The Way to a Clear Conscience
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Intro
Intro
Today we start a new series: Whats the point?
Points matter, they give us a goal, a target, motivation.
Without a point, well, there is no point.
A remebner a true story of a criminals builkding a road.....,
It is very important for us to know the point of it all. The point of coming to Church, the point of praying, the point of reading our bibles, the point of it all.
If you dont see or know the point of all this, then its only a matter of time before you stop bothering.
18 Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
Now, the point is not Heaven. Heaven is not the result of our works or effort, it is the free gift of God to all who repent and put their faith in Jesus Chirst.
Fortinualty for us, the bible actually tells us the point. It tells us the reason for everything we do as Christians. And that is our series for the next few weeks.
5 Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:
That phraise “The end of the commandment” literally means “The point of all the commands, exhortations, stories, psalms, letters, the point of everything in the bible is…
To give you:
1: Love of out a pure heart.
2: A good Conscience
3: Genuine and sincere faith.
Thats the point Church.
Today we Strat, but i want to start in number 2.
A Good Conscience.
A Good Conscience.
The word conscience is a combination of 2 words: Con - with and Sceince - knowledge.
So a conscience means that you are with knowledge. Knowledge of what? A knowledge of good and evil, of right and wrong.
Here are what some great theologians of the past had to say:
Thomas Aquinas said that the conscience is the inner voice we have that either accuses us or excuses us for our actions.
John Frame, a contemporary Reformed philosopher and theologian, defines conscience as the God-given ability to discern good and evil.
Franz Delitzsch says that the conscience is the knowledge of divine law that every man bears in his heart.
A good, biblically shaped conscience acts like to the Soul as pain acts to the body.
When you are going to potentually damage your body by putting you hand in a flame, your pain cells emmidently sping into action and cause you to take your hand away.
In the same way, when you are going to potentually damage your Soul by engaging in sin, your conscience spirings into action and convicts you cayuing you to stop what you are about to do.
Failling to listen to your pain cells will result in terrible damage to your body, and failing to listen to your conscience will result in teribble damge to you as well.
18 This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare;
19 Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:
here God;s word: Those who have not maintained a good conscience have shipwrecked their faith.
Your conscience is the like the little man in the crows next on top of the ship warning the captan of any rocks in the sea. Take him away and you have no warning and its only a matter of time before you shipwreck.
How important is the conscience?
How important is the conscience?
The short answer: Very important. Paul constantly spoke about his conscience and his effort to maintain it.
16 And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men.
1 And Paul, earnestly beholding the council, said, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.
1 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,
8 Likewise must the deacons be grave, not doubletongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre;
9 Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.
2 But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.
We must not forget that is was the biblically shaped conscinec of 1 man who helped shape and tranbsform not only the church but human history.
in 1521 Martan Luther stood trial at the Diet of Worms for crimes against the catholic church. Martan maintaied that Justification with God was based on Faith, which is what the bible teaches, but the Catholic church had been making people pay money to be saved.
At his trail he was allowed a final testamony and here is what he said:
“Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason, I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.”
The result of him holding fast to his God shaped conscience was the protistant reformation.
But lets talk about your conscience:
Here is a small Problem
The Conscince is not perfect or final
The Conscince is not perfect or final
We must remeber that our conscience is NOT our highest authority. The highest authority of what is right and wrong, good and evil is and will always be the Word of God.
This is important because the bible tells us that our conscince can be misled.
A biblically informed conscince in the hand of the Holy Spirit is going to be very powerful and very accurate, but its its potentual to be miseld that makes it NOT our final authority.
Think of good, biblicaly informed Holy Spierit led conscince in the middle. If it is misled to the left or right its wrong.
Let me show you.
If our conscience goes to far right it becomes what the Bible calls:
A Weak Conscince.
A Weak Conscince.
7 Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.
What is a weak conscinec?
Simply put a weak conscince is a conscience that calls things sinful which are NOT sinful.
In this case it was food sacrificed to Idols. Not to go into detail but Paul basically repets what Jesus said: Its not what gois in that defiles a person, it what comes out.
The Collosian church had a similar problem, they were snaying that eating certain foods, or mixing certan foods was sinful, Paul had to in there and sort them out.
The Church in Rome also struggled with this but they were confused our which day of the week is better. Paul told them it does not matter so long as they glorified God and did not condem others.
A weak conscince is often the result of immaturity and the lack of understabnding regarding christian liberty.
Its a conscience which has been shapped by not understanding the distiction between the Old and New Covenants and is often confused about the commands of the OT, particulary in the Pentechuch.
The result is a weak conscience. This is very dangerous for many reasons.
First, it border lines of works salvation, and second it can very easily becomes Pharasitical in its “holier than thou” application.
On the oher end of the scale, if our conscience goes to far left, we end up with what the bible calls:
A Seared Conscience.
A Seared Conscience.
2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
The greek word for seared is Causterio, its where we get our english word Caterized.
A cauterized conscience is a conscience that had been numbed, it can no loger feel pain.
This, as we have seen, is incredible dangerious.
How does this happen?
Imagine your conscience as a smoke alarm above the stove. Its there for a good reason, to stop your house from burning down.
But lets just say that you are a reckless cook and often burn the food. Well the alarm is going to go off all the time, and its only a matter of time before you get so annoyed by it you take the battries out.
Now you can cook in peace, untill the inevitibe happends, you start fire and with no alarm it spreads and burn the whole house down.
The Solution
The Solution
The solution for BOTH of these problems is the same.
With great humily and techability we must demore our conscince and place is under the Word of God and ask God as the Potter to mould and shap it to conform with His standard of right and wrong.
5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.
Make your conscience subjects to God’s Word, not rulers over it.
Also go to God in prayer and ask him to restore and rewnew your conscience.
14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
The Benifits of a Good Conscience
The Benifits of a Good Conscience
What are the benifits of good conscience?
Well where do i start?
A clear conscience is second in liberation only to the blood of Jesus.
You are immeditly freed from human opinion and slnder.
16 Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.
You are able to legitimaly enjoy the fulness of life and all of God blessings without living in a constant wichhunt and looking for devils behind every bush.
15 Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.
Satan will absolutly struggle to get any foothold in your life. Every time to disobey the Word and your conscience is numbed you open a crack for satan to work on.
You also see God has a loving Father and not as a strict judge.
I look at my relationship with my dad.
If on friday i got home from school and did all my chores: Mowed the lawn, cleaned the pool, trimmed the hedges, then i looked forward to him coming home.
But if i skipped my duties and ckeeked my mom, then i dreeaded him coming home.
When i nconscience wads clear my dad i saw my dad as loving and kind, as a rewarder and i was proud that i could please him.
But when why conscience was defiled i saw my dad as a punisher, a but smacker and someone to fear.
It was the same dad, but my conscience made the difference.
To those whos conscience is clean God is:
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
But those whos conscience is defiled God is a terror!
5 And they journeyed: and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob.
CONCLUSION:
This is the point of 90% of my preaching, of the bible studies i do for you.
So that you may know the peace that comes with a clear conscience, and that your conscience may not be weak or seared, but that you may have a conscience shaped by the Word of God in the hands of the Holy Spirit.