It is the language of priesthood that overlays the ministry of Paul.

He uses that vocabulary advisedly and powerfully. And you will remember that he also speaks quite passionately and in priest-like fashion about his intercessions for the saints. How often does this man mention his regular, his earnest prayers on behalf of the Church? Through those prayers, through those intercessions, then he believing that a means by which, yes, in some regard, the people of God draw near to their Lord. But certainly Paul the Apostle in his vocabulary of sacrifice and intercession as it is overlaid with priestly concerns has no intention of compromising the essential New Testament message.

Namely that Jesus Christ is the final and the only continuing high priest for God’s people. And it is through him and through him alone, finally, that we draw near to God. For us, therefore, as Christ’s Church, our approach to God in this gospel refrain is an accomplished fact, a gloriously finished reality. through the mediation of our Savior, God’s true priest, Jesus Christ. As a result, when it comes to the New Testament ministerial service, the minister of the gospel labors to lay before the people that finished work of their only priest. by whom they are now brought near to God, in whom they are to strive for the full benefit of this reality, namely, God’s presence. But such an expression of a New Testament minister merely focuses that minister’s calling for his continuing service. Such service that draws upon that finished work of Christ. Not only in so far as by him the church draws near to God, but in so far as in him, God draws near to the church.

And as in the Old Testament, we have already seen the pattern. As in the Old Testament, we have already seen the pattern, the pattern being this. The people’s ability to approach God is laid within God’s own service, his own gracious provision in drawing near to them. So now we see the same in the New Testament.

In fact, with the arrival of the New Testament revelation, this glorious gospel pattern is brought out all the more brilliantly, all the more clearly. And this is the case undoubtedly, is it not, because of the overwhelming power of God’s extraordinary and unique approach to us in his very own revel law of only begotten Son. The gospel itself will receive capsule summation in this declaration, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. That is to say, our ability to approach God is laid within his own service, his own loving provision, in drawing near to us, first of all, in Jesus Christ.

Let me tell you then that true ministry grasps this fact and extends itself in genuine Christ-like service as that means by which Christ is extended to others for the sake of their drawing near to God. That becomes the passion. It was the passion for Christ himself in his own ministry, as he is pattering for ours.

I did not come to be ministered unto, he says, I came to minister and to give my life a ransom for many. The ministry of the apostles was in no sense a ransom for many, still at the same time It was never to be self-serving, insisting on its own privilege and advantage. Its interest was not gain in this world for itself, but gain in glory for others.

In Luke’s gospel, the telling of the story of Christ’s last meal with his disciples, which we have read this morning, finds them after the meal, arguing over who is the greatest. Jesus tells them, I am among you as one who serves. In John’s gospel, similarly, The record of Jesus last night in this world with his disciples finds him washing their feet. The action of a common slave, and he tells them that such service must define their ministry. And later in John’s gospel, in a setting that reminds us of the sacramental meal, you remember the scene beside the Sea of Galilee as Jesus prepares breakfast for the disciples. In that context, Jesus repeatedly directs Peter to the care of Christ’s own sheep. Tend my sheep, he says. Such service, Jesus indicates, will mean the sacrifice of Peter’s life in imitation of his Lord. Now, of course, nothing. Nothing of this kind of ministry is perceived in Hosni and Finis, the sons of Eli.

They weren’t interested in serving, they were interested in being served. The language that impressed them was the language of dominion. power. They had no interest in the people’s approach to God, only the people’s approach to them. Nothing of God’s own service, of his own gracious provision, as he draws near to his people, is discernible in these priests. Only their own cruel, criminal, greedy approach to those who became the victims of their lust. Hockney and Phineas’ ministry was engaged for the sake of a counter-kingdom, one in which they, not God, were lord.

And in this kingdom, the means of grace The sacraments, meant to be testimony of the bond between God and His people, became the opportunity to manipulate and even coerce the people. Religion, with its appointed ordinances, is subordinate to a worldly vision, one especially corrupt, in which the true religion is made to serve a totally temporal existence in the most thoroughly expressive fashion imaginable in which we hear the notes of self-importance, self-congratulations, and self-satisfaction. One further thing remains to be said. The type of ministry people receive tends to produce in them the features of that ministry.

An unchecked Hofne and Phineas’ ministry will generate in Israel the same contempt for the Lord’s offerings as found in them. Note verse 17 in 1 Samuel 2. Things have not changed much, it would seem. In the New Testament Church, the Apostle Paul becomes alarmed by the profaning of the Lord’s Supper among the Corinthians. due to the type of ministry those people were receiving.

That ministry was divisive, as certain leaders sought to carve out for themselves little kingdoms. Such a worldly ministry appropriately excited worldly appetite among the worshipers. In the crudest profanation of the supper, The rich separated themselves from the poor.

Some drank themselves drunk. Others gorged themselves at an attendant feast. Paul makes it plain that such sensuality and selfishness, such misuse of holy things, is not even then going unpunished. Because of this, some of you are sick, and some of you sleep.

Now there might not be any separation of the rich and the poor among us. We all being relatively poor. We may have even set in place any number of measures to guard ourselves against the intrusion of the flesh in our celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Nobody will be gorging themselves here this morning on these little cubicles of bread. Much less will anyone be drinking themselves drunk on these thimble-full natures of creatures. But that doesn’t mean, despite all of our precautions, all of these natures that we have instituted to guard ourselves against the flesh, this does not mean that we are incapable of profaning the sacrament and blaspheming God as we come. Such profanation, such blasphemy is ours.

We setting ourselves in the company of the rebellious at Corinth We, setting ourselves in the company of Aphne and Phineas, when we refuse to bring to this table, and also to our lives, the self-sacrificing service that we observe in our God, in his Son, and in the rest of their ministers, who would underscore the marvelous message of the gospel that God inexplicably has drawn near to you, even before you did or could draw near to him.

If indeed, O God, we are to found a ministry worthy of the name, we will have to look into your word and to yourself. We will have to view the Christ. We will have to take to heart all that we see, observe, and hear. And Father may it please you according to our prayer, our petition to grant your church in this day a wonderful, a genuine, an honest, a forthright ministry of the word. Father we ask that this ministry may have its proper effect as you bless it by the Spirit even as it is true to the gospel. so that such self-sacrificing ministry would have the effect of producing in your people that demonstration of self-sacrifice and love truly the minister with the people reflecting you and your Christ. Father to this end This message has been preached. To this end, O God, we trust this ministry is engaged. To this end, O God, we come to the table. We ask for your mercy that by it we might be refreshed and even revived in our determination to live for you. This we ask in Jesus name, Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.