Text: topical
Function: The listener will pay heightened attention to conscience, confessing where needed.
You may know the feeling. You tell your parents you’re going one place, when really you’re going to another. You take cash to avoid taxes. You spread a story about someone. You break a promise to spend time with your child.
At the moment you’re thinking about it a yellow warning light flashes in your brain. Something tilts out of balance inside. If you do the right thing, the light turns green. If you head toward the wrong thing, it turns red. If you choose to go through the red light, it sends the message, "You fool, you idiot. You crossed the line. You better fix it. Don’t do that again!"
That’s called conscience. It’s not the same for everyone. One guy can lose sleep over calling someone a fool. The next guy can murder and still sleep soundly.
How healthy is your conscience? Do you pay attention to it? Is it possible to have a clear conscience? One saying goes, "A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory."
There are basically three kinds of events that are CONSCIENCE TRIGGERS. The first is a green light event. It’s one of satisfaction: where I’ve done right and I know it:. That’s a real pleasant experience, even if it’s costly. It’s plain enjoyable inside to do the right thing.
Conscience also gets triggered by False Guilt: Not wrong but I think it is. Your conscience can get distorted by well-meaning people. They blacklist things the Bible doesn’t -- sports on Sunday used to be a big issue. Some people might condemn you for wearing pants (a woman that is), for eating certain foods, or even celebrating a birthday.
Manipulative people delight to send you on a guilt trip and you have to watch out for that. You need to be sure of your convictions and what the Bible really says.
Of course there’s Real Guilt: Wrong and I know it. If you lie, steal, cheat on your spouse, or hurt someone, your conscience will jab you -- at least in the beginnning. The worse your crime is, the worse you will feel. Lord Byron said, "No ear can hear nor tongue can tell the tortures of the inward hell!" This is where we’ll concentrate, but one other area bears mentioning.
This one fails to trigger the conscience: Blind Guilt: Wrong but I don’t know it. Your conscience may not say anything until you discover what you’ve done is wrong. Paul says in 1 Cor 4:4, "My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me."
The reality is, your conscience might have become useless because you’ve abused it or ignored it. Titus 1:15, "Everything is pure to those whose hearts are pure. But nothing is pure to those who are corrupt and unbelieving, because their minds and consciences are defiled."
Obviously, if you see yourself as responsible, you don’t want to trash your conscience. That could set you up for all kinds of trouble. Conscience is one of those areas that sets you apart from animals. If you’ve ever seen a cat torture a mouse, you’ll know what I mean. They have no conscience.
So WHY GUARD MY CONSCIENCE? Here are just a few reasons: 1 It’s my life-line for faith. This verse makes it real clear: 1 Tim 1:19, "Cling tightly to your faith in Christ, and always keep your conscience clear. For some people have deliberately violated their consciences; as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked."
If you play fast and loose with your morality, one day you will wake up and say, "I don’t believe in God anymore. It’s all a bunch of hooey." The problem isn’t with God, it’s with a hardened conscience. You’ve turned off the connection with God.
2 It Keeps Me Safe. Conscience is like a fence around a deep hole. If you destroy the fence, you will fall into hole. It points out what is right, not necessarily what is easy.
Jesus was speaking about conscience when he said, Matthew 6:23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! You don’t want to lose your conscience. If you do it’s like going blind morally. That’s more dangerous than being blind physically.
You know what the worst part of this is? We’re attracted to holes. You come up to one and your conscience is yelling, "Hey buddy, there’s a hole right there. Go around." But the rebel part of you says, "I can do this." You fall in. It’s way better to keep the fence up.
3 It helps me relate to others. Paul says in Acts 24:16: "I always try to maintain a clear conscience before God and everyone else." It’s great if your conscience alerts you before you say something dumb. Even if it pricks you afterward, at least you can go apologize. A good conscience means better relationships.
4 It’s my soft pillow. By that I mean, you’ll sleep well at night if your conscience is clear. One proverb goes, "There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience". The opposite is also true: there’s no pillow so hard as a violated conscience. It’s true you can wear it down and desensitize it, but expect some inner turmoil as you do that.
If you’re in the clear, you don’t have to worry about someone coming to knock on your door. You don’t have to worry about phone calls from angry people you have hurt. You don’t have to wonder what happens if you meet God that night. Benjamin Franklin said, "A good conscience is a continual Christmas." It’s refreshing.
So what if I’m already damaged goods? What are some SIGNS OF CONSCIENCE CANCER: Cancer is a silent slow killer, that goes undetected for a long time. Cancer cells destroy healthy cells one by one. Enough of that and it kills you.
If your conscience is becoming sick, here’s the most obvious sign 1. I’m repeating instead of repenting.
My conscience is in trouble if things I would have not have done before, I’m now doing on a regular basis. Maybe the behaviour that troubled me quite a bit at first now only gives me a little discomfort, or none.
As a child you may steal a little and your conscience ached. You got used to it and soon stealing often will be no big deal. You’re making a reservation for a trip to P.A., the penitentiary that is. At first, if you take extra time off work, you make it up. After hours of slacking, you justify it and say the boss owes you.
A conscience ignored is a crack in the soul. Enough cracks and much of you crumbles away.
Each repeat allows the cancer to advance and destroy. It’s a sad thing to be in that spot biblically speaking. 1 John 3:6 "No one who lives in [God] keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him."
Your first lie didn’t feel so good. It got easier and now no one trusts you. Your first drunken binge may have bothered you, but now you it’s easier. The danger? Your less reliable and that much closer to being an alchoholic. At first, you may have fought lustful thoughts. Now, you might welcome them. The danger? You could disgrace yourself and ruin a life or a family.
If God is in you, you’ll be uncomfortable with ignoring your conscience. You don’t want to shipwreck your faith.
Here’s another sign of conscience cancer: 2. I rarely confess or apologize. If I haven’t confessed or apologized to anyone in a long time. It raises a question. Either I’m that good, or my conscience is that bad.
You won’t be perfect, but you can be real. Your conscience tries to keep you real. Most of us don’t enjoy apologizing. Some call it eating crow and it tastes about that good. But once it’s done, the conscience usually feels much better. Next sign:
3. I’m hiding stuff. It could be your schedule, places you go, people you’re with. It could be in your business records or just in your mind. It could be under your sleeve. It could be under your bed, it could be on your hard drive.
You might have seen a TV commercial where a guy is working on his computer late at night and his wife looks in on him. He can’t hide his screen fast enough. The answer? Get a laptop. Really? I know of one couple who said good-bye to the internet because of what it was doing to their family.
Fearing that others will find out robs us of joy and eats away at the conscience. Final sign of cancer:
4. I’m rationalizing. You know the lines, "Everyone else is doing it." "It’s legal in Canada you know." "I’m a grown adult." "No one’s getting hurt." "It’s just my personality." "The government sucks." "We pay enough already." "No one will know."
I’ve asked Ed Fehr to tell us about a conversation he once had with his conscience..... That’s an example of a healthy conscience. He managed to keep his integrity when no one would have known the difference.
So HOW DO I MAKE MY CONSCIENCE HEALTHY?
Let me begin by saying, if your conscience is already damaged it’s not easy, because your conscience may not be telling you anything is wrong.
It’s like being color blind. If you think red is green, you might think you have not gone through a red light in a long time. You won’t know it until you get into a terrible crash. That’s why a healthy conscience should be such a high priority. We’ve got to see conscience as a gift, not an annoyance.
It could be though that God is getting through, and you want to clean things up. If so, here’s the first step: 1 Cleanse it with confession. You can’t just get over your failings with time -- that just dulls the conscience. In ancient times, people would offer sacrifices to cleanse their consciences and it worked to some extent. We have something better. Hebrews 9:14 says "How much more, then, will the blood of Christ ... cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!"
If you’ve had a horrid failing, confess it to God. Write it out. Confess your unbelief, your sexual failings, your greed, your anger, your hurt. If you truly want to change, he’ll wipe that slate totally clean. I’m so glad this is available, because we’ve all had failings.
I want to take just a couple of minutes for reflection right now. Simply ask, "What’s out of place in my life?" A song will play then Rosalie will come read Psalm 32....
Confession to God might not be enough. Sometimes you have to confess to others -- if you’ve cheated them, or stolen, or slandered them, or been bitter toward them. If it’s between you and God, confess to Him. If it’s between you and another, your conscience won’t rest until you talk to them. In the Bible, David felt terrible after cutting off a corner of Saul’s robe. So he knew he had to confess it to Saul.
Jesus died to free you from a guilty conscience. His blood flowed so that you can have a healthy conscience, not a dying one. If you still feel guilty after having confessed and turned, your guilt is an illusion -- it’s false. You need to believe that those who confess are forgiven. Another step toward health is this:
2 Inform it with God’s Word. Your conscience is only as good as the data it has available to it.
So what is it that shapes the average person’s conscience? It’s what everyone else is doing. So what was wrong ten years ago can feel OK today.
We’re told, "everyone downloads copyrighted songs and shares them." Not true. Some see it as a break of the command: "You shall not steal." We’re told, "Everyone sleeps around." Not true. Some know it violates God’s plan for sex. We’re told, "Gossip is normal, everyone does it." Not true. Some hold their tongues. The list can go on and on.
The question is, what will you shape your conscience with? You need something solid and dependable because it’s your life you’re dealing with. The Bible gives us excellent standards. Following them has always helped people to become better people.
The biblical story of Jesus is particularly powerful. When Mel Gibson released his film, ’The Passion of the Christ’, critics feared that the film would spark an outbreak of violence. Instead it prompted criminals, from burglars to murderers, to confess to crimes committed recently or long ago. In Norway, a neo-Nazi confessed to two bombings he committed 10 years earlier. In Florida, a fugitive from a bank robbery turned himself in to police after watching the story of Jesus death on the cross for him.
Your conscience gets its ground floor from the Bible, and it needs it. Next,
3 Answer it with Obedience. Here’s where your own efforts certainly need God’s help. His Spirit is given to you to help you stay true. But you need to provide the determination.
Many of you have been baptized. 1 Peter 3:21 describes baptism as ... the pledge of a good conscience toward God. That’s the time you said, "When my conscience throws a red light, I’m not going to run the light. I want to please God and keep a good conscience." That’s the sort of determination we need to renew.
Mahatma Gandhi said, "The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within." Great men and women follow their conscience, sometimes at great cost. It’s the abusers, the criminals, and the crooked who have stifled the voice of conscience.
When your conscience speaks, it’s a golden gift. Sometimes it may be the voice of God himself. I know I can’t always tell the difference. Nor maybe is it all that important to know the difference. Doin what’s right is what matters.
The best course is to pay attention to that first little nudge. When it comes to doing things on the edge, a little principle you’ve heard is helpful, "When in doubt, don’t." Regrets come when we cross that line.
I knew of one young man who threatened to punch a hole in the wall at home if he didn’t get his way. He knew full well that wasn’t the right thing to do. He did it anyway. Well, it took him a lot longer to fix the wall afterward. He literally had mud on his hands! Conscience could have saved him the trouble. When in doubt, don’t.
It’s much easier to be warned and stop than to climb out of a hole. Stopping at the red light is better than being stopped in the intersection by a semi.
We’ve already seen some ways to put this message into practice. Here are just a few Practical Resolutions: A Stick with Bible standards. That means you’ll have to stop using the excuse, "Everyone’s doing it." B Backtrack on doubtful behaviour. Maybe you’ve started repeating something you know is wrong. Do whatever is necessary to get your conscience and your life back in shape. C Confess to the point of peace. If something still bothers you, take it once more to God, and then to whomever it affects. You can be at peace. You can be forgiven. D Commit to being conscience sensitive.
God is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy. To this only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before time, today, and for all time. Amen.
