Keeping a Good Conscience Before God & Men

Introduction to the Adult Sunday School Class and Guidelines

0:03 This adult Sunday school class was held on July 12, 1981, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Mottville, New Jersey. For those who may be visiting amongst us, perhaps a word of explanation is in order with respect to our adult class this morning. This class is one of the stated meetings of the church. The adult members are expected to be present, and the basic concern of the class over the past at least four years has been that of imparting the basic contents of the New Testament.

0:41 We have been engaged in an in-depth study of the New Testament. It began as a survey, but the longer it went on, the more it began to unfold as an in-depth study with the contents of the New Testament. And your instructor in this class is normally Professor Garlington, who is today ministering morning and evening at the church in Englewood. We would normally be studying the latter part of 2 Corinthians, Paul's letter to the 2 Corinthians.

1:12 And when Mr. Garlington is not able to be present, I generally take the class, and instead of entering into his province and trying to do what he is eminently qualified to do, and in a way that is universal, and unique to him, I usually take the time and turn it into a question-and-answer session. But in doing so, there are certain guidelines which regulate how we conduct the class, even though it is open-ended and there is more general participation. And those guidelines are the guidelines given to us in such passages as 1 Corinthians 14.26b, in which we read, Let all things be done. Unto edification, 1 Corinthians 14.40. Let all things be done decently and in order.

2:06 And so, as the instructor or guide of the discussion in these sessions, I reserve the right to make a judgment, and I hope it's not an arbitrary judgment, as to whether the question proposed and the discussion of that question would be unto general edification. Some of you may have a question that is, just burning away at your mind and your spirit, but it's so unique to you that it would put everyone to sleep were we to discuss it here as a group. And so I reserve the right to make a judgment on the question. And then secondly, because we do have visitors amongst us, it is important to emphasize that this class is not an invitation to debate.

2:49 Now, it's not that I'm adverse to debating. In fact, I find something very carnally appealing about debating, which is why I generally don't engage in it, because I can't trust my own remaining sin in the presence of heated debate. But we are committed as a church to a confessional position. It's stated in our confession of faith.

3:11 And those matters are not matters of debate amongst us. Now, if you have a point that you desire to debate, again, we might be willing privately to enter into discussion in the form of debate with you. But that's not the proper. It's not the proper use of this time.

3:26 And so that word of explanation, I hope, will be helpful. Now, unlike most of the times when we have this class, you had a week's notice because we thought we were going to have it last week and I was here prepared to lead it and Professor Garlington showed up and taught the class. So it may be that there are a plethora of questions and we'll try to exercise discretion in how much time we give to the questions that we do entertain. So since I'm left-handed and would normally prefer, uh, the left side of things, uh, I will arbitrarily say give preference to the right side.

The Practical Question: Keeping a Good Conscience After Public Sin

4:01 So where you're sitting, we'll give preference to the right side of the congregation. Is there anyone on this side that has a question? All right, Wayne's hand went up first. All right, Wayne?

4:10 You crank up your volume a little bit, Wayne. That will be helpful. In fact, go ahead and stand and everyone will hear you. Well, for example, there has to be a time when, as a Christian, we, we sin, not necessarily towards them, but in such a way as perhaps, we were rash with our life or we put out a word that we shouldn't have and we didn't necessarily sin against that person.

4:54 How do we, uh, seek to hear ourselves and have a clear testimony? And that's sort of the situation. All right. Very practical question.

5:04 And I hope all of you can understand the, the burden that our brother Wayne has expressed. You're in the presence of unconverted people. Perhaps at work. People who have no understanding of how a Christian's conscience is concerned to walk or to be kept blameless and unspotted before God.

5:24 And though you've not directly sinned against that person, suppose you're at a workbench and lo and behold, uh, you tightened up the screw on your own finger. And when you did, perhaps in a moment of weakness, you let out an expletive. And if you didn't actually curse, perhaps you expressed in your bearing that there was real anger. Or maybe you're on the job and you pound the wrong nail.

5:49 Instead of the nail that's going to fasten the, uh, sheathing to the stud, uh, you hit the nail that's here on your right thumb. And though you didn't speak ill to someone else, your manner reflected that you sinned with their knowledge and in their presence. Or the specific situation that Wayne has envisioned. You're visiting with relatives.

6:10 And there are two or three, uh, groups of families sitting together. And your wife did something that, lo and behold, three times that very morning you'd gone over that ground. And lo and behold, she completely forgot and did that very thing. And you got irritated.

6:26 And when you spoke to her about it, it was evident that you were irritated. Uh, you didn't cuss her out. You didn't pick up a shoe and throw it at her. But, uh, people could sense that you were irritated.

6:37 Now, your irritation was directed to her, not to them. But now what do you do? There's the question. All right?

6:44 Well, let me ask a question. Number one, should a Christian have any concern about that issue at all? If it's just a matter between him and the Lord, and him and the person against whom he sinned in the first instance. If he lost his temper, uh, when he hit his thumb, that's between him and the Lord.

7:00 In the second instance, it's against his wife. Should he have any concern with respect to that act or attitude expressed in the presence of others? If so, why? Chapter and verse.

7:12 Question's yours. I've done my job. I've articulated the question and thrown it back to you. All right?

The Biblical Mandate for Public Confession of Public Sins

7:22 Should a Christian be concerned about such things? And if so, why? All right, Jim. All right, we're to do that which is honorable in the sight of all men.

7:37 All right? So you're saying I ought to be concerned. We ought to be concerned. There's a passage that ought to leap to your minds if you've been awake at all over the past couple of months.

7:48 Yes, Louise? Right, it's a violation of living to the glory of God. And we ought to be concerned about it. All right?

8:02 But should we be concerned as far as its effect upon others? All right, Charles? Speak up. All right, Philippians chapter 2.

8:16 That's the passage that I hoped would come to many of your minds immediately. Where the apostle says, Do all things without murmurings and disputings that you may become blameless and harmless children of God without blemish. Where? Not just before God, but in the midst of it.

8:36 But in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you are seen as lights in the world. So here and there are many other passages, every principle of the Bible and every precept that says as the people of God we are to walk blamelessly before the Lord, we are to exemplify what it is to be a Christian, demands that if we have sinned before others that we acknowledge, before others, that what we did was sin. For instance, suppose Wayne got irritated with his wife Janet. Three minutes later he might have her alone and with real brokenness say, Honey, forgive me.

9:19 I'm sorry. I'm ashamed. And she said, Well, dear, of course I forgive you. And they kiss and make up and extend forgiveness.

9:26 And his heart is broken before the Lord. Then they come back out in the group as though nothing happened. Now, do the rest of the people know? Are they omniscient?

9:34 Is God going to give them a chance? Is God going to give them a tape recording of Wayne's confession to his wife? As far as they are concerned, what is his attitude to becoming irritated with his wife? Exactly their attitude.

9:48 Everybody's got faults. Don't get uptight about it. Now, is that a biblical attitude? Hmm?

9:54 Yes or no? All right. So if you do not say something to them, what are you doing? You're expressing a lie.

10:03 You're expressing an untruth. An untruth about the Christian life and an untruth about yourself. You're saying the Christian life is not one in which you are concerned with little details of getting irritated, losing your temper. Well, that's a lie.

10:18 The Christian life is concerned with every single detail of vertical and horizontal relationships. And then you're expressing a lie. You're saying what is not true. It doesn't matter to me.

10:29 Well, it did matter to you. You took your wife aside and asked her to forgive you. Or in the case of the guy who clobbered his finger. He's lifted up his heart to God.

10:37 Right there on the job. As I've had to do many times. On the job. And in the midst of work.

10:42 Or in the midst of a telephone conversation. And say, oh God, forgive me for that attitude. Maybe no one even knew about it. But just even in case there was any overtone.

10:52 Lord, forgive me. And then the thing must be dealt with that the person or they, not being omniscient, they don't know that you've regarded it as sin. They don't know that your heart has been broken before God. So you must then make that matter known.

11:06 To those about you. Otherwise you have no blamelessness of testimony. And you are speaking a lie at two fronts. You're speaking a lie about the nature of the Christian life.

Wisdom and Practical Implementation of Public Confession

11:18 And you're speaking a lie about your own attitude to sin. All right. Now then the question is, how should you do it? And here we have some biblical principles.

11:30 Sometimes it's perfectly proper to just seize the situation as it is. And to say something. But now we have some biblical injunctions. Let not your good be evil spoken of.

11:41 Cast not your pearl before swine. We have these principles that we must not unnecessarily expose ourselves to the cynicism of the unconverted. To the other attitudes that they may reflect. So we need real wisdom.

11:59 And the part of wisdom may be to take those people apart one by one. Take them aside as you have opportunity. Maybe people are mingling out in the backyard for a barbecue later. And you don't need to make a big scene.

12:12 There's one family or two or three of the people standing together. And you're talking. You say, oh, by the way, I want you to know that remember in the living room an hour ago when I got irritated with Janet. You know, that was wrong for me to do that.

12:24 And I want you to know that I've acknowledged that to the Lord and to my wife. And I'm sorry that I was not a good testimony. And then you just deal with it that way. Sometimes it may be necessary.

12:36 To do it before a whole group. For instance, a father who's become irritated with his wife in front of his family. And it's interesting that this should come up because we were discussing some of these very things in the elders meeting last night. I frankly do not understand the parent who does not confess his public sins of the home publicly to his family.

12:58 I don't understand how a man can keep anything that even borders on a good conscience before God and man if he doesn't do that. If your kids see your sin, then they ought to see your repentance just as visible and evident and open as your sin has been. Otherwise, Acts 24, 16, Herein do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense to God and to man. You will not have that conscience void of offense.

13:27 But you need to have wisdom. And that comes with experience. But far better to be awkward and a little bit untactful and have a good conscience. Than to be so concerned about tact and doing it with finesse that you end up with a bloody conscience.

13:42 Far better. If we have to err, let's err on the side of being awkward. I can remember when God was first burning this lesson into me as a young Christian. I'd bow over my books in my dormitory and ask the Lord to bless my studies.

13:57 Then it would come to my mind that that afternoon, maybe when I was playing a little basketball for some exercise, I got a bit heated in my spirit. Having no peace. Asking God to bless my studies. Have to run three dorms away.

14:10 Maybe spend a half an hour cracking down the character who instead of studying is out, you know, buying pizza or something. But take whatever pains were necessary to make that issue right. So that I could get back to my studies with a good conscience. It means sometimes, as some of you know, confessing sins from the pulpit.

14:29 There are pulpit sins. And I've sinned in the pulpit. I've sinned by a rash word. Or by a rash attitude.

14:37 Well, if it's been public sin in pulpit sin, what better place to make confession than the place in which the sin was committed? Now, what is it? Excuse me. Let me stop there and ask Wayne.

Hindrance #1: Pride and God's Resistance

14:48 Has that, has that scratched you where you itch on the question as far as giving you the broad principles? All right. All right, now let me ask a question. What will keep Christians from a practical implementation of those biblical perspectives?

15:03 All right, say it nice and loud. Say it again. Pride. That's right.

15:13 P-R-I-D-E. The hellish, devilish, demonic sin. Pride. Cursive, filthy, wicked pride.

15:26 Now, you'll get people to confess to a lot of sins. But rarely do they confess to the sin of pride. And in nothing are we more like the devil than when we're proud. It is pride that made the devil the devil.

15:40 I will ascend. Unto the hill of the Most High. I will be like the Most High. The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, says the Word of God.

15:52 And what does the Word of God say? God resists the what? The needy? No.

15:58 The ignorant? The weak? No. Who does he resist?

16:02 God resists the proud. But he gives grace to the humble. Now, let me ask you something. Do you want to be a father having Almighty God resisting all your influence as a father?

16:17 Yes or no? You want to be a father against whom Almighty God is set to resist all of your influence as a father? Do you? Then just be proud.

16:29 Too proud to confess your family sins to your family. And Almighty God sets his jaw and says, I will resist you with all the power of my being. That's why some of you aren't cutting at his father's. You're too stinking proud.

16:44 Too proud to confess your family sins to your family. And God's resisting you. Isn't that what the Bible says? I didn't write that.

16:54 Let's look at it. And I'm going to get to preaching here in a minute. But frankly, I don't care. All right.

17:01 James. Let's look at James. Chapter 4. You know it knocks the pin out of my watch.

17:08 All right. There we go. James chapter 4. Verse 6.

17:15 But he gives more grace, wherefore the Scripture says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Be subject therefore unto God, but resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Isn't it interesting? The context of resisting the devil is the context of an admonition to humility.

17:42 And we are never more susceptible to the devil's influence when we fall prey to the sin that made the devil the devil. The sin of pride. All right. So there's the great hindrance to this matter.

17:59 Whether it's with unsaved relatives, we rationalize and say, well, I don't want them to get wrong thoughts about the Christian life, and this, that, and the other. But when you really get honest, the reason you're unwilling to confess your sins is pride. It may be that they've sinned against you in a thousand ways and never once said, I'm sorry. Say I again, because we're in the more intimacy of a class, say how God taught me that lesson early in my Christian life with my own brothers and sisters.

18:27 I was the first one to get converted. And when I was converted, I still had, let's see, I think one of my, yeah, that's right, one of the kids was not yet born. My youngest sister was not yet born. But all the other eight were.

18:40 There are ten of us. And I can remember when the Lord saved me, and in the context of all living in a small house, you can imagine all those kids, I often thought of the old women in the shoe who had so many kids she didn't know what to do. Well, we were like that until my dad and I put a two-room addition on the house. We were all squeezed into a six-room house.

19:00 And I mean, they weren't spacious rooms either. So, you know, we couldn't avoid one another. We couldn't have peace by isolation. We didn't have that luxury.

19:09 We were thrown together. And there were a lot of irritations with at that time six girls and three boys. And I can remember when as a young Christian, just very early in the faith, and I'd get irritated with one of my sisters, and the Lord would give me no peace till I'd go and say to my sister or to my brother, I want you to forgive me. I sinned.

19:29 Now, here they had done maybe that very day ten things against me and hadn't once said, I'm sorry. And my old remaining sin would rise up and say, Yeah, but wait a minute. That's not fair. You've done this itsy-bitsy little thing against them, and they've done all this against you, and they haven't once said, I'm sorry.

19:47 Why do you have to go and say, I'm sorry? And I had to wrestle that thing through to say, I'll tell you why. To keep a good conscience before God. To keep a good conscience before God.

19:58 You know the biggest proof to my kid brother? This is his testimony. He's not even a Christian. The biggest proof to him that I got saved, you know what the biggest proof was?

20:06 Not that I was out in the street corner preaching. Not that he saw me go in my room and read my Bible, hours on end. But when he'd needle me for a fight, he got no positive response. That was the biggest proof to him that God had saved me.

20:21 That God had subdued that thing in me that he could appeal to in the past and no longer was effectual. Pride. You have to humble yourself before your own brothers and sisters. Your parents have to humble yourself before your children.

20:39 Do you do that? Do you? Now answer, not out loud, but I want you to answer with all judgment day honesty. When is the last time sitting at the family table or the living room, you specifically confess specific family sins in the presence of your family and ask their forgiveness?

20:59 When's the last time? Oh, you say, my kids are too young for that. Are they? If your children are older than a year, they're old enough to hear your confessions of forgiveness.

21:12 When's the last time? Come on, man, woman, be honest. Get honest now. Don't avoid it.

21:20 Don't just sit there and say, well, come on, let's get on with the next issue. I don't like about you, Pastor, sometimes you get awfully pushy. You bet your boots I'm being pushy. This thing needs to be pushed.

21:32 Now, when's the last time you confessed your family sins to your family? Are you ashamed? Can't remember when? All right, why?

21:42 Unmortified pride. And God is resisting you. God's resisting. God's resisting the pride.

Hindrance #2: Willful Ignorance and Insensitivity to Others

21:51 But he gives grace to the humble. All right, what's another reason why we won't do it? Pride, reason number one. Reason number two.

21:57 Huh? Ignorance of what? All right. It may be that we're ignorant, and if we are ignorant, is there any excuse for that ignorance when we've got a Bible and have the Holy Ghost?

22:12 No. So it's willful ignorance, isn't it? So what's the best thing to do with willful ignorance? That's right.

22:21 Learn. That's right. Get your Bible down and pray, O God, by the Holy Ghost, instruct my conscience, so that it will smite me concerning everything it ought to smite me. And as I heard someone pray recently, make it a callous conscience to everything that ought not to trouble it.

22:36 Lord, give me a conscience that is just like raw flesh with raw nerves to everything that ought to touch it and make it smart. But then make it like camel's knees to everything that ought not to trouble it. And you see, the trouble with us is because of remaining sin, we reverse that. And we make our consciences like camel's knees in the areas where it ought to be sensitive and sensitive where it ought not to be.

23:06 All right? Ignorance might be another reason. But let's call it willful, inexcusable ignorance most of the time. Most of the time.

23:14 Not all the time. Because there is a growth in grace and in knowledge. All right? What might be another reason why we won't do this?

23:21 Yes. All right, Mike? All right. Insensitivity to others.

23:28 Now, what do you mean by that? All right. Not realizing that what we do may be offensive to others. Is that what you're saying, Mike?

23:46 All right. How do we overcome that? All right. Communication helps.

23:54 Now, how would you do that, practically speaking? Let's take it in the family situation. Your conscience is not condemning you. Not because you're too proud to acknowledge your fault.

24:04 Not because you're perhaps willfully ignorant of the things that are faults. But you're insensitive. Now, how could you overcome that in a family context? What practical steps could you take?

24:14 What the other person is saying. All right. Would it be out of order for a father to sit down it seems to me someone from the Pope had urged us to do this quite recently to sit down with his family periodically and say, now, kids, daddy and mommy are seeking to walk in the light of the Bible before you in every area of our lives. And as far as we know, we've got no unconfessed matters. We're not perfect. We had to confess our sins to you this morning or yesterday, whatever it is. But now we want to know, is there anything we are anything we are doing that causes you kids to have problems when you hear us pray?

25:17 When we try to lead you in prayer and instruct you and sit with you in church is there anything that makes you kids feel hurt? Is that Christianity? And ask for the input of your own family. That's a good way to overcome the insensitivity.

25:34 You want something to get your heart rubbed sensitive pretty quick. Just get that kind of openness with your family. All right. Some other ways you could overcome the insensitivity.

25:49 Anyone have any suggestions? Let me give one. Pray for the sanctified ability to get under other people's skin and to feel as they feel. Love seeks not her own.

26:06 You see, in one of the peculiarities of Biblical love is it gives a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, the ability to get behind the other guy's eyeballs and look at things as he sees them. To get under his skin and to feel as he feels toward a situation. You see, so many of us have been brought up in the society and brought up in a pattern of total self-centeredness in which we feel if it looks alright to me and if it feels good to me then that's all that matters. No, that isn't all that matters.

26:39 For instance, recently in giving some instruction on the whole matter of what principles ought to guide us in the way we dress I had occasion to say to someone we ought to seek to dress in every situation in such a way as to make the people who are going to be in that situation feel comfortable with me. Not how I feel comfortable but what will make them feel comfortable. And then I gave a very silly illustration. You know how I would feel most comfortable preaching this morning?

27:12 Tennis shorts stripped down to the waist. Bare feet. Then I could really go to work. I wouldn't have the heat building up here.

27:24 I can just feel it even now. Building up around the neck and getting pumped down through my chest area and the sweats already pouring off my back and underarms and the rest. And I do use a very, very powerful antiperspirant and antidote. I assure you.

27:37 The most powerful I can use consistently without drastic irritation. But, though I would feel comfortable I have a sneaking suspicion one or two of you might feel a little bit uncomfortable having to sit there and listen to me preach if I were in my tennis shorts or in my jogging shorts. So you see the issue is not how I feel most comfortable but how will they feel most comfortable. Some of you may ask why in the world in these hot days does Pastor bother to put a tie on?

28:08 I mean he is really a stuck in the mud traditionalist. No I'm not. But I know that there are many people in terms of the cross section of what we are seeking to do in ministry who if they came into a quote Protestant church to listen to a Protestant minister a proper reverend speak. Would feel very uncomfortable if he did not appear in such a manner as to reflect a little bit of the dignity that they expect of a minister in this culture and in this particular strata of society.

28:41 Many of you would feel uncomfortable. That's why on the day when I'm doing all of my chores at home I have to go through the bother if I go down to the bank to shower and dress up like a proper reverend. Now I may wear an open ended shirt but I wouldn't go down dressed sloppily because they know who I am and they have a certain image and I reflect you. And I don't want to bring unnecessary reproach upon you the people of God simply for the convenience of feeling comfortable in my sloppy clothes and appearance.

29:13 I love you too much to do that. I bear an identity with you as well as with the ministry as well as with my Lord wherever I go like it or not. That's one of the occupational hazards. But that's a fact.

29:27 Well you see love gives you that ability to get into the skin of the other person and become sensitive to how he will feel. In terms of how you deal with your children in terms of how you deal with your wife put yourself in her skin look at the situation through her eyeballs look at the situation through the eyeballs of your children through the eyeballs of your employer your employee. In all of these relationships ask yourself the question if I were in their skin what would I see in what I'm doing? How would I feel in the face of what I'm doing?

30:03 How I appear? You see that has to be cultivated. That's not native to us. And we must pray to God for that grace of self-giving love that helps us to get behind the other person's eyeballs under the other person's skin and respond as they do.

30:22 I know what some of you are thinking. You say man oh man that would bring me into terrible bondage. I think you do. You'd be thinking about others.

30:30 It seems to me the Bible doesn't call that bondage. That's evangelical law keeping. As you would that others do unto you even so do ye also unto them for this is the law and the promise. You say that's costly.

30:45 You bet your boots it's costly. Whoever said love isn't costly. God so loved that he gave. What did he give?

30:52 Not tuppence. Gave his only begotten son. You say that's radical. You bet your boots it is.

30:59 True Christianity is radical. You say that cuts across the grain of everything that's natural. That's right. The life of God in Christ is a supernatural life.

31:08 I can see by the look on some of your faces you say he asked the question and I didn't pry on it. I didn't. So we've got pride will hinder us. Ignorance will hinder us.

Hindrance #3: Rationalization and Fear of Man

31:23 Insensitivity may hinder us. What else may hinder us? Yes Louise. Rationalization.

31:35 We've got that little guy in us all of us Mr. Ration L. Iser. He's a he's a he's a house guest who intrudes himself into every single breast of every single Christian.

31:49 Mr. Ration L. Iser. Always there.

31:51 Super salesman. Super salesman. All the time. Well you know as Louise has mentioned Mr. Ration L. Iser says look don't say anything to them. They don't they'll just think you're crazy. Well you'll say well as I mentioned earlier why should I confess to them? They've done many things against me and they've never acknowledged they're wrong.

32:11 Why should I do that? Or they might think this or they might think that. And what you have to do is after Mr. Ration L. Iser has given you his whole sales pitch ask one simple question. Is that the way to have a good conscience before God and man? That's all. And then you're able to see right through his whole sales pitch.

32:30 If anything else comes into consideration then you begin to buy the line. But just ask when he's all done with his sales pitch say Mr. Ration L. Iser I have one question to ask you.

32:38 If I buy your product is that the path to a good conscience before God and man? And then he gets embarrassed stuffs his good in his in his satchel and says good day. That's the best way to get him off your doorstep. Just ask him that one question.

32:57 If I buy your product Mr. Ration L. Iser if I buy it is that the path to a good conscience before God and man? That'll drive him away pretty quick.

33:07 Pretty quick. He's gone. Alright any other things? Jim you had your hand raised and then I Okay.

33:16 Fear of man. Okay and what does the Bible say about the fear of man? What does it do? Fear of man brings a snare but whoso trust in the Lord shall be safe.

33:39 So whatever you may fear you put yourself outside of the protection of God when the fear of man keeps you from your duty and it'll snare you. It'll lasso your tongue so you don't make that confession. It'll tie up your feet so you don't make that trip to that person that you need to go to and make that issue right. It brings a snare on the feet on the tongue and that snare cripples you spiritually.

34:04 So we need to pray that God will deliver us from the fear of man and what's the only safe deliverance from the fear of man? The fear of fear of God. Isn't that what we're talking about? If the fear of God is living in that disposition in which God's smile is our greatest delight and his fatherly frown our greatest dread then you see the fear of God withers the fear of man.

34:26 And in the fear of God I want to keep a good conscience at any cost. So I'll be willing to let myself be vulnerable to men. What are men? To whom do I stand?

34:37 Before whom do I stand in the last day? Before whom do I stand now? I stand before God. And that's the only true and effective antidote to the fear of men.

34:48 It's the fear of God. All right? Gene, you had something else. All right?

34:52 And what's the underlying fear of God? It's the fear of God. All right? And what's the underlying concern of that?

35:24 Did you all hear that? She said, if we do a thing like this then we're marking ourselves. We're branding ourselves if it's the first time as someone who's different. Someone who is concerned about walking in integrity before God.

35:34 And if we do that then we're marked from there on in. And that makes demands upon us. Now what is beneath that fear of that kind of commitment? All right.

36:04 So you're saying that one of the motives may be that it's a convenient way to spare that particular sin. Say it's a matter of irritability or a bad temper or excessive foolishness or something that is visible before others. You're saying that if we do confess it to them we know then we've got to get dead in earnest about putting it to death because we don't want to have to be confessing it twenty times a day. So it may be that down underneath we really don't want to mortify it.

36:29 All right? What else may be the reason in that case? Yes, Julie? All right.

Confession of Christ and the Cost of Discipleship

36:34 The element of living for the praise of man more than anything in the world the praise of man more than the praise of God. I think we're getting close to what I think lies at the heart of this. Yes, Rich? Expand on it.

36:51 What do you mean slothfulness? Okay. All right. So it could be the attitude of a spiritual sluggard who's not willing for the discipline doing it once.

37:09 You know, if you do the same thing the next day and don't confess it they've got sense enough to know, hey, what's the matter? Has the standard of right and wrong changed in this guy? All right. So it could be an attitude of denial.

37:31 Mark 8, 35. He that would save his life will lose it. He that will lose his life for my sake shall save it. Anything else that enters into this matter?

37:40 Yes, Ken? In fact, he went further and said he was glad that his sermons had gone out all over the world and his picture. He said, there's no place I could go upon the face of the earth and sin in secret. And he was grateful for that.

38:14 Yeah. That he had become a world-known figure and that had become not a means of sinful pride from sin, lest in any place he should dishonor his Lord. Yeah. Well, I think, yes, Michael?

38:30 All right. May I just nail one thing over and then we can move on to that? Doesn't it come down ultimately to the whole matter of Matthew 10, 32? Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my Father.

38:42 Whosoever denies me before men, him will I deny before my Father. Isn't this part of our confession of Christ? Isn't it? To confess Christ means to be identified with him, his word, his ways, his salvation.

38:58 So when I've sinned, say, in the presence of office companions or work companions, and I look and, not look, I make a judicious opportunity to confess my faults to them, I am confessing Christ in a concrete expression of discipleship. I am saying, as a disciple, I do not tolerate sin. And because of that, I want you to forgive me. That's confessing Christ, isn't it?

39:21 Confessing Christ is not just going in the waters of baptism, once for all. That's the starting plate of formal confession of Christ. But that's the launching pad into a confessional life. Now see, if some of you begin to take that seriously, frankly, I'm disturbed.

39:40 And I'm thinking particularly of some of you young people. I am frankly disturbed as to how some of you can maintain intimate, long-range, long-standing contacts with openly unconverted non-Christian people as close friends and not find the rub of discipleship cutting off some of those friendships. I had no problems after I got converted choosing my friends. Nine-tenths of all my former friends dropped me.

40:09 Why? Because I had bad breath and body odor? Because every time I saw them, I preached at them? No.

40:18 But because in no relationship would I compromise my attachment to Jesus Christ and they felt they were willing to have me as a new man in Christ even though they didn't want my Savior. And the reason some of you can maintain such intimate contacts with the unconverted is you are compromising your identity to Jesus Christ. You are compromising your identity to Jesus Christ. When your buddies and your girlfriends take His name in vain, you're silent.

40:49 You never open your mouth. When the guys on the job tell their dirty jokes, you may not laugh but my friends, that's a compromising Christianity. What in the world will you do if the time comes when you're asked to deny Christ or seal your testimony with your life's blood? If you're not willing to lose a few friends or a few bucks for the sake of Christ or lose a job for the sake of Christ, what makes you think you'll give your life up in death for the sake of Christ?

41:18 If you fail at the lesser, what makes you think you'll triumph in the greater? I mean, it just doesn't make sense. And it's that fear of man to cry to God to deliver us from. Yes.

41:31 Now Michael had a question on this. If we may come to that, Louise,

Overscrupulous Conscience vs. Covering Sins with Love

43:24 and then we'll come back. Yes. Well, I would say, Michael, if we have to have a problem, that's a good one to have, to have an oversensitive conscience that needs to be hardened a little bit. I shouldn't say not hardened but brought into closer conformity to the law and to the word of God.

43:40 But recognizing that there are some who are oversensitive, then it's a matter of growth and spiritual wisdom to know the things that we have to rectify with others. I mean, if we begin to pick our hearts over day and night, then we turn completely away from a positive outgoing preoccupation with Christ and with others and the enemy will cripple us that way. But I would say for everyone like that, there's a hundred who need a good dose of that. But neither one is desirable, especially some of us who've gone through the syndrome of an overscrupulous conscience.

44:13 That's the term I think that is good to use, an overscrupulous conscience, a conscience that's troubling us on matters it ought not to trouble us as we have in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians chapter 8. But if I may, Michael, I know the last thing you'd want to do is give the impression that a little issue can be shoved aside. I know that's not what you're saying. What you're saying is you had to learn to condition your conscience to trouble you about things that it ought to trouble you.

44:41 But any point of controversy with God is a big issue. There's no little thing if it's a point of controversy that can damn us. Any sin willfully persisted in will destroy our souls, be it big or little in the eyes of men. If it's the point at which we say I will not obey God, that's big enough to damn us.

45:00 That's pretty big, isn't it? But what you're saying is we must not allow ourselves to be troubled over every little incident where we fall short of mathematical parallelism in our obedience to the law of God. That's what you're saying is we must not allow ourselves to be troubled over every little thing in the life of God. If that's so, then I would have to take at least a half an hour after this session to think of all the ways in which a different word would have expressed something a little more accurately, a little more in conformity to truth and spend all my preaching time this morning confessing the sins of this hour.

45:40 You see? Now that's what the Bible means when it says have fervent love among yourselves for love shall cover a multitude of sins. If you have ever taken in a fault restore him. If thy brother sin against thee rebuke him.

45:54 Now there are some sins you don't just cover with the blanket of love. But there is that multitude of sins and failures and shortcomings. If we went exhorting and admonishing and reproving one another for all of those sins then we'd all be like people who had nothing but lances thrown into them 24 hours a day. And you say well how do you know the difference between the one and the other?

46:18 Increasingly we're obedient to the light of Scripture and increasingly know what it is not to grieve and quench the Holy Spirit. The Word and the Spirit not some little formulas are the means by which we are kept from those excesses. All right. Louise and then Elaine you raised your hand a long time ago and then I didn't get to you.

Witnessing Through Confession and Maintaining Christian Distinction

46:39 I'm sorry but we'll come back to you. All right? Yes. Yeah.

47:09 No. You don't want your typewriter file your material whatever you're there to do. Now if during the coffee break or lunch break she came up to you and said now Louise I don't understand that. You live straighter than all the rest of us around here and yet you come to me and ask me to forgive you.

47:26 I don't understand what makes you tick. Then you say well if you've got 10 minutes I'd like to tell you what makes me tick. And then you give her the Gospel on your time not the boss's time. Or if you sense that you know the response to that was one of almost shock you may then want to pick that up and you know come break time or at the end of the day if it seems expedient without being socially boorish or overbearing to say to her you know so and so well Mary when I spoke to you today I noticed that that kind of shocked you.

47:58 Would you like to know why I felt I had to do that? If she says no it's no concern to me all right don't cast your pearls before swine. If she says yeah that really bugged me and I didn't know quite how to tell you that and I didn't want to offend you but if you're offering to tell me I'd love to have you do that. You see then you're giving her an opportunity you're putting your hand gently on the plug and tugging and if she wants to push it out then she has the opportunity to do so.

48:24 But you need not follow every confession with an explicit witness of the Christian faith that lies behind that confession. There's nothing in the Bible that says you must do that. I don't know a chapter or verse that says you must. All right okay Elaine I said it it is proclaiming a lie that one can be a Christian and not be radically different from the non-Christian and that's a lie.

49:07 If any man be in Christ he is a new creation not a perfect new creation but a new creation and if there's any area particularly in our day where the unconverted and the converted stand in marked contrast to one another it's the matter of sensitivity to sin. We live in a day that sins in the grossest forms and we have no shame. I mentioned to the folk how my heart was just shattered with one of my the things that happened in my own neighborhood. A single girl yesterday as I was coming back from running pulled out on the back of the motorcycle with a guy that's not her husband they had their sleeping bags and their weekend supplies all piled up in the back of the motorcycle obviously going off to spend a weekend bedding down together somewhere no sense to Martin no sense of shame obviously going off to shack up with a guy for a weekend and not an ounce of shame. That thing has just shaken me to the roots. When I was a kid that went on yes but if a neighbor girl did a thing like that she had sense enough to sneak off under cover of dark and if she saw one of the neighbors there she would have turned her head and acted like she didn't abandon generation. Well if ever there's a point where we need to manifest the radical transformation

50:36 of the gospel it's at this point that before God and man we are ashamed of sin. What the world would even laugh at and say that's not sin. We need to let them know it is sin because our consciences are under the light of the word of God and not under the shifting standards of this generation. That's a very good point Elaine and we need to make a difference before God.

51:01 Can we talk about the power of the gospel and make it stick because of the way we live? And that's the bottom line with regard to our relationship to our kids our neighbors everyone. Yes Dottie? Well the very reason you see in one sense the fact that she felt free to wave at me was a compliment in the other sense it was a terrible revelation of her heart because though their lifestyle is totally hedonistic I mean they are pure 20th century middle America hedonists.

51:44 I have sought to maintain good relationships with them. They no longer invite us to their cocktail parties. I could have no credibility to go over there and sip cocktails with them and then try to witness to it. So they no longer invite us.

51:59 I graciously have declined that but I always for instance give them vegetables from our garden always go out of my way to do anything helpful. I always take the initiative to make sure they can't figure us out and they've said we don't want to talk about religion. We have a good relationship with those neighbors. They recognize that our Christianity is something credible though it makes us live an awfully strange and what they probably figure is a hopelessly and pathetically narrow restricted dull life and yet at the same time they see when I'm out in the backyard having a catch with Beth up deep down little religious fanatics they see that my wife is not some dowdy kind of a sour person. For instance a Saturday ago I had taken over some vegetables and the rest. Well the mother in that household who's now a grandmother came over with her oldest daughter and grandson wanted us to see their newest grandson. We had a nice time to chat together and the rest so that we just need to pray for that kind of family that recognizes why they are where they are while at the same time praying for grace and holy tact never to identify with what they are.

53:22 Now to put it again in the concrete they have a lovely backyard pool a sunken built in Anthony pool lovely thing to swim in and they've constantly said please use the pool anytime you want and often when they've got their crowd over there getting half full of alcoholics but every time they're at that pool there's booze there constantly. Now they're not staggering drunk but they can't exist without the alcohol being sort of the oil to keep the wheels of conversation and lightness going. So there's there's addiction whether they're willing to admit it or not. Well when they invite me in that situation I choose not to go I make sure that I've got something constructive to do when I took jump in for a swim I say look I don't play till my work is done I still got more work to do in the garden and it was obvious I went back and worked at my garden and then it was convenient to just slip in the house but I make a point when they're all not there when just the sun is there to go over and swim to let them know I don't think I'm holier than they they are and talk with him about his softball thing and the rest because I can then reciprocate their friendship without identifying with their sin and that's a razor's edge and there's no set of rules there's no book on personal witnessing you're just shut up to the word and to the spirit you see in all of these things

54:50 we're shut up to the word and to the spirit that God would give us wisdom I'm sure we're not doing it perfectly but you asked the personal question Dottie how do we relate to them and I'm trying to give you enough specifics to illustrate it yes you want to respond to that yes yes that's right I'm going to go back again that when our hearts are filled with self-giving love rather than just say look it's too complicated it makes too many demands to figure out I'll either do one of two things I'll just capitulate and compromise and under the name of being friendly and Christian I'll just throw my conscience to the wind or just draw back and say I'll have nothing to do with it well neither of those things is biblical Christ could be the friend of sinners and yet he was holy undefiled separate from sinners well how do you put that together well just read the life of our Lord and we are to be like him friend of sinners yes but never making sinners feel comfortable in their sins even in our closest identification with them now some of us have come around perhaps full circle in our early Christian days we thought that if we were ever found with an unsaved person within three feet of us it would be an indication

56:19 that we were compromising we had no meaningful friendships to form a bridge of communicating the gospel well that's not right Jesus ate with publicans and sinners as well as preached to them but then there's that other extreme that says oh well identifying with them at any cost the end justifies the means so how are you going to win the world unless you show you can be like the world so you've got people that will sit and go to their cocktail parties and go under the guise that well I don't want them to think that Christians are a bunch of fuddy-duddies they've got to be like them to win them well when you're like them what have you got to win them to what have you got to win them to only a bunch of ideas well that's not Christianity it's not a bunch of ideas it's a radical life transforming union with Jesus Christ that touches

57:27 you

58:35 yeah if it's if it's the level of attitudes and doesn't break out into any visible manifestation you're under no obligation to confess that sin to him you've not sinned against him you've sinned against God and sin against God needs to be confessed to God and to God alone unless it's in this kind of a situation where we're talking about our general susceptibility to certain sins then we're doing what James says in principle confessing our sins one to another one for another there's that general kind of acknowledgement but in that specific case no any more than if you think an evil thought of anger to someone in this congregation but it never shows in relationship or a lustful thought you don't have to go to the woman some poor innocent Christian woman will begin to wonder you know what's wrong with me that I'm provoking lustful thoughts in someone that's a matter between you and the Lord now if it broke out of the credibility of your Christian faith then you must make that confession I mean I've I've had to confess before God on my knees things that I would never confess before any man not even to my wife there's nobody's business but mine and God's and it would be sin it would be sin and causing others to sin