Lesson 17: Consecration to Christ for the Building Up of the Church


	Lesson Seventeen Consecration to Christ for the Building Up of the Church In this lesson, we will cover: I. What is Consecration? II. Consecration to the Lord A. Basis - We have been Bought with a Price (1 Cor. 6:19-20, Rom. 14:8, Rom. 7:14, 1 Pet. 1:18-19) B. Motivation - We are Constrained by the Love of Christ (2 Cor. 5:14-15, Exo. 21:1-6) III. Consecration for the Building Up of the Church (Rom. 12:1, Lev. 1:1-9) Charles Spurgeon's Consecration Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) consecrated himself to God very shortly after he was saved. He believed in the Lord on January 6, 1850, and on February 1 wrote the following prayer of consecration: "O great and unsearchable God, who knows my heart, and tries all my ways; with a humble dependence upon the support of Your Holy Spirit, I yield up myself to You; as Your own reasonable sacrifice, I return to You Your own. I would be forever, unreservedly, perpetually Yours; while I am on earth, I would serve You; and may I enjoy You and praise You for ever! Amen." -Charles Spurgeon, Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching & Preachers, W. Wiersbe, p. 235. What is Consecration? God created man with a free will. With this free will, man can make all kinds of choices and decisions. Thus, before we become a Christian God wants us to make a decision to receive Jesus as our Savior. Furthermore, for us to grow healthily as a Christian we have to first choose whether or not to surrender our life to Him. This surrendering, which involves the physical, mental, and spiritual experiences of our existence on the earth, is called consecration. Some Christians have never consecrated themselves to the Lord, even after they have been born again for many years. As a result, their growth in the Christian life is very little. They may have some Bible knowledge and they may even do some works for God. However, because they have never completely given their life to Him, they have not grown spiritually. Consequently they remain spiritual babes. This is not what God desires from any of us. God wants to work in our heart, lead us in our daily life, and gain us to serve Him. But for this to happen, we have to give Him permission to do it. God would never force His way into our heart or make us do things against our will. He is a patient Father, who waits for His children to give Him their consent willingly. Only when we have entered into this transaction of completely handing over our life to Him can we then become His useful servants. Consecration To The Lord The Bible does not teach us about consecration directly. However, it has many pictures to illustrate what it means for a person to be consecrated (e.g., Aaron and his household - see Exodus 28 & 29). In every case the Bible tells us to consecrate our life to Jesus Christ our Lord only. It does not tell us to make our consecration to an organization, a group, a Christian service, a good work, or even for a worthy cause. Now let us consider what would cause us to take this step for the Lord. Does it just happen that when we wake up one day, we decide to surrender our life to Christ without any reason? For most of us this would not be the case. Our consecration to the Lord would in fact be based upon two important realizations. Basis - We have been Bought with a Price Our first realization is to see that we have been bought with a price. The Bible says, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit…, and you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price. So then glorify God in your body" (1 Cor. 6:19-20). In the eyes of God, after we have received Jesus, we belong to ourselves no longer. Our Lord Jesus has already paid a price to purchase us, and rightfully we belong to Him. "Whether we live or we die, we are the Lord's" (Rom. 14:8). To know this fact in our mind is one thing, but to realize it in our heart is another. We should know that we were lost and without hope, sold under sin (Rom. 7:14). Yet our Savior came to redeem us by buying us back for Himself. He paid the highest price for us by shedding His blood on the cross. "It was not with corruptible things, with silver or with gold, that you were redeemed from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers, but with precious blood, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot, the blood of Christ" (1 Pet. 1:18-19). If we were to truly see this, we would weep and bow down on our knees to thank our Lord for paying this price on our behalf. We will also see that we no longer have the right to live our life for ourselves. We are now slaves of Christ. Just as a human slave has no right to do anything other than to do what his master wants him to, we who are the purchased slaves of Christ have no right to do anything other than to serve Him according to God's will. This realization is the basis for our consecration. Motivation - We are Constrained by the Love of Christ Our second realization is to see that it is through the Lord's approaching us in love and drawing us to love Him that we are motivated to make the decision to consecrate ourselves to Him. Even though we do not have the right to live our own life, the Lord does not exercise His right over us. Instead, "the love of Christ constrains us …and He died for all that those who live may no longer live to themselves but to Him who died for them and has been raised" (2 Cor. 5:14-15). Hence it is not out of a duty that we would surrender our life to Him, but it is His love that draws us to do so. Consecration is much like marriage. It seems that in any marriage relationship we have to give up many of our rights to our spouse. But we know that the reason we "sacrifice" our desires for their sake is not because we have made a legal vow to do so, but because we love them. Love is why we are willing to lay aside our self and do whatever it takes to make our marriage life work. Love is a powerful thing. In the Old Testament, if a Hebrew bought a slave, that slave had to serve his master for six years. In the seventh year the slave was to be set free. He was no longer bound to serve his master. However, if the slave were to say, "I love my master; I will not go out free," the master could bring him to the doorpost and bore his ear through with an awl. Then the slave would be able to serve his master forever (Exo. 21:1-6). What this picture shows us can be applied to our experience today. We know that the Lord is our master and we are His slaves. If we were to go on to experience His unbounded love, we would not help but to tell Him we love Him as our Master and would not go out free. Thus our spontaneous response to His great love is to willingly give ourselves to Him. This is the second realization we should have, that love is the motivating power for our consecration. Consecration For The Building Up Of The Church You may ask, "What will it look like if I consecrate myself to the Lord?" The Bible shows us that the purpose of consecration is to serve God. Furthermore, when we are truly serving God, we are also building up the church, which is the heart's desire of God. Romans 12:1 says, "I exhort you therefore, brothers, through the compassions of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service." The thought here is that a consecrated person is one who presents his body as a living sacrifice to God; he is one who because of God's compassions desires to live a holy and well pleasing life to Him. In the Old Testament, one way the Israelites served God was to present burnt offerings to Him. A bull would be killed, its blood sprinkled, and its body cut into pieces. Then it would be burned on the altar. This offering by fire became a satisfying fragrance to the Lord (Lev. 1:1-9). In the New Testament, we the believers have become the offering to be sacrificed on the altar. Although we are not to be killed and burned in a physical sense, we are to be the living sacrifice, good to be consumed by the spiritual fire of God. Thus our consecration to the Lord is not dead, but alive and active, causing us to live a life to serve Him. Only this kind of serving life is well pleasing to God. You may notice that the word "bodies" is plural and the word "sacrifice" is singular. Why is this so? It is because God desires us to offer our bodies to Him, not merely to serve Him all alone by ourselves, but to serve Him together with many other believers who have presented their bodies also. Although there are many bodies presented to serve God, God sees only one living sacrifice - a corporate body of believers who are serving, which is the church. This means that none of us was meant to serve God by ourselves, but we were meant to serve God together with many other lovers of Christ who have willingly placed themselves on the altar so that we all can build up the church together. Discussion Questions 1. What does consecration mean? 2. Why does God wait until we give Him permission before He would work in us? 3. What do we consecrate our life to? 4. What are the two realizations that we must have before we consecrate our lives to God? 5. How does the love of Christ constrain us? 6. What is the purpose of consecration? 7. What is the burnt offering in the Old Testament? 8. How can we today become satisfying to God? Practical Tips Spend some time to tell the Lord about your desire to grow in your Christian life. If you feel like you have not grown much in your Christian life, it may be because you have not allowed the Lord to do what He wants to do in you. You can tell the Lord how you feel by praying, "Lord, I don't want to remain a spiritual baby. I want to give You permission to work in my heart. I don't want to hold back anything or hide any part of my heart from You. I give You the freedom to come into every part of my heart. I am willing to let You lead me in my daily life and in all my decisions. I want to be useful to You and serve You throughout my whole life. Amen." Ask the Lord to show you His surpassing great love. Consecration is not a duty or obligation. It is a spontaneous response toward the Lord when we have realized that we belong to Him. If you have never had this realization, you would not have realized how great is His love toward you. You can make a start by telling the Lord, "Lord, show me the price You had paid for me on the cross. For most of my life I have not really seen what You have done for me. Now I ask You to open the eyes of my heart. I want to know sincerely that You are my Master and I am Your slave and that I no longer belong to myself, but to You only. Even the more, I want to experience and appreciate Your great love. Touch my heart so that I can willingly say, 'I love my Master; I will not go out free.' Amen." Make a commitment to spend some time every week to serve with other believers in the church. The purpose of your consecration is to serve God. However, God does not want you to become someone special. He only wants you to become a sacrifice - for His satisfaction alone. Many times, however, you think of doing great things for God. But the truth is that you want to do it not for the Lord but for yourselves so that you can gain glory from men rather than praise from God. You should learn to be part of a living sacrifice for God. You can do this by spending some time each week, say two to three hours, to be together with other pure hearted Christians to serve God.