Know Your Conscience & Responses

INTRO

The first introduction to a conscience might be the Disney animated classic, Pinocchio, where the Blue Fairy asks Jiminy Cricket to be Pinocchio’s conscience. You remember the song— just give a little whistle, and always let your conscience be your guide. (find image)

Or maybe you think of the image of a demon on one shoulder and an angel on the other. (find image)

Did you know, though, that the concept of our conscience is a deeply spiritual one. Because at its heart, we’re talking about the ability of people who are created in the image of God to discern what is right and wrong.

How do you normally think of conscience?

Do you know that the New Testament mentions the word conscience 28 times? Two other times consciousness is used to refer to awareness, not a moral aptitude.

{put slide with verse references here, maybe even on the same slide with the info above if it will fit}

How would we define it?

Conscience:

“That faculty of the soul which distinguishes between right and wrong and prompts one to choose the former and avoid the latter.” (Spiros Zodhiates, The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2000).)

“The conscience is your consciousness of what you believe is right and wrong.” (Andrew David Naselli and J.D. Crowley, Conscience (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), 42.)

Basic understandings of the conscience.

Conscience is a human capacity. Every person has it, but not all will exercise it to its full capacity.

Like other human capacities like speech or reason, its possible for a person to actualize or achieve the capacity of conscience.

Conscience reflects the moral aspect of God’s image.

Every person is made in the image of God, and God is a moral God, so every person is a moral creature who makes moral judgments.

Romans 1:19–20 ESV

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Romans 2:14–16 ESV

For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

Every person has an innate sense of right and wrong (righteousness/unrighteousness) because every person is made in the image of God. Their conscience bears witness about the righteous law of God because we’re created in His image.

According to Romans 1:18, even though innately every person knows that God exists because they see His power in creation around them, many people suppress the truth.

They don’t seek the answers to this internal knowledge.

They don’t seek to learn more about God’s attributes.

We must tell them.

Our conscience is a gift from God because it leads us toward righteousness, which ultimately is going to bring us joy.

Like our sense of touch— its a gift because you will know if you’re being burned.

It’s a gift from God that you have an internal conviction of sin. When you have the conviction of sin, then you’ll seek the Savior and find the greatest joy!

You need to make sure you don’t suppress this truth, but make sure you calibrate your conscience to God’s righteous standards.

Your conscience and its conflicting thoughts will accuse you or excuse you when that day comes that you stand before the Lord.

You need to be sure that you are living according to the ways of our Creator, the Eternal Judge of All— that you understand right from wrong according to the Lord and His Word.

How do we calibrate our conscience?

Every person keeps growing in knowledge over their lifetime.

Spiritually speaking, Christians are being sanctified more and more until they are with Christ.

From our earliest years, our conscience has been developing. It is influenced by many different things.

You will come to believe that many things are right or wrong in this world. When a person is saved from their sin into the righteousness of Christ, our goal becomes to train our conscience to understand morality through what our Creator has told us.

Titus 2:11–14 ESV

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

As we live in our salvation, we are being trained through the Word of God to renounce ungodliness and live righteously.

What should be true is that every believer in Jesus Christ is reading Scripture. As we come to understand God’s Word more and more, our conscience is being trained.

We weed out rules and ways of thinking that are not in line with God and we add to our conscience what His Word clearly teaches.

This continues throughout your entire life, and you have the Holy Spirit of God, the Word of God, and the Church of God to help you.

Here’s the oversimplified formula: If it contradicts Scripture, then your conscience is wrongly calibrated.

As you are calibrating it, avoid 2 extremes: insensitivity & oversensitivity. the Bible says we can

Make our conscience insensitive by developing a habit of ignoring its voice of warning. That warning gets softer and softer until we don’t hear it anymore.

“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.” (1 Timothy 4:1–3, ESV)

The NIV mentions it being like a hot iron. Third-degree (full thickness) burns Third-degree burns destroy the epidermis and dermis. Third-degree burns may also damage the underlying bones, muscles, and tendons. The burn site appears white or charred. There is no sensation in the area since the nerve endings are destroyed.

Callouses on fingers.

Some flirt too long with falsehoods that they become liars, and become hypocritical in their teachings.

Make your conscience oversensitive by loading it with rules that are actually matters of opinion, not actually right or wrong according to Scripture.

1 Tim. 4:3— false teachers went on to impose strict and unnecessary rules about food and marriage. Jesus condemned the Pharisees about this kind of hypocrisy as well.

We want to calibrate our consciences to the authority of Scripture. So far we’ve talked about developing it. The reason that is important is because your conscience functions as a guide, monitor, witness, and judge.

Guide= helps you conform to moral standards

Monitors how you conform to them,

Testifies to how you conform to them, and

Judges you for how you conform to them, thus making you feel guilt and pain.

This is why must calibrate our conscience to the authority of Scripture. It’s the only authority that will matter in the end when we stand before the Lord.

Some will say they have a clear conscience about a belief or action, but the question must be: according to what standard of morality?

How has that conscience been developed? To what is that conscious calibrated?

Example: abortion

“Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things.” (Hebrews 13:18, ESV)