1 JOHN 1:5–2:2 - A Convicting Conscience

Introduction

Mark Twain once wrote, “An uneasy conscience is a hair in the mouth...” (Notebook, 1904). A pretty evocative description, wouldn’t you say? In fact, Twain wrote quite a bit about the conscience—and none of it was complimentary. In A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, he wrote,

If I had the remaking of man, he wouldn't have any conscience. It is one of the most disagreeable things connected with a person; and although it certainly does a great deal of good, it cannot be said to pay, in the long run; it would be much better to have less good and more comfort... I have noticed my conscience for many years, and I know it is more trouble and bother to me than anything else I started with.”

As we have spent the past couple of weeks in our series, we have begun to see why this is so—our conscience is a gift given to us by God as part of our humanity, an innate ability to understand the difference between right and wrong, and a powerful voice that will either accuse us or excuse us depending on how we follow what we understand to be right and wrong. We saw that we will answer to God someday for how we followed the compass of our conscience (even though perfectly following it can’t save us), and last week we learned that a clear conscience can only come about as we walk with Christ and are transformed by His Spirit working in us.

And yet, we still find that we struggle with our conscience, don’t we? Christian and non-Christian alike, everyone can identify with Mark Twain’s assessment of his conscience:

All the consciences I have ever heard of were nagging, badgering, fault-finding, execrable savages! Yes; and always in a sweat about some poor little insigificant trifle or other--destruction catch the lot of them, I say! I would trade mine for the small-pox and seven kinds of consumption, and be glad of the chance. (The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut)

So what is going on here? If Christian and non-Christian alike both struggle with an accusing conscience, then what’s the difference between being a believer and being an unbeliever? What I aim to show you this morning is that while Christians and non-Christians alike both struggle with a convicting conscience, their struggle comes from very different directions. But whatever the source of the struggle, there is only one cure:

The BLOOD of CHRIST is the only CURE for a convicting conscience

Look with me at the passage that I read a few minutes ago, from 1 John 1 and 2. I think God has given us here a good summary of how Christians and non-Christians alike struggle with a conscience that convicts them. First of all, I think we see here in verses 8 and 10 a description of

I. The REBEL Conscience of an UNBELIEVER (Romans 1:19-21)

As we have said, the conscience is an innate part of what it means to be human, and everyone on earth—whatever their religious state—is possessed of a knowledge of God’s character and power:

Romans 1:19–21 (ESV)

19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 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. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

So when someone refuses to honor God or give thanks to him, they become futile in their thinking. And here in 1 John 1, I think we see two different types of futile thinking—two ways of trying to ignore God’s revealed character and truth but failing… First, your conscience

Tries to DENY your sin (1 John 1:8)

This is what we read in 1 John 1:8:

1 John 1:8 (ESV)

8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

This is perhaps the most-often used tactic of someone who refuses to acknowledge God—they deny that they are sinners: “I have nothing to repent of—I haven’t done anything deserving punishment from God…” We hear it all the time from the world around us, don’t we? The prevailing attitude is that the whole concept of “sin” has just come from judgmental, angry religionists who want to use guilt to get people to obey them.

But the Scriptures tell us that even if every last scrap of religion or spirituality—even if Christianity and Biblical faith itself—were somehow completely removed from the world, and the late John Lennon got his wish (from his song Imagine that there was “no religion”), people would still wake up the next morning with just as guilty a conscience, because they cannot escape the innate knowledge that they are in fact guilty of sin against His power and nature!

In John 4, Jesus met a Samaritan woman who was trying to insist that she had not sinned (she wanted to debate with Jesus that her people were worshipping rightly on Mt. Gerazim, for example)—but her conscience wouldn’t let her get away with it! No matter how much she insisted that she was innocent, she knew that she was guilty before God (and Jesus didn’t let her get away with it, either!) But by tenderly exposing the truth of her sin, He opened the way for her to repent and put her trust in Him!

The rebel conscience of an unbeliever tries to deny your sin, and in 1 John 1:10 we see its other main tactic: If it can’t deny your sin, it

Tries to DEFEND your sin (1 John 1:10)

1 John 1:10 (ESV)

10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

When you can’t deny the fact that you have sinned, the next step is to defend it, to say that it really wasn’t a sin at all—it isn’t sinful because you had no choice, it isn’t sinful and God can’t hold it against you because you were “born that way”, you’re not guilty of sin because what you did you did for a good or noble purpose, and on and on it goes. “It’s not what it looks like!” (Here’s a tip—whenever someone says “It’s not what it looks like!!”—it’s always what it looks like!)

The rebel conscience of an unbeliever torments them because it tries to defend sin—but it can’t. It’s like using your clutch to stop your car instead of your brakes—you can do it, but you run the risk of burning out your conscience!

In John 8, we read of a woman caught “in the act” of adultery—in other words, she had no defense for her actions; her conscience convicted her because there was no way to tell her accusers (or her own conscience) that “it wasn’t what it looked like”. So many people live their lives like that—they know that they are guilty before God, they have no defense for their deeds, and no matter how they try to defend or deny their guilt, their conscience torments them.

And this is why the Gospel of Jesus Christ is such good news for hopeless, tormented people who are stricken with a convicting conscience—that their conscience

Can be PURIFIED by Jesus' blood (Heb. 9:14)

The wonderful, life-giving, soul-restoring News of the Gospel is that Jesus Christ will cleanse that guilty, condemning conscience!

Hebrews 9:14 (ESV)

14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

There is no other Savior, no other so-called “god”, no other philosophy, no other psychological or psychiatric therapy, no medication, “Twelve Step Program”, support group or anything else in all creation that can so completely, utterly and fully cleanse the conscience like the blood of Jesus Christ shed for sinners! He took all of your sin—every last conscience-crushing word, thought or deed you have ever committed—and completely and totally paid every last atom of the penalty! The perfect, spotless, innocent Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, suffered and died the death of the vilest sinner so that you (who really are a vile and wretched sinner) can be completely and totally purified before Him! When Jesus Christ saves you, He washes and cleanses and restores you from all your guilt and shame and past so that you have a clear conscience before Him forever!

Romans 8:1 (ESV)

1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

There is nothing for your conscience to accuse you of, nothing for your conscience to try to defend you over—all of it has been purified by Jesus’ blood, and your rebel conscience is put to rest forever.

And right now you’re sitting there, adding your “Amen” to God’s Word and the truth it speaks of your purified conscience—you know this to be true because it’s what happened to you when you put your faith in Jesus Christ for your salvation. The blood of Christ is the only cure for a convicting conscience!

But at the same time, you’re thinking to yourself— “I know my conscience is clear about my past, but now that I am a Christian my conscience is still convicting me!” Your life before you knew Christ no longer afflicts your conscience, but now your present life as a believer weighs on your conscience!

In his autobiography, Mark Twain wrote,

“Mine was a trained Presbyterian conscience and knew but the one duty--to hunt and harry its slave upon all pretexts and on all occasions, particularly when there was no sense nor reason in it.” - Autobiography of Mark Twain

And Presbyterians aren’t the only Christians who have consciences that “hunt and harry”, are they? Baptists can have the same experience as well, right?

So, what is going on here? Does the Gospel really deliver us from a guilty conscience over our past, and then just introduce us to a life of guilt over our present life as a Christian? This isn’t an academic question, is it? Maybe you’ve been there—and maybe you’re there right now—feeling that you’re a “failure” as a Christian because of all the ways you don’t measure up to God’s standards. You don’t pray enough, your language is still a little salty (or a lot) salty from time to time, you still have outbursts of your old temper, you still struggle with bitterness or lust or anxiety or laziness—those things actually bothered you less before you were a Christian, and now you just feel more of a convicting conscience.

But I want to suggest to you that the reasons your conscience convicts you as a Christian are polar opposite of the reasons you had a convicting conscience before you came to Christ: Before you came to Christ you were had a rotten convicting conscience because you didn’t want to obey God’s Law—and now your conscience convicts you because you can’t obey God’s law enough!! Before you were desperate to avoid God’s standards; now you are desperate to obey Him!

An unbeliever struggles with a convicting conscience because their conscience is trying to rebel against God—a Christian struggles with a convicting conscience because they want to obey God! So where we looked a few minutes ago at the rebel conscience of an unbeliever, we can look into the Scriptures to see

II. The SUBMISSIVE Conscience of the CHRISTIAN (Romans 7:21-24)

The Apostle Paul states the issue perfectly in Romans chapter 7 (it’s on page 944 of the pew Bible if you want to find it there). In Romans 7:21-24 we read:

Romans 7:21–24 (ESV)

21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Notice what Paul says in verse 22: “I delight in the Law of God, in my inner being!” That is a condition that no unbeliever has—they hate the righteousness of God, and they hate the voice inside them that constantly reminds them of their failure to obey it. But the believer has the mirror opposite problem—a Christian delights in the Law of God, but struggles to obey it as much as they want to!

We see evidence of this in 1 John 1, as well—look at verse 9:

1 John 1:9 (ESV)

9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Where the rebel conscience of the unbeliever fights against God’s truth about their sin, the submissive conscience of the Christian—that loves God’s truth—that conscience

AGREES with God about your sin (1 John 1:9)

The word “confess” here in verse 9 is the translation of the Greek word homologeo—it literally translates as “say the same thing”. A Christian doesn’t try to deny or defend their sin—a Christian agrees with God that they are a sinner, and thus their conscience convicts them: “God is love, but I still hate my sister, God is gracious, but I still want to get revenge against my boss, God is pure, but I spend way too much time in the wrong neighborhood of the Internet...”

The Scripture tells us that when we come to faith in Christ, God puts a new heart in us—instead of the old heart of stone, we are given a heart of flesh, with God’s Law written on it so that we not only know His standards, but are capable of loving His standards. The Apostle Paul once believed, for example, that he was “blameless according to the Law”—but after God wrote His Law on his heart, he realized that he had been “a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent” (1 Timothy 1:13).

So a Christian’s conscience is a submissive conscience that convicts us because we want more holiness in our lives than we see. And as you grow in your knowledge of God and His standards—as you walk more closely with Christ (as we said last week)—your conscience will often convict you because your understanding of God’s truth

Runs AHEAD of your OBEDIENCE James 4:17; Rom. 8:13-14

of God’s truth. You want to obey Him more, and the more you learn and grow in Christ the more you realize how far you have to go! The more you grow in holiness, the more you see how sinful you still are.

We see this in Paul’s writings—a man who was one of the holiest and most Christlike men in all of the New Testament—and yet he saw himself as the worst sinner he knew!

1 Corinthians 15:9 (ESV)

9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

Ephesians 3:8 (ESV)

8 To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,

1 Timothy 1:15 (ESV)

15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

Christian, your walk with God day by day as you read His Word, speak to Him in prayer, worship Him through the power of His Spirit in the Name of His Son—your walk with God will draw you into more holiness—and as you grow in holiness, you will inevitably see how much more sin is in you than you realized before!

And so does this mean we are condemned to the kind of existence that Mark Twain described about his “trained Presbyterian conscience?” To hunt and harry you on every occasion and every pretext for your failure to be as holy as you know you should be, as holy as you want to be?

May it never be! In fact, nothing could be further from the truth! Yes—your submissive conscience agrees with God about your sin, yes, your conscience runs ahead of your obedience—but Christian, you are never to live in guilt over the gap between your understanding of God’s truth and your putting that truth into practice in your life. Because the blood of Jesus Christ is the only cure for a convicting conscience—your submissive conscience

Finds COMFORT in your ADVOCATE (1 John 2:1-2)

Look at what John writes in the first two verses of 1 john 2:

1 John 2:1–2 (ESV)

1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

John says, “I want to instruct you in holiness—I want to teach you these things so that you won’t fall into sin against God. But if you do sin, remember that you have an advocate—you have a perfect plea before God: The blood of Jesus Christ, shed to take away His wrath over your sin!

The word propitiation here means

PROPITIATION: A SACRIFICE that takes away WRATH

This is why John writes in 1 John 1:9 that when we confess (agree with God) about our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us—in other words, God is not “looking the other way” or “sweeping our sins under the rug”. When we come to Him and say, “God, I have sinned—it wasn’t a “mistake”, it wasn’t a “bad choice”, I wasn’t coerced or forced or manipulated. I knew that I should not have done that thing, I knew that it was an insult to You and abhorrent in Your sight, and I did it anyway”—when we treat our sins that way before Him, we can trust Him to be faithful in His response: Faithful to the sacrifice of His Son on the Cross! He will be faithful to say, “I see the sin you have committed, and it has been blotted out by My Son’s blood! I bear no wrath at all towards you—you are my beloved child in Christ!”

Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, stands as your Advocate today, Christian! No matter how far your understanding runs ahead of your obedience, no matter how many times your convicting conscience wants to accuse you of being a “rotten Christian”, no matter how many times you get taken down by that sin that just won’t leave you alone—when you belong to God by faith in Christ and your heart cries out to Him for more holiness and deeper hatred for sin—Jesus Christ stands in Heaven today, bearing the nail prints in His hands and feet and the spear wound in His side as proof that there is no condemnation against you anywhere!

The great Puritan writer John Bunyan wrote a book about the Christian life called Pilgrim’s Progress. It tells the story of a man named Christian who sets off on a journey to the Celestial City (Heaven), and along the way experiences many adventures that are set as an allegorical picture of the Christian life. At one point, Christian meets up with the Devil, Apollyon (The Destroyer). Apollyon takes great delight in reminding Christian of all the ways he had failed and messed up in his journey to that point. And after hearing all of those accusations, Christian responds:

“All this is true, and much more that you have failed to mention”, Christian agreed. “But the Prince whom I now serve and honor is merciful and ready to forgive. Besides, these infirmities possessed me while I was in your country, for there I allowed them to come in. But I have groaned under them, have been sorry for them, and have obtained pardon from my Prince!” (John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress: From This World to That Which Is to Come, ed. C. J. Lovik (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2009, 89-90. Quoted in Conscience: What it is, how to train it, and loving those who differ, Andrew David Naselli & J. D. Crowley)

Christian, the next time your conscience convicts you over your failure to be as holy as your heart wants to be, the next time the Devil starts whispering in your ear about all the sins and failures and messes you have made, you turn right back around and say, “Yeah, and that’s not the half of it! You’re leaving out this and this and this! And isn’t it wonderful that the blood of my Advocate, Jesus Christ, covers ALL OF IT!!??!??!” The blood of Christ is the only cure for a convicting conscience—rest in your Advocate who has taken away the wrath of God from you, and given you His own righteousness!

And if you are here today afflicted with a convicting conscience that shows you that you are still under the wrath of God because you have never come in repentance and faith to Him—aren’t you ready to be done with that convicting conscience? Aren’t you tired of your long war against the knowledge of God’s standards that you have been denying all of this time? Do you really want to lay down tonight to another psychological warfare with your conscience alternately excusing your sins and then accusing you of your sins? Are you going to get up to another Monday morning where you can’t honestly look at yourself in the mirror because of what you know you are—despite all of the ways you’ve tried to deny it or defend it?

Your conscience is telling you right now that God wouldn’t sully His fingers to touch you—that to come to Him in repentance would be an embarrassment. That you’re too far gone for Him to save, that He wouldn’t want anything to do with you because of who you have been and what you have done—and what you are now. If that’s you today, then this is your moment—this is the moment for you to turn around and say back to that accusing conscience, “Oh, I’m even worse than what you say—but I have heard the call of God, and I am coming to Him!” As one old preacher put it, “As soon as a repentant person appears in the doorway of God’s throne room, the golden scepter of His royal forgiveness is stretched out for him to touch." (F.B. Meyer) Be done with that convicting conscience today—agree with God about who you are and where you’ve come from, lay down all of that sin and guilt and shame and cry out to Him for salvation in the Name of your Advocate, Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Jude 24–25 (ESV)

24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:

Read over 1 John 1:8 and 1 John 1:10 again. What are some ways that people around us try to deny that they have sinned? What do people do to themselves when they say they have no sin? What are you saying about God when you claim that your action is not sinful at all, when God says that it is?

What is the difference between the convicting conscience of an unbeliever and the convicting conscience of a believer? Read over Romans 7:22 again. What does this show you about why a Christian’s conscience is grieved over sin in a way that an unbeliever’s conscience is not?

What does it mean that Jesus is our “propitiation”? How does Jesus’ death on the Cross free you from a convicting conscience over the gap between your understanding of God’s truth and your ability to put it into practice?

VERSES TO MEMORIZE:

Romans 8:1-2 - “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”

Hebrews 9:14 - “How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”