This message this morning is the second of two parts of really a single sermon that I've entitled, Keeping a Good Conscience. The main biblical text for our attention is Acts 24.16. Acts 24, 16, but in order to help us appreciate it more, let me start the reading now out of Acts 24 with verse 14. This is the Word of the Lord. Paul is the speaker in Luke's account of this day when he said these things. But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets, and have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust. And herein do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward men. Amen. This verse 16 has really captured my concerted attention lately for several weeks. the verse where Paul testifies about his own spiritual discipline of keeping a good conscience, upon which Calvin says, a happy life depends. Keeping a good conscience. One's conscience is a good conscience when one can honestly say, that he knows nothing against himself, as Paul was able to say, 1 Corinthians 4, 4. In other words, this is when a person with integrity and with spiritual discernment can say, it is well with my soul. To the extent I'm aware of it, God has no controversy with me. This is the kind of a person whose soul is oriented toward loving God supremely and loving his neighbor as himself. The kind of a person who can say, as far as I know, I have no conscious impenitence in my soul. As far as I know, I have no unmet religious or ethical obligations. And this was Paul's disciplined habit each day, in all things, to keep a good conscience. And in this, and this is what I draw as the teaching of the verse for our edification, Paul sets a worthy example for keeping a good conscience. Now this statement of his has a very great significance historically about what was going on in Paul's ministry and the spread of the gospel through the world and these people who were confronting him. Some of them were government officials. Some of them were angry Jews who thought Paul was a heretic, as we just read. It has historical significance for sure. And we should first of all appreciate that. But when Paul speaks this way, he is a man with great wisdom from God. He is filled with the Holy Spirit of God. He has not yet attained to perfect righteousness, but he has attained to genuine Christian integrity. And he's speaking honestly here. And in being able to say this publicly with a good conscience, that he keeps a good conscience as his regular daily experience, Paul sets a worthy example for us. Without even saying so, without saying all of you should keep a good conscience. That's implicit in Paul's testimony. His enemies who were persecuting him did not keep a good conscience like Paul did. The Gentile rulers who were sitting in judgment on Paul, they did not keep a good conscience like Paul did and they should have. It was their moral duty and it was possible for a sinful person like Paul to do it. He demonstrates it. But this lofty, praiseworthy example of Paul should set us to self-examination. And comparing ourselves with Paul in this way, do I keep a good conscience like Paul did? And if I don't, why not? I ought to do that, and I will, by the grace of God, begin doing that. That's the spiritual usefulness, I think, for us that I would bring out in this particular sermon. Now, I said to you last week that I discovered five key truths in this one verse about keeping a good conscience. And we got through two of them last Sunday. Two out of the five, so three remain today. The first key truth is that keeping a good conscience is indispensable for Christian faith and worship. And I almost missed this one, but I paid even closer attention to the exact wording, and I noticed that verse 16 starts with this word, herein, or in this it could be translated. In this, I exercise myself to keep a good conscience. Well, what is in this referred to? And I showed you, I trust you agree, I showed you how in this, seems to refer to his testimony that he has been worshiping God, the God of Israel, the God of the Old Testament, and the Lord Jesus Christ, after the way that they, the unbelieving Jews, call heresy. In other words, Paul is saying, in believing and living as a follower of Jesus, the way, I have kept a good conscience. And the application is obvious. In other words, Paul lived as a consistent Christian. And I asked a question. If you identify as a Christian, do you? Are you consistent with your profession in that you have openly confessed Christ? You've been baptized. You've joined a church. You're laboring to strengthen that church where you're a member. You're bending your neck to Christ's easy yoke. You're learning of Him. You're coming along after Him in adoring obedience and imitation. You, His devoted disciple in Jesus, your beloved Master, are you keeping a good conscience in following Christ? Keeping a good conscience, in other words, is indispensable for Christian faith and worship. How do you expect to live as a Christian without keeping a good conscience? But the reverse is also true. It's also true, in other words, that the Christian faith and worship are indispensable for keeping a good conscience. Because only in Christ are our sins forgiven. Only in Christ do we have hearts that are renewed by the Holy Spirit. Non-Christians cannot keep a good conscience as Paul kept a good conscience because his testimony is, herein I do exercise myself always to keep a good conscience. That is as a Christian. Only as a Christian. Can you keep a good conscience like Paul? Now secondly, I showed you last week that keeping a good conscience is inextricable from a Christian testimony to other people. So Paul was on trial here, and in witnessing about Jesus, he makes reference to himself. And this is something Paul only does occasionally. Look at verse 16 again. He uses the personal pronouns, I and myself. Herein do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense and so forth. Why does Paul call attention to himself? Well, clearly he's calling attention to himself, not just as anybody in the world, but as a Christian man. He's saying, don't just listen to what I'm preaching. Look at me as a preacher of it. I live in a manner consistent with my claims for Jesus Christ. In other words, Paul understands that his personal character is bound up with his credibility as a preacher of the Gospel. And I made the application this way last Sunday. I said, if you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? Now, only a few of us are preachers of the gospel in any kind of public way. But all of us who know Christ should be witnesses to Christ in various ways, at least informally. And the question is, does your conduct, your speech, your lifestyle, your values on display through how you spend your time and how you spend your money, your personal relationships. Does all of that lend credibility to your witness when you tell others of Christ? That's one reason you ought to keep a good conscience. It's not just about you being saved. It's about how your good character and lifestyle can become an instrument of persuading non-Christians to believe what you believe and what you tell them about Jesus. I was so deeply humiliated. What is it? 39 years ago now for me, When I told a close friend I'd known for a year and a half, I'm a Christian, and he said, you are? I'm like, wow. And I actually wasn't a real Christian, and that's one thing God used to humble me. Well, we come then to the third out of five points this morning. Third point about a key truth about keeping a good conscience we derive right from this verse. And that third truth is this, keeping a good conscience is intentional as a Christian responsibility. It's intentional as a Christian responsibility. You see that in Paul's language when he says, do I exercise myself. I exercise myself and the King James is good very good here when it uses the English word exercise because the verb in the original can be used of athletic physical exercise but here clearly it's used in a figurative way it's in fact the Greek verb translated exercise is in in a certain range of meaning we call it a semantic range a range of meaning that we describe first broadly and then become narrower and narrower to zero in on exactly what this word means. It is among a group of verbs that mean an act and the specific act of learning and then more specifically it has the sense of learning by practice. Learning or you could say learning by doing. And it has the connotation of repetition and strenuous effort. You know, we experience this in all kinds of life activities. It was a year ago, I think, that I went out to play 18 holes of golf with a friend of mine, two friends of mine who are both much better golfers than I am. And I haven't played golf since so I'm not, it's not like I do that regularly. I went out to play 18 holes of golf and I noticed that they got a much lower score than I did. And, but the thing is they have practiced by repetition and strenuous effort to do this well. And I had not. I had not practiced. But I think if I did it a hundred times, I would improve and get better at this sport. The verb means in the original, to apply oneself with commitment to some activity. And one of the lexicons says here in this passage, it could be translated, I do my best. It means to act both with continuity and effort. It has the sense of practice, exercise, and training. And it is properly used in extra-biblical literature of athletic exercise. So if you watch the Olympics, you see some young person that leaps up on a wooden beam and spins around and jumps upside down and catches this ring and swings over there and does all kinds of amazing things. And you think, how could anybody do that? Well, they do it by long, regular, principled, strenuous, training and repetition. She has done what you just saw her do at the Olympics. She has done that a thousand times in preparation for this competition. Well, that's the physical sense of this verb. It means to take pains, to labor, to strive. And A.T. Robertson in his Word Pictures commentary says, here, Paul claims to be equal to his accusers in efforts to please God, you see. They didn't think he was. They thought Paul was a big sinner who's trying to pull the wool over people's eyes with this false heretical message. But Paul is saying, no. I exercise myself always to keep a conscience void of offense in the sight with respect to God and with respect to men. Now, Paul uses then this very vigorous verb, exercise, to describe what he does, but he joins to it the pronoun, myself, and that's not strictly necessary. He could just say, I exercise to keep a good conscience, but he doesn't say, just exercise myself. It's something I do. It's an intensive pronoun for emphasis that it is Paul's activity, that Paul does this deliberately, habitually, with intention and effort and discipline. When Paul says, I exercise myself to keep a good conscience, he's implying that no one else could do this for him. No one else could or would do this for him. Not even God does this instead of Paul doing it. You see? When the coach says to the young lady, for example, I'm going to get you into the Olympics, that's only figurative manner of speaking. It means I'll help you, but you're going to have to do the work. You have to show up to practice. You have to push through the hardness of it all, the pain, the difficulty, the annoyance, the stress, the disappointment. You have to persist in it. And if you're willing to put in the work, I think I can help you to make great progress and be a champion. But the girl or the young lady has to work. The way Paul speaks here implies extreme conscientiousness and deliberate intentionality concerning this activity, this duty. Paul did not keep a good conscience by accident or without disciplined diligence. Now I have said, I mean this is all implicit in what he says about himself. Herein do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward men. Now I told you he sets a good example for us here. So the obvious application is, are you like Paul? Am I like Paul? Now you might think to yourself for a moment, well, I don't know. I never thought about it. Listen, from what this involved in Paul's mind and life, if you are doing what Paul was doing, you will know it. Because it's not subtle. I think it would be impossible for a person to be doing this daily and diligently with conviction and discipline and not be aware that they're doing it. It would be about as ridiculous if somebody asked you, are you training for the next Olympics? And you would say, I don't know. I never thought about that. If you don't know that you are doing it, surely you're not doing it. If you were doing it, you would know you were doing it. Let me make it very, very plain. Do you personally take pains frequently and on purpose to consider your character, your thoughts, your words, and your deeds in the light of God's Word and in the light of your conscience? I hope you're a regular Bible reader, even hopefully daily. And so in your time in Scripture, do you just read to check off the box on your calendar for getting through the Bible in a year? Or are you reading this for spiritual purpose? And one of those purposes is to compare what God says He tells you to do and not do, to be and not be, and then you think, And you prayerfully say, Lord, I see here there's something that I need to address in my own experience. My character falls short here. What I said to so-and-so is not of the highest caliber according to this holy standard of Your Word. I've been too lazy lately, too self-indulgent. I've been uncaring about other people and their needs. I have not been evangelistically minded like I should be. Deeply concerned for people who are not Christians. Being lost. I see these things, Lord, would please You. And I have not attended to them like I should. Do You have that kind of honest, soul searching, exposure to the scriptures in your life from day to day, so that you find yourself saying, Lord, forgive me. Forgive me for this. Forgive me for that. Make me more like your son. Strengthen me that I might serve you and serve others this day. Is that your habitual prayer? and desire and spiritual discipline? Is it your daily experience after such an exercise of your soul to be able to say, I know nothing against myself? Or if you do know something against yourself, do you deal with it scripturally? Is there confession, contrition, and conversion? And in some instances, restitution! Making up what was stolen. Or going to the person that you wronged and saying, I wronged you, please forgive me. And then, you can say, I do always exercise myself to keep a conscience void of offense toward God and man." Some preachers and Christians have called this keeping short accounts with God. It's not letting your sins alone, but prosecuting a war against them all. Are you engaged in the battle? The deliberate, painful struggle to put to death all your remaining sins, and to wear by the grace of God and the life of the Spirit all the virtuous loveliness of Jesus in your character and conduct? Or does God have a controversy with you, maybe even right now, in something? Your conscience is actually troubled about something in your life that you're tolerating and you shouldn't tolerate it. And you know it's wrong. But for the time, you would rather keep your sin than please God in that particular thing. Which is it with you? I don't know your heart. You need to pray that God will search you and examine you and expose any unmortified sin. Now, I know that even as I emphasize that this was very, very deliberate, disciplined training and exercise and habit that Paul attended to day after day after day after day, like an Olympic athlete does preparing for the competition. As soon as I crank up the exhortation to say, you ought to be doing this from day to day, there are going to be certain hearers that consider what I have said to be legalistic and inconsistent with God's grace. They have come to believe through some kind of contorted, unscriptural irrationality that sustained, intense, regular self-examination is somehow inconsistent with the free grace of God. Well, if it were, Paul would have fallen into legalism. Because this is what Paul says he was doing. Do we think that Paul was some kind of a legalist that didn't understand the grace of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Heaven help us if we do. Paul's example proves this is not legalism. We all have a responsibility to do this hard spiritual work as Christians and as our frequent habit. Because only if we do are we imitating the worthy example of the Apostle Paul. I know this is This would be for many regarded as unwelcome advice. Akin to somebody like me who's too sedentary going to the doctor and him telling me, you gotta get to the gym more often. But you know what? It's good advice. It's good advice. Both my doctors and my counsel to you. It's good advice. You gotta attend faithfully to self-examination in the light of Holy Scripture to maintain a good conscience like Paul was doing if you're going to follow his example. Isn't that debatable? Isn't that plain right here in the surface of the text? It's clear. This is what the godliest people in the Old and New Testaments did as a custom. This is the spiritual life. It's the grace of God that enables us to do this instead of being lazy morally. and just ambling on from day to day without a moment's thought or care about whether I'm right with God, whether I'm right with my neighbor, what are my faults, how can I improve to be more like Jesus? So keeping a good conscience, in Paul's case, was intentional as a Christian responsibility, and it ought to be intentional in ours because it is a Christian responsibility we have. Fourthly, keeping a good conscience is incomplete without the vertical and the horizontal. The vertical and the horizontal. And here's what I mean. Look at the verse again. He says, I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense toward God. and toward men. Toward God and toward men. Toward God is the vertical dimension. Toward men is the horizontal dimension. And Paul was concerned to maintain a good conscience in both spheres. In his relationship with God, fulfilling all his duties toward God, and in his relationship with his fellow human beings, performing all his duties toward his neighbors. In other words, Paul kept a complete moral inventory of himself in connection with God's moral law. And as soon as I mentioned the word inventory in my preparation of the sermon, I remembered when I was a young person, probably 12, 13, 14, was my first exposure to this. My dad owned a retail store. And once a year, we would have what was called taking inventory. And it was a pain in the neck, frankly. But a retail store inventory is when the owner and his helpers make a record of the number, type, and price of every single item of value in the store for a tally of the assets. You know, it's important to answer the question, what is my business worth? Well, what is the inventory? What is the sum total of all the assets in their value? So, the only way to get an accurate accurate number is to make lists. How many of these doodads do I have? How many of those knickknacks? And what are they worth? And you add and multiply and sum and total and at the end of the inventory you have the answer to your question. Well, we should be keeping an up-to-date inventory morally for our own lives. The English translation uses the word always here in the text. I do exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward men. And this word always has the sense of time. In other words, at all times I keep a good conscience. But the Greek word doesn't necessarily refer to time. It could possibly mean, in all ways. It's a very vague kind of phrase here. It means, in all. I exercise myself to keep a conscience void of offense toward God and man. In all. At all times, in all ways, in all things. And the two basic All inclusive categories of moral duty Paul mentions here are toward God and toward men. And biblically, this corresponds to the Ten Commandments, doesn't it? The first table of the law and the second table. Commandments 1 through 4 teaching us what it means to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Commandments 5 through 10, what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves. I hope you know the Ten Commandments, at least in substance. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall make no graven images to worship me. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. And you shall remember the Lord's day to keep it holy. Likewise, the second part of the Ten Commandments is Honor your father and your mother. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor. And thou shalt not covet, which implies the duty of contentment with what providence has appointed for you at this time in your life. Those Ten Commandments are so useful to the Christian for self-examination, because they are helping us to think through our duties toward God and toward men. And both are so important, of course. Fulfilling our duties toward God is no less important than fulfilling our duties toward our fellow human beings, and vice versa. Now let me just add for assistance here, you might look at the Ten Commandments and say, well, I haven't murdered anybody, for example, so I guess I'm okay on that one. And I haven't committed adultery with my neighbor's wife, so I pass on that one. No, you're not using the Ten Commandments the right way if that's all you think they mean. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount helps us understand how spiritual and how wide-ranging these commandments are. And if you want some expert guidance on the breadth of the moral duty implicit in the Ten Commandments, study what the Westminster Larger Catechism says. in the sins that are forbidden and the duties that are required by each of the Ten Commandments. There are twenty questions and answers in that catechism expounding the meaning of the Ten Commandments. And each one has a long paragraph for the answer. What are the sins forbidden in the first commandment? The larger catechism explains them. What are the duties required by the first commandment? The larger catechism explains them. You read and study that catechism and you will be aware that this is really a workout for the soul. This is the thorough examination that we need from time to time. Now, don't leave off, of course, the second table of the law. Respect for those over us in some way, and kindness toward others. It's not just don't kill, that also means you should live in such a way that promotes the life and well-being of the people around you, and so forth. Not committing adultery is not just prohibiting the physical act, but even illicit lust in your heart, and so forth. Here's what I have noticed, and this is brought to mind by Paul's testimony toward God and toward men. He was sensitive in both spheres. And you know this is true, don't you? Some religious folks are bad neighbors. They might go to church on Sunday and read their Bible every day and say their prayers, but they act like jerks. to the guy that lives here and there. That is depraved. On the other hand, some good neighbors are irreligious. Some people are so thoughtful and considerate and trustworthy and helpful to us, but they're not fulfilling their duties toward God. They may not even profess to be Christians, much less. Be a committed church member and be committed to regular patterns of holy worship in the church and so forth. We must fulfill our duties in both spheres. To love God supremely and to love our neighbor as ourselves. One of the verses I wanted to show you before we leave this is 1 John 4, 20 and 21. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he who loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God loves his brother also. this is what I'm trying to drive home. The Christian who keeps a good conscience like Paul does is a Christian who is very sensitive to attend upon all his religious duties as well as his neighborly duties. Now finally, the fifth and last point of truth about keeping a good conscience like Paul did is that keeping a good conscience is intensive in self-examination. He says, void of offense, that's the phrase in this verse, void of offense And herein do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense. Void means empty, without offense, in other words, toward God and toward men. One modern translation gives the word blameless. It's an interesting word in the original. It has sort of a dual connotation. It means not causing stumbling, or not being caused to stumble oneself. J. A. Alexander in his commentary says, it means neither wounded by transgression nor allowing me to be the means of tempting other people. And this requires intense self-examination, not just to ask, have I sinned, but has something I've done become a stumbling block or a temptation to other people to sin? You're not going to be aware of this unless you deliberately take the time to take stock of yourself and reflect on your actions and words and how they affect other people in the light of what Scripture teaches. Some people hearing a sermon like this, who are not living for God with purpose, could think to themselves, well, look, I have a clear conscience. I don't know of anything against myself. I heard one person I mentioned last week who said, I don't think I've ever done anything wrong. A certain famous person said this a couple of years ago, I heard. I heard him say it. I don't need to ask God to forgive me for anything, because I don't think I've ever done anything wrong. That is unusual pride and blindness. When a man says he has a clear conscience, it often means he has a bad memory, somebody said. Well, how about you? How about you? Would it be a farce to say about yourself what Paul said about himself? In this, I always exercise myself to have a blameless conscience with respect to my duties toward God and toward people. Or, can you honestly With Judgment Day honesty, in God's presence, say, God, I am like Paul. I also exercise myself this way as my disciplined habit. Look, the first duty that we all have by grace is to believe on Christ. Some unbelieving Jews came up to Jesus once and said, what should we do to work the works of God? In other words, what does God expect us to do? And Jesus said to these unbelievers, this is the work of God that you should attend to, to believe in the one that God has sent into the world. That's our first duty. But when we have trusted Christ, We are called to obey Him completely. Right? Do you remember the Great Commission? Jesus commissioned His disciples, the church, not only to be preaching the gospel, not only to be baptizing those who believe, but to be discipling them. And what does discipling them mean? Teaching them to observe. That means to obey. All things that I have commanded you. All things that I have commanded you. This is my responsibility as a pastor. This is our responsibility as a church to be teaching people to believe in Christ, to openly profess Him and be baptized, added to the church, and then to become lifelong committed disciples of Jesus So that when the Lord Jesus says, jump, we say, what? How high, Lord? Whatever you want, that is my desire. I will do anything and everything you say. Only such people follow Paul's example of keeping a good conscience. And I challenge all of us to do that. Amen.