Keys to Consecration
Romans 12:1-2
August 14, 2005
Morning Service
Introduction
While assembling supplies for the African nation of Biafa, an American Red Cross volunteer came across a box with a strange note on it. The note read: “We have recently been converted and because of our conversion we want to try to help. We won’t be need to use these again. Can you use them for something?”
Inside the box were several Ku Klux Klan sheets that had been used as disguises. Those sheets were cut into strips for bandages. Those bandages were later used to bind the wounds of Africans who desperately needed assistance.
The power of Christ moved those men from being focused on hate to being focused on helping. When this took place a fundamental change happened, those men were used to help bring healing. The power of Christ can move anyone from a position of hate to a position of healing.
This is what Jesus desires for all of His people; a true heart change. He wants us move us from where we are right now into a deeper and more intimate relationship with Him. God moves from being converted to be being consecrated. God wants more for your life than to just be saved because he wants you to be filled with His Spirit and sanctified.
The words of the old hymn Take My Life come to mind here: Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee.
What does it mean to be consecrated?
The word consecrate means to be set apart for the service of God. There were four main words that were used in the Hebrew to describe this:
1.) Haram - to devote
2.) Nazar - To separate
3.) Qadhesh - to set apart
4.) Mille yadh - to fill the hand: used to describe the ordination of priests
The term consecrate was applied to several aspects of the Jewish life
• Places: Holy of Holies - The inner most part of the temple
• People: Priests and prophets
• Things: Altar of Incense and the Ark of the Covenant
• Times: Various feasts and special days such as Yom Kippur or Passover
A consecrated life is one that seeks to bring honor to the name of Christ.
• Identified with Christ: Do people know you are a Christian?
• Imitation of Christ: Do you seek to become more and more like Jesus?
• Inauguration of the Holy Spirit: Does the Holy Spirit reside within your life? Does He have control of how you live? Sanctification is inaugurated in a moment but experienced over a lifetime. Too many people get focused on the moment and forget that it is meant to be a daily experience. When was the last time that the Holy Spirit moved you to change something in your life?
Consecration is evidenced in the constant striving for the completion of Christ’s work within a person’s life.
Paul gives us an excellent understanding of consecration as it applies to the life of a believer. Open your bibles with me to Romans 12:1-2
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:1-2
I. Consecration means sacrificial living (1)
Sacrifice your body
Paul is calling the Roman believers to not just surrender their physical bodies to God but the entirety of their mortal existence. In other words, Jesus wants everything from your life. He wants you dreams, your desires and your disappointments. Jesus wants all that you have, all that you are and all that you will become surrendered to Him.
This means that every possession is Christ’s not yours. This means that every moment is Christ’s not yours. Every effort of your life is Christ’s not yours. When you hold something back from Christ, you are literally saying that He is not worth giving up what you want. We are meant to live for Christ with every breath we take and love Him with every fiber of our being.
Sacrifice your service
Paul calls us to offer ourselves as living sacrifices. This seems like the ultimate paradox because the Jewish mind set would have automatically assumed that a sacrifice was dead. It would have seemed impossible to have a living sacrifice. The sacrifice was given by shedding its blood and letting it die on the altar.
When you give a living sacrifice to Christ it is an offering of a life that was once dead and has been given new life. When we were dead in our sins we were not truly living but through Christ we find true life. Remember Paul is talking to believers here because he called them brothers. As believers we must strive to live lives that are separated for God’s service. Lives that are set apart for His use.
The problem with living sacrifices is that they sometimes crawl off the altar - Annon.
Living sacrifices are a daily choice and is an issue of the heart. Each and every day you get up and make the choice to either live for God or live for something else.
Paul adds yet another ingredient to the mix of consecration - spiritual acts of worship. The Greek states this a little differently. The term here for spiritual is logikos which is where we get our English word logic. It means to be logical or reasonable. Paul moves us full circle because he starts with our mortal existence, then adds our spiritual life and now finishes with the reason. What is the purpose here?
We must live to serve God with a focus through all that we are and every ability that we have been given. The word for worship here literally means to serve with all of one’s strength. God wants us to serve Him with all of our being and all of our strength. When was the last time you gave Christ your absolute best?
II. Consecration means separated living (2)
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world
Paul is confronting a very real problem in the Roman church and in the church of today. There is a problem when the church takes on the character of the world. Paul is talking about allowing the world around us to shape and change us into its image but Jesus wants us to be changed into His likeness.
The central issue here is the fact that if a Christian allows the world around them to continue to shape their values and virtues, they will never experience consecration. As Christians we are to live above the influence of this world because we are to be influenced by God!
Paul was one of the major opponents of the early church and until he was converted, he persecuted the church by killing Christians. Suppose that after Paul came to Christ, he decided to allow that old way of thinking back into his life and went back to persecuting the church. It is unthinkable! It is unreasonable!
Today, Christians are running back to the old life faster than ever. The truth is this: we are mean to live differently than the world around us. If society cannot tell the difference between churched and unchurched people, we have a serious problem. The sad reality is that Satan has convinced the church of a bold faced lie - we don’t need to be different than the world.
Christians are just as likely to be involved in behaviors that mark the world:
* Selfishness * Greed * Malice* Anger *Resentment
* Pride * Prejudice * Slander *Lust * Bitterness
It is impossible for the church to change the world if we become like the world! Consecration is being set apart for the service of God. Isn’t this what the church should be striving for? Isn’t this what Christians should be wanting?
Far too often, we forget that even the best that this world has to offer is nothing more than a fleeting vapor. It is nothing more than a wisp of the wind. It is nothing more than fading flowers. This world in which we live will one day pass away and everything that is not eternal will be eternally useless.
• The ways of the world lead to nowhere worth going
• The desires of this world lead to a fruitless end
• The pleasures of this world will quickly pass leading to the seeking og higher highs
Are you living a life that refuses to conform to this world?
III. Consecration means sanctified thinking (2)
Sanctified transformation
The key to experiencing consecration does not come from our own efforts but instead comes from the work of the Holy Spirit within us. The Greek word here is metamorphusthe, which is where we get our English word metamorphosis. The transformation that Paul is talking about is from the inside out and all of this must begin with the mind. The mind is the source of both the thoughts and the actions of a person’s life.
Paul says that the mind must be renewed before a Christian can experience a transformed life. This renewing literally means to have a new way of thinking. The Greek word for renew is close to the word for resurrection. This act is only through the power of God in the Holy Spirit and it represents a complete change from one form to another.
Sanctified desire
Once the mind is renewed and transformed, the way is paved for us to become more and more like Jesus. This change gives a transformed desire and a longing to do the will of God. Think about this: God gives the power to change which brings about the desire to live for Him. Obeying the will of God may not always be easy but it is possible through submission of our lives to Him and depending on His strength. We will never be able to do God’s will until we know what it is.
Paul actively describes God’s will in three powerful ways
• Good - The will of God is useful, joyful and beneficial
• Pleasing - The will of God is welcomed
• Perfect - The will of God is without error and brought to completion
Conclusion
What areas of your life need to be consecrated?
1. Attitude - God wants you to live with grace
• Harboring resentment
• Holding onto grudges
• Hanging on to garbage
2. Abilities - God gave you the gifts
• Selfish by using your gifts for yourself
• Satisfied with you are
• Scared to use those gifts for God
3. Actions - God desires you to live for His glory
• Things you do that just do not please God
• Times when you do what you know is wrong
• Treating others with less than Christ centered respect
• Talking in a manner that tears down rather than build up
