Trinity 11 September 1, 2019 The Sunday of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

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Trinity 11
Luke 18:9-14
September 1, 2019

“Living With a Good Conscience”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

This sermon relies heavily on the teaching of Rev. John Kleinig regarding the conscience. To see more, watch this video or read this essay.

Sometimes it’s very easy to recognize someone with a bad conscience. Suicide bombers have a bad conscience. If you think it’s a good thing to kill yourself while killing other people, your conscience isn’t right. We know that. Someone sitting on death row who has murdered multiple people and isn’t sorry for it at all and doesn’t think they’ve done wrong—that person has a bad conscience. Again, we know that. The terrible husband who’s abusive to his wife and children and thinks he’s really a good guy—he has a bad conscience.

Those are easy to recognize. But what about you and me? A bad conscience affects us all. Even the strongest and best Christians have to struggle against a bad conscience. Some of you in here have a guilty conscience—you know you’ve done wrong and you don’t know what to do about it. It’s killing you. That’s a bad conscience. A broken one. Some of you should have a guilty conscience but you don’t because you don’t think you’ve done anything wrong. That’s a bad conscience. Some of you have a conscience full of shame because someone sinned against you. And you don’t know what to do with it. That’s a bad conscience. Some of you don’t think you ever do anything all that wrong—that’s a bad conscience.

We need to live with a good conscience. That’s what we’re going to talk about today. The only way to get a good, clean, clear conscience is to receive it from Jesus Christ and His Word. That’s the only way. And when you have a good conscience from Jesus, it’s makes all the difference in the world. Living with a good conscience is where you want to be. It’s a life of joy and peace and hope.

So we have to start today by defining what our conscience is. You all know you have a conscience. But what exactly is it? And when is it good or bad? Many people think a conscience is simply how you feel about yourself—your self-esteem. So if you feel good about yourself—good conscience. Feel bad about yourself? Bad conscience. So we try to never tell kids they’ve done anything wrong because that would hurt their self-esteem and give them a bad conscience. We would never want that! But conscience isn’t just self-esteem. It’s not how you feel about yourself. Conscience isn’t whether you like yourself or don’t like yourself. It’s certainly related to your feelings about yourself but not equal to them.

So what is it? You may think of your conscience as basically the official. Like a judge in a courtroom. Or like a referee in a basketball game. Or like an umpire in a baseball game. Those guys don’t make the rules. They just enforce the rules and tell you when you’ve broken the rules. That’s a conscience. It doesn’t decide what’s right or wrong. But it takes some standard or rules or law and referees you. Tells you when you fouled. When you traveled. When you crossed the line.

But it’s really still baseball season right now. Barely into football season. So we’ll go with an umpire today. The conscience is the umpire who calls you out or safe. You can have a good umpire who calls the game with the right rules and calls it fairly. Or you can have a bad umpire who gets the rules all wrong and calls people out when they’re safe and safe when they’re out. That’s the difference between a good conscience and a bad conscience.

So a bad umpire might call somebody safe even though they’re really out. This is the Pharisee in the Gospel reading today whose conscience is always calling him safe. He’s using the wrong standards and judging himself to be good every time. You can hear his standards in the Gospel reading. “God, I thank you that I’m not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and I give my tithes.” So there’s his standard. He thinks he’s better than other people. And his standard is fasting and offerings. Since he’s good at fasting and offerings and better than other certain people—he calls himself safe.

But he’s wrong. He has a bad conscience. He’s not really safe, is he? Of course not. He’s obviously guilty of the greatest of all offenses—PRIDE. If anybody’s out, it’s him. He doesn’t think he even needs God. He doesn’t need Jesus because he’s perfect already. That’s the ultimate foul.

You and I cannot use our own standards to judge ourselves. You’ll always call yourself safe, won’t you? You’ll always find someone who’s worse than you. Someone who isn’t as good a Christian as you. That’s a bad conscience. God’s standard puts us in our place. We’re out. By a long shot. We’re prideful, greedy, selfish, lazy, lustful, immoral, unkind—we’re GUILTY.

Now that brings us to the other side of a bad conscience. A guilty conscience. When you’re out. When you’re guilty. And you need help. There are different types of guilty consciences. One is when others have sinned against you. It wasn’t your fault, but you have a bad conscience all the same. A conscience full of guilt and shame over what has happened. And even if it wasn’t your fault, you need help all the same. You need to be given a good conscience.

Another guilty conscience is when you judge yourself guilty and call yourself out because you broke some rule that actually isn’t even a rule at all. For instance, if you feel guilty because you don’t volunteer at school as much as your friend Stephanie even though she has more time to do it than you do—that’s a bad conscience. You’re not really guilty because there’s not actually a rule about how much you need to volunteer at school but you have a bad conscience all the same. Or if you feel guilty because someone died and you weren’t there. It may have been completely outside of your ability to be there and not a sin at all—but you have a bad conscience all the same. And you need a good one.

And then, finally, there’s the purely guilty conscience. You sinned and you know it. You’re out. Bad conscience. Now we have two examples of this in our readings today with very different endings. First we have Cain. He has a bad conscience. He knows he’s guilty. His offering wasn’t brought in faith. It says he was angry and his face fell. That’s a guilty conscience. God reminds him that if he does well, he will be accepted. But what does he decide to do? He decides to kill his brother Abel. Trying to relieve his guilty conscience before God, he makes it exceedingly worse.

There are many wrong ways to deal with a guilty conscience. We have used many of them. None of them work but they only make it worse. Sometimes we try to ignore it. Doesn’t work. Sometimes we try to be better in other areas to try and make up for it. Doesn’t work. Sometimes we try to convince ourselves that it’s really not a sin and we shouldn’t feel bad. “Other people do it all the time.” Doesn’t work. Sometimes we try to mask the guilt by drinking or by taking drugs. Doesn’t work. Still a bad conscience.

Other times we’ll tell everybody about it to make ourselves feel better but we’ll never, ever admit that it was our fault. Other times we’ll try to make up for what we’ve done by making ourselves suffer. We’ll torture ourselves as some kind of self-punishment. Other times we’ll find people who are guilty of the same thing as us and we’ll hang out with them and seek reconciliation with people who are “just like us”. None of it works. Still a bad conscience.

There’s only one thing that works for a guilty conscience. And we have another example of that in the Gospel reading. Unlike Cain who tries to deal with it by killing his brother, the tax collector deals with his guilty, bad conscience the only right way. He brings it to God. He beats his breast and says, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” And what does Jesus say about him? Clean conscience!! He goes home justified! With a good conscience!

That’s the power of forgiveness. That’s the power of Jesus! Of Jesus’ blood! The only way to heal a bad conscience. Friends in Christ, you have brought your bad consciences here today. And there is healing for them. Jesus is here to give you a good conscience. The greatest gift He can give you.

Some of you are like Cain—you’ve been trying to get that monkey off your back in all the wrong ways. You’ve been trying and trying and trying to make yourself feel better. But it’s not working. You know the truth. You know you’re a terrible, poor, miserable sinner. You’ve told a great lie. You’ve been unfaithful to your spouse. You’re addicted to pornography. You’re addicted to gambling. You hurt someone and don’t know how to ask for forgiveness. You have a bad conscience.

Jesus is here to deliver a good conscience. To stop the excuses and face it for what it truly is, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” There is hope for you. There is hope in Jesus’ blood. There is a good conscience to know you’re absolutely, 100% forgiven. And there is strength in Jesus to break free from that sin.

Some of you have consciences full of guilt and shame for things that aren’t even your fault. Others have sinned against you. Others have convinced you you’ve done something terrible when you really haven’t done anything at all. Either way Jesus is here for you this morning with a good conscience. He removes all guilt and all shame. He took all of it to the cross. And in His blood you find a good, clean, clear conscience.

A good conscience is the only way to live. To truly live that is. A good conscience is when we first of all use the right standard. When the umpire uses the right rules. And that’s God’s rules. God’s rules call us all out. No excuses. No denials. No misdirection. Just the truth. “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

But it’s only a good conscience when you also then know the answer—the blood of Jesus Christ. His blood washes over your heart and conscience and cleanses it from everything bad. You have nothing more to hide. It’s all laid bare before Him and He gives you His perfect righteousness. You are one with Him. You are baptized into Him. You eat and drink His body and blood here in the Lord’s Supper. The body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ gives you a good conscience. Depart in peace. You are right with God.

This is the only way to live. There is such great joy in a good conscience. Living perfectly free before God because you know He loves you and sees Jesus in you and you in Jesus. Living perfectly free before others because you know there’s nothing they can do to condemn you before God. Such joy and freedom and peace.

John Kleinig, a Lutheran pastor and professor from Australia, says that a good conscience is like a perfectly crystal clear pool of water. The light of God has no trouble at all penetrating deep down into your heart and conscience between it’s as clear as crystal. And you, like good clear water, easily reflect that light of God to others.

God give you all a good conscience. If you need more help than this sermon alone, then please come and talk to me any time. You may need to hear God’s Word applied more directly to your situation.

The peace of God which passes all understanding guard you hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.