"In Good Conscience"
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Genesis 9:8-17; 1 Peter 3:18-22

Introduction: Illus.- In a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip Calvin is at home and calls his dad at work. “Hi, dad. It’s me, Calvin! How’s work going?…uh huh…pretty day out, isn’t it?…Yep….Are you bringing me home any presents tonight?…No? Well, just thought I’d ask….” And then in the last frame you see Calvin standing on the top of a ladder in the middle of the living room, with a wrench in his hand, water is all around him, and the water has almost reached the top of the ladder. And Calvin says to his dad: “Listen, I suppose you’re wondering why I called?”

When we do things wrong, we have the tendency to have a guilty conscience. Part of the guilty conscience comes from knowing that we have done wrong. But the other part is that we know that we have to go to God with our sin. It is tough to admit we have sin in our lives, and even tougher to humble ourselves before God. We want to do right. We want to be good. We want to make God proud!/ Yet, we don’t always do this. This morning I want us to look at the result of sin in Noah’s time, in Christ’s time, and in our time. On our second Sunday of Lent, I want us to understand that we are called to not only acknowledge our sin, and accept our sinfulness, but also turn to God all the more for forgiveness and direction.

I. In the time of Noah- (Genesis 6:5-6, Genesis 9:8-17; 1 Peter 3:20)

a. The sin of people- In today’s world we can look around and see all

kinds of sin. Drug misuse. Alcoholism. Sex outside of marriage. People having affairs. People cheating on their taxes. Murder. Rape. And on and on it goes. It is quite a sinful world we live in. But we would be fooling ourselves if we think that people didn’t sin like this before our time. Back in Noah’s time it was quite sinful too. We read in Genesis 6:5, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.” What a phrase: ‘every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil.’ These are the kind of people who sin, and don’t feel guilty in their conscience when they sin. They have become so hardened to sin, that it doesn’t seem wrong to them anymore.

God sees this sin, but even more sees the lack of remorse on the people’s part, and the scriptures tell us that “the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” People’s sin grieves God’s heart. Why? Because when we sin, we don’t just sin against other people, or sin against our environment; we sin against God! It is like one of my children being mean to the other; it doesn’t just hurt the other child, but it hurts me as a parent as well.

Side note here: this is one of the ways we can know that Jesus was God in the flesh, because when people came to Him, He forgave their sins. How did He have the right to forgive sins? Because He was God in the flesh, and the sins the people committed were sins against Him as well!!

So we see the wickedness of the people; we see how it breaks God’s heart. So what is the result? God decides to rid the earth of these sinful people. He is sorry He created them; He is sorry to see the way they are living; so He is going to wipe them out. But there is an out. God always gives us an out. God is going to have Noah and his family build an ark to protect them from the flood; Noah, who is considered a righteous man, because he walks with God, is going to help God. Noah is not righteous because he is sinless, but because he walks with God and seeks after God, and is forgiven by God for his wrongdoing.

b. A covenant and a sign- As we read in our scripture passage this

morning, after the flood has happened, God comes to Noah and affirms His relationship with His people in the form of a COVENANT and a SIGN. The covenant is God promising to never again destroy the world through a flood. The sign of this covenant will be a rainbow in the sky. A covenant and a sign. A covenant: a promise from God to not destroy people again. A visible, regular sign to remind us of this promise. This covenant and sign shows us God’s love and God’s commitment to restoring people to Himself.

Illus. (Amusing Grace, p. 361, #1233)- There is a story of a Sunday School teacher who was teaching one day on sin, and so she asked her class: “What are the sins of omission?” Thoughtfully a little girl answered: “They’re the sins we ought to have committed but haven’t thought of them yet.”

Sins of omission are actually sins that we don’t mention, or don’t try to

think about. They are sins we have committed, but try and forget or cover up.

Now, people might want to argue that God was not too loving when He brought the flood. But I believe that God actually gave people a chance. When Noah was building the ark, people asked Noah what he was doing. When Noah told them, these people could have repented, and joined in with Noah, and I believe that God would have made provision for them. But the people didn’t do that; they didn’t join in; they didn’t seek God; they didn’t feel guilt. They didn’t even remember their sins. And because of this, people were destroyed. The people got so caught up in their sin that they forgot to seek God. And the people were destroyed. All except those who sought God, and found God, and were saved by God.

II. In the time of Christ- (Psalm 51:1-12; 1 Peter 3:18-19, 21-22)

a. Sin continues- As time went on, sin continued. Even though Noah and

his family followed God, there again came a time when people started to stray away; there again came a time where people forgot about seeking God, and instead they sought after their sin. But even more, they forgot to come to God when they sinned; they no longer felt guilt in their conscience. And we know this to be true, because the Bible talks about it often.

You see, the difference in the Bible between those who find favor with God and those who don’t, are the ones who seek God for forgiveness when they sin. The ones who come to God to have their guilt removed are the ones who find favor with God, and whose guilt is not counted against them.

That is why we read these words in Psalm 51:1-12,

¹ Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to

your great compassion blot out my transgressions. ² Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. ³ For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. ⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge. ⁵ Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. ⁶ Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place. ⁷ Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. ⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. ⁹ Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. ¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. ¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. ¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

b. Christ comes- But there is a problem: the people started to rely too

much on the law; the law that was supposed to lead them to God almost became a God to them. They were so caught up in trying to follow the law that they made it difficult to find God. And so Jesus Christ came into the world. Jesus came into the world so that a perfect sacrifice could be made to cover our sins. Just as Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3:18- “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God…”/ Jesus came into the world to bring us to God by dying for our sins.

You see, our sinfulness separates us from God./ God, who is holy, can’t be in the presence of un-holiness. We can’t find God when we are in our sin. So we need someone to come and remove our un-holiness, remove our sinfulness so that we can come to God and find God. And that someone is Jesus Christ, the righteous. Through Jesus Christ we have our unrighteousness removed. We can be cleansed. We can have a new heart. We can have a good conscience. Because we know that when we sin, our sin leads us to the foot of the cross, where we can humble ourselves and seek forgiveness and cleansing.

And as 1 Peter 3:21 tells us- “And baptism, … now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”/ Anyone who has been baptized can be affirmed in knowing that in Jesus Christ, we have died to our sinful life, and been resurrected with Christ to a new life of forgiveness. It is not that the water washes away our sin, like water with dirt. The water is the sign (see here a sign again like the rainbow) a sign where God promises to covenant with us as His people. This is why you only have to be baptized once. The water is the sign of the promise. The work of God is done in and through the water by God.

III. In our time-

a. John Karmegan- STORY- “Belonging,” from Stories for the Heart, p. 23.

THERE is a true story about a man named John Karmegan. John Karmegan lived in Vellore, India, and John had leprosy. His leprosy was in an advanced stage. One day he came to the New Life Center, a Christian center for the ill in India. Because of his advanced stage of leprosy, he had facial paralysis on one side so he could not smile normally. When he tried to smile, the uneven distortion caused people to respond with a gasp or a gesture of fear. So John learned not to smile. John had grown to be paranoid of others, and it caused him great anger. This anger in fact showed itself in his becoming a troublemaker that included dishonesty and stealing. He not only treated outsiders cruelly, he treated patients cruelly as well, and tended to resist authority. People thought John was beyond rehabilitation./ But one day an older woman at the center befriended him, and told him about Jesus Christ, and about God’s love. Soon after, John became a Christian and was baptized in a cement tank on the grounds of the leprosarium./ At first his conversion didn’t change him much. He began to be nicer to the patients, but those outside the center he still was bitter against because of the years of mistreatment he had received./ One day John asked if he could go to the local church in Vellore. A leader from the center met with the minister and explained to him all about John and how his disease was not contagious at all. John was told that he could go to the church, and even drink from the communion cup with all the others./ The day he went to church for the first time was a very tense moment. How would others respond to him? Even one person showing him rejection could cause him to renounce his faith in God as being nothing but a sham. John was there with one of the leaders from the center, and they sat in the back. As they stood to sing the first hymn, one of the members turned around and saw John. His reaction? He smiled, and patted the chair next to him for John to come up and join him. And so John did./ That one smile and motion changed John’s life. In time John began to smile again, and John became an employee at the local factory. In fact, John got an award for the corporation’s all-India prize for the highest quality work.

b. Having a good conscience- Many who do not know Jesus Christ do

not have much of a conscience. They have hardened their hearts against God. This should cause us to want to share Christ with them as the woman shared Christ with John, and changed his life.

But what about Christians? Are they living changed lives like John Karmegan? Many Christians are not/ because they do not have a good conscience. They don’t feel like they belong. They allow their sin to make them feel as John Karmegan felt; like an outsider. They allow their sin to paralyze them with guilt, which causes them to feel like a leper./ But God longs for us to know that we are not outsiders; we are insiders. Through baptism, as a sign of the forgiveness we receive in Jesus Christ, we can know that we are loved, and we are forgiven, and we are accepted. Through communion we can know that Jesus has died for our sin and forgiven us. We can know that we belong in the kingdom of God!!

Conclusion: In a moment we will sing a hymn and then move to communion. If you have any sin in your life, don’t let it eat at you and make you feel guilty. Let your guilt be the vehicle that leads you to Christ, and know that because of His sacrifice on the cross, which was for you and for me, we receive forgiveness from all of our sins. And as we are forgiven, we are cleansed, and as we are cleansed, we are renewed, and as we are renewed, we are made pure and holy. Let the words of the hymn and the communion question and response prepare your heart and mind for the clean conscience God wants you to have. Don’t pass up this opportunity to have a good conscience. Come; let us be right with God, today and forever. Amen.