The Conscience

Good morning and welcome in today. Today we’re going to pick up where we left off from yesterday.

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:

The word good means that which is morally right or righteous. It’s morally excellent, virtuous, and having a favorable character. The last definition says having admirable, pleasing positive qualities, instead of bad or mediocre.

The Apostle teaches the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart and having a good conscience.

The conscience acts as a guide in the heart to the rightness or wrongness of one’s own behavior. I’ve heard it referred to as the moral muscle. It informs us of our own values and principles. It’s what a person believes is right and wrong inside their own hearts. Lastly, it’s the sense of consciousness of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of one’s own conduct, and intentions along with a feeling of obligation to do what’s right, or good.

God wants us to be loving charitable people, and to have a good conscience. He wants us to do what’s good and right before him. He does this by the cleansing of our hearts through the blood of His Son Jesus Christ.

Heb 9:14 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?

In the Christian faith, purge means to clear and to remove guilt. Think of it like this,…

Each morning a person gets up, steps into the shower, and they wash away all the dirt that has accumulated on them in the past day or two. When they step out of the shower, they are clean on the exterior. What God does is He cleanses our hearts and our minds on the inside through what Jesus Christ did for us at the cross. We can wash our sins away through the blood of Jesus Christ in Holy Communion. When we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

That’s what it means to purge our consciences. The things that we’ve done wrong in the past, or the mistakes that we’ve made can be washed away in our hearts and minds so that we can do what God expects of us.

All of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God, but through grace we can do good works rather than dead works, or the works of sin.

Heb 6:1. Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God…

God wants to rid our hearts and minds of sin, but obviously, we have to confess them. God cleanses us from our sins so that we can serve Him and do His will.

Rom 13:12. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.

Casting off sin is to turn away from it in your life. It’s only through the grace found in Jesus Christ that we could ever serve God. He delivers us from our sinful condition.

Col 1:13 “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:”

Serving the Lord has to do with performing duties or services towards him. It’s being obedient to Him and turning away from the way we used to live in our past and walking in the light. He delivers us from the penalty and the guilt of our sin so that we can make a U turn in our life and obey His will.

Many years ago, I remember hearing an old saying when somebody said, God allows u-turns.

We can come boldly to the throne of grace in time of need so that we can do a U-turn and come back to Him and serve Him in love. Serving Him ultimately means to do His will

Jesus taught If you love me, keep my commandments. Through Christ, we get forgiven for our sins, so that we can return to him and become obedient. The second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself.

Sometimes I think about children who have nice fresh clean clothes on that were just washed. They go outside to play and then they jump right into the mud or run through the puddles and they get their clean clothes all dirty. God cleanses our hearts so that we can serve him and not get caught up in dead works all over again. Usually, after we have Holy Communion, we say to go and serve the Lord.

We’re supposed to serve God and one another in love. You want to serve one another in truth. It’s by truth that the soul is converted. It’s by truth we accept the error of our way. It’s by truth that we say I was wrong. When we look into the scriptures they show us that we have sinned. God wants to cleanse us from our sins.

In the Old Testament, they offered sacrifices, but the blood of animals could not cleanse the conscience. It was an exterior ritual that was provided to them. In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus Himself cleanses our hearts inside so that we can serve Him in love.

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:

Heb 10:22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

1 Tim 1:19 Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:

Sadly, there will be people who turn away from the teachings of Christ Jesus. They completely turn away from the true faith. Just like a ship that runs into the rocks, they wreck their lives. Their conscience is seared as with a hot iron.

Have you ever burned yourself before? As a young kid, I flipped my motorbike over in a mud puddle. I happened to be wearing shorts, which wasn’t very smart and the hot exhaust pipe laid down right on top the inside of my calf. It burned me really, really bad. It was so bad that it burned the nerve endings away. I can’t feel anything there. You don’t ever want to do that to your heart and your mind.

That happens when you sin against others but you don’t feel sad anymore. It’s when you do what is wrong and you don’t care. It’s when you go against the teachings of Jesus, but you feel no remorse about it. It really doesn’t matter or affect you. That’s a bad place to be. Without faith, it is impossible to please God… We must keep a good conscience.

The Bible is our moral compass, but you have to have faith in order to follow it. You have to believe what it says in order to become a doer of God’s Word. When people walk off on the teachings of Jesus they’re leaving their conscience on the doorstep. They don’t care if they sin against other people. They don’t shed a tear. There’s no contrition, there’s no penitence, there’s no feeling sorry for how they are treating somebody else. That’s what happens when you become hard hearted and cold.

Titus 1:15 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.

1 Tim 4:1-2 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;

Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;

Depart means to walk away from what you have been taught In the church. We have grace available so that we can serve the living God. He gives us forgiveness so we can make a U turn and become obedient to His will and purpose for us. You want to keep a good conscience.

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:

When something is unfeigned it is genuine and sincere. It’s the exact opposite of feign, which means to fake or to pretend. The Lord Jesus warned about people who liked to wear long robes, they liked to appear religious. How many people today go into a church service just to be seen as religious? They dress up in nice clothes but really have no desire inside their hearts to do the will of God.

The Lord warned about people who do things just to be seen by others. They pray in public only to be seen and noticed, but the truth is they are void of true sincerity inside of their heart.

There were people who came out to listen to Jesus but they were simply there to find something out about the Lord to condemn Him.

Even today, there’s a counterfeit Christianity. And because the Lord taught that before his return, it was going to be as the days of Noah, you can know that this counterfeit form of Christianity will continue to grow. True faith inside of your heart will cause you to seek God and have a desire to obey Him and do His will. He cleanses our conscience from evil works so that we can do that very thing. God doesn’t want our religion. He wants our hearts and our minds. He loves us and cares for us and He wants us to love and care for him.

On our web page, we’ve always had a cross with the heart in the middle because Christianity is about the heart.

God allows U-turns through Christ so that we can serve him from our hearts.

Let’s think about those things for today, and Lord willing, we’ll talk to you some more tomorrow. Till then bye Bye, everybody.