Today’s church is suffering from disorder. My brother, my sister, God is a God of order. He makes things in stages and in order. Today, let’s look into the past to see how God Himself established order for worship.
In today’s passage, the Bible tells us that priests and Levites had different jobs in and around the Temple of God. The priests were authorised to perform the sacrifices. The Levites were set apart to help the priests. So, they did the work of elders, deacons, custodians, assistants, musicians, moving men, repair men, etc. Both priests and Levites came from the tribe of Levi, but priests also had to be the descendants of Aaron, Israel’s High Priest (Exodus 28:1-3). To live, the priests and the Levites received the tithes of Israel as well as income from some cities that had been allocated to them, thus they could focus on their tasks in the Temple.
Knowing this, we should therefore understand that worship in the house of the Lord could not have taken place without the combined efforts of the priests and Levites. Yes, their responsibilities were different, but they were equally important to God’s plan. Nowadays, some people allow themselves to occupy different positions in the church without the approval of anyone but themselves. When asked to perform a certain task, they won’t do it because they want to do what they have decided to do, what they feel they can do best. My friend, any self-appointment comes from rebellion. You may be serving the Lord well in the area you appointed yourself rather than were you were asked to be while you are actually just rebelling. We who believe in Christ, we should understand that the house of the Lord is a house of order. It’s not because you can sing well in your shower that God necessarily wants you to sing in church: He may want you to sweep the floor or set up the chairs. Remember that the priests and the Levites were all from the same tribe. So, most certainly some Levites would have preferred to be priests and vice versa because man is never satisfied with what he has, isn’t it?…. but the order had been set by the Lord and they could not change it.
What is important for us to understand today is that no matter the service we perform in the church, we are important for the functioning of the congregation. Furthermore, God recognizes only the things He established or that He has called us to do, not what we have self-appointed ourselves to do. Remember that, despite the fact that Abraham had two son, He asked for his only son (Genesis 22:2). Why? Because one son came into this world from man’s decision, and not from God’s! Let’s learn to wait on the Lord to assign us tasks in His house. It is His house, not ours. And the same applies for our bodies that have become His when His Spirit came to dwell in us. We can no longer continue misusing our bodies in rebellion or disobedience to His Word, if we claim “my body is the temple of God” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). The house of God, the temple of God, needs order to function well, for where there is order, there will be more love, unity and peace, those things that God wants to see manifesting in our churches and in our individual lives. Stay blessed in Jesus’ name.