Setting a Place for a Set-Apart Life.

I invite you to find your way back to your seats today. Happy Sunday, everyone. If we haven't met yet, my name is Abbie, and I'm so excited to be with you all this afternoon and diving into the word.

We have been in this series called The Table, where we are talking about meals and who are the different people that Jesus invited to the table. He not only shared meals with them, but shared life with him. So just in the spirit of meals and all of that, I'm going to have you turn to someone next to you and tell them, what is your go-to comfort food meal?

Comfort food is something that's comforting to us. It's the stuff that we crave. Mine is definitely mac and cheese, all those warm, comforting things. This weekend I went to visit my parents and they showed me a new restaurant in town. They were trying to lure me to move back home to Indiana by showing me new spots. It was supposed to be comfort foods with a twist.

I got a fish fry because it's Friday. My dad ordered something like a rib tip grilled cheese. The whole thing was comfort foods with a twist. It was this rib tip grilled cheese, but then there was actual grilled cheese layered within it. So you couldn't even see the bread because it was more cheese and more cheese. He had one bite and said, I cannot eat this. It's just way too much.

There are certain things where even some good things just cannot mix well together. They need to be left alone as they are. We have been talking about this idea of Jesus and the table. All throughout Jesus' life, he invited different people to follow him, to do life with him, to share meals with him. Last week we talked about this idea that we are all invited to the table, that no matter where we came from, no matter how qualified we feel, we are invited to come and have relationship with him and partake in the table with him.

Today we're going to talk about what Jesus did after he invited people to come and follow him. If you have your Bibles, we're going to be reading a couple different scriptures. The first is in Luke 14. This is right after the parable of the banquet where Jesus was talking to his disciples. He's saying, hey, this is who you should invite. Invite the misfits, invite the people that nobody else would invite to the table. That's who I'm after.

Now he's continuing to talk to his disciples. In Luke 14:25-27, he says this:

There were large crowds traveling with Jesus. And he turned to these crowds and he said, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even their own life, such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Luke 14:25-27

This is where things are starting to shift. Jesus is saying, hey, you're all invited. You can all come and have relationship with me, but there is a next invitation. This invitation is a call to count the cost of following Jesus, to not just follow Jesus in the simple and the easy, but to say, if you are going to be my disciple, if you truly want to become like me and live like I do, you cannot follow me unless you leave everything behind, carry your cross and follow me.

The next scripture we're going to read is 2 Timothy 2:20-24:

In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver but also of wood and clay. Some are for special purposes and some for common use. Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the master and prepared to do any good work. Flee from the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord's servants must not be quarrelsome, but must be kind to everyone, able to teach and not resentful.

2 Timothy 2:20-24

Let's pray and ask the Lord to speak. God, we thank you so much today that we can come and hear your voice through your word. I pray now that you would open up our ears to hear, open up our hearts to receive, and that we would be willing to respond and be obedient to whatever it is that you are inviting us to do. We thank you, Lord, that you continue to speak to us today, that you desire a relationship, that you desire to not leave us the same, but to continue to form us more into your likeness, into your goodness, into your image.

We love you, Lord. We invite you now to speak. In your name. Amen.

Consecration: set apart and fully devoted

We see here that there is this invitation to follow Jesus, to be with him, and then there's this invitation to become like him, to count the cost. Today we're going to be talking about this idea of consecration. Consecration is this idea that you are both set apart and fully devoted.

One of the earliest times we read about consecration in the Old Testament is in Joshua chapter 3. This is taking place when Joshua was leading the Israelites, and he's trying to lead them into the promised land. At this point, they have not yet crossed over the Jordan River. They are waiting, they have been wandering, and they're waiting for God to lead them across the Jordan.

In Joshua 3, it says:

Early in the morning, Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to Jordan, where they camped before crossing over. After three days, the officers went throughout the camp, giving orders to the people. When you see the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. But keep a distance, about 2,000 cubits, between you and the Ark. Do not go near it. Joshua told the people, consecrate yourselves for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.

Joshua 3:5-5

Joshua is talking to the people, but we know that Joshua was hearing from God and speaking on God's behalf. He's saying, consecrate yourselves today. Here's what we need to catch. The disciples, those who were walking closely with Jesus, people that had been following him, the crowds that were seeing him face to face, Jesus was telling them, consecrate yourselves. Be set apart, fully devoted.

Here, the Israelites, who had seen God do some powerful things up until this point, God is saying, consecrate yourself, be set apart and fully devoted. This call, this invitation for us to not only follow Jesus but live a consecrated life is still for us today. If we want to become like Jesus and live the life we were created to live, we are going to have to say yes to not only being with Jesus, but yes to living a consecrated life.

In the Old Testament, another story of consecration was someone like Samson, who took vows to say no and not go near all of these things. This would be this idea where he was consecrating from things of the world. But if you know the story of Samson, it didn't end well. I can't help but wonder, is it because he was consecrating from things so he was living set apart but he wasn't consecrated to anything? He wasn't devoting himself to God?

In the New Testament we see this with the Pharisees. They were devoted to a lot of different things, but they were consecrating themselves to morality. They were consecrating themselves to all these religious laws. In some ways, yes, they were set apart and they were devoted, but just not to the way of Jesus.

This idea of consecration, if we're going to do it right, it has to be consecrated from and consecrated to. So why do we consecrate? Why do we want to live this way? Well, Joshua is telling them, if we do this, the Lord's going to do amazing things among us. And he did. If you haven't read Joshua, I'll let you go read the full story some other time, but they do cross over into the Jordan. They do eventually make it into the promised land. Everything that God said he was going to do, he did. He did amazing things among them after they consecrated themselves.

That's why we live that way. Because when we live set apart and fully devoted to God, we get to experience him in ways that we never otherwise would unless we fully separate ourselves from all the things holding us back and building up walls and barriers from him.

Three obstacles to consecration

So then why don't we live this way? I think there are three things that can stop us from living consecrated lives. And lucky for you, they all start with C, so you should be able to remember them.

The first one is compromise. The second one is comfort. And the third one is complacency. We as followers of Jesus need to live lives that choose to be consecrated over compromise, consecrated over comfort and consecrated over the temptation of complacency.

Why do we compromise? I think we compromise when we're tired, when we're exhausted, when we're impatient, when we don't see that there is another way. I think of what that would have been like for the Israelites, thinking that there's no possible way to cross over the Jordan. So there would be a temptation then to compromise, to settle.

I think we compromise when we do a few things. We separate ourselves from God. We surround ourselves with the wrong people. And when we believe the lie that what we're doing doesn't really affect us or doesn't really matter.

When we separate ourselves from God and his people, all of this can start so slow in our lives, right? It starts from just, okay, it's been a while since I've opened up my Bible, or I'm just going to miss one or two Sundays or one or two things. But this idea of compromise is to expose yourself to risk or danger. It's like when a computer gets a virus and something has come in and taken advantage of this system. Then all of a sudden it's vulnerable and at more danger and risk, and more things are going to happen. When we separate ourselves from God, when we compromise who we are, when we compromise the things that he's asking us to do, we set ourselves up for more risk, for more danger, for more of the wrong things to enter into our lives and literally become a virus that makes us sick and then not want to turn back to God.

The next thing is when we surround ourselves with the wrong people. Now this can be confusing, because last week we talked about putting ourselves in places with people that would otherwise never interact with God, never be near the church. But we also need to make sure that we are with people that are continuing to empower us to love like Jesus and to live like Jesus. That's why we gather here on Sundays, to be empowered and equipped to continue to be the hands and feet of Jesus in our everyday lives. We need community around us.

That's why even when Jesus sent out his disciples, he didn't just meet them one day and send them out on their own the next. He gathered a community to be there for one another and to continue to equip and empower one another to go and reach a community.

The next is that we start to compromise when we believe the lie that what we're doing doesn't really matter. We believe that lie that okay, this one little thing, it's not that big of a deal. It can be fill in the blank. One more drink isn't that big of a deal. Just saying this small piece of gossip doesn't really matter. It's not that big of a deal. But it is a slow fade. Compromise is when we start to weaken and diminish things over time to the point that all of a sudden we are at risk. We are at danger. We're no longer living the way that God created us to live.

So we need to choose consecration to be set apart and fully devoted so that we are not vulnerable to the way that the enemy is trying to get us to live.

Choosing consecration over comfort

The next is that we need to choose consecration over comfort. This is a tricky one. We all have this innate desire to live our best lives, to live life to the fullest. But the reality is, this is not our home. We were created for eternity. So there's always going to be this level that's actually probably healthy for us of discomfort and dissatisfaction that no earthly thing is going to be able to fill.

Just this week, I was spending time with different pastors, and we were gathering to strategize how to continue to fundraise for an organization we work with here as a church called Project Rescue. What Project Rescue does is they rescue people, women and children from the evil of human trafficking all over the world. Every year we get together, we hear about a project, we come back, we fundraise. And this year I got to meet the girl that we're going to be fundraising for. She has a home where she is getting ready to build on and expand because they have so many children coming. So many children that are being freed from human trafficking that they don't have room for.

I'm talking to this girl that has literally given up the comforts of her home, the comforts of her family, and she's devoted her entire life to living far from her family, far from the comforts of this world, so that she can be a part of rescuing these girls and giving them the hope of Jesus. I just asked her, I said, hey, like, tell me more. How can I be praying for you? How is it being so far from everyone you know and everything that's familiar?

She said something to me that I'll never forget. She said, well, this earth is not my home to begin with. Every time I'm homesick, I'm reminded of my heavenly longing to be home in eternity. She said every time that I miss the comforts of living in America and being close to friends and being able to just hang out and it's safe to actually go out at night, I continue to ask the Lord to remind me that he's the only one that can satisfy me in that community and relationship.

When we live these lives set apart and fully devoted, we get to experience God in ways that we never thought possible. The joy of this girl to give her life to this, the ways that she's talking about experiencing relationship, when I'm looking, I'm like, she's literally alone and she's building up a team. I'm like, how are you doing that on your own? And she's talking about the way she's experiencing God. You can just see she's living this consecrated life where she is set apart from the things of this world. She's saying, God, I'm devoted to you and your people. And that's enough for her.

But if we continue to believe the lie that this is our home, then we're going to seek the comforts of this world above everything else. And all of it is going to lead back to compromising things and not living that consecrated life.

In Joshua, God was leading his people to dwell in his presence forever. But my fear is that for many of us, we're not going to get to the other side of that promised land because we're not willing to leave the comforts and we're not willing to live a consecrated life. Because if we're honest, we're just okay with where we're at, and we don't really see a need for change.

Philippians 4:11-13 says:

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all things through him who gives me strength.

Philippians 4:11-13

Living a life of comfort is not the end goal, but what we see here in Philippians is that as we continue to live set apart and fully devoted, I believe we start to experience the contentment in who Jesus is. Like this friend that I just met in the stories I'm telling you, she's content with where she's at. She's content with what God is doing. And she's even leaning more and more into that.

I think that's an important distinction for us to make. Contentment is good. We should be content in all things. And comfort is something that the enemy can use to pull us farther away from God. So we have to be careful in how we discern those two things together.

But what is the solution for all of this? Well, it keeps going back to when we devote ourselves to God, we will dwell in the land that he has promised us. We will dwell in his presence and we will be fully satisfied in a way we didn't know possible. Because at the end of the day, no earthly thing will ever compare. And when we count the cost to follow Jesus, it will be worth it.

Choosing consecration over complacency

The next is consecration over complacency. Here are some key qualities or characteristics of what it means to be complacent. You find yourself satisfied with just the status quo, settling. Complacent individuals are often just satisfied. They resist any change or challenges. There's lack of initiative. Complacent people lack maybe that motivation or initiative to strive for any type of growth. Ignoring potential problems. When you're complacent, you're not really paying attention to any of the risks or any of the things that could be happening. You're just kind of blind to all the warning signs. You're resistant to change and just trying to be as stable as possible.

We need to be consecrated people that are not going to settle. Yes, we're going to be content, but we're not going to be complacent. We are going to take initiative to devote ourselves to God fully. Because remember, Samson was separated. The Pharisees were consecrated to something, but not the right thing.

We have to be set apart. Follow the example of Jesus forsaking all others for the sake of all of us. He took on the cross and he invites us to do the same and carry our cross to go all in, to give our time, to give our resources, to give everything we have to ushering in the kingdom of heaven. That is what it means for us to be invited to the table and in relationship with Jesus. We're invited into his mission. And that takes living a consecrated life.

We need to consecrate and be fully set apart and fully devoted not only so that we can dwell in the land of the Lord forever but so other people can as well.

The cost of consecration: Joshua 5

Later in Joshua chapter 5, the story continues. Joshua 5 says:

Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted in fear, and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites.

Joshua 5:1

At this point, they've crossed over. He literally dried up the Jordan River. The Israelites came over, and it's saying that their enemies are now afraid of them. Their enemies don't have the courage to face them. So we have Joshua, this military leader, waiting and ready to attack, and he's like, is this the moment? Is this my time?

And then we pick up here in Joshua 5:2:

At this time, the Lord said to Joshua, make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again. To get that word again. So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelites. Now this is why he did so. All those who came out of Egypt, all the men of military age died in the wilderness on the way after leaving Egypt. All the people that came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness during the journey from Egypt had not. The Israelites had moved about in the wilderness forty years until all the men who were military age when they left Egypt had died. Since they had not obeyed the Lord, for the Lord had sworn to them that they would not see the land he solemnly promised their ancestors to give them, the land flowing with milk and honey. So he raised up their sons in their place, and these were the ones Joshua circumcised. They were still uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised on the way. And after the whole nation had been circumcised, they remained where they were in camp until they were healed. Then the Lord said to Joshua, Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you, so the place has been called Gilgal to this day.

Joshua 5:2-9

On the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, while camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, the Israelites celebrated Passover. The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land, unleavened bread and roasted grain. The manna stopped the day after they ate the food from the land. There was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate the produce of Canaan.

What's happening here? You know it's a good Sunday when you get to talk about circumcision in church. They had not obeyed on the journey. God had told them, like, this is your way of being set apart and fully devoted, through circumcision. And then something happened on the journey and they did not obey. And so there were all these grandchildren, all the older men had now died off. And God's like, wait a second. I know you're feeling like a conqueror. I know we literally just had this miracle take place where you crossed over into the Jordan River. But wait a minute, go back and circumcise the men.

This is key. God is after our obedience. He wants us to hear his voice and know how to respond to it. There are going to be times in our lives where we're going to get to the other side and we're going to see things take place. And we're going to have these moments of going like, but what about this? And what about that? And God's going to say, Hey, did you do what I told you to do in the beginning? Are you obedient? Because he wants to know, do you hear me? Do you respond to my voice?

They looked back and they realized that they didn't do what God had asked them to do in the beginning. Here's the reality of the other side. The promised land that the Israelites could not wait to get to, if you read Joshua, there was greater battle, even more battles. We haven't even gotten to the story of Jericho and the walls coming tumbling down. Like we haven't even gotten there yet. So you might think, okay, but we're stepping over. We're crossing the Jordan. We're getting there. Things are happening. But there's still going to be more battles on the other side of the Jordan River, this place that they had been longing to go.

And it's there that God stops them and says, go back, circumcise yourself. I want to see, are you going to be set apart and fully devoted? Sometimes even on the other side of our victory, the place we're longing to go, it's going to require greater surrender for us to continue.

Here's my encouragement to you. This is a moment of God saying, Hey, I remember what I told you. So no, we're not going to keep going until we do this. So it's this reminder, like you're not off the hook for the things that God has asked of you. But with that, you're also not counted out and there's room and there's time for you to turn from the things that where you were, and the things you were doing that were not pleasing to God and to instead turn to him. There are second chances when it comes to following Jesus. And all the way back in the Old Testament, we see God giving the people this moment to say, wait, go back, do this.

In Deuteronomy, it talks about this idea of circumcising. Deuteronomy 10 says:

Circumcise your hearts and be stiff-necked no longer.

Deuteronomy 10:16

You see there, it's circumcising your hearts. We know what circumcision is and when it comes down to it, it is this idea of cutting away fleshly desire, things that rule over you. It's this outward symbol of what we should be doing with our hearts, where we are cutting back, separating ourselves from things that can rule over us, from fleshly desires, and we are being fully surrendered to the Lord.

Crossing over to the other side, the things that we're waiting for God to do in our lives, the places we're waiting for God to bring us might require even greater sacrifice. Why do we do this? Why do we live these consecrated lives? I do it so that I can know and experience God in greater ways. I want us to do it so we can know and experience God in greater and deeper ways. I want us to do it for our city and for our neighbors so that we can be people that Jesus can just flow through.

I love in verse 8, though, that it says:

After the whole nation had been circumcised, they remained where they were in camp until they were healed.

Joshua 5:8

They remained where they were until they were healed. You see, sometimes when we go through seasons of change, when we go through seasons of consecration, where we are removing things from our life, it might be painful. When we're cutting things back, it might not be pleasant. It might not be comfortable. But we see that the Israelites here took time to wait there and remain until they were healed.

There is space for us to remain with Jesus until we feel like we are ready to walk and to run again. Sometimes we have to wait and we have to remain.

Our response: living consecrated

Our so what today is that the call of Christ is to live a consecrated life. And our now what do we do with that? We can say yes by living set apart and fully devoted, set apart and fully devoted.

When it comes to consecration I want you to start to think of these questions. If you're taking notes, these would be a great thing to note. And in a minute I'm going to ask everybody to pull out their phone or pen and paper and to ask the Lord to speak to them and show them what areas in your life do you need to live set apart and where do you need to be more fully devoted?

You see, sometimes we think of things, but sometimes I think it can be emotions, right? It can be worries. Think, is there any ways that I need to separate and to remove things from my life? Worries, greed, unforgiveness, bitterness, gossip, slander, grudges, sexual sin, ways that you've given into the lust of the body, any relationships, lies that you're believing. Are there lies that you just have to lay at the feet of Jesus? Substances, addictions. What are the things that you have been consecrated to that you need to remove from your life so you can be consecrated to Jesus?

Now whenever I think about these things, I always think that it's so much less about like okay, are these things good for me or bad for me? The question is not are these things bad for me but asking the question of are these things good for me? Are the things that I'm doing, the ways that I'm speaking, the ways that I'm living, are they forming me into the likeness and the person of Jesus?

I have some practical things then. When it's thinking through, okay, what do I need to remove? How can I be set apart? Are there things that I need to stop doing? And then when it comes to devote, here's some really practical ways that you can devote yourself to God.

We have here as a church our rhythm, or our rule of life, which are sets of practices that we're saying we want to be committed to as we follow the ways of Jesus. Some of the daily ones are daily prayer and time in the Word of God. That's a way that you can devote yourself to Him. A great practice is praying the prayer of examen, where you end your night by saying, God, would you help me to see where you were throughout the day? Would you help me see, are there any ways, any things that I did that were not pleasing to you, where we repent from our sins, we ask for forgiveness, we turn back towards God? Just ending your day in a prayer of examen, allowing the Lord to continue to speak to you is a way that you can devote yourself to God.

But I want to kind of close with this story or illustration. I want you to imagine that you witness a bride and a groom exchange the most beautiful vows that you've ever heard to one another. And they go on from that moment, and one spouse is fully devoted to the other one, and then it comes out they're also fully devoted to a bunch of other people. That's not consecration, right? They were fully devoted, but to a lot of different people, and so they weren't really living set apart.

Now imagine you witness a bride and groom exchanging their vows, the most beautiful vows you've ever heard, and they do forsake all others. They do forsake everybody else. Yet, there's no love, there's no presence, there's no devotion to each other. That too is not consecration.

Consecration is not just consecration from something, but consecration to something, as being set apart and fully devoted.

The good news of Jesus

Romans 12:1-2 says:

Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of the 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, perfect will.

Romans 12:1-2

In the Old Testament, a lot of times when consecration was mentioned, it was this idea of either circumcision or some sort of cleaning yourself, removing fleshly desires, washing away. And then you get to the New Testament where Jesus comes and he washed away our sins. He cleansed us. We sing about it and he's washing us as white as snow.

The good news that we have today is that because of Jesus, we're saved not only from this world, but for the sake of this world. We get to join him in his mission. The good news of Jesus is that he could not be more fully devoted to us. He left heaven to come down to earth to pay the price for our sins and wash us completely clean so that we now can live and receive that consecrated life. We can live clean and whole and fully devoted to him. And he did this because he wants to dwell with us for all of eternity.

This is the good news of Jesus. So then what do we do? How do we live that type of way? How do we live fully saved for the sake of the world and following Jesus' mission? I think it's receiving that cleansing from him and continuing to say, okay, now how am I going to live that out with those practical changes of removing things, being set apart and fully devoted?

I want you to just take a minute and pull out something to write with or your phone and note. I'm just going to give you just a minute off the top of your head because I believe that God speaks to us right through his word. And to just ask him, God, is there anything that's hindering me from being all in?

I'm just going to lead us through three questions here. God, is there anything that's hindering me from being all in? And write down what you feel like God is saying. The next is, what do I need to set aside in order to be set apart? What do I need to set aside in order to be set apart? And the final question is, what areas of my life do I need to be fully devoted to? Or what do I need to fully devote to you? What areas of my life do I need to fully devote?

I'm going to invite you whenever you're ready to just stand with me, and I'm going to close us in prayer and just encourage you to go back to these questions and ask the Lord to continue to speak to you.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for today. We thank you that you sent your son Jesus to be the example of what it looks like to live a consecrated life, to not live like people expected him to live, to not be complacent, to not be comfortable, but instead to choose those things, forsaking comfort for the sake of us, forsaking complacency and taking initiative and pursuing us time and time again.

We thank you that Jesus led the way and that as his disciples, as people that are saying hey, we want to follow him, that we can live that way because of his death and resurrection. That he washed us clean, that we have the ability to receive that cleansing and that consecrated life.

So God, we just ask that right now you would wash us clean again. That even as we begin to process those questions of where do we need to let things go, what do we need to set aside so we can be set apart, would you continue to just show us that? And show us that not in a like guilt way or shame way, but to know that you show us those things so that we can change and we can turn towards you instead, because your way is so much greater than anything that we could ever understand, and we thank you for that, God.

I pray right now that even if there are things that you're speaking to people, maybe it's going to be hard to let go of, it's going to be hard to walk away from, it's going to be painful, Lord, would you remind them in Joshua 5:8, where you told the Israelites, it's okay, remain there, wait till you're healed.

Would you help us to remain in you as we process things, as we heal from things, as maybe we're in the pain of forsaking things and letting go of things and cutting them out of our lives? Would you help us to remain in you? And God, would you help us every single day to just wake up with greater desires? Would you give us those desires to just devote ourselves to you, to be all in, knowing that you could not be more all in for us?

And we thank you for that, Jesus. So God, we just surrender these things to you. And we just say that we want to be devoted to you because you are worthy, God. Your mission is worthy. We thank you that you saved us, and we thank you now that we can live for the sake of this world, to know you and to dwell with you for all of eternity.

So we love you, Lord. We ask this in your name. Amen.

I encourage you guys to continue to sit with those questions of what does it look like for you to be set apart and fully devoted to God this week.