What Happens When You Ignore Your Conscience? | There Is More: Endgame | Pastor Josh Howerton

Hey guys, thanks for checking out this Bible teaching. Every week we release a podcast that corresponds to the sermon. It's like a little bit of a deeper dive, where we hit some things that didn't make it into the sermon, some theological concepts. We talk about things that are going on in our culture and how to think about them from a biblical perspective. We call that podcast Live Free. An episode releases every Monday that corresponds to the sermon. If you would like to check out Live Free, just go to the Lake Point YouTube channel and look for the podcast tab there. We'll see you at Live Free now. Enjoy this Bible teaching. It's going to be a good day, about to be a party in here. Hey Lake Point family, we're excited, I'm still sweating from the last service. We are at all of our campuses, we're getting ready, don't clap yet, we're getting ready to baptize. I think this weekend we'll end up baptizing like six to seven hundred people, and I told you not to, I told you not to. So here's what I want to do, I want to do it like this. You got people around you who are in these little blue t-shirts that they're already ready to be baptized, and some of them are real nervous about, at your campus, or here, about being baptized at the end of the service and walking up. So hey Lake Point family, can we go ahead and preemptively show them how proud we are of everybody going public for Team Jesus. Here we go man, amen, it's going to be awesome, it's going to be awesome, it's going to be great. Okay, I got to get right at it. We are starting, actually we are starting a series that we're finishing. We are like 35 to 40 weeks into preaching through the book of Acts, verse by verse, chapter by chapter.

We are calling from here to the end of the series, we're going to go from here, chapter by chapter, leading all the way into the summer, up towards the end of the movies, to finish the book of Acts. The entire series has been called, there is more, we're calling this installment of the series, there is more colon endgame, and I totally got it from the Avengers movie, I'm going to explain that here in a second. So let me lead into the sermon that I'm about to preach like this, I've never preached a sermon on this thing before. So let me lead into it like this, there was a guy that went to confession with his priest and he explained to the priest that he'd been stealing lumber from the lumber yard that he worked at for years. And so the priest just said, well, how much lumber did you take? And he said, well, father, I took enough to do my own home, a house for my son, a house for each of my two daughters, and a vacation home at the lake. And somebody just cheered for that, you need this sermon, now that's the sermons for you. And the father, you know, priest thought for a minute and he said, man, this is very serious, I'm going to need to think of a big penance for you to do. And then he said, have you ever done a prayer retreat? And the man thought for a minute and he said, no, father, but if you give me the plans, I know where to get the lumber. Okay, now, let me, that's a stupid joke, but today what I want to do is talk to you about what can happen to you when you sin so much that you can't feel it anymore. What we're doing today is, like I said, we're in Acts chapter 23. Let me get a run and start into it. Okay, so here's what's going on. From here to the end of the book of Acts, it's all going to revolve around a dude named Paul. If you weren't here for the other parts of this series, the apostle Paul starts the book of Acts as a religious terrorist. Like I'm not joking at all, this is not an exaggeration, think ISIS.

He starts as a religious terrorist, killing people for being Christians. And then God saves him in Acts 9, he starts his first missionary journey in Acts 14. And then he ends his life, you're going to see it, we'll point up to it. He ends his life being beheaded in Rome for being a Christian. So think about this. He starts as the dude killing Christians, he ends his life being killed, preaching Christ as a Christian. So let me just say this, if your buddy dragged you here because he's getting baptized today and right now you're totally out on this team Jesus stuff and you're like, oh, this is real dumb and I hate it. What I want to say to you is watch out, man, this thing will get on you because God can use anybody. So this is what happened to the apostle Paul. Now check this out. Here's the other thing. God saves him in Acts 9, he starts his first missionary journey in Acts 14. So here's a big idea. As soon as God rescues him, he puts him on the rescue team. That's what God does for you. As soon as Jesus rescues you, you're on the rescue team to help save one more. So here's a point, man, is some of you look at a guy like me and you're like, man, I could never be a Christian like that guy. Listen, listen, listen. That's not your disadvantage. That's your advantage. Because a lot of people will look at somebody like me and they're like, I could never be a Christian like that. Or more likely, I don't want to be a Christian like that. But they'll look at you and they'll go, but I could be a Christian like him or I could be a Christian like her.

That's your advantage. So then the reason that we're calling this, there is more end game. OK, again, I totally got it from the Avengers movie. This is a spoiler alert. If you haven't seen it, that's on you. You had a lot of years. Because what happens is Iron Man trades his life to take down Thanos. Spoiler alert. So here's what happens. The events that we are going to read. about today in Acts 23. Set in motion a chain of events. This is the chain of events that are gonna lead to the apostle Paul's death. He's gonna trade his life for something. Now check this out. He's on trial in Acts 23 before this group of guys called the Jewish Sanhedrin. I don't got time to talk about who they are. We go into it in the podcast, but he's before the Jewish Sanhedrin. What you will notice, I'll point it out in the next few weeks, Paul has multiple chances where he could have gotten out of the Roman judicial system and lived a safe, free, best life now, but he doesn't do it. There's something that matters more to Paul than his life. In fact, the apostle Paul had a life verse. It's Acts 20, 24. If I ever show up on stage and I got a tattoo,

it's gonna be one of two things. You're gonna be big to tell us die, or it's gonna be Acts 20, 24. I was gonna get this verse as a tattoo, but Janice said my body's already perfect, so I didn't. Okay, so that's a joke. Acts 20, 24 is Paul's life verse. He says in Acts 20, 24, however, I consider my life worth nothing to me. If only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me, the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace. So the apostle Paul goes, man, I could have gotten out of the judicial system, but there's something I want more than that, and I think, I'm gonna show it to you in the next few weeks, I think Paul's strategy was, you gotta be at least an 80s baby to get this. For you Star Wars folks, I think Paul's strategy is he was like, I want my life to be the photon torpedo down the vent shaft of the death star of the Roman empire. I for real think that was his strategy. I think he was going, man, if I can trade my life, you're gonna notice, I think his goal was to share the gospel directly with the Roman emperor. You'll see it later in Acts. He goes, I appeal to Caesar. And I think he was going, if I can trade my life

for the emperor of Rome, bending his knee to Jesus Christ, that could set off the kingdom of God, rushing through the gospel, rushing through the Roman empire in a way that overtakes the world. And actually, just fast forward, that's exactly what happens. 300 years after the apostle Paul's death, the Roman empire that once was like this demonic, pagan, terrible thing, Christianity is declared the official religion of the Roman empire 300 years after Paul. Now check this out, this is amazing. What you're gonna see right here is Paul starting these chain of events here in Acts 23. I'm gonna read one verse and this whole sermon is on one word of one verse. So he stands in front of the Jewish Sanhedrin and he says this, Paul looked straight at the Sanhedrin and said, my brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good. And I want you to say this yellow word out loud, all good. Conscience to this day, conscience. Now, let me talk to you about this. Paul's conscience, we don't talk about conscience, especially in my generation and down, we don't talk about conscience. But the Bible, Bible nerd moment here,

there's a huge theology of conscience in the Bible. Paul's conscience was the spine of his ministry, conscience. So let me explain it before we start talking about it. Here's what conscience is. I want you to notice conscience is actually two words, compound word, con, I think is a Latin prefix. It means with or within. And then science means knowledge. So what's a conscience? Conscience is a within knowledge. It's a knowledge that you have within of right and wrong. Now, let me put a little theology on that. Okay, what the Bible says is that there's a courtroom in heaven and that God is the only just judge. The apostles' creed says that from thence he shall return to judge the quick and the dead. That God is the only just judge of the universe. Let God be true in every man a liar. It does not matter what the world says is right and wrong. The only thing that matters is that God, the sovereign judge of the universe, he will judge correctly between right and wrong, truth and lies, evil and good. Only God can do that. So there's a courtroom in eternity in heaven, but check this out. The book of Ecclesiastes says God has put eternity into the hearts of man. So there's a courtroom in eternity,

but God's put eternity into the hearts of man. Your conscience is the inner courtroom that God has built into your heart that is constantly making judgments inside of you and giving you a sense of feeling of what's right and what's wrong. Okay, now, if that makes sense, let me give you some examples because we don't talk about this a lot in our culture. Your conscience is that thing where like you'll get in a certain situation and you'll just start having this, it's like almost like an anxiety. And you'll just be like, hey, dude, I don't know what's going on. Something's off, man. Something don't feel right. Something's off. I need to get out of here. Something feels a little dirty about all this. That's your conscience. I'll give you another one. Sometimes your conscience will tell you what not to do. Sometimes it'll tell you to do something. It's like, have you ever been in a situation where there's all this pressure around you to do the wrong thing? Or you know you're gonna get mocked for being openly on team Jesus? And you realize that, and the moment comes,

and there's like this violent thing that starts welling up inside of you that starts saying to you, hey man, you stand firm. Stand firm, you stand on your conviction. Don't flinch when the moment comes. Because if you come off your convictions, it's gonna be hard to sleep tonight. How are you gonna live with yourself? That's your conscience. It's a within knowledge about what's right and what's wrong. Okay, now let me do this. Three fast facts about your conscience. Okay, we're a whole theology of this thing. Three fast facts. Number one, your conscience is different from the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit works with your conscience and in your conscience, but the Holy Spirit is not your conscience. The Bible uses two different words for conscience and Holy Spirit, and in 1 Corinthians 4, the apostle says my conscience is clean, but that does not make me innocent. In other words, I'm gonna talk about this here in a second. Heads up, your conscience can be wrong. Your conscience is fallible, but the Holy Spirit is infallible. The Holy Spirit's not your conscience. Fast fact number two, everybody's got a conscience.

Only Christians have the Holy Spirit, but everybody's got a conscience. Hey, Booth, I'm not doing a verse. I'm just gonna explain it. So if you've ever asked the question before, hey man, when God judges the world, how's he gonna judge people who never heard his word? It's not fair for him to judge people by laws they weren't even aware of. Romans chapter two, there's your homework, answers that question, because what Paul says is he says that everyone, not everybody has God's law, and what he says is people who perish apart from the law will be judged apart from the law. What he's saying is if somebody dies and they never heard about God's law, God's not gonna judge them by his law. Well, then what's he gonna judge them by? Romans two says he will judge them according to their conscience. They at least had an inner sense of what was right and wrong and he'll judge them according to the knowledge they have, but here's the big idea. That means everybody's got a conscience. Lost people, saved people, everybody's got a conscience. Fast fact number three, this is why this sermon is so important. Reject your conscience, wreck your life. Reject your conscience, wreck your life.

Now, check this out. I'm gonna read a verse from the book of 1 Timothy. Paul's writing to a young pastor at a place named Ephesus and the church started getting a little sideways with him, so Paul wrote this little letter to him and here's what he said. He said, Timothy, my son, I've given you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you so that by recalling them, you may fight the battle well, holding onto faith, and here it is, a good conscience, watch this, which some have rejected and so have suffered. Now, I'm not gonna say it yet. In a second, I want you to say the big all caps yellow word out loud. Now, check this out. Here's why I'm doing this. This is an urgency for me. Some of you are doing or have been doing what this verse says and you have rejected your conscience for so long that you are sprinting towards wrecking your life, your marriage, your family, your legacy, your lineage, your job, your reputation. You're sprinting towards a shipwreck and listen, I'm praying that the Holy Spirit would wake you up and pull you out of that and save you from that today because God loves you. So this is what I'm praying.

Now, check this out. Here's what he says. Some have rejected it and so have suffered. What have suffered? Shipwreck in regard to the faith. Here's the big point. You can reject God and reject the voice of your conscience so long when you sin that what once used to be the loud voice of your conscience, the longer you reject it, the quieter it gets. So check this out. When you first started doing the sin that you're trapped in right now, your conscience was loud. It said, no, but you rejected it. Watch, you rejected it and the longer you rejected it, it did this. It started going, no, and then you kept going. It went, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, and now you can sin and feel nothing. Watch this, watch this. When that happens, you're a plane without a warning system and a plane without a warning system is eventually going to crash. He says, reject it. It will shipwreck your faith, okay? Now, here's a question, okay? Only like 4% of you are gonna get this because you gotta be at least an 80s baby

to know what this is from. There's that little phrase, always let your conscience. your guide, only like 4% of you know where that's from. The question is, should you always let your conscience be your guide? Can you trust your conscience? Well, here's the deal. Depends what kind of conscience you have. Depends what kind of conscience you have. So here's what we're gonna do. Sermon's gonna be a little shorter because we got to dunk a whole bunch of folks. I'm gonna run through real quick four types of consciences that the Bible has, talks about, I'm gonna do them real quick. Okay, number one. First, there's a good conscience. We just read it. This is mentioned eight or nine times in the New Testament. I'm gonna give you three of them. So we just read this one up here, Acts 23, one. My brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience. There it is. Here's another one, 1 Timothy 1, 5. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Here's one. This, actually, this verse is talking about baptism.

We're gonna do at the end of the service. Now, check this out. He says in 1 Peter, and this water, watch this, symbolizes. I need to get this out. The water we're baptizing people in in this service, the water doesn't save anyone. It symbolizes him who saves people. So baptism does not save you. A savior saves people. So this is going, this water that you're gonna be baptized in, it symbolizes baptism. It's saying the water baptism symbolizes a different type of baptism. What type of baptism? When you place your faith in Jesus Christ, God immerses you in the death of Jesus Christ. He raises you to new life. You are immersed in the blood of Jesus. You are what? The Bible says, cleanse me with his and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be watered in snow. You are immersed in the blood of Jesus Christ. It's the perfect sin solvent. It removes every stain of sin from your life. And the second you place your faith in Jesus Christ, you're transferred from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of light. You're transferred from death to life. And God removes your sins from you as far as the East is from the West.

Best news you've ever heard. Okay, that's the best. That you being immersed in Jesus Christ is the baptism that the water baptism symbolizes that now saves you. The spiritual baptism is the one that saves you. Not the removal of dirt from the body. That's how we know it's not talking about water baptism, but the pledge of a, here it is again, good conscience towards God. Okay, now here's what a good conscience is. A good conscience is when you do good things, you feel good and when you do bad things, you feel bad. Okay, so this is important. Sometimes people will sin a terrible sin. Let me give you a heads up, man. Almost all of you are gonna have a head-on collision with your own depravity at some point in your life. Okay, you're gonna sin a terrible sin. Some people when they do that, they're tore up for a long time. It's like, they can't sleep, they can't eat. It's like, I can't believe it. It's like, they're real messed up when they sin. And they'll go, hey man, does that mean something's wrong with me? Actually, that feeling of feeling bad when you do something bad, that doesn't mean something's wrong. It means something's right. It means your conscience is working.

That's a good conscience. Here's another way to say it. A good conscience is when you see what God sees and feel what God feels and care about what God cares about. It's an appropriate sensitivity to sin and an appropriate delight in righteousness. Now, let me tell you one thing that a good conscience does. It's gonna explain everything about Paul. So you guys know, I'm military history guys. This is apparently a true story from the United States Navy that's recorded in a US Navy journal. So apparently once upon a time, there was a captain of the USS Missouri that his little shipmate came and explained, hey, captain, we have a serious problem. There's another ship in our sea lane, 20 miles away and they refuse to move. And so the captain is like, well, tell him to move. He goes like, oh, we have. That sends the captain. So he's like, well, I'm gonna tell him myself. So the captain hops on the radio and then he says, just issues a command, move starboard 20 degrees at once. And a signal immediately returned. You move starboard 20 degrees at once. Well, the captain is like, again, he gets sent. And so he's like, I'm gonna explain who I am.

Hops back on the radio and he says, this is captain Horatio Hornblower commanding you to move starboard 20 degrees at once. And immediately a signal comes back and he goes, well, this is seaman Carl Jones and I command you to turn starboard 20 degrees at once. Well, the captain's like, I'm a captain. He's like, what is he doing? So the captain, he kind of bows up and he hops back on and he says, I repeat, this is captain Horatio Hornblower, captain of the USS Missouri. This is a BB 63 Iowa class battleship. We are the flagship of the seventh fleet. We are the most decorated vessel of the United States Navy. Move starboard 20 degrees at once. Immediately a signal came back and the guy says, this is a lighthouse. Does that make sense? The other guy, okay. Now, here's the point. Having a good conscience, listen, having a good conscience, it makes you the lighthouse. I ain't moving. No matter what pressure comes from the world, the flesh, and the devil, you are able to stand firm on your convictions because on the inside, you have a conscience that confirms your convictions and you know that your convictions

are in alignment with the king and so it doesn't matter if everybody else is against you, if God before you, it doesn't matter who's against you. Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. Your conscience does that. It's a good conscience gives you a strong inner sense of like, hey man, I'm standing firm. I'm standing firm, I know what I believe. This is why, by the way, in Acts 23, Paul's in a courtroom and he's like, I don't care what this court says because there's a courtroom in here that confirms that what I'm doing is right and this courtroom is aligned with that courtroom so this courtroom doesn't matter. That's why, by the way, the Bible says in the book of Proverbs, the wicked flee when no one pursues but the righteous are as bold as a lion. It's a good conscience does this. This is what the apostle Paul has. All right, number two, number two. Second type of conscience is a defiled conscience, a defiled conscience. Let me read it. This is Titus 115. To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their minds and their consciences are, you say it, are defiled.

Okay, now check this out. I've said this before, but y'all don't listen to anything I say and you forget it if you do and I would need to say it again. So by the way, let me just pull back the curtain on something real quick. There's a few little concepts that I try to repeat. I'm not repeating myself out of laziness, I'm repeating for emphasis. These concepts, like they're anchor concepts. So check this out, here's one of them. You need to understand as a disciple that there is the word and there is the world. And the word and the world are in constant conflict with one another. And you have a decision to make which one stands in authority over and judges the other one. Does the word stand in authority over the world and judge it? That's right, that's wrong, that's good, that's evil, that's true, that's a lie, word over world. Or for some of you, you don't even know you're doing this, I'm gonna talk about this here in a second, but you have emotionally calibrated yourself where actually for you, the world stands in authority over the word and you're letting the world judge the word and go, that's true, that's false, that's a lie, that's not, that's good, that's evil, I like that, I don't like that.

You've got to decide as a disciple of Jesus Christ that the word stands in authority over the world and judges it. You've got to make that decision, now check this out. So what's a defiled conscience? What's a defiled conscience? A defiled conscience is when you sin so much and rationalize it, or when you spend so much time, listen, without discernment, maturity and discernment around the world, that you begin to imbibe the value systems, emotional calibrations of the world, watch this, and your conscience becomes calibrated to the judgments of the world instead of the word and your conscience begins to give you bad readings. Your conscience actually begins to give you bad readings when you do good things and good readings when you do bad things, that's a defiled conscience, okay? Let me show you this. Here's a big idea, this is Hebrews 5, it says, solid food is for the mature. For those who have their powers of discernment, what's that big word right there? Have their discernment, you got to train your conscience. Your conscience can be wrong, you got to train it. Their discernment, trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil, okay? Now, so how do you train it? Well, the Bible answers that in Romans 12, check this out.

Don't conform to the pattern of this world. Now check this out, when it says pattern, the Greek word is literally mold, M-O-U-L-D, mold. So here's the analogy I like to use, okay? Any of y'all ever pour concrete? Who am I, my joke, this is Rockwall and Heath, y'all ain't pouring concrete. Forney gets it, Forney campus gets it, they pour concrete over at Forney. I've only done this a couple of times in my life, but when you pour concrete, what you do, the first thing you do is you set the mold. So hey, what shape do I want the patio to be in? You set the mold first. Then you pour the concrete and watch, the concrete takes the shape, whatever shape you set the mold in, it becomes that. What this verse is saying is that this world has a mold, M-O-U-L-D, and this world is. is trying to malform you out of the image of Jesus. This world is constantly trying to do reverse discipleship to get you not to look like Jesus, but to mold you into the image of the little G, God of this world. The Bible says that Satan is the God of this world. He controls the world systems, the Bible says. And it's constantly exerting pressure on you. You're like clay, and it's trying to press you down into the image of the little G, God of this world, Satan, through tons of things, through entertainment,

the media you take in, education systems, government says, all these things. It's trying to mold you out of the image of Jesus into the image of Satan, the lower G, God of this world. Romans 12 is saying, don't let it do that, okay? How do we not let it do that? Instead, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You gotta fill your mind with the word of God. Renewing of your mind, then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. So how do we train our conscience? We immerse ourselves in the word of God. Now, let me just say something real quick to parents. And let me just step into something. It may be a little uncomfortable, but just a bit of an edge to it. I love you. Let me just say this, I'm with you. Hey dude, I'm with you. I'm a dad, I got three. Right now we're at 15, 11, six, changes every year, hard to remember, 15, 11, six. So I'm gonna get with you. So I'm not talking at you, I'm talking with you. I'm with you here. Parents, especially of young kids, grandparents, they're gonna need your help. Or if you someday are gonna have young kids, you need this.

Parents, listen, one of the most important things you will do as a Christian parent is you carefully shape the consciences of your children and you pay very close attention to anything that might mal-shape the consciences of your children and you do not let that happen. That's your job. So think about this, it's like you're paying attention, parents, what friends do my kids have? Because those friends, they're not just friends, they're shaping consciences. If you start seeing like, man, my kid is hanging out with a bunch of kids who they celebrate evil things and they move away from good and holy things, your job as a parent is to step in, especially when your kid's younger and go, I'm choosing your friends and it's not them. Oh, you're like, oh man, but they're a snowflake and a Skittle and they need to be themselves. Okay. No, they're a wretched, black-hearted, foolish sinner. That's what the Bible says. And you need to be the one, listen, you're not their friend, you're their parent. You're their authority. God-given authority. Why, listen, why did God give you that authority? Why did God give you that authority? So that you could stand in between Satan and your kids

and fight for your family and say, nope, can't have them. That's why God put them under your authority. The social media they spend time on. I'm just telling you, man, on the Howard team right now, again, 15, 11, six, we don't do social media with the kids. I'm not judging you. I'm gonna talk about that in a second. That's a decision we have made. But listen, I'm just saying, man, if your kids are spending hours and hours on this thing, that's not just entertainment and it's definitely not just social. It's shaping the consciences of your kids. And what it's doing is this, the little G God of this world is defiling the conscience of your kid. You got to step in and be aware of that stuff. And I'm just gonna tell you, man, like not, I'm just gonna say like 90% of like what they're flipping right there. It's like pornified, woke, pagan Swifties. I don't care. I said it. That's like 90% of what, so you've gotta like, you gotta be able to step in and go, man, that's not for us. Let me just do one last one. A lot of Christian parents, I'm in it with you, is we are not exercising wise discernment in the media, entertainment, movies, and shows, especially that our younger kids

whose consciences are like very wet concrete. We're not exercising discernment in what they inundate themselves with. So let me just, let me explain something real quick. Here's how me and Jana think about it. I'm not saying you got to, this is how we think about it. I'm thinking through the lens, how does this shape my kid's conscience when I'm evaluating a show? So let me just, think about your, I'm gonna do a little thing here. Think about your old crotchety grandpa that he would let his kids watch his old war movies, but then, and you mocked him for this. You mocked him for this. He let his kids watch his old war movies, but then he flipped out when there was a little Disney show that had two dads or two moms, and you mocked him for it. Can I say something? He was right, because watch this, man. It's not about whether there are evil things. Now, there are some things, obviously, we set our eyes on these not evil things. There are some things we don't do, but check this out. It's not about if there's evil things in what they're watching. It's about is evil celebrated and normalized in what they're watching? they're watching. Because that's calibrating their conscience to something.

And those old war movies, check this out, there were evil things in those movies, but it was obvious to the viewer, this is good versus evil. This is right versus wrong. And they celebrated values like self-sacrifice, valor, honor, integrity, honorability. They celebrated those things. That calibrates the conscience. So listen, and I'm in it with you. I'm in it with you. It's not me at you, it's me with you. Dads, we gotta show up for our kids. Fight for your kids, go after your kids. This is the first generation in American history, listen, first generation in American history where more kids are growing up without a dad in the home than with a dad in the home. And you wonder why this place is so jacked up? Listen, man, you wanna change the world, here's all you gotta do. How about every man at Lake Point stand up and act like a man and go after the hearts of his kids and fight for his family? That's gonna change everything. So we gotta step in between. I gotta do the others faster, here we go. Last two, number three is a seared conscience. The Bible talks about a seared conscience. First Timothy 4.1.

It says, now the spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are, and I want you to say it, whose consciences are? Seared. Now here's two analogies for what the Bible means by seared conscience. Let's go back to your old blue collar crotchety grandpa. You remember his hands? He had those big old gnarly hands. His little knuckles look like cue balls. And they're real thick, they're real thick and rough. Here's how he got those thick, rough hands. He grew up swinging a hammer, turning a wrench, hanging drywall. Here's how he got those hands. The first time he went to the site and he swung a hammer, he got all these blisters on his hands and it hurt. But then he kept going back and those blisters popped and a new layer of skin developed that was tougher than the last layer of skin. But then he got blisters again and the same thing happened and he kept going back and watch, watch, watch, watch. As he was exposed to that constant friction for many years, what did he develop on his hands? He developed calluses. Thick, thick, listen, unfeeling, thick, unfeeling skin so that he could be exposed

to extreme friction and not feel it, no pain. Now, let me give you another analogy. Let's talk about searing a steak to the glory of God and the good of people. Let's talk about searing a steak. Pastor Josh, do you like animals? Absolutely, medium rare, love them. Okay, there's a thing. Okay, if you ever seared a steak, what you're gonna do is when you sear it, you're gonna crank that grill up to 500 or as high as it's gonna go, 5600, two minutes on each side, 90, whatever it is, boom, boom. What it does is when you sear a steak, it sears that little outer layer of skin on the steak and it makes it, it kind of seals it off. It makes it unfeeling, makes it real tough so that nothing can penetrate it. And it traps all those juices inside, which is awesome, glory to God, it traps all those juices inside so that nothing can penetrate the steak. Here's what a seared conscience is. When your conscience is exposed to so much sin for so long that it loses feeling and nothing can penetrate it anymore, not the love of God, not the law of God, nothing, that's a seared conscience. Seared conscience, okay, hang on. This is, listen, listen, listen, this right here, this is why you need a band of brothers

or a band of sisters in your life because everybody, listen to me, everybody, you've got one area of your life at least where your conscience is seared because you normalize that sin, whatever it is. That's why you need a band of brothers or a band of sisters, watch, who can call you up to what God has called you to be, can call you back when you're prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. You need some people who like in your blind spots, they can step in and go, hey man, that's not who you are. That's it, you're a son of the living God, man, that ain't who you are. Let's get back on a path, man, and actually I'll pick you up, put you on my back and carry you back to Jesus. Can I help you? You need a band of brothers or a band of sisters. I'm just gonna tell you what I do. I've got three groups of people. I got a group of pastors that are like accountability group for me. They're like, we're tight. They know everything about my life. Our elders, some guys on our executive team, usually twice a year, I will reach out to a big group of people and I'll just tell them, hey man, if there is anything in my life that you see that's out of line, that's out of step with my call,

I need you to tell me, watch. I'm not just giving them permission, I'm asking them to do it. I say, man, you tell me. I call this deputizing somebody in my life. When a city deputizes someone, the city goes, we're putting a badge on you and if you see any of. Us breaking the law, we're giving you the responsibility to come and do something about it. You need to deputize some people in your life and go, hey man, if something's off, I need you to tell me, that's your job, okay? Now listen, man, Josh, why do you do that? Because I'm not so dumb that I don't think I'm dumb sometimes. And if you don't think you need that, bless your heart, you're too dumb to talk to probably, okay, you need that. I love you, I love you. But if you don't think you need that, you don't understand reality. This is a seared conscience is what this is. Okay, now let's go to the last one. The last type of conscience is a weak conscience. A weak conscience. Now go ahead and put up that 1 Corinthians 8 verse. This is another one, let me get a running start into it. So this is going on right here, it's not gonna make sense. So Paul is writing this little letter

to this group of this church at Corinth. I was actually just standing in ancient Corinth with a group of Lake pointers last week, it was awesome. So he's writing this church at Corinth. At Corinth, there were these two massive temples to these demonic false gods. One was Aphrodite and Apollo. So everybody in Corinth, they grew up worshiping these demonic false gods by taking this important animals, sacrificing them at the temple to the demonic false gods. But then Paul rolls up in the city, he preaches the gospel, spirit falls, and a whole bunch of people get saved and they're transferred from kingdom of darkness to kingdom of light. And now they're on team Jesus. They left team demonic false gods and now they're on team Jesus. So watch, what you're gonna notice is when somebody gets saved out of a serious sin, they usually have a hypersensitivity to that sin. So if you've ever met somebody who got like radically saved out of alcoholism, they're usually like really uncomfortable around alcohol. Or if you met somebody who got saved out of like radical promiscuity, they're usually like really uncomfortable around any type of impurity. The exact same thing happens at Corinth.

So here's the question Paul's getting ready to answer. The Christians at Corinth, they're seeing some other church members go to the market at Corinth and 60 to 80% of the meat being sold in the market at Corinth came from animals that were sacrificed to these pagan demonic false gods. Their consciences are wigging out. So then they asked Paul, hey, is it okay for Christians to eat meat that came from animals that was sacrificed to these idols? Now, in the verse before the one we're getting ready to read, Paul says, yes, it's fine because those idols are nothing, man. It's just a rock or a piece of wood. The idols are nothing. So he just said that, but then watch what he says next. He says, but not everybody possesses this knowledge. Not everybody's emotions have caught up to the reality that the idols aren't anything. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food, they think of it as having been sacrificed to a little G God, demonic false God. And since their consciences, here's that word, you say it, their conscience is weak, it's defiled. Here's what a weak conscience is. A weak conscience is an overactive, it's an oversensitive conscience that will call things sin that actually aren't sin.

It'll send out a, you're doing something wrong signal when actually according to the Bible, you're not doing anything wrong. Okay, here's another thing. A weak conscience walks around and it will very frequently bind everybody else's conscience by their own, okay? Here's what it sounds like. This is usually the majority of like super judgy Christians. Usually it comes from a weak conscience. Here's what it sounds like. Here's what it sounds like, watch this. It sounds like this. You went to that movie? I can't believe you went to that movie. You went to that movie? And you'd be like, yeah, man. Movie was great, theater was freezing. Went to that movie, theater was freezing. And they'll respond, they'll be like, well, man, I hope you enjoyed it because hell's gonna be hot. You know, it's that kind of vibe. Now, check this out, it's a weak conscience. Now check this out. There are some things that are sin to obviously, but I'm using a generalized analogy. Now check this out. Here's what I've learned about people with weak consciences. Usually what's going on is they feel condemned by God and that condemnation, it leaks out sideways

on everybody else around them. That's what's going on. They feel condemned, so they end up condemning. What you need to know, a weak conscience is no joke. A weak conscience will ruin your relationship with God because check this, check this out. Because if you spend your whole life thinking, God is angry with you, disgusted with you and disappointed with you. When you sin, you're never gonna run to him. You're gonna run away from him as fast as you can. I don't wanna be around a God who's angry with me, disgusted, disappointed. On the other hand, if you correctly understand that God is not an angry judge for you, man, that actually Jesus Christ was crucified for your sin. He removed your sin as far as the East is from. the West, the Bible says, this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son as the propitiation for our sins. Propitiation is a big word that means payment that satisfies that when Jesus hung on a cross and was crucified for your sins, that was the payment that satisfied the wrath of God once and for all for your sin. And here's the question, if Jesus was crucified for your sin, why are you still crucifying yourself for something Jesus already died for? That's what the gospel does.

So he said, man, if you understand that actually, God's not an angry judge, he's a loving dad, then when you sin, listen, one of the most important questions you will ever answer with clarity as a disciple is how does God feel about me when I sin? Everything hangs on that question. Check this, okay? A.W. Tozer said, the most important thing about you is what you think about when you think about God. The Josh Howard and way to say that is that me and Maury Povich have the same job, we tell people who the father is, that's great. Check this out. If you didn't like that joke, you get a weak conscience and you're gonna hate our church. So check this out, you gotta get this, man, this is so important. If you think, if you think God's angry, disgusted, disappointed, you'll always run away when you sin. You'll do stuff like this, you'll walk into a worship service and during worship, you'd be like, man, I wanna honor God in Christ, I wanna honor Jesus Christ. But then your little weak conscience will say this, you can't lift your hand, who are you to lift your hands in worship? You've lived such a sinful week. Can I just untie a knot for you real quick?

Hey man, we're not worshiping God because we're good, we're worshiping him because we're forgiven. You understand that? That's not a thing. In fact, can I say this? This was a knot in my soul for so many years. Let me just untie this knot for some of you. You had a rough week, man, a lot of sin this week. Well, the Bible says that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. So when you walk in after a sinful week, you don't have less to worship God for, you have more to worship God for. So you go at it, bro, you go at it. Or you'll start to pray and a weak conscience will be like, why would you even pray? God's never gonna listen to somebody like you. This is useless, why pray? So let me just, let me land it here. If you think God's angry, disgusted, disappointed, you always run away, or if you actually calibrate, watch this, your conscience to the word of God. And you remember parable of prodigal son, that when you sin, here's what God is like. If you understand that when you began to wander off into that sin, that God is like a loving adoptive dad. And the second you began to wander, he pulled out a little rocking chair on the front porch and he sat down and every single day, he's scanning the horizon for the hill that you walked over

and he's waiting for the day when your little mug pops up back over that hill to come home. And the second he sees your mug, what he does is he hops up out of the chair, pulls up his little Jewish skirt robe thing, starts running at you with joy. And the closer he gets, you start your little lame, I'm sorry speech and he goes, shut up, I don't wanna hear your I'm sorry speech. That's literally what the father does in that story. I don't wanna hear your I'm sorry speech. And he wraps you in his arms, twirls you around, starts yelling for his servants, get the best ring, get the best robe, kill the best calf, we're throwing a party for this son of mine was lost and now he's found, he was gone and now he's home. And God's going, welcome home, man, welcome home. Welcome home, that's how God feels about you when you sin. He just like, man, welcome, I don't care how long you be gone, I just want you home, man. So let me do this, okay, let me land it here. So here's my analogy of what's going on. So we got one of my daughters who shall remain nameless, but she's 11. When she was born, she was born with this thing where the circumference of her head was in the 97th percentile, but her body weight was the third percentile. So she looked like a walking candy apple for the first three years of her life is what she looked like.

So when she started learning to crawl, it looked like she'd be crawling, it just looked like she was swinging a big old bowling ball head around everywhere she went. And then there eventually, you guys remember that where eventually there kind of comes this day where they push a little more towards one and they start pulling up on stuff, you remember that? And by the way, they never pull up on the sides, they always pull up on the corner, it's where all the injuries happen. And they start pulling up and when she'd pull up, it's like she had to like pull that big old bowling ball head, beach ball head, and she'd do this thing. She started pulling up and then she couldn't do it, she fell back down. But then eventually what she would do is she'd pull up and then she would almost like do this thing, whip her head up and the longer she did it, her little neck muscles finally got strong enough to keep her. or blow a bowling ball head up. So then she looked, and then eventually there came a day where she would try to do this thing and she just sort of like, they do that little scoot, little scoot thing, try to take a step, and then she'd do this and just the weight of her head, gravity wins, you know, weight of her head would take her right down. But then, eventually, and we got it on video,

I'm not gonna show it to you. She eventually got up and there came a day where she pulled up and she looked at us, a little mischievous look in her eye, and she went like this, and she didn't fall. And then she let go, and she looked right back at us and she went, and she took her first imperfect step and then, gravity won. It's just like right there, immediately. Now, I got it on video, I got it on video. When she took that first imperfect step, one step, do you know what I didn't say? I didn't say, loser. One step, we're the Hauer team, I expected better. You know, I didn't do that, I didn't do that. Here's what me and Jana are doing in the background of the video. We're crazy, dude. We're going nuts, we're going like this, we're going, she's doing it, she's doing it. I can't believe, Jana, get in here, Eliana, get in here, she's doing it, she just walked. Now, listen, check this out. Some of you, for the first time in your whole life this year, you're taking your first little steps ever, walking with Jesus Christ. And you're taking some imperfect steps, and heads up, man, you're gonna take some steps. Let me just, newsflash, and then you're gonna fall again.

And then you're gonna get back up, you're gonna take some more steps, you're gonna fall again. And do you know what God's doing? What God's not doing is He's not doing, what a gross loser. He's a loving dad, and you're His adopted daughter, or adopted son, what He's doing is He's going, they're doing it. Guys, get in here, everybody, heaven, heaven's roaring, they're doing it. And so here's what your year's been like. Some of you, it's like, for the first time in your whole life, you started trying to read a Bible for the first time ever, and you read for like three days in a row, and then you got to a genealogy, and you were like, I'm out, man, I'm out. Listen, here's what God's doing. He's going, they're doing it. And listen, bro, you fell, get back up, that's fine. Receive grace and move on. You started trying to attend church for the first time ever, you're sitting on stairs, you're like, this is lame. You're sitting on stairs, and for the first time in your life, you attended like three, five weeks in a row, and then it rained and you stayed home. You know, I know, that's what you did. And God's going, they're doing it, they're doing it. And listen, here's the biggie.

Some of you, while I've been preaching today, your conscience is working with the Holy Spirit to tell you that for the first time in your life, you need to bend your knee to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, receive his grace, believe that somehow, in some way, the gospel counted for me, and listen, and listen. And, or your conscience is telling you that for the first time in your life, subsequent to your salvation, I'm not talking about you were sprinkled as a little baby, subsequent to your salvation, your conscience is telling you you need to be baptized in obedience to the commands of Jesus Christ. And what all of heaven is gonna be saying today is, they're doing it, they're doing it, heaven's roaring. So at all of our campuses, would you guys go and stand up? Go and stand up and check this out. If you got a blue shirt on and you're registered to be baptized, you start moving where you need to move. Everybody else, don't move, look at me. Don't move, look at me. Everybody else, if you got a blue shirt, you can move. Everybody else, don't move, look at me. Some of you right now, you're in that spot and you're not like, you're not ready. You didn't come in expecting to be baptized, but we did expect you to be baptized. We're prepared for you.

We're ready for you. You need to right now make the decision on the spot to obey Jesus and follow through with baptism. Now, check this out. You may be going, yeah, dude, but I didn't come dressed for this. We got clothes for you back there. Yeah, man, but you don't got my size. Yeah, we do. If they make the size, we got it. We got bedsheets back there. We're ready, we're ready, all the things. If you're like, yeah, man, but you got shirts and shorts, that's fine. But what, I'm gonna get my underwear and get wet. We got underwear for you back there. I'm not joking one bit. We got underwear for you. We got towels. You may be going, yeah, man, but like the people I came with, they're not gonna wanna wait for me to go back there and get changed and get dunked. They're not gonna wait for that. Hey, can I tell you something? If the people you're with love you and love Jesus enough to attend church with you today, can I show you how they're gonna respond if you make that decision? Show them, how you gonna respond?

That's how we're gonna respond. We're gonna be going, man, amen, amen, amen. That's how we're gonna be responding. Man, if right now you're realizing that you need to be baptized for the first time in your life, subsequent to your salvation, when I tell you, I want you to move. If you're at the Rockwall Campus, we got people underneath both crosses on either side. They're waiting for you. They're gonna get you rolling. And all of our other- campuses move to the back of the auditorium. There's people back there waiting for you and we're gonna celebrate with you today. Today if you hear his voice do not harden your heart the book of Hebrews says. Move while your conscience is speaking. Okay so Lake Point family we're gonna do that and when these people come up out of the water what's the first sound they should hear when they come up out of the water? Come on Matt we're gonna celebrate with you. Okay so if you're realizing right now you need to be baptized right now start moving you start moving to the crosses other campuses head back start moving right now let's worship sing celebrate let's dunk let's go