For 2011, this is a year for DEEPER and WIDER consecration.
DEEPER to bring consecration into our practical lives and WIDER to understand the processes involved in consecration.
As I have shown in my previous message, the first process is how any one of us should fit into this. Jesus gave us the Great Commission to “make disciples of all nations”.
Are you a convert (one who believes but does not live out your life as a Christian)? Are you a disciple who is a follower of Jesus? Or are you now a disciple maker who is both a disciple and one who can help another to become a disciple? You should fit into one or two of these 3 categories.
The second process is to help us to see that as a disciple, our walk should impact a number of areas. I call this the “Footprints of a disciple”. It is our aim to help each EEC member to have footprints in the right places.
The first step is to celebrate our love to God. For example, in our Sunday services. We should not simply “attend” a Sunday celebration, because God has designed us to grow together, to serve together, to love one another and to share our lives with one another. Throughout the New Testament, we have the metaphor of a human body comprising different members but yet inter-dependent. 1 Cor 12. In a Sunday church setting, it is very difficult to share body life. So this brings us to the second step. We have small groups or cell groups distributed geographically. It is in these cell groups that we can learn and share our lives together, use our spiritual gifts and care for one another and also outreach together. The third step is that we as members should live out their Christian lives in our families, and serve in the church ministries such as e-Kidz,which is desperately short of teachers. We should also be impacting our workplace and the world.
Each of us should have footprints in all these areas, leaving deep imprints! However it starts with a Deeper and wider consecration of your lives.
The text for 2011 is Romans 12:1-2
We have already covered the BASIS for consecration and the CALL for consecration.
Romans chapters 1-11 cover the theology of God. It describes the utter helplessness and bondage of the human race since the fall of Adam. We cannot save ourselves. These chapters speak of God in the riches of His kindness (Romans 2:4). God has endured with much patience the vessels of His anger (Rom 9:22); God has poured out His love in us through His Holy Spirit and His grace, and where sin abounds, His grace abounds more.
God devised His rescue plan in which He sent Jesus into this world to show God’s kindness and patience, His love and His grace toward us.
On first glance at Rom 12:1, it seems that God is after sacrifices, volunteers. This is not the case. Unlike most religions and in the Old Testament, sacrifices were made in order to call down mercy from the gods. In this case, God Himself has made the sacrifice so that we can receive mercy. Can you see the reverse of the norm? God made it possible for us to receive mercy rather than demanding from us so that He can show us mercy. Jesus already paid the punishment for our sins. And to help us in our utter powerlessness, He sends us the Holy Spirit to help us in our weaknesses.
Paul exhorts us to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice by the mercies of God. So we are not giving sacrifices into to gain mercy since we already have mercy in Jesus Christ. We are to offer sacrifices because we want to, out of our love and gratitude to Christ. We choose to. We do it not out of compulsion but willingly and gladly.
The Call to consecrate
We are called to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice because we are all worshippers. We will worship some god, someone or something or a mixture of these. We cannot help but worship something because we are created to be worshippers. Whether we glory in God or in our self or in our pop idol or in our children or in our status. Previoiusly I preached that as you worship, you will sacrifice. You will sacrifice for something you worship, something you place value in. If you worship a false god, you will sacrifice the benefit of knowing the true God, you will sacrifice your relationship with God and the relief of the burden of the guilt of sin. Something inside you dies. If you worship money, you can sacrifice family time, even your integrity. Something inside you dies in order to gain your god.
Paul exhorts us to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice to the true and living God, holy and acceptable, which is our spiritual worship or in some translations, a reasonable service or a rational service. Since you are a worshipper, it is only logical that you worship your creator and not any false gods.
This message is entitled:
The Manner of Consecration and the Walk of consecration.
The manner of consecration touches on three areas: a surrendered body, a separated life and a transformed mind.
There is a story of a little girl who was attending church one Sunday. When the offering plate was passed to her, she put it down on the floor and jumped on it. The pastor was alarmed and asked why she did such a thing. She replied, “my Sunday school teacher told me to offer myself”! We offer all.
a) A SURRENDERED BODY
Consecration means to set apart one’s whole being. You cannot set apart part of you. This calls for deeper consecration this year. In the Old Testament in the book of Malachi, from 1:6 onwards, God was making charges against his priests and leaders: “O priests, who despise my name. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’ 7 By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, ‘How have we polluted you?’ By saying that the LORD’s table may be despised. 8 When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor? says the LORD of hosts.
God rejects blemished animals. God said, you did not give me the best showing that God is not worshipped as God. It is not so much the animals that God is after but your heart and your offering reflects whether the devotion of your heart is divided or not and whether honour is shown rightfully to Creator God. After all, it is God Who provides. Here Paul is saying that our consecration must be complete and not partial. You cannot and should not hold back part of yourselves. Paul said that you are offering your bodies as living sacrifices.
What is today’s equivalent? Do we give our leftovers to God? God sees our hearts as we give wholeheartedly and of our best to Him. This is our act of spiritual worship. How would you know whether you give of your best? This is often reflected in your priorities. Our Time alone with God (TAWG) or breakfast? TAWG or TV? Money on entertainment or your tithing? Our priorities are determined by our values which in turn is determined by our purpose in life. Is God first in all my life?
In the past, it was dead sacrifices that were burnt. Now as FF Bruce said, “The sacrifices in this new order do not consist of taking lives like animal sacrifices but giving one’s own”, and this giving one’s own is a living one. We sacrifice in full consent of our wills, and we do it constantly and joyfully.
It is a paradox that a living sacrifice should be a living sacrifice. A sacrifice is meant to be dead. This means that God wants our lives to be spent offering a continual offering to God. It is not just a Sunday worship thing but a continual and a lifelong act. This is true worship expressed in truly loving the Lord our God with all our being. We worship God because God is worth worshipping. Whether we eat or drink, we do it for the glory of God.
2) We are then called not to be conformed to the world. Not only a surrendered body but a separated life. The separated life does not mean to be taken out of this world. Jesus says of His disciples that they are “In the world but not of the world”. The word “conform” comes from a Greek word which means “fashioned together by the externals” We are born a fallen nature that cause our minds to think in a certain way. Our minds have ruts in it that we behave in a certain way. J B Philips said, “Do not let the world squeeze you into its own mould.” Or Stop being molded by the external and fleeting fashions of this age.
The world system is at odds with God and is self-centred. How does a life unseparated from the world behave? The fall of man came from the rebellion of Adam and Eve when they disobeyed God’s command that they were not to eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. In Gen 3: 8, 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food (lust of the flesh) and pleasing to the eye (lust of the eyes) and also desirable for gaining wisdom – to be like God (pride of life) she took some and ate it. The patterns of this world or the external fashions of this world are anti-god and pro-self. Worldliness is an attitude of heart that is focused on self; self-indulgence, self focused and self preservation at the expense of God and others. Godliness is focusing on God and loving others.
1 John 2 16 gives us a description of what is in the world. “For everything in the world - the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does - comes not from the Father but from the world.
As consecrated disciples of Jesus, we are to break from this pattern. We were born with this nature. No one is exempt. But now, we are born again so that we can see the Kingdom of God. We belong to a different world, and that is God’s Kingdom.
Sin has corrupted and perverted many of our human cravings. Many of these cravings are legitimate. For example, in order for our bodies to live, we eat, drink and sleep. But through our fallen nature, we can overeat to become gluttons. In terms of drinking, we can get drunk with alcohol and become addicted. Instead of having sleep we can become unashamedly lazy and lie in bed the whole time and refuse to wake up long after the sun has risen.
The eyes are the windows to our soul. Many sins are committed because we lust with our eyes. The eyes can prompt a desire in us to have something without causing us to weigh the real value and consequences. We covet things or people that do not rightfully belong to us. For example, King David accidentally saw Bathsheba bathing in the rooftop and his lust took him to commit murder, adultery and in the end, his first child with Bathsheba died, his children committed incest and his son wanted to kill him and rob David of his throne. He had sinned against God. What a price to pay! Our eyes can take us to a place that somehow debilitates the weighing of consequences. The eye spots the next drink. The eye spots an ipad and desires it even though the credit card is already at its credit limit. So you just get another credit card at the store. It is ironic that the eye which help us to see actually blinds us to the true consequences of our lustful desires.
Ah, the pride of life or the boasting of what you have and have done. You can look down on people as you project yourself up. It is part of your desire to boost your ego when you have low self-esteem. You think people will look up to you as we can boast of what we own and what we have done. It is very subtle. The world glories in anti-god and self.
2 Peter 1:4 says that we are driven by evil desires and the world corrupts us through that.
Paul wrote
Eph 2:3 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.
So in our fallen nature, our minds are subservient to the desires and cravings of the flesh.
How do you run your life? Is your life running on fulfilling your desires – to please your flesh, please your eyes and to pump up the pride that you are doing well in life. Are you driven by desires of your nature and rationalize them when the Holy Spirit convicts you? How do you spend your money? How do you spend your time? What sort of companionships do you have? What sort of entertainment do you go for? And for how long?
The world corrupts us as we yield your cravings or lusts and we follow its desires and thoughts. So the motivation is really driven by these ungodly desires. You will recognize this because when you do these things, you will rationalize it. I deserve some entertainment because I have worked so hard. I deserve to spend so much money because I have earned it myself. I deserve to go into pornography and lust after these women because my wife said she is too tired for sex.
You struggle to leave this world because you have forgotten that you now belong to another world, the kingdom of God. You want to belong somewhere. So you choose to belong to the world that can be seen and yet transient. You have forgotten that you are a citizen and you are a son/daughter of the living God. Your identity is defined by your Father and not by the world anymore. You don’t have to prove anything because you are saved by the mercies of God. Your life is to please the Father like Jesus, Not my will but yours be done.
You may argue that some atheists or non-believers live their lives without a lust for the flesh, a lust of the eyes and furthermore they give money to the poor. How then would you classify these do-gooders as worldly? The definition is about their attitudes and hearts whether they are self-focused and whether these good deeds are done with a motive that glorifies self and rejects God rather than God-ward.
So from a prohibition Paul went on to an exhortation. Instead, be transformed by the renewing of your minds.
3) A Transformed mind
Why is the mind so important? God commands us to love Him with all of our minds.
The mind is the human capacity for contemplation, judgment, and intention. Using intellect, the mind makes possible the critical appraisal and selection of differing opinions. In this sense, the mind may also describe one’s own mind-set, attitude, or characteristic point of view.
Some folks don’t think that the mind is important. People think that as long as you are zealous you don’t need the mind.
Rom 10 : For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. You can be zealous for God but your zeal must also be based on knowledge. You need to think and discern. In fact, the real battles are fought in your mind. Prov 23:7, “For as he thinks within himself, so he is.”
So if you are still straddling in two worlds and holding two citizenships, your mind needs to be renewed.
Sin has made ingrained habits and grooves in sinful and fallen man. God wants you to renew your mind. Sometimes we think that renew means to get a new thing. For example I am going to renew my washing machine. It means you are going to get a different brand. Not a Hotpoint but a Zanussi. But here renew means “to go back to the original purpose and design of the maker”. Our minds have been corrupted by our fallen nature. It is time to have our mind recover the intimate relationship that we should have with God. When my computer was hit by a nasty virus intent on stealing my internet banking details, I was unable to wipe off the virus even with the latest anti-virus software. When the operating system crashes you begin to lose confidence with the whole computer Operating System (OS). So what I did was to save all the files and reload the original OS and then put add on other programs on such as Office, Adobe and my back up files. In the same manner, our minds need renewing. They need to go back to the originator for an original uncorrupted OS or the latest update. There should be no more blue screen. The difference here is that you have a will whereas your computer does not, and it is not a one-off renewing but a continual one.
Renewal means the adjustment of the moral and spiritual vision and thinking to the mind of God, which is designed to have a transforming effect upon your life.
How do you renew your mind? You need the original discs for your OS. You need the truth of God;
Eph 4:16 – “ So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.
20 You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. 21 Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.
So we need the teachings of Christ. Where do you find them? In the bible. That is why we need to meditate on the Word of God. How do we do this? One example is to read a passage and journal what God has spoken to you on the side of the Bible, on a note book or on the computer. Pick up one verse for the day or for the week and chew on it. You could even put the verse on your office desk as a reminder. And then learn how to apply it.
think
Your renewed mind will cause you to think of God rather than the world. To reflect more on your soul rather than on the anxieties and cravings of your body and to think about eternity rather than passing fads. In terms of amusements, your renewed mind will not ask “May I?”but “Should I?”.
DL Moody has this illustration that a Christian in the world is like a ship. It is not meant for water to get in and sink it. To stay afloat and keep moving, it must be in the sea but it must not let the sea get in.
There was an advert by a mobile operator that shows a cyclist in Vietnam, cycling individually and alone in the opposite direction of the rest of a whole crowd of cyclists. Or another example is a fish that swims against the rest of the shoal. If you walk in step with the Holy Spirit, you will walk out of step with the world. Just like Jesus, you can be seen as a radical. But the world needs to turn their heads round to notice a radical - not that we seek to be one - but it may be inevitable that we become one. As the night gets darker, the light becomes brighter.
So how then should we live?
This leads us to the WALK of consecration.
With a renewed mind, you will be able to test and approve what is the will of God.
The two words test and approve are very important. It means you are able to find out what is God’s will. It will become second nature to you, only if you offer your bodies as living sacrifices and have your minds being renewed as you put off conforming to the world. What a relief! Not only will you be able to test and discern but you will also approve. The word “approve” here means, that you like it, you desire it and you will do it. You treasure it. And then you will do it heartily knowing that to do the will of God is “good, pleasing and perfect”.
Sometimes people want to be guided by a prophet. This is fine but this is to be the exception rather than the rule. God’s Word is very clear, that as we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, serve God, not conforming to the world and renewour minds, we can test and approve what is His will. We will discern that this is God’s will.
Knowing the will of God is very difficult if our minds are stuck in the grooves of worldliness and pleasing our desires. If we do not meditate on God’s Word and pray, our minds will not be transformed. After all, Jesus discovers the Father’s will through prayer. In the garden of Gethsemane, He prayed, not my will but yours be done when he realized that the Father’s will was for Him to go to the cross. Jesus also spent the night in prayer before He selected His 12 apostles.
The world tries to control your mind but God wants to transform you.
But when you have a renewed mind and you offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, something good is going to happen. You will be transformed. The word here is “metamorphosis” and the application of this Greek word applies to the transfiguration of Jesus when His face shone on the Mount of Olives as he talked with Moses and Elijah, with God the Father commending Him as His beloved Son. The same word is used in 2 Cor 3:18. “You will be transformed from glory to glory.”
When you walk out your consecration in doing God’s will, goodness will be with you.
Jer 32:39 - 40: While these verses apply to the Jewish people in respect of God bringing them back to their homeland, they also describe the nature of God “. 40 I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. 41 I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.
God is so full of joy, so committed that God says with His whole heart and soul He will do you good. He will plant you in faithfulness. God is so delighted over you. God is rejoicing over you. And we are rejoicing to do His will.
Not only is the will of God good, the will of God is pleasing and acceptable to Him and it is perfect. It ties in with you offering your bodies as a living sacrifice. You are a worshipper as you offer your bodies as a living sacrifice.
So to summarize, the scriptures are appealing to you to consecrate yourselves fully. The basis of consecration was because of the mercies of God. Our sacrifices do not merit His mercies. His mercies are already provisioned for.
God wants you to stop yielding your desires to your flesh, following after the patterns of the world but to have your minds renewed. Meditate on God’s truth and pray so that you will know the will of God. You will be able to sift out and decide what is the way that God wants you to walk. That you will be able to discern and approve and to go for it, the will of God which is good, pleasing and perfect.
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