This morning, I want to talk to you about yourself. Have you ever wondered why you do the things you do? Why do you say the things you say and think the way you think?
Sometimes, I think the hardest person in the world for us to understand is ourself. Have you ever felt that way? Well, we’re going to examine and paint our self-portraits today. We’re going to examine the way our minds work and what motivates us. And we’re going to expose ourselves to ourselves.
I. The Three-fold Nature of Man
To begin this study we have to understand how we were created and how God works in us. Genesis 1:26 and 27 tell us two important facts. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them.”
The first thing this verse tells us is that we were created in the image of God. The second thing it tells us is that God is a triune, or three-fold being. Notice the use of the pronouns “us” and “our” in verse 26. So, logically, we can deduce from this that man must also be a triune, or three-fold being. And we are.
The Apostle Paul makes mention of this fact and actually names the three parts in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 “And the very God of peace, sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I’ve included a handout in your bulletins that illustrates this teaching for you.
A. The Body
The first part of man is the part that everyone sees. It is our physical body. Our earthly “suit.” It is the part of us that will someday die. The Apostle Paul refers to it as our carnal self.
1 Corinthians 3:2-3, “I have fed you with milk, and not with meat; for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?”
Though it is the part that we are most familiar with and recognize the easiest – it is also the frailest and the crudest part of us. Our body responds to the world around us with our five senses. Hearing, smell, sight, taste and touch are the gateways to our carnal self. This is how we relate to the world around us. It is also how we are able to function in the physical world. Truly, it is nothing much more than a shell, and yet it’s the part we often concentrate on , rely on, and listen to most.
B. The Spirit
The second part of our three-fold makeup is the spirit. We are spiritual beings, just as God is, just as angels are. Our spirit is eternal. Once it was created by God it will continue on forever.
Our spirit permits us to relate to and interact with the spiritual world. The problem comes with the fact that we were all born with a spirit that is “dead”. Now I know that sounds like a contradiction, how can our spirit be eternal and yet be dead, right? Well, consider this.
By dead, I don’t mean that our spirits ‘cease to exist’, I mean that they are separated from God. By being born with a spirit that is dead, I mean that we were born with a spirit that has been separated from God.
Adam was created with a spirit that was alive. That means, his spirit was capable of communicating with God. But when Adam sinned, his spirit “died”. He became spiritually dead. Meaning he became separated spiritually from God. His spirit could no longer communicate with his Creator as it was intended. – And you and I were born in this same state – spiritually dead or separated and unable to communicate with God as He had originally intended.
This is why God had to send His Son to die for us. Jesus brings us to life spiritually. He gives us access to the Father once again. When we accept Christ as our Savior, we are said to be born again. We aren’t reborn physically. We are reborn spiritually. Our spirit comes to life. The Holy Spirit, the very Spirit of God comes into our spirits are restores us relationally to God. The spirit of the believer is where the Holy Spirit resides.
Romans 8:9, “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you…”
Keep in mind, though, that everyone is born with a spirit. And just because a person’s spirit may be “dead” to God, doesn’t mean that they can’t have contact with the spirit world. The proof of that is how spiritists, mediums, clairvoyants, witches, psychics, etc. interact with the spiritual dimension. They have access to the spiritual world. But they do not have access to God. Their access is to demons and beings in the spiritual dimension.
C. The Soul
And the third part of man is where we are going to be concentrating our teaching this morning. The third part of us is the soul. Between our flesh and spirit is the other part of us that is eternal – our soul.
Our soul is made up of our will, intellect, and emotion. Sometimes it is referred to as our mind, because it is in our soul that we live constantly and where decisions are constantly being made. It is here where we make up our minds whether we are going to listen to the voice of God and be led by our spirit or led by our physical, carnal man. There is a battle being waged constantly for the souls of each Christian as to what part of them is going to have precedence – the spirit or the flesh.
If you allow your physical self to have precedence and to dictate your actions you will always be a defeated, depressed, anemic Christian. You will never know the favor of God and you will constantly live in a state of frustration.
Romans 8:5-8, “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. [6] For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. [7] Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. [8] So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.”
When you came to accept Christ, and the Holy Spirit revived your spirit and came to reside in you, God gave us some advice. He said, “Do yourself a favor and crucify your flesh.”
Galatians 5:24, “And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh…”
In other words kill it. Refuse to listen to it. This is what it means to die to self. Forget what you want or think is right or good. Accept and live out what God wants and says is right and good.
Think about this: God is all spirit. Animals are all flesh. When you walk in the spirit, you are more like God. When you walk in the flesh, you are like an animal.
By walking or living in the spirit, we reach our highest potential. It is here where Adam and Eve originally existed and communed with God. By walking or living in the flesh, we are at our lowest, ruled by addictions, emotions, temptations, and circumstances. And the soul is our place of decision.
But God didn’t leave us to face this decision alone. He implanted in each one of us something special - a conscience.
II. What Is Conscience?
Let’s read 1 Timothy 1:5, “Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.”
Paul actually speaks of four kinds of conscience in the scripture. Here he is talking about a good conscience. But there is also a pure conscience, a clear conscience, and a defiled or seared conscience. What kind of conscience do you have? Who are you?
So, what exactly is your conscience? Conscience is a God-given instrument of discernment, so that we can know right from wrong in a spiritual matter. (Repeat) It is the lamp of God saying this is the way, walk in it. Conscience is the compass of the soul.
A. The Umpire
QUOTE: John Milton, in his book, Paradise Lost, wrote, “Conscience is God’s umpire within the heart of man.”
I think that is a great picture. An umpire is someone who says what is right and what is wrong in a ball game. They are the ones who decide what is acceptable and what isn’t acceptable. That is what your conscience does for you.
It is that inner voice that you have heard a thousand times. It is that part of you that can make you unhappy even when you get everything you want. Conscience can make even sleep a great torment when you have ignored its counsel.
When your conduct goes one way and your conscience another you will find yourself in a state of civil war. Conscience can cause you pain that no physician can heel or pill remove. And yet when you have a clear conscience, when you have followed where it leads you, you can sleep through thunder.
Conscience is what made Adam and Eve hide from God. It made Felix tremble in the presence of a handcuffed and helpless Apostle Paul. Conscience made Pilate’s wife write to her husband to have nothing to do with the death of Jesus. Conscience is what made Peter weep with shame when he realized that he had denied Christ three times. Conscience is what made Judas throw the thirty pieces of silver back at the Pharisees saying, “I have betrayed innocent blood!”
Today, we still hear that voice of God through our conscience. Sometimes it pricks us with gentle warnings. It whispers, “You know that isn’t what you’ve been taught.” Or “You really shouldn’t be here.” And other times it shouts at us, “Stop,” “Danger ahead,” “Turn Around”.
Some people listen to its counsel. And others do their best to drug it into submission, or drown it out with alcohol or other forms of sinful pleasure. Some people even have a defiled or seared conscience. That is a conscience that they have ignored for so long, that they can no longer hear its warnings.
The pain of an outraged conscience is to the soul what suffering is to the body. Pain in your body says that you need to stop what you are doing, something is wrong and you need to see a physician. Pain in your conscience says that you are violating the laws of God and you need to stop and see the Great Physician.
B. The Fire Alarm
So, how does the conscience work? A.D. Sterner compared it to an electronic fire alarm wrote, “Many electronic fire alarms have an internal switch triggered by a beam of light. As long as light is received unbroken by the photosensitive receiver, the detector is quiet. But if smoke, moisture, or an insect obstructs the beam for even a split second, the alarm sounds.
Our conscience resembles such an alarm. When sin obstructs our connection with the light of God’s Spirit, the conscience signals us that there’s life-threatening danger.”
When you do wrong – your conscience, the divine umpire of your soul, stands up and shouts “Foul.” Unfortunately, most people have selective hearing when it comes to spiritual matters. In fact, with some people, a clear conscience is nothing more than a poor memory.
C. The Gatekeeper
But your conscience does double duty. It not only warns you when something is wrong – it also guards the threshold to your soul.
ILLUSTRATION: If you have ever seen a photo of any of the great castles in Europe, you find that thick walls oftentimes surrounded them. These walls were built to keep out invaders and conquering armies. The weakest points of these castles of course, were the gates. The builders would try to build chokepoints so that invading armies would have to be constricted to narrow area where they would be the most vulnerable as they approached the gate to try to breach it.
The sad thing for many of these castles is that they were seldom taken by active warfare. Many of them unknowingly let their enemies in where they were conquered quickly with almost no battle at all.
The entry point of the fortification was the deciding point for every castle. If an enemy got past that point, they were free to wreak havoc on the rest of the fortification, because no matter how thick the walls, how great the army, once the enemy was inside it could do as it wished.
The same is true for our souls or minds. Just like that fortress or castle, the weakest point in our make up is the threshold or the entry point to our inner-man. The threshold of our soul or mind is crossed when we don’t listen to the guard or gatekeeper – our conscience.
To understand this, realize that our flesh and our spirit are battling for control of that threshold, and it depends on which one we listen to as to what is allowed past the threshold. If our will and desires and fleshly, carnal nature are in control of the threshold, then the enemy has free access to our soul and once the enemy is inside he can do as he wishes. But if our spirit is in control, if we are listening to the voice of God speaking to us through our conscience, then the threshold to our inner-man is closed tight to the enemy.
An example of this may be when you go to the supermarket and go through the checkout and pay for your groceries and realize that the checker has made a mistake and given you too much change. You have come to a moment of decision. The battle for the threshold of your mind flares up again. What are going to do? Keep the extra money or take it back?
Your conscience says, “Take it back. It’s not your money. It would be stealing to keep it.”
Your carnal side says, “Get real. I just spent $50 for a small sack of groceries that could fit into the glove box of a Volkswagen Beetle. Keep the money. You’ve given them enough.” – What do you do?
If your mind and soul are ruled by the Spirit of God, you listen to your conscience and take it back. If you are ruled by your carnal nature you keep it and then go home and swallow a bottle of Maalox before going to bed.
A man wrote a letter to the IRS and in it he placed a check. He said, “Here is the$5000 that I owe you in back taxes. If I can’t sleep tonight I’ll send the other $20,000 tomorrow.”
III. Why Am I Like I Am?
So, back to the first question I asked you. Why do you do the things you do? Why do you say and think the way you do? The answer to that is that there is a battle taking place for your soul. You are constantly being bombarded by things from this world that are being counteracted by the Holy Spirit who lives inside every believer. And the Holy Spirit is using your conscience to guide you and guard the entrance or threshold to your soul.
The way you act and think and what you say depends on who you are listening to. If you are being guided by your physical, carnal self, you are letting sin pass the threshold and take hold in your soul and mind. If you are listening to your conscience and being led by the Spirit of God, then your soul is being protected and preserved holy and righteous.
The choice is yours. The decisions are made every moment of every day. Even while you are sitting here listening to me speak, you are making the choice of either listening or shutting me out. You are choosing what gets into your mind and soul and what doesn’t. You are listening to your conscience speak or you are listening to your physical body.
What are you listening to? What is guiding you today? What is ruling your mind and soul? The choice is yours.
