Consecration

Consecration is the believer's response that he has been touched by the love of God.

Stephen Kaung

I feel burdened to share with you on something which is most basic to our Christian life. Not because this is most basic therefore we can live without it. But rather we will find that this is not only the most basic but this is also the highest of our Christian experience. So will you please turn to the book of Romans, chapter 12, from verse 1 to verse 5.

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace which has been given to me, to every one that is among you, not to have high thoughts above what he should think; but to think so as to be wise, as God has dealt to each a measure of faith. For, as in one body we have many members, but all the members have not the same office; thus we, being many, are one body in Christ, and each one members one of the other."

Dear brothers and sisters, we know that the book of Romans is a book on the gospel of God. Now, what is the gospel of God? The gospel of God is concerned with a Person. The gospel is not just a teaching or just a doctrine. The gospel concerns one Person. That one Person is the glad tidings that God has given to man. According to the flesh, He came into this world as the Son of David but through His resurrection He proved Himself to be the very Son of God. And He is the gospel. He is the glad tidings. When we receive the gospel of God we not only receive some gifts, some grace from God, but we actually receive none other than the Son of God. He is our very life. He is our redemption. He is our justification. He is our sanctification, and He is our glorification.

So dear brothers and sisters, as we come into contact with the gospel, it is more than just contacting something good from God. Actually we are in contact with the beloved Son of God. When you open the book of Romans, it gives us a very comprehensive discourse on the gospel of God. It tells us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Brothers and sisters, what is the definition of sin? Before we came into contact with the Lord Jesus, oftentimes we thought that we were pretty good; we were very decent, what sin had we committed? Even though we could not say we were sinless, our sins according to our own ideas were ok. But brothers and sisters, what is God's definition of sin? In the book of Romans we are told; all sinned and come short of the glory of God. So the definition of sin is this: that which is short of the glory of God.

Think of the glory of God. When God created man, he created man in His own image according to His own likeness. His purpose for this created man is that they may be glorified, that they may be like Him; this is the original intention of God concerning every one of us. But dear brothers and sisters we have to acknowledge as we look into our own lives that we are so short of the glory of God. Man has sinned, man has lost the image of God and this is sin. The Holy Spirit will convict us of our sin; He will convict us of our unrighteousness and He will convict us of the judgment to come. We sin because we did not believe in God's gift; our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the greatest sin in the world.

God loved us and gave His only Begotten Son to us in order that we might be forgiven, in order that we might have our sins cleansed. But to reject God's love; that is the greatest sin we could commit against God. Of unrighteousness because our Lord Jesus came into this world and lived a life of thirty three years on this earth and He was so righteous that He was able to return to His Father. This very fact of our Lord returning to His Father condemned us, because we were not able to even see God. If we ever saw Him we were to be stricken to death because we are unrighteous. Of judgment, because the god of this world has been judged and we who are under the god of this world, even the adversary of God, if the god of this world was judged, we who are under him have already been judged.

Dear brothers and sisters, the wages of sin is death; we have no hope. Our destiny is the lake of fire. But thank God, even though when we realize we have sinned, our conscience bothers us. We carry a guilty conscience; we know that we are not right and cannot face our creator, so we try to do something good; accumulating some merits, thinking that by doing that we can appease our God. But dear brothers and sisters, even our righteousness' were as filthy rags. They could not cover our nakedness before God. So we were in a very hopeless condition. But thank God, He loved us and sent His beloved Son into this world to be our substitute. He who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God.

When the sinless man, our Lord Jesus shed His blood on the cross, that blood satisfied the righteousness of God, that blood cleansed our conscience and that blood answered the accusation of our adversary. By the blood of our Lord Jesus we are justified before God. God looked upon us and saw that we are clothed with Christ; Christ is our righteousness, so God says, "I see no sin in this man" because He saw His beloved Son. And we are therefore justified before God, we can stand before God. In Christ Jesus He has given us this position.

But brothers and sisters, our Lord Jesus has done something much more than that. It is very true, one day when salvation came to us, our sins were forgiven, that sinful load upon us was put away, we had peace in our hearts, we could lift up our heads and call our God "Abba Father." What a wonderful day that was. To us this is enough, this is too much, but to God, to the glory of God, this is too little. So in Christ Jesus, He has not only justified us, He also wanted to sanctify us. He is holy and He wants us to be holy. Brothers and sisters, after we see the life of Jesus in us, there within us, there is an instinct, a new desire; we want to do the will of God, we want to please God.

Thank God for that. But we often find out that even though deep within us we knew we were the Lord's and want to do His will and please him, to will is in us, but to do is not in us. Is it not very true? We think that after believing in the Lord Jesus all our problems had been solved. But to our surprise, we find that our old man is still with us. We find that within us there are two people living there. There is a civil war going on. So far as our inward man is concerned, the life of Jesus we had received, he wants to please God. But so far as our old man, our old nature is concerned, that which we had inherited from Adam our father, we find that we still want to sin. We are not able to do the will of God.

What we want to do, we cannot do. What we do not want to do, we do it. Dear brothers and sisters, do you hate yourself? Do you find that you are in an impossible situation? You are the Lord's, His holy life is in you, His holy desire is in you and you want to do the will of God but you find that you cannot. You do not want to sin anymore; no Christian wants to sin anymore, but unfortunately we find we often fall. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of this body of death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Dear brothers and sisters, when our Lord went to the cross, he not only bore in his body our sins - all the sins that we had committed, our Lord Jesus bore them in His own body, and because of that, He was condemned to death, He was crushed by His own Father, because He was our substitute, Thank God for that, thank the Lord Jesus for that, but do you know, when our Lord Jesus was crucified on the cross there was something much more than just bearing the sins that we had committed? The bible tells us that when He was crucified on the cross, He was crucified as the last Adam. In other words, in the eyes of God, there are only two men - one is Adam, the old creation, and the other is Christ, the new creation. So brothers and sisters, when our Lord came into this world, He was the Second man, but He was also the last Adam. When Christ died on the cross, the last Adam was crucified, all the Adamic race came to a conclusion. When it is risen from the dead, then a new creation comes into being - it is Christ, all in Christ, a new creation. So the bible says, knowing that our old man was crucified with Christ.

Brothers and sisters, thank God for cleansing our sins by the precious blood of our Lord. But what about me the sinner? Sin had no solution to me the sinner. He cleansed my past sins, but because I am a sinner, I know nothing but sin. So as long as I live, I will continue to sin. I am helpless. Is there any salvation for me as a sinner? Thank God in Christ Jesus, because He came as the last Adam, He put all the Adamic race within Him, and when He died, the whole Adamic race was eliminated. This is salvation.

Now oftentimes I like to use an illustration. According to Chinese legend, the Chinese came from a person who is called Yellow Emperor. We trace our ancestors to the Yellow Emperor. And once upon a time there was a battle between the Yellow Emperor and His enemy Chu Yu. And it was a very decisive battle. And it so happened that it was a foggy day; now how can you fight in fog? But this Yellow Emperor invented the compass and because he invented the compass so he won the battle; he killed his enemy and he lived. And because he lived, so too the Chinese race lived. Now suppose in that battle he didn't invent the compass and got killed by his enemy, then today there would be no Chinese race because it was all in him.

Brothers and sisters, do you realize this is what our Lord has done for us? We the Adamic race, with an Adamic nature cannot be changed; no matter how. So God's judgment is that it must die because it cannot be improved. But we cannot die; if we die, we die, that's the end of us. So Christ died for us. He not only died for our sins, He died for us, He died as our representative. So when He died on the cross, He took all of our old nature, all our flesh and crucified it on the cross. Thank God for the salvation of God. So brothers and sisters, that's the reason why the Apostle Paul said, "I am crucified with Christ, and no longer live, I, but Christ lives in me; but in that I now live in flesh, I live by faith, the faith of the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for me."

Do you know brothers and sisters, when I was saved by the grace of God I was saved among the "holiness people". I don't know if you know any background about the "holiness people" but they believed in second blessing. They said the first blessing was when you believed in the Lord Jesus and got saved, but you need a second blessing, and when you receive that second blessing, that root of sin in you is eliminated, eradicated and rooted out. And because it is rooted out you will never sin anymore. I was saved among these people but I have to tell you that during the conference when I was saved, I saw the leader of that movement lose her temper. So her explanation was, "this is not sin, it is just a weakness." And I could not see the difference between sin and weakness.

Brothers and sisters, the sin nature in us is not rooted out, as long as you live, as long as you live in this body, sin as a nature is in you. You will not be delivered until you are out of the body. But thank God, how does He deliver us? Not by eradication but by isolation. Sin as a nature is like a master in us; it dwells in our flesh, and our flesh is like a steward. So the master will command the steward and our flesh will listen to sin as the master, and our flesh will relay the command to our mortal body. Then this mortal body will commit sin. But thank God, He used the law of isolation; instead of taking away the sin nature, He put the flesh to death so that sin is not able to command his body to sin. So the body is unemployed. Thank God, after we are delivered, we present our bodies to the Lord and we have a new master and we do the work of righteousness. Now this is sanctification. Sanctification simply means that we are able to live as Christ lived on this earth, because it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

Oh brothers and sisters, you will think this is enough, but the God of the Word says this is not enough. "I have something more for you; not only justified, not only sanctified, but He said you must be glorified." What is glory? Glory is very difficult to define. But whenever God appears, we see glory. So glory is God Himself, His nature is glory, His character is glory. So brothers and sisters, He does more to us. When we begin to know the Lord Jesus, He put His own Spirit in us. The Holy Spirit dwells in us and He will teach us all things, small things, great things; He will teach us Christ. He will glorify Christ, He will show Christ to us, He will transform us and conform us to the image of God's Only Son. This is glorification.

Oh brothers and sisters, this work of glorification is continuing in us until Christ is formed in us and that will be glory. Can you think of anything more glorious than that? That Christ should be formed in us, and we will be like Him, and we will be united with Him. Oh brothers and sisters, it is all in Christ Jesus. Outside of Christ, you cannot be justified, outside of Christ you cannot be sanctified, and no matter how you try, out side of Christ you will never be glorified: it is all in Christ Jesus. God so loved the world that He gave His only Beloved Son to us. He does not just love us and forgive our sins, He does not just love us and give us a new life, no, He loves us so much that He gave us His Beloved Son. Everything is in His Son. If you get the Son, you get all. When you come to God and ask for a certain gift, He'll say, "Go to my Son, everything is in my Son, aside from my Son I have nothing more." Praise the Lord.

This is what God has done for us. We do nothing, He has done it all. It is grace - freely, universally given to us. And now brothers and sisters, having received Christ Jesus, having received justification, sanctification and glorification, what should be our response? "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God , to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service." Or in some versions as it says, which is your spiritual worship. Brothers and sisters, God said "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God , to present your bodies a living sacrifice" You know that God can deal with us by His rights, because He has bought us with a price.

So we do not belong to ourselves, we belong to Him, and He has every right to demand of us that we serve Him, to demand us to worship Him, to demand us to live for Him but our God will never exercise His rightful rights. He would rather constrain us by His love. It is as if God is begging us. God is begging us through the Apostle Paul. "I have done all this for you, I have given my only Begotten Son for you, and now, how will you respond to me? Are you touched by my love? Do you feel grateful to me? If you are touched by my love, then present your bodies a living sacrifice."

This is the only thing that God asks of us. Dear brothers and sisters, God has done everything for us, everything is done in His Son. When the Lord died on the cross He said, "It is finished." Everything is completed. You cannot add anything to it. And now God asks only one thing and He even begged for it; present your bodies a living sacrifice.

Dear brothers and sisters, you know that in the Old Testament times, when an Israelite received a message from God and he was grateful, how did he express his gratitude? He would take out of his flock a lamb and bring it into the temple, tie it at the horns to the altar, lay his hands on the head of the lamb, and that lamb would be killed and burned on the altar by fire until it was wholly consumed. This was the way to express their gratitude to God. But dear brothers and sisters, we are no longer living in the shadow; we are living in the reality, Christ has already come, the Lamb of God has already been offered, once and forever it is done. But what God asks us is not something belonging to you. All He asks is you, He said "I want you, I don't want your gold or silver, I don't want your talents, I do not want your service; all I want is you. I have loved you, and given my Son to you, are you touched by my love? Are you willing to give yourself to present your bodies."

Why bodies? Because this body is redeemed, this body has been bought with a price. This body has been sanctified and this body is to be glorified, this body belongs to Him. And it uses the word body because it comes down to everyday living. We live in this body, so by presenting our body, it means presenting our all; spirit, soul and body, our whole being, that which is redeemed is presented to God. We say, "Lord this is my sacrifice." But it is not a dead sacrifice, it is a living sacrifice. In other words, every day that we live, we live as a sacrifice. We do not live for ourselves anymore, but for Him, because He is worthy.

Dear brothers and sisters, consecration is the first Christian experience. After you receive the Lord Jesus, have you consecrated your life to the Lord? If you have never done it, your Christian experience has not yet begun. This is the first basic Christian experience. When we think about consecration, we draw back, we are afraid - Oh we are afraid that we may lose our control. We are afraid not only of what will happen to us, we feel we are safer in our own hands, we feel that if we consecrate ourselves to the Lord then there will be nothing left for me; there will be loss for me and we hesitate.

We do not want to do it. But when the Lord demands our body, it is not that He wants to take everything away from us, He only wants to take anything that is harmful to us away; that will stand in the way of His glorious purpose concerning us. What He wants is to give Himself more fully to us. This is consecration. Brothers and sisters, this marks the beginning of our Christian life. Consecration is most important, consecration has to be absolute. If it is not absolute, sooner or later you will find that God has to lead you back to the very beginning.

Once there was a man, in the nineteenth century. There was a famous preacher in England; his name was F. B. Meyer, he was a brilliant man. If you have ever read his books, his English is so good, when he talks about water you can hear the water flowing. He was already a very successful young preacher in Edinburgh of Scotland. But once another young man visited him, whose name was C.T. Studd. Now you may not know his name, but at his time everybody in England knew C.T. Studd; he was a student at Cambridge and was the best cricketer in England. He came from a millionaire family, but the Lord called him to China to preach the gospel.

Before he went there, he visited various places and he came to Edinburgh, to the place where F.B. Meyer was pastor. So F. B. Meyer received him, and he spent a night there. It was November, and November in Edinburgh is very cold, very chilly. And early in the morning F.B. Meyer noticed that there was a light in C. T. Studd's room. And as a good host, he wondered what had happened, whether his guest was sick, what was he to do? But it was too early to knock on the door, so he waited but the light was still there. So finally he knocked on the door and a voice said come in. He entered the room and saw C. T. Studd, sitting there with a rug around him because it was cold, and F. B. Meyer said, "You really rise up early." And he said, "Oh, I love the Lord, I'm searching the Word; I'm looking for commandments that I may obey." That touched the heart of F. B. Meyer.

You know, when we read the Scriptures, what do we look for? We look for promises. What do we avoid? Commandments. But this young man, what did he look for? - Commandments because he loved the Lord and wanted to obey God's commandments. That really touched F. B. Meyer, and said, "Brother, how could I be like you? You have something that I don't have." And C. T. Studd asked, "Have you given yourself to the Lord?" Talking to a pastor, "have you given yourself to the Lord?" - it sounds like an insult. And F. B. Meyer said, "Of course, I have given my life to the Lord." So C. T. Studd said, "Ah, have you handed your life to the Lord one by one? Every item of your life, have you handed it to the Lord." F. B. Meyer said "I've never done that." So C. T. Studd said, "Go and do it."

So F. B. Meyer, he loved the Lord, so he began to check every item of his life; his natural talents, his success, he handed them one by one to the Lord. He saw the Lord coming toward him, stretching out His hand saying, "Give me all the keys to your life." F. B. Meyer gave the Lord a bundle of keys, large keys and small keys into every room of his life. But he kept back one small key to a little room, and the Lord said, "Is that all?" "Oh", he said, ""that's all except for a very little key, please allow me to keep that key for myself." But the Lord said, "No." "Oh Lord, if you allow me to keep that small key I will double my efforts to serve you." The Lord said, "No," and began to turn around and leave. Meyer was desperate so he called out, "make me willing to be willing. I am not willing, but make me willing to be willing." So the Lord turned around and took that little key. Another famous saying by Meyer was when the Lord said to him, "If I am not the Lord of all, I am not the Lord at all."

Through this, the Lord was able to open every room with those keys and cleanse him and purify him, and God mightily used F. B .Meyer. Brothers and sisters have you handed yourself to the Lord. Are you keeping anything from Him? Consecration is a burnt offering. It is a full offering: everything. Dear brothers and sisters do you know, this is the key to open up the way of life. Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service. Do you want to serve the Lord? Present your bodies to Him; this is service - not doing something for Him according to what you want, this is not service; but present your bodies a living sacrifice, this is your Spiritual worship. You do not know worship until you give yourself totally to Him. Then the Spirit of worship will fill your hearts.

Dear brothers and sisters, in the second verse it says, And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. I would like to say a few words to the young people. We thank God for the young people here. Your elders have probably always told you…..

Some young people say to me, you are old, you have experienced the world; we haven't seen the world yet so we want to see the world, and when we get old like you, we will not be conformed to this world. Young people, even though outwardly you listen to your elders, but in your heart, you still seek the world. The bible says do not be conformed to the world: what does that mean? The world is like a mould, a fashion. Do not squeeze yourself into that mould so that you may be like the world.

You are too big for that, the life in you is too big for this world. You have to squeeze yourself to be conformed to the world, but we are to beware. When there is a fashion in Paris, within hours, the whole world is following it. We want to be in fashion, we do not want to be looked upon as backward. Do not conformed to this world, but prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. What is the perfect will of God for you? Once I was told by youngsters, "whatever is against me, that is the will of God." If that is the case, how can you love the will of God if you are afraid of it?

How can you not be conformed to the world? How can you prove, that is to say, experience that the will of God is perfect and just love it? How can you do that? It is not something from outside. It is not law, brothers and sisters it is grace, because when you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, something happens within us. The Holy Spirit will renew your old mind. He will change your mind. You know that we are what we are because of our mind. The way you think and look at things, the way you estimate the value of things, directs your life. Dear brothers and sisters, thank God that we who believe in the Lord Jesus have a new life, but we still have an old mind. That is the problem.

Your mind is still the mind of the flesh, and the minding of the flesh is death. But the mind of the Spirit is life and Spirit. You cannot change your mind, but brothers and sisters, here is the secret: when you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, the Holy Spirit has the liberty to renew your mind. And when your mind is renewed you look at things completely differently. What you considered as dear you now consider as dross. What you considered as something to be feared, you now consider lovely and something natural; spiritually natural, supernaturally natural. Brothers and sisters, Christian life is not unnatural.

Oftentimes we find that those who love the Lord want to do the right thing and to please the Lord and because of this they become very nervous. Oh we say, a nervous Christian is a good Christian, because if you don't care, you won't be nervous. But if you do care, you get nervous, why? Because it is by our own strengths. Brothers and sisters what is Christian life? The Christian life is Christ lives in me. It is natural; it is supernaturally natural because the mind is renewed, so you begin to look at things differently, you value things differently. The Apostle Paul, in Philippians chapter 3 said "What I considered as dear to me in the past, I look upon that as refuse, but what I considered hateful, now I love it, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, I am willing to give up everything to win Him, it's all worth it."

Brothers and sisters, how important is this matter of consecration. Sometimes in our spiritual experience we came to a crisis, and we were not able to overcome. But if we renew our consecration, your new mind comes into you to make it easier. Thank God. And what is the perfect will of God? God wants us to prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Do you know that the depth of this will of God is singular in number? We think of the will of God as being plural, but there is one all inclusive will of God. And what is that perfect will of God? How are you going to prove it? How are you going to live in it? What is that perfect will? As you read on in Romans 12 it tells you; that perfect will of God is the body of Christ.

"Do not look upon yourself more than what you are." (Verse 3) You know brothers and sisters, when we received the mercies of God, we were so full, and we thought, "Now we have everything. We do not need anybody else; the Lord and I, that is enough." Ah, do not look upon yourself more than what you are because you are only a member of the body of Christ. Christ is so immense, unsearchable in riches, that no one person can contain the fullness of Christ. What you have tasted is only a little bit of it. You taste a little bit, I taste a little bit and so we have to look upon ourselves according to our measure of faith. We have brothers and sisters, and in them, in every member of the body of Christ there is the riches of Christ, we need one another. Brothers and sisters, this is the perfect will of God.

Consecration; present your bodies as a living sacrifice. You know that the body is a plural number because everyone of us has a body, a redeemed body, but when all these bodies are given to the Lord, the Lord will open our eyes to see THE body, the one body. Christ is the Head and the church is His body. You will not only see it but also you will live it. Brothers and sisters, I often feel it has been two thousand years and the church is not ready. The body is not fully built up yet. Do you know why? What is the reason? Because many who are saved live for themselves. They never see the body, and never become a living functioning body, because they live in their own body and live their own life. Brothers and sisters, this is why unless God's people have absolutely given themselves to the Lord you will not be able to be a living functioning member of the body of Christ, and the body of Christ is built by this body functioning. Every member contributes his part for the building up of the body in itself. So you see how important this matter of consecration is; absolute consecration leads to the body of Christ.

May the Lord help us.

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