Micah McCormick: Romans chapter two.
Micah McCormick: We'll pick up at verse number twelve.
Micah McCormick: All who sin without the law will also perish without the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.
Micah McCormick: For the hearers of the law are not righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified.
Micah McCormick: So, when Gentiles who do not by nature have the law do what the law demands, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.
Micah McCormick: They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, their consciences confirm this.
Micah McCormick: Their competing thoughts either accuse or even excuse them on the day when God judges what people have kept secret according to my gospel through Christ Jesus.
Micah McCormick: Time for me to date myself.
Micah McCormick: I've seen the original Pinocchio.
Micah McCormick: I'm not talking about the remakes, okay?
Micah McCormick: I'm talking about the 1940 Disney Pinocchio.
Micah McCormick: There's a song from that movie called Give a Little Whistle.
Micah McCormick: It includes these lines.
Micah McCormick: And if you start to slide, give a little whistle.
Micah McCormick: Any of you remember that song?
Micah McCormick: I got a few nods.
Micah McCormick: I've got a lot of, I don't know what.
Micah McCormick: Well, just listen.
Micah McCormick: If you don't know the movie, don't know the song.
Micah McCormick: Give a little whistle, give a little whistle, and always let your conscience be your guide.
Micah McCormick: Some of you might have had parents that you're gonna go out with friends.
Micah McCormick: Now listen to your conscience.
Micah McCormick: Is that good advice?
Micah McCormick: I heard a no immediately down here.
Micah McCormick: We know listen to your heart.
Micah McCormick: That's that's not the best advice.
Micah McCormick: The Bible says our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked.
Micah McCormick: That's actually probably really Disney's number one message over the years, whether it's last year or decades ago, listen to your heart.
Micah McCormick: So that's not good.
Micah McCormick: Let your conscience be your guide.
Micah McCormick: I think for most of you, it sounds better than listen to your heart, but there's still some uncertainty about that.
Micah McCormick: We're doing a series made on the on humans who are made in the image of God.
Micah McCormick: Our consciences that God has given us are features of that glorious humanity and part of what it means to be made in the image of God.
Micah McCormick: The Bible never talks about animals having a conscience.
Micah McCormick: Sometimes he looks at you like I did a bad thing, didn't I?
Micah McCormick: You know, whether he's been trained to want that treat and respond the right way, or whether I don't know, but I know in scripture the language of conscience is always associated with human beings, not with animals.
Micah McCormick: So we're going to consider this theme of the conscience tonight as an aspect of what it means to be gloriously made in God's image.
Micah McCormick: I've got five S's for us that helps you track with where we're going.
Micah McCormick: Number one, the conscience stated, number two, the conscience seared, number three, the conscience saved, number four, the conscience strengthened, and five, the conscience shared.
Micah McCormick: So, first, the conscience stated, what is it?
Micah McCormick: Our consciences are an innate, God-given capacity that makes moral judgments.
Micah McCormick: We're here in Romans.
Micah McCormick: Look again at Romans 215.
Micah McCormick: They show the work of the law written on their hearts, their consciences confirm this.
Micah McCormick: Something inside of them, a kind of God-given intuition, says yes or says no.
Micah McCormick: The verse goes on: competing thoughts either accuse or even excuse them.
Micah McCormick: So the conscience is not independent of our minds, our reason, our wills, our actions, but it's when we make moral judgments, and often it's making moral judgments about our own behavior.
Micah McCormick: Light goes off, you know, you're doing the wrong thing, or that's a good thing.
Micah McCormick: You should do it.
Micah McCormick: Acts 24, 16.
Micah McCormick: I always strive to have a clear conscience toward God and men.
Micah McCormick: What's Paul saying there?
Micah McCormick: The way I act, I don't want this thing God has given me to say, God deserves different than that, or you shouldn't have said that to that person.
Micah McCormick: I want to have a clear conscience, Paul says.
Micah McCormick: 2 Corinthians 1, 12.
Micah McCormick: Indeed, this is our boast.
Micah McCormick: The testimony of our conscience, so consciences bear witness.
Micah McCormick: They get up on the stand and they say, He's right or he's wrong.
Micah McCormick: The testimony of our conscience is that we have conducted ourselves in the world and especially towards you with godly sincerity, purity, not by human wisdom, but from God's grace.
Micah McCormick: Animals don't make moral judgments in the same way that humans do.
Micah McCormick: Does the mother lion gather her cubs around and say, now, you see the way that other family of lions just ate that hyena?
Micah McCormick: Don't you do that.
Micah McCormick: That is wrong.
Micah McCormick: Humans are operated instinctually, but not with the same moral framework.
Micah McCormick: They may have certain loyalties or those kinds of things, but that moral capacity to say something's right or wrong.
Micah McCormick: It can be developed, but it's there from the very beginning.
Micah McCormick: How many of you have had children, and sometimes, even when you didn't tell them something was wrong, they give you that look like I did this thing and I shouldn't have.
Micah McCormick: Even though you didn't tell them.
Micah McCormick: They just they they knew mom probably wouldn't like that and I shouldn't have done it.
Micah McCormick: Conscience stated.
Micah McCormick: Our innate, God-given capacity that makes moral judgments.
Micah McCormick: Number two, the conscience seared.
Micah McCormick: This is where we get into the reality that our conscience is not perfectly reliable.
Micah McCormick: It's a gift from God, but we can't bank on it 100% of the time because, like other instruments, it can go a little haywire if we don't treat it properly.
Micah McCormick: And humans are universally in the habit of not treating it properly.
Micah McCormick: Turn back to Romans chapter 1.
Micah McCormick: The word conscience isn't used right in that chapter, but it gives us an example of the type of behavior that sears our conscience.
Micah McCormick: Romans 1, verse 18 God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who, by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth.
Micah McCormick: There's a witness of who God is, and they push it down.
Micah McCormick: It's there in nature, but they push it aside.
Micah McCormick: On an evangelistic note, you can appeal to this when you're talking to people.
Micah McCormick: They may have sincere or less sincere questions about the existence of God and things like that, but they've got a conscience that testifies to God's existence.
Micah McCormick: Look at the world around you.
Micah McCormick: You really think this is all by chance?
Micah McCormick: They've got a witness that's there.
Micah McCormick: Now they may suppress it and suppress it, but it's there.
Micah McCormick: Listen to 1 Timothy 4, 1 and 2.
Micah McCormick: The Spirit explicitly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared.
Micah McCormick: 1 Timothy 1, 19 and 20.
Micah McCormick: Having faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected.
Micah McCormick: And he names two men.
Micah McCormick: So our conscience is a good gift from God, but you might have a good conscience or a bad conscience, and you can sear your conscience.
Micah McCormick: We're not talking about a beautiful piece of meat that has a nice sear on it.
Micah McCormick: Talking about when you take a hammer and bang your finger, it's gonna hurt at first.
Micah McCormick: You keep banging it long enough and hard enough, eventually you're gonna lose the feeling in that finger.
Micah McCormick: You put a hot iron on your finger, it's gonna really hurt.
Micah McCormick: But eventually, when the nerves are destroyed enough, you're not gonna feel that hot iron.
Micah McCormick: It's still just as hot, it's still just as disruptive for you, but you're seared.
Micah McCormick: People can do that, and people regularly do that when it comes to their own conscience.
Micah McCormick: Third, so we've got the conscience stated, conscience seared, the conscience saved.
Micah McCormick: All right, let's go ahead and turn over to Hebrews 9.
Micah McCormick: You might not have thought about the conscience in quite this way, but there's scriptural language here we want to look at.
Micah McCormick: Hebrews 9, verse 9.
Micah McCormick: This is a symbol for the present time during which gifts and sacrifices are offered.
Micah McCormick: This is talking about the old covenant law that cannot perfect the worshipper's conscience.
Micah McCormick: There are physical regulations and only deal with food, drink, and various washings imposed to the time of the new order.
Micah McCormick: So even in the old covenant, the people that were obeying God were bringing the sacrifices, there's something that says, this isn't enough.
Micah McCormick: A lamb can't really make up for your personal rebellion against the holy God, which fits with we're moral creatures who have a special relationship made in the image of God that lambs who are not made in the image of God don't have.
Micah McCormick: So lamb's blood can't ultimately make up for our behavior.
Micah McCormick: It temporarily covered over.
Micah McCormick: Importantly, it pointed forward to Christ, the Lamb to come.
Micah McCormick: But there's a testimony of there, something more needs to happen.
Micah McCormick: If you look down verse 22, brothers and sisters, we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus.
Micah McCormick: He has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain, that is through his flesh.
Micah McCormick: And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed in pure water.
Micah McCormick: The conscience is not itself demonic, it's a gift from God.
Micah McCormick: But our consciences can be seared, and they can be twisted, telling us you need to do more to please God.
Micah McCormick: God's not happy with you.
Micah McCormick: You've got to work and work.
Micah McCormick: You're gonna be judged by God.
Micah McCormick: That's that's a difficult burden to live under.
Micah McCormick: The gospel message is Christ is the great high priest and he's accomplished it.
Micah McCormick: And for those that embrace and trust Jesus Christ, they don't have to listen to that accusing conscience.
Micah McCormick: Satan himself is called the accuser of the brethren.
Micah McCormick: He lobbs his grenades, and the apostle John says, When our own hearts condemn us, our own hearts can add on to Satan's lobbies.
Micah McCormick: People around us, some of you grew up in homes, sadly, where with your parents it was like you never could do enough.
Micah McCormick: It was always criticism, always the next thing.
Micah McCormick: And laboring under that is a burden of conscience that you can be free from.
Micah McCormick: Salvation brings a purified conscience.
Micah McCormick: I am right before God.
Micah McCormick: Christ has done enough for me.
Micah McCormick: I'm free and justified.
Micah McCormick: You may not all have that freedom of conscience.
Micah McCormick: I want you to be encouraged.
Micah McCormick: That freedom of conscience is not the infallible sign that you know the Lord.
Micah McCormick: You may really know the Lord and be saved and still be wrestling with, am I justified?
Micah McCormick: But what I can say is God wants us to pray and strive towards that freedom of conscience, to be able to say, Yes, I know I'm justified.
Micah McCormick: I know that God is not against me, he's for me because of Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see him there, who made an end of all my sins.
Micah McCormick: My conscience needs no other sacrifice beside.
Micah McCormick: And this point right here, the conscience saved, this is that central hinge that we've seen throughout this series on the image of God.
Micah McCormick: The image of God is there in creation.
Micah McCormick: It's restored wonderfully and perfectly in Christ Himself.
Micah McCormick: And he brings with him in his graces many things in our lives that help to reset and renew and point in the direction and goal and destiny of what that image of God was intended to do all along.
Micah McCormick: And conscience is one of those things that, even though seared, is reset in Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: Number four, the conscience strengthened.
Micah McCormick: Let's go over to First Corinthians eight.
Micah McCormick: First Corinthians chapter eight.
Micah McCormick: When you're born from above, your conscience is cleansed, but it's not perfected.
Micah McCormick: Yes, your conscience still functions to make moral judgments about your behavior.
Micah McCormick: So if you're saved, you shouldn't have to fear God's condemnation.
Micah McCormick: But if you do something and you get upset and you just let somebody have it, hopefully your conscience isn't saying, don't worry about it.
Micah McCormick: Hopefully your conscience is saying, you know what?
Micah McCormick: You shouldn't have said that.
Micah McCormick: Why don't you go apologize to that person?
Micah McCormick: But even though we're saved and our conscience has been reset and we're free, justified in Christ, our consciences are not perfect this side of glory.
Micah McCormick: There's all the influences of our past, there's the influences of our people in our lives right now, there's our own thoughts.
Micah McCormick: And different Christians will sometimes have different testimonies in their conscience about certain kinds of behavior.
Micah McCormick: Now, hopefully, not issues that are clearly revealed in God's word.
Micah McCormick: But you've heard sometimes the phrase a matter of conscience.
Micah McCormick: What they mean by that is not, well, I think it's okay to just have an affair.
Micah McCormick: No, that's that's in God's word.
Micah McCormick: But there's other issues that aren't clearly spelled out in God's word.
Micah McCormick: And Scripture itself even has a category for issues that are not necessarily right and wrong in and of themselves from God's word.
Micah McCormick: But sometimes that little voice, that little yellow light will say, I don't think you should do that.
Micah McCormick: Or, yeah, you need to do that.
Micah McCormick: 1 Corinthians 8, here's an example.
Micah McCormick: Verse number one.
Micah McCormick: Now about food sacrificed to idols.
Micah McCormick: Paul is writing to these Corinthians, he's responding to some of their questions.
Micah McCormick: Apparently, they were asking him about food sacrificed to idols.
Micah McCormick: In Paul's day and age, sometimes food might be offered to a pagan false god and then brought out and served in the marketplace.
Micah McCormick: You know, the butcher's like, bless my work, bless this meal, bless this food, O Zeus, and he goes out and sells it in the marketplace.
Micah McCormick: Like, what should we do about that?
Micah McCormick: Is it okay to get that food and eat it?
Micah McCormick: Paul continues.
Micah McCormick: Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
Micah McCormick: If anyone thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know it as he ought to know.
Micah McCormick: But if anyone loves God, he is known by him.
Micah McCormick: About food sacrificed to idols, then we know that an idol is nothing in the world, but there is no God but one.
Micah McCormick: For even there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there's one God, the Father.
Micah McCormick: All things are from him, and we exist for him.
Micah McCormick: And there is one Lord Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: All things are through him, and we exist through him.
Micah McCormick: However, not everyone has this knowledge.
Micah McCormick: Some have been so used to idolatry up until now that when they eat food sacrificed to an idol, their conscience, being weak, is defiled.
Micah McCormick: So this is talking about believers.
Micah McCormick: He's writing to believers.
Micah McCormick: And he says you could have a weak conscience, or you could even defile your conscience when you run over it.
Micah McCormick: So the first principle about strengthening our conscience is be very careful not to run through your conscience.
Micah McCormick: That's not the way to strengthen it.
Micah McCormick: That that could be a way to sear it if you're not careful.
Micah McCormick: So when your conscience is giving you the yellow light, don't just run through it.
Micah McCormick: Even if you see somebody else, in this case, eating food in the marketplace that may have been sacrificed to an idol before they bought it.
Micah McCormick: Strengthening our conscience.
Micah McCormick: Recognize that with some of these disputable matters or issues of conscience, your participating in them is not going to destroy or or seal your relationship with God.
Micah McCormick: Listen to what Paul says in verse 8.
Micah McCormick: Food will not bring us close to God.
Micah McCormick: So he's saying, okay, first of all, relax a moment.
Micah McCormick: If you do or don't eat the meat, that's not going to ultimately be the measurement of your relationship to Christ.
Micah McCormick: We are not worse off if we don't eat, and we are not better if we do eat.
Micah McCormick: So we don't run through our conscience, but we do instruct our conscience.
Micah McCormick: We instruct it with God's word.
Micah McCormick: I know the conscience is not a person, it's a capacity we have, but we're we're patient with our conscience.
Micah McCormick: We continue to instruct it and say, well, what does God's word say about whatever this issue is?
Micah McCormick: Let me let me think along those lines.
Micah McCormick: Romans 14, 17.
Micah McCormick: The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking.
Micah McCormick: He brings up the same issue in Romans 14, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Micah McCormick: Paul says that some people have a weaker conscience.
Micah McCormick: That sounds like, boy, I really don't want a weak conscience.
Micah McCormick: Context here, the weak consciences are those that are extra sensitive to associations that might be sinful, in this case, the food offered to idols.
Micah McCormick: But he says weak.
Micah McCormick: He doesn't say it's immoral.
Micah McCormick: He doesn't say it's horribly unpleasing to God.
Micah McCormick: He just says the conscience is weak.
Micah McCormick: And if you've got a weak conscience, whatever's not from faith is sin.
Micah McCormick: So if you avoid the meat, if you avoid the drink, Romans 14, you're not sinning against God.
Micah McCormick: How can we strengthen our conscience?
Micah McCormick: Well, we have to test it and calibrate it with God's word.
Micah McCormick: There's an example of this in Acts chapter 10, where Peter has this vision of the unclean animals, and the voice says, Peter, rise, kill and eat.
Micah McCormick: He says, No, Lord, I it's unclean.
Micah McCormick: His conscience was saying, I can't do that, I know it's wrong.
Micah McCormick: And the Lord said, No, God has called it clean.
Micah McCormick: So we have to be willing to test and calibrate our consciences according to Scripture.
Micah McCormick: Don't look for unnecessary ways to trigger your conscience or to sear your conscience.
Micah McCormick: And this is where it's so challenging a message like this, because some of us tend to have overly sensitive consciences.
Micah McCormick: And some of us might have consciences that are a little bit dull when they should be sharper.
Micah McCormick: And some of us, in certain issues, have a very sensitive conscience.
Micah McCormick: And in other issues, I can do this to the glory of God.
Micah McCormick: So even the weak and the strong can vary from issue to issue.
Micah McCormick: Let me give you a couple examples.
Micah McCormick: Dulling your conscience.
Micah McCormick: Here's a potential example.
Micah McCormick: Most of you, your grandparents, if you're under 20, let's say your great-grandparents, if you took them with you to a random movie in the movie theater in a time machine, and sat them down, started watching, say, what are we doing watching pornography?
Micah McCormick: And you say, Well, what do you mean?
Micah McCormick: This is just this is just a movie.
Micah McCormick: This is not the pornography place.
Micah McCormick: They'd be like, Yes, it is.
Micah McCormick: What's happened?
Micah McCormick: Over time, standards of movie acceptability has continued to decrease and decrease and decrease.
Micah McCormick: So that possibly if they consider you've you've watched it so much, you might have become desensitized to something that maybe is harming you or tempting you to sin.
Micah McCormick: Now let's take the other side of that.
Micah McCormick: If you remember from just a month or so ago, Doug gave the example in one of his sermons that he and Royal had to really work through in their earlier days as Christians in an environment where many things were verboten, to use our German phrase.
Micah McCormick: Absolutely not.
Micah McCormick: One of those was going to the movie theater at all.
Micah McCormick: So it took them time and looking at scripture and praying before they stepped out and went to the movie theater for the very first time to watch the Lion King.
Micah McCormick: Do you remember that?
Micah McCormick: You guys remember that?
Micah McCormick: Like a month ago?
Micah McCormick: Most of you are like, well, that's that's silly.
Micah McCormick: No, their conscience had been told and trained by people around them, it's always wrong in every case to go to the movie theater and they had to say, well, wait a minute, is that what scripture actually says or not?
Micah McCormick: So you could have an overly sensitive conscience or a conscience that's dull.
Micah McCormick: And we want to be aware of both of those challenges, as we do desire to have consciences that are informed by God.
Micah McCormick: And yet, the information is not the most important thing.
Micah McCormick: Paul gives him the information.
Micah McCormick: There's really no false God.
Micah McCormick: Whatever the butcher did in the back, there was no nothing hokey-pokey's going on.
Micah McCormick: If it's a good piece of meat, you can eat it.
Micah McCormick: So he gives him the knowledge, but he says, whatever's faith is not, whatever's not from faith is sin.
Micah McCormick: So here's the knowledge, but more important than the knowledge is love.
Micah McCormick: And that brings us to the last point.
Micah McCormick: The conscience shared.
Micah McCormick: So far, I've been talking about our individual consciences, and that's where we really need to start.
Micah McCormick: Where's my heart before the Lord?
Micah McCormick: Have I been saved and cleansed?
Micah McCormick: Is my conscience bearing witness that I belong to God?
Micah McCormick: In the everyday decisions of my life, am I sensitive to my own conscience?
Micah McCormick: Am I seeking to train it and build it up with Scripture prayerfully?
Micah McCormick: When the scriptures speak of the conscience, though, here in 1 Corinthians 8, Romans 14, especially, it's in the context of how do you live with your conscience convictions alongside of other Christians who might have some different convictions.
Micah McCormick: There may be some of you here that just would never go to a movie theater.
Micah McCormick: It's fine, no problem.
Micah McCormick: You know, you're not going to be closer to God if you do or you don't.
Micah McCormick: Most of you would probably say, well, the Lion King is fine.
Micah McCormick: I mean, I don't want to sit through a movie where there's just scene after scene of graphic sexuality.
Micah McCormick: But there's a lot of middle space in there, right?
Micah McCormick: There's a lot of middle space of language that's not honoring to God.
Micah McCormick: But I'm am I supporting that by going?
Micah McCormick: Am I not going?
Micah McCormick: You're going to have different consciences about an issue like that.
Micah McCormick: Let me give you another example.
Micah McCormick: Harry Potter.
Micah McCormick: Christians, don't go online and Google this.
Micah McCormick: Please don't.
Micah McCormick: You just, it's not going to be edifying.
Micah McCormick: But you're going to have Christians very passionate that all Christians should avoid the witchcraft of Harry Potter.
Micah McCormick: And you're going to have other Christians saying, this is a fantasy, and people are using their creativity to give us a good moral story that actually points us to, spoiler alert, sacrificial death for others.
Micah McCormick: That's great.
Micah McCormick: You should all do it.
Micah McCormick: But those are pretty different perspectives, right?
Micah McCormick: The Bible says for some things like that, let each person be fully persuaded in their own mind.
Micah McCormick: And importantly, be very loving in how you approach other Christians.
Micah McCormick: You don't need to convince that mom that doesn't want her kids to check out Harry Potter from the public library.
Micah McCormick: You should let them do it.
Micah McCormick: And you don't have to.
Micah McCormick: Yes, we have to judge in certain clear matters of Scripture.
Micah McCormick: But in some of those cases where Scripture's not entirely clear on every single application of what would it look like to honor God in this situation or that situation, if they've got the Holy Spirit and they've got a conscience they're working on renewing in Christ, say, you know, I wouldn't do that, but I love you and I care about you.
Micah McCormick: You can talk about your differences in a way that doesn't treat another Christian like your conscience is the Pope, and their conscience should be the slave of your conscience.
Micah McCormick: Now, it's not always easy.
Micah McCormick: I know that.
Micah McCormick: And that's the gift of the conscience is you can feel so strongly about things.
Micah McCormick: You really can.
Micah McCormick: But again, let's look at 1 Corinthians 8.
Micah McCormick: Actually, verse 1 again first.
Micah McCormick: We know that we all have knowledge.
Micah McCormick: Paul's talking about the people in Corinth that realize an idol's a piece of wood.
Micah McCormick: Yeah, we have knowledge, but he says knowledge puffs up and love builds up.
Micah McCormick: Your goal is not to cram the knowledge of Christian freedom down someone's throat.
Micah McCormick: Your knowledge is how can I build them up in the Lord and care about them and love them?
Micah McCormick: Verse number nine Be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak.
Micah McCormick: For if someone sees you, the one who has knowledge, dine in an idol's temple, won't his weak conscience be encouraged to eat food offered to idols?
Micah McCormick: So the weak person, the brother or sister for whom Christ died, is ruined by your knowledge.
Micah McCormick: Now, when you sin like this against brothers and sisters and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ.
Micah McCormick: Therefore, if food causes my brother or sister to fall, I will never again eat meat so that I won't cause my brother or sister to fall.
Micah McCormick: Paul isn't saying here that whoever has the most sensitive conscience in the whole church, everyone has to live their private lives entirely how that particular person wants you to live.
Micah McCormick: But he is saying, don't do things that are going to encourage other people to run through their conscience.
Micah McCormick: You go out of your way to love others.
Micah McCormick: And if that means avoiding certain things when you're around them, think about how you can love them in that way.
Micah McCormick: Because Christ died for you.
Micah McCormick: It's about him and his work, not about me and my rights.
Micah McCormick: And we can think about that even collectively as a church.
Micah McCormick: Let's be generous towards other churches that might not have every single practice identical to ours.
Micah McCormick: There are some churches that regularly have one hour plus sermons.
Micah McCormick: It's not our business to look at them and say, Oh, you think you're all high and mighty?
Micah McCormick: Yeah, probably no one getting saved in that church.
Micah McCormick: People can't pay attention for an hour.
Micah McCormick: Why don't you think about caring for the people?
Micah McCormick: No, they're trying to love the Lord and honor Him with those sermons.
Micah McCormick: Praise God for that.
Micah McCormick: There's some people in some churches that have 25-minute sermons, 30-minute sermons.
Micah McCormick: Our evening sermons are usually closer to 30, morning, usually a little longer.
Micah McCormick: We don't need to presume, oh, we probably don't care about God's word, 30-minute sermons.
Micah McCormick: A 40-minute sermon would be probably a lot more honoring to God.
Micah McCormick: No.
Micah McCormick: Let's be generous and love and build up those that are around us that God's called us to.
Micah McCormick: I want to give you, uh, as we close, I've got a handout for you to take home and look at.
Micah McCormick: I'll be honest, it the print job was terrible.
Micah McCormick: I copied it out of a book.
Micah McCormick: I don't think I broke any copyright laws.
Micah McCormick: Don't sell it on eBay or anything like that.
Micah McCormick: I was reviewing again this afternoon.
Micah McCormick: There's a book that's really helpful, a little book called Conscience by a guy named Andy Nassali and a guy named J.D.
Micah McCormick: Crowley.
Micah McCormick: And this is a chart from the book.
Micah McCormick: And as I was looking at it again this afternoon, I said, man, this chart is, it would be so helpful for people to put this in their hands.
Micah McCormick: So I'm gonna just pass this out.
Micah McCormick: Maybe I'll just I'll start it on both sides.
Micah McCormick: Oh, you want to you want to walk it down that side?
Micah McCormick: Maybe uh, Walter, you want to just kind of walk it and pass it around this side.
Micah McCormick: Uh I think I have 30 or 40 copies.
Micah McCormick: If you're a couple, maybe just take one per couple.
Micah McCormick: And I think it just helps us give a little framework and scripture for the different stages and levels of our conscience.
Micah McCormick: So let me can I grab one, Mike?
Micah McCormick: Just before I pray here.
Micah McCormick: And again, we're not gonna go through the whole thing right now.
Micah McCormick: You open uh have questions about it.
Micah McCormick: But but you can see that that on one side there could be even a legalistic, you must do this to be saved.
Micah McCormick: If your conscience is telling you that, that's that's far on the side of heresy.
Micah McCormick: Or if your conscience is saying, yeah, do whatever you want.
Micah McCormick: Well, that's that's that's a strong conscience, but it's it's too strong.
Micah McCormick: The middle category is what we're aiming for, where we're not judging others in our shared consciences, but some of us might have stronger or weaker consciences in certain issues.
Micah McCormick: That's okay.
Micah McCormick: And we want to aim towards a goal of flexibility.
Micah McCormick: Paul says, I have become all things to all people.
Micah McCormick: Not sinful, but when I'm with the Jews, I want to try to live among them so that I can have an avenue for the gospel.
Micah McCormick: He's flexible because he's looking to love and serve, not looking to shout his own rights and freedoms everywhere.
Micah McCormick: So take a look at it, maybe as you go.
Micah McCormick: Let's pray and ask God to help calibrate our consciences through his word, through his spirit.
Micah McCormick: Lord, we need you, we thank you for the gift of conscience.
Micah McCormick: We want to be renewed in the image of our Creator.
Micah McCormick: We want to have our consciences restored, working, not dulled or deluded by our sinfulness, and not sensitive in a way that runs beyond your word, as though we could somehow be holier than what your word reveals to us.
Micah McCormick: Give us, Lord, as we think about our own consciences, give us a great generosity, a faith and love which respects others amidst conversations, sometimes disagreements about the best course of action or behavior, that the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Micah McCormick: We don't want to add burdens to others that they weren't meant to bear.
Micah McCormick: We want to worship together in the freedom of our conscience, and we acknowledge that we need the Holy Spirit.
Micah McCormick: Would He be particularly at work to strengthen and cleanse us, to sensitize us, that we could say we live with a clear conscience, like Paul, before God and others.
Micah McCormick: In Christ's name, amen.