Principles of Position Lesson 11

Lesson 11 of the position class, so hopefully you have those questions. This is after chapter 4 of Myles' book on sanctification and consecration. We went through sanctification, which means? Set apart. Thank you. Now we're into consecration. So, question number 1, define consecration. Stunned silence again. Actually, you know, to be very bold, I had to figure this out myself when looking at this. My first impression was to find consecration and I went I haven't got a clue, really. Okay, that's where we're at. Yeah, see, but come on now. Did anybody read or read out of Chapter 4 what consecration is? Okay, well let me do my usual.

Whenever there is a question that Mike puts up on the fine, I usually go to my good friend, Mr. Webster, and find out what consecration is based on Mr. Webster. And Mr. Webster says, the first three. for definition of consecration. To induct as a bishop into an office with a religious right. Second, to make or declare sacred. Third, to devote solemnly to a purpose. Any of those fit? I think the last one is better. Is this like voting? Number one. Who has number one? Who has number two? Any of those fit?

Does any of those sound like the biblical definition of consecration? Well, two and three. Okay. What? No. No. No. Okay, that now, I won't give away what this is, but what are some other words for consecrate? Is there another word for consecrate? I want to use the word offering, but I'm not sure if it fits. Offering. In the Old Testament, there were things that were consecrated to the Lord as an offering.

First fruits and so forth. Okay. And then people were consecrated. And usually a baby would be raised. We have a picture of Davis doing that with Nora out at horseshoe. Looked like from Lion King. Sorry. He was consecrated. Norman, of course, the threads were lifting, ordained. OK. Anything else?

Turning from the old man to knowing who we are, who we already are, I don't know, this is way over my head. But, well, in our position, I don't know, help. I looked at a couple of them. Actually, I think I pulled it from Zodiates on the word consecrate, and it was to dedicate or to separate. Interesting. Yeah. So that's why I didn't want to answer it. So that was in Zodiates, to consecrate, not consecration, but to consecrate was to dedicate or separate, which kind of leads to the definition a little bit.

Miles had this as the definition. To dedicate, to separate, to consecrate ourselves unto God is simply our response of faith to the separation, the sanctification in which God has already placed us. It is acknowledging our position of sanctification. He goes on, consecration does not call upon us to do anything but to rest in what God has already done. That's it. That's what Wanda said. That's what I meant. Very good. Very good. I knew that. So it's simply our response of faith to the separation of the sanctification which God has already placed us. So it's basically, the last one, is acknowledging our position of sanctification. So my question is, what you did at Camp Elam yesterday, does it fit the definition?

Yes. Really? Were you acknowledging your separation and set apartness? You know, somewhat the theme is conformed. In it, not of it. Cool. Yeah. Actually that is the theme. That's really good. That's actually what it is. Actually part of that was that. Say that again? Yes. The theme for this summer is conformed? And then in it, in it, not of it. That's cool. That's really good. I could have worn my t-shirt. I got a t-shirt that says that. I'm sorry, but I kind of don't get it. Well, you're in the world, but not of it. Oh, okay.

Conformed to the world. Conformed to the world or conformed to Christ. I was thinking conformed to Christ. No, it's conformed to Christ or conformed to the world. We're in the world, but we're not of it. You know, it's also like in John 17, you know, that we're to remain here. but we're not to be conformed to the world. It's also in the prayer, we're to be ambassadors, we're to speak of Christ and that, and not be conformed to this world. So yeah, so actually that was part of that theme for Campion this whole summer. So it does have a little bit of a Star Wars theme to it, but that no force with you or anything like that, but there is a little bit of that.

Anyway, under that definition does that, the question I have is, under that definition does that fit with the reigning principle of grace that we live in? Well, we even have to accept grace. What? We have to accept, no. I mean, I have to. Grace has been very difficult to, that you don't Well it's a reigning principle and you can look at that in Romans 5, 17 and 21 I think is where it says grace is the reigning principle now. That's the operating system we as the new believers in Christ operate. So it's really the operating system we live in or how we operate is under this system or principle of grace. So does consecration and that definition fit with grace?

Yes? No? I hope you say yes. Actually, and the last part, what spurred me on was consecration does not call upon us to do anything but to rest in what God has already done. Is that pretty much describing grace? Yeah. And you can't rest until you know it, though. Absolutely.

Well, that's why, actually, sanctification comes before consecration. We have to know our position of sanctification. We have to know that first because consecration is only recognizing that and resting in that fact. So if you don't know sanctification, consecration doesn't happen. So yeah, first is sanctification and then consecration comes after that.

But again, I think it fits in quite well with grace because it's nothing we do. What is our response to grace? Gratitude. Thank you. It's basically saying, thank you. Same on consecration. It's just recognizing what we already have, our position in sanctification, that we have been set apart. Our position is just recognizing that. So, I put it here, be open about my study of consecration. I did not really think too much about consecration before looking into this lesson. I must fully confess that.

And the reason is, I didn't really find, we'll get down to question 7, but there's no direct verse in the Bible that states precisely what consecration is, like sanctification. You can look in 1 Corinthians 1, and I put 30, but this is for sanctification. But by His doing, you are in Christ Jesus, who become to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. So, again, Christ is our sanctification. It says it right there. What verse was that?

1 Corinthians 1.30? 1.30, okay. So, but by His doing, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification. So Christ is our sanctification.

It says it right there. So we'll look later as we get into question 7, verses that point to consecration, but I did a search on my PC, Study Bible, trying to find consecration in the New Testament, any epistles or anything like that. You don't find it. There isn't.

Consecration is X. Consecration is a big deal in the Catholic Church. I think they use it as definition number one, like the bishop being inducted into office It seems like the consecration comes from man, would you say, in the Catholic Church? Man is consecrating stuff. Or is it like recognizing the position of bishop?

No, even more than that. It's more along the lines of we are going to consecrate this table to you God. We're going to make it holy for you. We're going to make it holy because we've decided to make it holy. But you can think about, the hymn that comes to mind is, take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee.

I mean, that's the same thing. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And that fits with grace, right? Nope. I mean, what you're saying about Catholic Church, that does not fit in with grace at all. Well, I said that there is no scriptural definition of this. In the New Testament?

In the New Testament there is one that is pretty close and that is Romans 12.1 where we are to present our bodies alive from the dead. And it is following of course the crucifixion passages. It is based on that. It's not an act. It's because we've come to know him and love him. You're getting ahead on question seven. We are resting in him, right? You're getting ahead on question seven.

Oh, I'm sorry. But you said there was no passage. But there isn't one that says, like, Corinthians. Christ is our sanctification. It doesn't say, literally use the word consecration. I went through all of it and I couldn't find any of it. So my point being is there isn't anything that I can point to and just say, okay, Christ is our sanctification. Consecration is X. It isn't that.

We'll get to the Romans 1. concordance here, and all the references are all Old Testament. Old Testament, yeah. That's what I went through. I can click on mine and do consecrate, and that's why it is. You consecrate your child, you consecrate the lamb, or you consecrate an anoint with oil. That was all Old Testament. And that's probably where the Catholic Church took a lot of it. But like I said, when I started this, one, I confess that I said I really didn't I hadn't had a clue really, I hadn't thought about consecration and then when I started studying it's like, okay.

And so the first thing I do is I look at the definitions and then where in the New Testament does it come up? And there really isn't that clear, concise definition. So why is it so important to Miles? Well, I think it's just a recognition. We'll get down in verse 7 where it does, Romans, question 7, Romans 6, that basically says what it is.

And we put a word on it, which is consecration. So that's really, it's the word we put on it for what is explained in Romans 6. It's already true of us. And so consecration really is, how do you describe submitting yourself, let's say, to the position that God has, consecration is a good word. Yeah, it's more the word we give for the process of, and that's why I said there isn't a succinct But we describe what happens in Romans 6, we'll get to that, by the word consecration or any of those positional. I think that's a good thing.

It's a conditional response for us. I think the importance of it is so many churches today, they're not taught position. Then they go into consecration. I mean, these chairs, they're consecrated to the Lord, and you don't sit in that any certain way, you know, or want to respect it, or running in the church, or, you know, there's so many laws that are built around, well, this is consecrated.

I think that's a good point. I think maybe that's it. Maybe it's more the negative of it than the positive side, I guess. The negative side is that it's more law-based, that people put a law-based definition or Yeah, it's what we do. We are offering. We are dedicating. We are providing. We have to do. And I think maybe that's it.

It's the negative connotation that's probably worse of what consecration is. As far as importance or whatever, I think we recognize as a conditional response to our position of sanctification. So, but I think maybe that's probably, we recognize it more for what the positive is than what a lot of other churches do on the negative side. Yeah, I was just going to say a lot of the churches that I work with, I wouldn't say all of them, but a lot of them teach consecration first.

Yeah. And then sanctification. And then the people get disgusted and discouraged and they leave and they're like, church isn't for me. You know, because they feel like they're not doing it right. Well, I think it's probably also from a myth. If they've done that, they probably also screwed up sanctification. So it's a double whammy.

You did it backwards and you probably have the wrong definition of what sanctification is. Because typically what sanctification is, is what I do too. They put it on, I'm sanctifying, I'm going to be really pious. I'm going to be, I, I, I, I, I, I. And so sanctification starts out.

And then Monday they blow it. Yeah. And it's all, because it's all related onto what they do or how they do it. So like I said, probably that is both wrong. The definition of what they're in, their knowledge of sanctification is wrong. And then they put the cart in front of the horse. So.

That's the importance of knowing. the whole idea of what positional truth is. What is it? And from what perspective, from a grace perspective, what is positional truth? If you don't teach that first, the fallback position is legalism. It has to be. Well that is, and that's what I'm saying. So sanctification is what do I do? Usually sanctification is how do I become a better believer? How do I? How do I? How do I? How do I? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? And so it's not from a grace-based position. So anyway, yeah. Okay. Well, if you lived in Pennsylvania with my kids... Oh, I'd never do that. Is there any way to find a church that teaches position.

He probably has more conversations with people because of Miles' books and through Miles, people inquiring. So he might have somebody who's, basically the reason is they've requested books of the Hungry Heart or some of these things that lay out and then at least you know that maybe they're inquiring or have some basis for that. So Mike may be able to point you to a couple of people. or a couple places.

The sad fact is there aren't that many. That's the hard part. It goes back to almost what I say before. I think there are millions and billions of believers, but I think a lot of people are still in the nursery and will never get out of the nursery until they know, I believe, the identification truths, because you have to be separated from the old man.

Otherwise, your whole gig is How do I get better? How do I do this? How do I do that? How do I? And until you understand your separation, the co-crucifixion, I think you're always struggling. You're always finding that you always want to do a new program, a new way to do it. How can I make myself better? How can I make myself more pleasing to God? what can I do to make God smile on me a little bit more? Well, what you're summing that up is know your true identity from God's perspective. Yeah, but like I said, I still believe simple faith, we've had this discussion, simple faith, there are millions and billions know Christ, but they can't grow because they just don't have the growth truths. And so they struggle for years. And I'm an example of that.

I mean, out of the Brethren Church, and with all these guys who taught this, we never taught that. And so, very little growth. We went into program after program after program, and I kid, I have the flat forehead hitting the wall so many times. But that end-all program that was going to do the best for me, and then you fail.

Oh, well, there's another program out here that I can do. J.I. Packer, Knowing God, whatever this. And it kept, you keep failing, you keep failing, you keep failing, and then it's like, well, you know, finally, God gets you to the position, you go, I can't do it on my own. And something's not working. And he exposed it to the grocers. But may I just say, but even that is not enough.

Because we need to go from that knowledge to the person of our Lord Jesus. Right. Mine is, though, the growth doesn't happen until you know the separation. It's always the 2 Corinthians 3.18, looking and conforming, you know, being transformed. And it's the focus on him. That's the growth. But from a growth perspective, I think the old man is still, if you don't know that separation, that co-crucifixion, he's always screaming to get you better. Help me. I can get better. God has condemned that. Nothing good. And certainly you can know that, I think, and then still kind of forget. Or take your focus off, you know?

So the Holy Spirit's always working on it. We're always messing it up. We'll get to a question on that, actually, about that. So, let's proceed on. Question two. Does God require commitment from us to be consecrated? No. That was the same question as last year. I was going to say, does any red word go, you know, Holly Hill's red buzzword go flashing out of here?

Commitment. Require. Commitment. Commitment from us. I mark off yes. I don't have as much time as most people. We're going to have to give you the booklet of forbidden words of Holly Hills. He said we're going to send you the answers. No, no, you have great, great answers. Well, I said we have a responsibility. for responding to what's already been done? Not a responsibility.

It should be a natural outpouring of who you are in Christ. As you know who you are in Christ, it's a natural in the new man. I think that was in the Green Book. That we have the responsibility of responding. So have you ever thought about the word responsibility? You know what I mean? The ability to respond. Amen. There's a position right there. Yeah. And that's probably it. The old man can't respond. Yeah. He can't respond in kind. Only the new man. He can't do it. Because one, he doesn't have the knowledge, and two, he doesn't have the capacity. Well, we'll get to that. I mean, the carnal man can't. Cannot. Scripturally, it says it cannot. So, we don't have any commitment. Consecration does not call upon us to do anything but rest in what God has already done. So there isn't a commitment, there isn't a responsibility, there isn't anything.

It's our response knowing Him and being in Him It is the outpouring of who we are in Christ that will do this through the indwelling of the power of the Holy Spirit. So, I also say, does our committing anything fit with grace? No. Okay. So, the Firbodin word there, commitment. Okay, what does real consecration depend on? Yielding ourselves to God. Yielding ourselves to God.

Okay. Others? Straight out of the green. No, but I mean that is what you, that's what the self has a hard time doing. Faith has a hard time doing. Personal faith. The self of the old man. The self can't do it. The what? The self can't do it. Our old man can't do it. I know, but you won't do it. Yeah, but you're saying the new, new, major, new...

So what was the definition, basically, of consecration? Response to faith. Simply our response and faith to the separation of sanctification in which God already placed us. It is acknowledging our position of sanctification. So what does consecration depend on?

Knowing who Christ is and what he did. More than that. I'm waiting. Knowing that it applies to you. Knowing that you've been sanctified. That's what it's based on. Have you been sanctified? You know that. then consecration is acknowledging that. That's what I answered in number one. You're all messed up.

Okay, unless we know that we've been sanctified in the Lord Jesus, we can't respond to Him in consecration to Him. We can't acknowledge sanctification if we don't know sanctification. Well, it's kind of what we were just saying. If you mess up sanctification or put sanctification behind, it gets all messed up. So, consecration is based on our knowledge of our position of sanctification.

Alright, so why does so much sincere consecration come to nothing? Because it's all done for the wrong reasons. It's a self-improvement plan. It's good to make it that, I mean, if you make it a self-improvement plan. Because we're not living in what has already been done. Yeah, I mean, all these are right answers.

I mean, it's the wrong How should I say this? The wrong person doing it, the old man, a lot of times, it's the old man saying, what can I do? What can I do? Put me under the legal system again. I will do this. If I do this, I get this, and back under the law system.

That's a lot of the consecration, just what we were talking about earlier, that's where the failure is. Remember, our definition, what we're going by is, it's simply acknowledging our position of sanctification. Most consecration, as we talked about earlier, is all about what we do to make ourselves holy and righteous and what we're going to dedicate to the Lord. I'm going to dedicate my car to the Lord. I'm going to dedicate, and that's not what it is.

A lot of it is because of motive or the wrong person doing it. The old nature wants to do things and be put back under that legal system. I think that's the big issue right there. Every act that we do comes up, has its source either out of the new life in Christ, or the old Adamic man, and if we don't understand that God has sanctified us, and that sanctification has to do with all of, like you like to talk about, identification, then we would always, and without even thinking about it, try to dedicate something that God isn't going to accept, out of the old man to him. And so, ignorance on that point, you wonder why things don't come out the way they should. It's because, one, you're ignorant, or two, if you weren't ignorant, you're just not listening under what the Lord has told you. Yeah. You know what that sounds like, is Cain and Abel. You know, the sacrifice? Yeah. Absolutely, that's what it is. Oh yeah.

The main reason is that most well-meaning Christians seek to consecrate to God that which He has totally and forever rejected. I think when you're saying that, we try and consecrate the old man to God. The next question answers that. We would only consecrate the old man if that's all we knew. You know, if our whole frame of reference in Christianity is that Christ saved me, but I'm still the center of everything, then that's where I'm going to go. But until I understand that my old nature has been replaced by the resurrected life of Christ, And that's what gets consecrated. If you don't understand that, you can be working yourself to death because you're trying to get God to accept. It's like the old Catholic deal, offer it up to the Lord.

What? My sins? My iniquities? Well, that goes to, I mean, the other part of that is, you know, God has totally rejected and condemned the old man. There's nothing that's going to be good or salvageable or anything that is to be offered by the old man. Why are we trying to do something that God has already said? I'm done with it. You know what? It sounds like we try to get God to say thank you to us. Yeah. Thank you for that. Oh, thank you for offering that. Thank you. Really? Oh, man. The old man's primary reason for existence is to be God to start with. Yeah. So if they can get God to respond to it, it's still God. Yeah.

Yeah, there have been some good hungry hearts on this too in the last month that were kind of pointing that out. We always try and bring God down to us. I've been reading. Yeah, there have been some really good ones. In fact, if I had time, I'd read some of them because they've just been spot on on some of this stuff.

My response was, does this fall back on people's lack of understanding of identification? Because if you don't understand that God's done with your old man, you're always going to try, and the old man is always going to be trying to get himself better. Or fate, like, trying to get better. But God's done with it. Okay. So yes, as I put Wayne at the bottom, this leads to the next question.

Well I said, because they're always trying to fix up the old man or believe that now Christians with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, that the old man or flesh can be empowered to lead a Christian life. That's a common misconception. That, you know, now I have the indwelling, now the old man can do all those wonderful things. No. And that's why I go back to identification. He's done with it. Condemned. Rejected. Forever. So, that leads to the next question. What are the two main factors in why the self-life is unimprovable? It's dead.

That's a pretty succinct answer, I guess. Moving on. I think he hit one. That's pretty much knock it out of the park. Think of an open casket. People say, well doesn't he look nice? No, he's dead. And they stink it. I can say that about you. All right, so two were looking at one. I mean, the succinct answer is then. So that's pretty good.

But really, the believer must learn by two means the fact that the self-love is unimprovable. First is by scripture. God never intends us to prove the old man. You can look at 1 Corinthians 2.14. But the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

If you also go on and look at Galatians 5.17.

For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. For these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. Pretty evident right there. So everything of the first atom is unalternately opposed to everything of the last atom. Self is ruthless in its attitude toward God, having the very essence of the enemy. It is always after the Spirit.

There is nothing that it wants to do other than build itself up. It may build itself up in a pious way, I'm the greatest philanthropist, I walked a little old lady across the street, I changed the tire for whatever, but that is not what God looks for. or he accepts his son. That's all gone. He accepts us in his son. All that other stuff is trash. Not that you don't do good things, but if that's your motive is to please God, that's the wrong motive direction and it's just what we're talking about. The old man is trying to build himself up. Sanctification is set apart in Christ, a position. I have a rabbit trail, do you want to chase it? I was going to try and almost get done, but I don't think I will now that we are going on rabbits.

How about the Christian that says, well God gave me these wonderful talents, am I not to use them? That's a good one. But you are going to dedicate those talents to God. Yeah, here I am, I am now a Christian. I have these talents that God gave me. I can teach or I can write or I have a lot of energy or whatever. I'm good with people. I can raise a lot of money. I just have these talents that God gave to me. What am I supposed to do with them?

Thoughts? Isn't it kind of... My only thought would be that it's kind of backwards. Like wouldn't you be... more like looking back on what you're doing because you're already in it. Like you didn't say, I want to teach. You are finding yourself teaching. Yeah, I understand that.

But what if my mindset is, well, now that I'm a Christian and I come to the table with all these talents that God gave them to me. Right. No, I would say that would be the wrong one because you're going like, what do I do with them rather than like, Or do I go to the Lord and say, I'm going to dedicate my talents to you. Consecrate them. And you can do with them whatever you want. But those are filthy things. Careful. He wasn't looking at you.

Seriously, because that's a mindset that's very difficult to argue against because some people have spent their whole life developing their talents. I go to motive and motive is usually the underlying on that. The same thing was true with Cain. He got talented at raising vegetables and so he brought those. But his heart was wrong. Yeah, well that's why I go to motive. It wasn't the offering that was wrong, it was his heart that was wrong.

You know, because typically I see under that is God's going to smile on me because he gave me these talents and I'm going to do something for him. He's going to smile on me because I'm using those talents. He's going to know I'm appreciative. I can't say that for everybody and it's only between the Lord and that individual. There are great believers who have been generous, philanthropists, missionaries. Missionaries sacrifice a lot to go and do things. It's between them and the Lord and their heart motive.

If I do this and use my talents that you gave me, and you're going to smile on me because I'm using the talents that you gave me. Focus is off. Focus is wrong. I think a lot of times we approach our talents and things like that as a predetermination on our own part. as to how God wants to use us. This is what he's going to do. He's going to glorify himself because I'm an artist, or I sing, or I'm a doctor, or whatever, instead of just giving, just being. Yeah, I think the focus is on him, and he'll use you however he can.

I look at people that have talents, but does that mean that's the only thing you do? I have a question too, could you miss, I mean is it possible to miss out, like you have a talent and you think well, I'm not sure what my motives are so I'm not going to do it.

You're already wrong right there. Your focus is already off the mark. So you can't miss your opportunity to use what God gave you? If you're focusing on that, you're already started from a bad position. You're already thinking about yourself. I just think however God uses you. He's just doing it and you look and you see. I go back to the all things. He uses all things. I was down at camp too. I'll quickly do this. praying for nothing, no candy and nuts and everything will be fine. God will bring trials. God will bring things that go on. And I reiterate, did he allow that?

He uses all these things for his purposes. He uses all your talents. He uses all of the failures of your use of talents. He uses all that for his own purposes. I go to the fact, that's why I always go back to, now in my prayers I seem to be getting repetitious I think, in that he's in control of all things and he has an eternal love for us. Because in all of that you go through failures and blessings knowing that he's in control and he loves you. The trials are meant to draw you to him or bring something out or something for his purchases to glorify himself and to grow you.

If you look at the other side of that, how about the person that has no talents, not using anything, I guess. Yeah, kick them to the side of the road. Well, this guy is blessed. He isn't. He uses all, what is that one, Miles, I think, or one of those ones that said, you know, even if your whole purpose is to be a flower on the side of the road, And we get, see, our first thing is the, you know, he's worthless, he doesn't do it. That's totally wrong. It's just like the focus of my, if I'm really talented, I should be using this. But if I'm not talented, oh, what's your focus? It's the same thing.

It's off of Christ. Now they know. Talking about what Mike was saying, I remember when Bob Dylan, God knows if he saved or he's not, and he did the saved album and then the school train coming or whatever album. And the Christians just flocked to him. Oh, he could be so useful. And because you're a Jewish person who's become a Christian, they just flocked to him and it drove them.

I don't know whether he's in Christ or not, but it's just like, whoa, no. Again, all thanks. All thanks. So, all right. I guess we will continue next week. I was actually thinking we might get through a lot of this. Oh, Courtney, where did you get that idea? I got through. I got through. Five and a half. Five and a half. You know, I am not into racing. We have made a purpose that we do not... You're not comparing yourself. We don't race. We are not. But just in my thought, I thought we'd get through pretty much of this today just looking at it. You guys just have great discussion. So, let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we just thank you for this time. We thank you that we can enjoy fellowship in your word. We thank you just that, again, we who have the common bond of Christ, the life of Christ in us, we have a special fellowship, a family that is eternal and that we can have fun, we can have joy, we can have strength, all these things through the common thread of our life in Christ. And we thank you for that. We thank you for the time we can open up your word and just explore it and see what you have for us. That is the mirror of coming to know you in a better way, in an intimate way.

Again, just that transformation from glory to glory. excitement that is so we we thank you for this opportunity we thank you again just for the fellowship we can have and Again, we just pray for Mike as he gives us the message next hour. We just pray for him again Bring us the word accurately and again just to prepare hearts to receive it father. We thank you for all these things in Christ's name Amen