Who do you think you are? – What Does This Mean?

Encore Post: “What are you going to be when you grow up?” American adults love to ask children. We teach our youth to dream. If you work hard enough, there is no limit to what you can do or be. You might even be president of the United States someday! We grow up trying to find ourselves. And when we get to age eighteen, we go off to “find ourselves” in the world or college. Yet in doing so, we miss some very important things we already have and a call, a vocation, every Christian has. It begins with knowing not who you are, but whose you are.

You see, you belong to God. When you were lost in the darkness of sin and death, Jesus came and sought you to be his holy bride. With his own blood he bought you and for your life he died. Not with silver or gold were you bought back from sin, the devil and death, but with his precious blood and his suffering and death. He did this for a purpose — not that you would move along the path to the American Dream or self fulfillment, but that you would live with him in his kingdom forever.

It is in his kingdom that we have our most sacred call. We are called to be a royal priesthood, a holy nation, set apart to be his favorite possession. (1 Peter 2) A priest is someone who stands between a god and his people. His role is to bring the god’s instructions and blessings to people and their prayers and their sacrifices to the god. Our role as the nation of the priests of the Holy Trinity is to bring the good news of salvation to the nations and to pray for them, calling on God to have mercy on them.

This Priesthood of All Believers, as Martin Luther called it, has received God’s call to forgive sins for Christ’s sake, to proclaim the good news to all the ends of the earth, to baptize and to teach them. Together we have done these things for 2000 years and counting. As God’s church, we primarily do this through men God has called to represent us — to be our pastors. Yet we do not sit back and watch. We are all his priests, his messengers, his witnesses to everyone. This is who you really are.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

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