Let's take our Bibles now and turn together to Paul's epistle to the Romans, the eighth chapter, Romans chapter eight. And I'm going to read verses 12 to 13. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God." Let's pray together. Father, we do thank you now for this opportunity to open up your Word. Help us to lay aside distractions and to give our minds to the exercise of hearing and contemplating and meditating and applying your Word to our lives. Grant us the help of your Spirit as we seek to do so. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Let's imagine that someone, a wealthy stranger, walked up to you one day and gave you the gift of a diamond worth $10 million. And then he just kind of gave you the gift and then he walked away. What would you do? Would you just stick it in your pocket and say, wow, that was nice? Now I think that surely at least one of the first questions that would come to your mind is why? Why did this man do this for me? Well in the book of Romans, Paul has been explaining to us what God in His grace has done for us in Jesus Christ. Something that's much more wonderful than giving to us a ten million dollar diamond. He has given to us His Son. He has sincerely extended to us sinners his love, favor, and saving mercy in the gospel as a free gift in Jesus Christ. And receiving this gift of Christ, embracing him as our Savior and our Lord and our King with the empty hand of faith, he has rescued us from hell. He has forgiven us of all of our sins and we are justified in His sight and He has also sent His Holy Spirit into our hearts by which He has raised us in union with Christ from spiritual death to walk in newness of life. God has done all of this for us in Christ. Now the obvious question is why? We may not know all the reasons. Our brother, I thought very helpfully in an excellent Sunday school lesson this morning, he brought up this question, why? We don't know all the reasons. One of the reasons that he opened up for us was that we might do good works, that we might glorify God through our good works. And he mentioned some other things. But of course, I trust we know that first and foremost, All of those things, that we might live a holy life, that we might do good works, that we might be saved from hell, all of those things are important reasons for which God has saved us, but they're secondary. They're, as it were, means to a greater end. But first and foremost, He has done it for His glory and His praise. As our brother quoted from these texts this morning in Ephesians 1, 14, Paul tells us that God has saved us to the praise of His glory. And in verse 12 of that chapter, that we should be to the praise of His glory. Verse 6, he says, to the praise of the glory of His grace. And then Paul puts it this way in Ephesians 2, 7. that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." Now, notice from these texts that God is supremely committed to His own glory. Now, that might seem kind of an ego thing. That seems selfish, and it would be selfish. And it would be wrong for anyone else to be committed to their own glory. But it's not selfish for God to be. Why is that? Because for God to fail to be committed to that, or for God to be committed to anything else more than that, would be to be committed to something less than the highest good. Because God is the highest good. And that would be sin. So God must be committed to his own glory because God is righteous. But listen carefully, God is committed to his own glory also because God is so full of love. and kindness. It is loving for God to exalt His own glory because knowing Him and His glory is our highest happiness and the highest happiness of His creatures. There's nothing but God that can ever satisfy us and make us truly happy because He is the most lovely, the most satisfying being in all the universe and we were made to know Him and to experience His goodness and to enjoy Him forever. And then there's a second way we see that God's supreme commitment to his own glory in our salvation is at one and the same time supremely loving and kind. And it's the very thing that Paul points to in the verse that I quoted from Ephesians 2-7. And it's this, the glory he seeks to magnify above all else is the glory of his grace in his kindness towards sinners like you and me. Paul says that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. God is making a public display. He's showing something. And who are the audience? Well, certainly the human race is part of the audience, but not only that, angels and principalities and powers and heavenly places. are the audience. Paul tells us this in Ephesians 3.10. He says, "...to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God may be known by the church to the principalities and powers in heavenly places. The angels desire to look into these things," Peter tells us in 1 Peter 1.12. Even the powers of darkness, the demons of hell, Satan himself are part of the audience. There's a sense in which God is vindicating himself. against all the slanders of the evil one that he first began to spew out of his wicked mouth when he lied about God's character and God's goodness to our first parents in the garden. The audience is the entire moral universe, including all the angels in heaven and the demons of hell. And what is it God wants to display? The exceeding riches of His grace. And who is the exhibit? we are, God's people are, the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. We are His workmanship, and in giving His Son to die for us, and saving us from our sins, and changing us by His grace, and conforming us more and more into the image of His Son, in all of that we are on display. It is in and through us that the Almighty Everlasting God is glorifying His name before the entire moral universe, while at the same time securing the ultimate and eternal joy and perfect happiness of his people. Now I say all of this to underscore the importance of what the Apostle is calling us to in our text. As we return to the book of Romans, he is calling us as Christians to a life of holiness, a life of killing sin and cultivating Christ-like virtue. Why? Well, one reason is that it's the holy life of the child of God that demonstrates to the world and to the principalities and powers and heavenly places, and even to our own consciences, the reality and the power and the glory of God's grace and his kindness in our lives. And this is one of many reasons that this is so important, why it matters so much. In the last six messages, our focus has been upon verses 12 to 13 of this eighth chapter, one of the classic texts in the New Testament with reference to the Christians' lifelong battle with the sinful tendencies that still remain within us. Paul has been underscoring in this epistle and earlier in this chapter that the Christian is justified and united to Christ by faith alone. And in union with Christ he is also indwelled by the Holy Spirit and in Christ he has the certain promise of eternal life and all of this is a free gift in Christ. Jesus Christ. But having now entered this gate, the gate of conversion, there is a way that the Christian walks and must walk and will walk, if indeed he is united to Christ. And that way is not one of living according to the flesh, verse 13a, for if you live according to the flesh you will die. But it's the way of putting to death the deeds of the body by the power of the Holy Spirit living within us. And as we've seen, that's language that speaks to us about the ongoing work in the process of contending with and resisting and subduing the remaining sinful tendencies within us and replacing them with the opposite Christ-like virtues and graces. Well, we've already spent six messages on this text. The first two were devoted to carefully opening up and the text, unpacking the precise meaning of the text. I'm not going to go back over all of that again. We then begin to launch out from this text to address this subject in more detail, in a more topical manner. The whole subject of Christian sanctification, killing sin, and growing in holiness. And the question we began to take up is this. How exactly do we go about doing this? Practically speaking, how does this happen? And I've been laying down some general directives that apply to the whole of our Christian life and experience. Now let me review now very briefly the directives we've already considered. We saw, first of all, that we must engage in this work of killing sin from the posture of faith in the gospel. This mortifying of sin, putting to death remaining sin, that Paul is talking about, is a gospel killing of sin. It's not a work that we do to make ourselves right with God. It's a work that can only be done successfully by those who are already in union with Jesus Christ, that are already right with God through faith in Christ. Only those who are united to Christ, therefore reconciled to God, and indwelled by the Holy Spirit, can truly live holy lives, as defined by Scripture. This life of killing sin, it begins with and it is built upon the believing persuasion of God's love, favor, and saving mercy sincerely extended to me in the gospel as a free gift in Jesus Christ. Receiving, trusting in Him as He is given to me in the gospel by God. And we must keep on in that way, believing the gospel. Keep on in that way in communion and fellowship with Christ by faith. Killing sin and pursuing holiness from the posture of faith in the gospel. Secondly, the second directive. We must engage in this work of killing sin in the confidence that being joined to Christ we can live holy lives. and that God is pleased with us as we seek to do so. By the enablement of the Holy Spirit, the Christian can live a holy life, not perfectly and sinlessly, but purposefully and sincerely. And being in Christ, God is pleased with our good works and our efforts to honor and glorify him in our lives as his people, even though they're not perfect. For Christ's sake, our Father is pleased with them. And then we moved to a third general directive, which we come back to and I hope to finish with this evening. And it's this, from this posture of faith in the gospel, we must apply ourselves with diligence to the means and spiritual disciplines God has appointed for killing sin and cultivating holiness in our lives. From this posture of faith in the gospel, we must apply ourselves with diligence to the means and spiritual disciplines God has appointed for killing sin and cultivating holiness in our lives. Though a life of holiness is the fruit of faith in Christ, in union with Christ, and though it progresses as we continue to trust in Him as He's freely given to us by God in the gospel. Though that's true, it's also true that God has appointed means through which His Spirit works. progressively sanctify His children, means to which we must apply ourselves. and also various spiritual disciplines to which we must give ourselves. The text says, but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body. It's the Spirit who enables us and motivates us and moves us to do it, but still we must do it. It requires activity on our part. It requires discipline. Spirit given discipline and effort. This is why Paul gives the command in 1 Timothy 4, 7, exercise yourself toward godliness. Or it can be translated, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. We must diligently apply ourselves to the means of grace and to the spiritual disciplines God has ordained and to which his word calls us. So far we've considered five of them. First was the consistent devotional intake of God's word. The second was the Lord's Supper, understood and used rightly. Thirdly, the consistent habit of secret prayer. Fourthly, fellowship and accountability to other believers in the context of the local church. And then last time, our focus was on the spiritual discipline of watchfulness. Well, this evening we press on to consider two more spiritual disciplines that I want to comment on, and this will be probably our last message on these verses, and we'll begin to make our way through the rest of the chapter. So tonight we come to a sixth spiritual discipline. What I'm calling regular self-examination. Regular self-examination. Now I think it should go, almost go without saying, that obviously if we would be killing sin in our lives and growing in holiness, we must regularly engage in times of self-examination. Self-evaluation. Now perhaps that could have been included under the heading of watchfulness, but I mention it here separately. This is a matter of being watchful over yourself, seeking to know yourself. If I'm to be killing sin in my life, I need to know if there is sin in my life and what that sin is or those sins are that I need to be killing. And sometimes it may not be immediately evident to us. It requires thoughtful self-reflection, self-examination. Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 13, 5, examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith, test yourselves. Now in that text Paul's talking about examining your Christian profession, examining your state. Do I understand and believe the gospel? Do I gladly embrace Christ as my Savior and Lord? Do I see the marks of the new birth, at least in some measure, in my life? And certainly, we need to ask those kinds of questions from time to time and examine our state. And that's what Paul is talking about in 2 Corinthians 13, 5. But then there's also the whole matter of examining our ways by the Word of God. Consider your ways. It's the repeated message of the prophet Haggai, the God's people, in Haggai chapter 1. You may remember back when we studied that. And that's what I have in mind right now. If sin is to be increasingly rooted out of our hearts and lives, it must be detected. And that often requires careful, spirit-enabled self-examination. David prays in Psalm 139, 23 to 24. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxieties and see if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. David is asking God to search him, to help him to see if there's any sinful way in him. Show me my sins, Lord, that I might confess them and repent of them and seek to mortify them by your grace. Listen to the psalmist in Psalm 119, verse 59. I fought about my ways and turned my feet to your testimonies. I made haste and did not delay to keep your commandments. He turned his feet to God's testimonies. He made haste to keep God's commandment. But what preceded that? He says, I fought about my ways. His turning was preceded by careful self-reflection. It was by thinking about his ways that he was able to see where he needed to turn, to see where he had veered off course and needed to turn his feet into the ways of God's commandments. In Lamentations 340, the people of God are described as saying this, let us search out and examine our ways and turn back to the Lord. There's this activity of searching and examining our ways. You remember Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that this practice of carefully examining ourselves is essential if we're going to be able to help others with their sins and do so with a proper humility and skill. He says in Matthew 7, 5, first remove the plank from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. In other words, before you start inspecting your brother and seeking to help him to overcome his faults, make sure that you're carefully inspecting yourself and dealing with yourself. Examine your own eye first. before you try to remove the speck from his. And then, of course, the whole matter of self-examination is brought before us in the Lord's Supper. You remember the words of Paul we often read at the Lord's Table. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. So, I trust you see that there is in Scripture this very important spiritual discipline of regular self-examination. And let me say, that we will never make progress in our spiritual lives unless we make it our regular practice to consider our ways. Biblical religion is a thinking religion. It requires us to think and to reflect, and it requires us to reflect on our ways, to examine ourselves in the course of our lives. I thought about my ways and turned my feet to your testimonies, the Psalmist said, examining ourselves and our lives by the Holy Scriptures. Examining ourselves by the moral law, the Ten Commandments. Examining ourselves by the heart-searching teaching of our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount, and by the whole body of ethical teaching that is given to us in the New Testament. Examining ourselves from God's Word. And it's something that ought to be a part of what is happening in public worship in a faithful preaching ministry. It ought to be such a ministry in which not only are you encouraged, not only are you strengthened in your faith and the Gospel of the Lord Jesus, but you're also caused to examine yourself by the things that you hear and the practical application of God's Word. And in addition to that, there are some excellent helps for this. The shorter catechism. which we've been learning is an excellent help. It has a very excellent exposition and summary of the Ten Commandments. It's a great tool for examining yourself. The larger, the Westminster Larger Catechism is even better. It seeks to apply God's moral law in a very comprehensive manner to our, not only to our actions, but to our hard attitudes and desires. And if you're familiar with it, there's a large number of scripture references right there on the page. It can also be helpful to prepare a short series of soul-searching questions to ask yourself from day to day, at least from time to time. Write them down, perhaps, in your devotional journal. I'm not saying you have to do that, but it can be very helpful to do that. I found that to be very helpful in the past. Some of my notebooks have a list of several questions. I'll just mention a few of them. Some of them are personal. I'll not mention those, but I'll just give you a few examples of the kinds of questions I'm talking about. Did I lose my temper today? Was I unkind or unthoughtful towards someone? Did I murmur or complain about circumstances? Have I passed on to another what was told to me in confidence? Was I honest in my words and actions? Do I insist on doing something my conscience is unclear about? Did I speak ill of another with no righteous purpose? Am I experiencing conscious peace with God through faith in Christ alone? If not, why not? Those are searching questions, right? To ask yourself. Going over questions like this can be a very helpful way to keep your conscience sensitive. Jonathan Edwards, you may know, prepared for himself a series of resolutions, and he would examine himself by these from time to time. George Whitefield, the great preacher of the 18th century awakening, often before he went to bed at night, he would search his heart with a series of questions, such as these that were found in the fly leaf of his journal. I'll just mention some of them. Have I been fervent in prayer? Have I after or before every deliberate conversation or action considered how it might tend to God's glory? Have I been meek, cheerful, affable in everything I said or did? Have I been proud, vain, unchaste, or enviable of others? Have I fought or spoken unkindly of anyone? You see, this is self-examination. Regular, ongoing self-reflection. And sometimes it can be helpful to set aside an entire day, or parts of an entire day, to engage in focused self-examination and prayer. And this is also something that our forefathers would do periodically. In addition to their regular daily devotional life, they would sometimes devote a whole day, or most of a whole day, to self-examination and prayer, and sometimes with fasting. Have you ever done that? How rare to hear of someone doing that today. No wonder this generation of Christians are such spiritual pygmies compared to our 18th century and 17th century and 16th century forefathers. Personally, I'm convinced that right here is one of the great problems with this present generation of Christians. We don't have time for that. Or more accurately, we don't make time for that. There's a hymn in our hymn book, and it begins with these words. Are you familiar with it? Take time to be holy. You familiar with that hymn? Take time to be holy. And indeed, we have to take and make time to do these things. This is one of the reasons we're so weak and so shallow. We're so busy doing so many things that in the end will mean nothing in eternity. And we have so many gadgets to drown out serious thought. Television, DVDs, Netflix, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, text messaging. When I go down through these things, I always say something stupid that my kids tell me later. But you know all these different things. I can't keep up with them because they're coming out so fast. I know I'm probably missing the main one, whatever it is. Even when we come to church, what happens? Perhaps we hear a good sermon that affects us at the moment that points out some sin in our life or some positive virtue we need to cultivate or some area where we need to change in our thinking or believing. But what happens? Too often we never follow it up by reflecting on it and seeking to work that truth down into the fabric of our soul and to act upon it. When the service is over, we go to other things, we forget about it. We dive right back into our busy lives. And when we're not busy with necessary responsibilities, we fill our time with mind-numbing distractions and entertainments. Now there are some things we must do. We must work, we must serve the Lord. I'm not talking about going and becoming a monk and living in a monastery. That would not be biblical or right. There's also innocent diversions and rest and recreations that are quite proper and we need that. Our body needs refreshment in that way. And my point is this, if you're going to walk with God and live a Christ-honoring, holy life, you must make time. for serious, careful, undistracted fault. We've already talked about the importance of the regular, consistent intake of God's word and the practice of secret prayer. Well, with those disciplines, let's also give ourselves from time to time to self-examination. My friend, let me ask you, when was the last time you did that? When was the last time, deliberately, You sought to carefully consider your ways before God. Now, at this point, I want to hasten to give some cautions about this. Self-examination can be done in a wrong way, an imbalanced way. Let me mention some wrong ways it can be done. First of all, when it comes to self-examination, we must trust that the Lord will help us. This is not some kind of cosmic Easter egg hunt in which the Lord is seeking to hide your sins from you. No, if your hard attitude is that you want to know if there's any wicked way in you so you can confess it and be fighting it and by God's grace seeking to kill it, if that's your hard attitude, God is more than willing to show you. So beware of a kind of morbid introspection. in which you're doing nothing but constantly digging and digging and raking over your conscience in the fear that there's something wrong there that you're not seeing or that it's not being shown to you. No, God will show you what he wants you to see now if you're willing and asking. Because there's a sense in which there's always more indwelling sin in every one of us than we presently see. And God doesn't always show us everything at once or it would crush us. Sanctification, remember, is a process. God will show you the things you need to see if you're willing and you prayerfully examine yourself. Secondly, another caution. Remember, as with all of these spiritual disciplines, And as with this whole work of mortifying sin in our lives, we must engage in this discipline of self-examination from the posture, you know what I'm going to say, right? From the posture of faith in the gospel. I keep coming back to that because it's so important. Remember, gospel mortification is not a work we do to try to make ourselves right with God. We must engage in this work of seeking to kill sin in our lives, seeking to cultivate opposite Christ-like virtues, including this spiritual discipline of self-examination. We must engage in it from the posture of believing. Faith in God's love and favor and mercy, sincerely extended to me in the gospel, as a free gift in Jesus Christ, not on the basis of my works. But even as I am a sinner, so is self-examination. You see, self-examination can be engaged in in a legalistic way, not a gospel way. Let me mention two ways that that can happen. One is if you approach self-examination in the hopes of making yourself right with God. by your efforts. If I can just carefully examine myself and once I've found every sin that I can find and examine myself and discover sin and resolve to do better, well then I'll have peace. Now, my friend, examine yourself all you will, resolve to do better all you will, and you will never make yourself right with God. Salvation is by grace alone. It's found in Christ alone. In all of His glory and saving, sufficiency is offered to sinners as a free gift to be received with the empty hand of faith. We're not to approach self-examination thinking to make ourselves qualified. salvation. We're to approach it from the get-go, from the very beginning as we approach it. We are to approach it believing in Christ. Believing that Christ, in Christ, though your sins be as scarlet, and though you find as you examine yourself that your heart is as black, there's not even one ray of light in it, yet believing that the door of mercy is still open to you. And God will most surely receive you and forgive your sins if you trust in his Son. You see, it's examining yourself from this posture of faith in the gospel, this is what will make you an impartial judge of yourself. If you're partly basing your hope and your assurance upon your own goodness, then you don't wanna see the truth about yourself. You're like the guy who doesn't wanna go to the doctor because he's afraid if he goes, the doctor might find something wrong with him, right? He doesn't wanna have a colonoscopy. He may find something, I'd rather not go. But no, you see, when your confidence is in Christ and the gospel, you can be impartial. in your searching of yourself. You'll not be afraid to be searched, as though all your hope is based on your good opinion of yourself. You'll be willing for the idol to be smashed, even if it's on your own heart, in your own heart. You're willing to see the worst about yourself. Your heart will be wide open to your Father's gaze. Search me, O Father, and know my heart. Show me if there is any wicked way in me. And you see, that's why confidence in the gospel is actually what will produce true holiness in our lives. Now, the posture from which you engage in self-examination, that will also determine the way you respond when God exposes sin in your life, whether it be in a sermon or while you're engaging in self-examination privately. How do you respond when God exposes sin in your life? You see, the person who is doing so in a legal way, he's not only trying to make himself right with God. Secondly, when God does expose sin in his life, what happens? His first response is to go sink into despair. Or he just determines, I'm gonna try harder. Still hoping someday to become good enough. And my dear friends, that's not to be our first reaction when God exposes our sins. Self-examination is intended to drive us afresh to the gospel, to Christ, to bring us back to Him again and again. If we honestly examine ourselves, the true Christian will always find something to be grieved about, something to be humbled about. Now, there will be progress, there will be growth we see in our lives, but we'll still see sin and failure as well, even at our best. But we're not to despair. We are to look to Christ and to the cleansing sufficiency of His blood. And we're not just to try harder. Now we are to try harder, to work at it, but we're to do so looking to our Savior for the grace and the strength we need to make progress and to overcome our sins. Remembering that it's by the Spirit Christ enables us to put to death the deeds of the body. Well, that leads me to one last spiritual discipline I want to mention. There's the consistent intake of God's word, the Lord's Supper, the consistent habit of secret prayer, fellowship and accountability to other believers in the context of a local church, the spiritual discipline of watchfulness, the discipline of regular gospel self-examination, and now seventhly, And this naturally leads into this next one. The spiritual discipline of maintaining a conscience void of offense toward God and toward man. Maintaining a conscience void of offense toward God and toward man. In other words, we must keep short sin accounts with God and with man. First of all, with reference to God. What does it mean to keep a good conscience? Paul said, I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense toward God. What does that mean? How do we do that? Well, it's always to be our sincere purpose and endeavor to never sin at all. John writes, my little children, I write these things to you that you sin not. But when you do sin and you become aware that you've sinned, you don't just leave it lying upon your conscience. You judge it and you confess it before God. You seek to keep short sin accounts with God. Whenever you're aware of committing sin, you look to Christ in confession of your sins and you believe on the testimony of God's Word that the blood of Christ cleanses you from all iniquity. That's the way to maintain a good conscience before God with no barrier between you. As John writes, 1 John 2, 1, if any man sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He Himself is the propitiation. That means the wrath-appeasing sacrifice for our sins. 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But someone says, wait a minute, isn't it true that if we're Christians, our sins are already forgiven? We've been justified by faith, and that means that the moment we first believe, God accounts us as righteous and forgives all our sins, past, present, and future. That's true. That's true. Wonderfully true. In terms of our standing before God, our legal standing, the legal condemnation of our sins. Paul has been telling us this earlier in this epistle. In fact, up in verse 1 of this 8th chapter, he underscores this, that there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. We are freed forever from hell and wrath from the moment we were first converted. But that doesn't mean that our sins as Christians are not still sins. They're still sins. Now the context of those sins is different now. Before we were, as it were, in the courtroom, condemned to hell by the law. Our relationship to God was purely that of a condemned criminal before the judge. But now we're in the living room context. God is our Father. But those sins committed in the living room are still sins against our Father's love. And they still provoke what one has called, for us, fatherly displeasure. And grieve the Holy Spirit, and they hinder our communion with Christ. So when you're aware of sinning against your Father and your Savior, what are you to do? Don't allow the consciousness of guilt to drive you away from God and cause you to draw back from God. Let it drive you to God in confession and repentance, trusting in Christ and His propitiation for your sins. That is the way to maintain a good conscience toward God. And this is so important. Sin, left lying on your conscience, gives opportunity to the devil. Know what Paul said in Ephesians 4, 26? Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, nor give place to the devil. The implication is that when sin is left undealt with, we give place to the devil. We give up ground, we give him room, we give him opportunity to work. Our enemy is an encroaching enemy. He looks for the opportunity to get a foothold within our souls from which he can then launch His attack with greater force and subtlety. So, when the line of defense has been broken, we must be quick to repair the breach. One of Satan's primary objectives is to make a breach in our relationship to our Heavenly Father and in our fellowship and our communion with the Lord Jesus Christ from whom we derive every spiritual grace. And he wants to make a breach in that communion and hinder that communion. He wants to separate us from unfettered fellowship with our Savior by the awareness of sin upon our consciences. And if a breach is made and we fail to repair the breach, the devil can gain a foothold. How do we resist him? We resist him by running to Christ, confessing our sin and trusting in his finished atonement. Revelation 12, 11 says that the saints overcame the devil by the blood of the Lamb. That's what it's talking about. How did they overcome him? by the blood of the Lamb. It's by the blood that we're able to silence all the accusations of the evil one. It's by the blood of Christ that even in the very consciousness of our sins, yet still we draw nigh to the throne of grace. In the language of Hebrews 10, 19 and following, therefore brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus. Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. Satan may try to block your way by his accusations, together with the accusations of your own conscience. but confessing your sin, trusting the atoning sacrifice that was made by the Lord Jesus and His advocacy on your behalf in the presence of the Father. We drive Satan out of the way, we resist him and we drive him back from that ground he has taken. But brothers and sisters, this maintaining a clear conscience before God also involves keeping our consciences clear with our fellow man. You remember what our Lord said in the Sermon on the Mount? If you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. Again, the Apostle Paul said it this way, Acts 24 16. He said, I exercise myself always to have a conscience without offense toward God and toward man. Now notice that this was Paul's conscious, deliberate effort. It wasn't something he just kind of laid back on flowery beds of ease floating down the river and it happened, no. I exercise myself to do this. This was his conscious effort. And it was his constant effort. I exercise myself always to have a conscience without offense. And he sought to maintain a good conscience not only toward God but toward man as well. To have a conscience without offense toward man means that there's no person that I'm aware of that I've wronged or sinned against in a way they know about or has brought them harm that I've not sought biblically where possible to make it right. It means if God convicts me that I've been insensitive to my wife, I'm prepared to go and to say, honey, will you please forgive me? If I've been harsh and insensitive to the kids, it means I gather them around and I confess it and I ask their forgiveness. If you've been disrespectful to your parents, it means you don't just let it go and act like it didn't happen. can go on as normal like nothing ever, no, you go to them and you ask their forgiveness. If there's a breach in your relationship with one of your brothers or sisters here in the church, you sinned against them in some way. You go to them and you humble yourself and you ask their forgiveness. That's what it means to maintain, to attain and to maintain a clear conscience toward man. So this is what we must do. This is the way we must live as God's people. My dear brother or sister, Have you given place to the devil in this area? Well, I want to warn you, if you give him an opportunity, don't think for a moment that he won't take it. Give him an advantage and he will press it. He's had thousands of years of experience doing it. So repair the breach. and live as Paul did, and as God calls us to live, exercising yourself to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward man. That requires humbling, doesn't it? We have to humble ourselves. That's good for us. God gives grace to the humble. Do you know what he does to the proud? He resists them. It means he stiff arms them. But he keeps pouring his grace into the life of that man or woman who is humble. who bows before God's Word. And when conviction of sin comes, is humble and confesses it. When he's sinned against another person, he's humble, he confesses it and asks forgiveness. And God gives grace to the humble while he stiff arms the proud. A defiled conscience, if allowed to continue, will eventually lose its sensitivity. And it will become a dulled conscience. And a dulled conscience, if continued over time, will eventually become a seared conscience. You know what that is, if you've ever drunk something hot and it burns your tongue and now for a while you can't taste anything? That can happen to your conscience. A dulled conscience can become a seared conscience. And a seared conscience will eventually become an evil conscience. It will cause good evil and evil good. And the end of an evil conscience is apostasy. Remember our text. If we walk according to the flesh, we will die. And that's why the Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 1.19 ties together this matter of a defiled conscience with making shipwreck concerning the faith. Turn over there with me. We're just about done here. 1 Timothy 1.19. Notice what he says. He tells, he's speaking to Timothy and he says, having faith and a good conscience, which, now the pronoun which is in the singular and it agrees in gender with the word conscience. That means that the word which is referring back to a good conscience, not to faith. So Paul is saying this, having faith and a good conscience, which thing, namely a good conscience, some having rejected it, what's been the result? Concerning the faith, they have suffered shipwreck. When did they make shipwreck concerning the faith? When they thrust aside a good conscience. And I told you before what I've been tempted to say to someone who comes to me and says, Pastor, I don't think I believe such and such in the Bible, I don't think I believe that anymore. I know what the Bible says, I know what the church teaches, what I've been taught for many years, but I just don't believe that anymore. And you know what I'm tempted to say, and particularly if it's a young person or a single person, I'm tempted to say, is that right? Well, tell me, who is she? Or who is he? Well, where is the point, my friend, where you decided to cast off a good conscience? Do you see the point that I'm making? When men or women make shipwreck of the faith, this is where it usually starts. It starts with casting off a good conscience. So in this work of killing sin in our lives and growing in holiness by the Spirit, we must exercise ourselves to maintain a conscience void of offense toward God and toward man. And that's the way we are called to live as God's people. And as we live that way, in believing union with Jesus Christ, Christ will continue to pour His grace into our lives so that by His Spirit dwelling within us, we will make progress. killing sin and living lives that bring glory and honor to our Savior. It's Christ by His Spirit who enables us to do so. And the end is eternal life in glory. Well, may God add his blessing to our study of Romans 8. Let me read those three verses to us, and then we'll close with prayer. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. Well, may God bless this word to our hearts. Let's pray together. Our Father, we thank you this evening that we could consider these very practical principles in the living of the Christian life. Oh Lord, we pray that you would give us grace to be doers of your word and not hearers only. We ask it for your glory sake and in the name of our precious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.