Do I Allow God to Guide Me?

A Sermon By Jim Hammond from 1 Corinthians 4:1-5

Lost in the fog...

A helicopter was flying around above Seattle when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft's electronic navigation and communications equipment. Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter's position and course to steer to the airport.

The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, drew a hand-written sign, and held it in the helicopter's window. The pilot's sign read, "WHERE AM I?" in large letters.

People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign, and held it in a building window. Their sign read, "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER."

The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map, flew directly to SEATAC (Seattle/Tacoma) airport, and landed safely.

After they were on the ground, the copilot asked the pilot how the "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER" sign helped determine their position.

The pilot responded "Well, the answer they gave me was technically correct but completely useless...so it had to be the Microsoft Customer Support Building!"

Maybe you have never been lost in a helicopter in the fog. But I think that is a good picture of navigating morality in our world of fog today. People seem to be just like that helicopter, they have experienced a malfunction with their navigational system and communication equipment. We fly around and ask the world where we are. The world tells us something as useless as the message from that Microsoft building. The world’s moral navigational message is very subjective and human centered. Our culture has lost its moral compass. On what basis do you decide whether something is right or wrong?

I wish I could say Christians are never lost like that lost helicopter. But what I have discovered in the last 18 years of ministry is that Christians also find themselves in a fog, and I often find them guiding themselves without a moral compass. Some guide themselves by trying to keep a clear conscience. Some navigate by the concept, “let your conscience be your guide.” If I were to have you rate that statement, “let your conscience be your guide” with a rating system 1 to 5, with 1 being “that statement is VERY helpful” and 5 being “that statement is heresy and not helpful at all,” how would your rate that statement?

The phrase, “let your conscience be your guide” doesn’t come from the Bible. Does that surprise you? We will learn today from the Bible, that the concept “Let your conscience be your guide” is flawed. We will learn today that in a moral fog, conscience alone will fail to protect you or safely guide you.

Focus: We are influenced and guided for good by three basic sources, by people, by conscience, and by God. There is only one source that influences and guides for the best.

I. Moral Judgments Are Made In Three Courts

As you read 1 Corinthians 4:1-5, I want you to notice the legal language used. Words like court, judge, and judgment, and innocent. See if you can pick out the three courts, or three tribunals Paul describes.

1 Corinthians 4:1-5 (NIV) ¹So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. ²Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. ³I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. ⁴My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. ⁵Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.

The first court I want you to notice is explicitly stated in 4:3.

(1 Corinthians 4:3 NIV) I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself.

A. The Human Court Is The Lowest Court

Even from the lowest court there are good judgments issued and poor judgments issued. There comes from the human court good guidance and bad guidance. Even the lowest court, can have a good and powerful affect. Positive peer pressure is a good thing. There are high forms of this lower court in good operation. How many men would sink to the depths of sin if they knew they could not get caught and nobody knew? For some, this lower court is the only motivation for living reputable lives. Some people choose to avoid evil things because of what people would think of them if they did the evil thing.

The three courts we will study today, are like three judges, or three guides: 1) Human guides, 2) Conscience as a guide, and 3) God as a guide. You will notice that these guides make assessments—they make judgments.

Paul has already mentioned some good human guides. Did you notice 4:1-2.

¹So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. ²Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.

Paul, Apollos, & Peter had become rallying points behind various factions in the church at Corinth. In this passage, Paul emphasizes that they are but servants (4:1). They serve as guides because they had been entrusted with the secret things of God. Paul didn’t want the people to consider them as the masters, but as the servants of Christ, entrusted with the responsibility as guides to God’s truth. Part of the problem in these factions was the tendency on the part of the followers to elevate their favorite leaders and call into question the reputation of the “competing” leaders. Paul was attempting to correct this error by showing that each of the leaders were servants of the same Christ. That’s the context.

As long as human guides are servants to God’s guidance, their guidance is helpful. There are even helpful human guides that are not yet Christian. For example, God made parents his servant guides to children. It is when their guidance contradict God’s guidance that their judgments are rendered false, harmful, or useless.

Flawed Moral Compasses

In this context Paul says some things that I find particularly insightful. I find these truths particularly instructional for our culture because I see our culture running a parallel course with the culture of Corinth. Why? Because in both their culture and in our culture people lost their moral compass. The danger of it was, they didn’t know how flawed their own moral compasses had become. Both our culture and theirs live in a fog.

Let me give you an example: “Girls in our culture are caught in the crossfire of our culture's mixed sexual messages. Sex is considered both a sacred act between two people united by God and the best way to sell suntan lotion.” [i]

When you are caught in this kind of crossfire, if you don’t have solid moral bearings you will get lost in the fog.

The Corinthians were making judgments about Paul and other leaders in these factions. There is a hint here that the judgment others were making about Paul were negative assessments. We see here how Paul deals with these negative assessments, or judgments. But while his main point is that he’d rather be a God pleaser than a people pleaser, I’m struck by the corollary points he makes. Paul responds by telling us by what court or judge’s assessment we should evaluate ourselves. He tells us which guides to rely on. He warns those who live in a world of fog which guides are fallible. He helps us to find out how to discover where we are and where we are going.

Since people created the moral fog, the human court is the lowest and least reliable court. He cares very little what the human court has to offer in a lost world. He points us to something more solid. Paul starts with the lowest court and works his way up. The lowest court is what people think. Paul confronts the people pleaser side of all of us!

Guiding Question: Do I care too much about what people think?

Have you ever found it difficult to do what is right because you are wondering what people will think?

Have you ever found it difficult to continue in good deeds because nobody noticed, or worse, you were criticized? CRITICISM. Paul said, I really don't care how you judge me, It really doesn't even matter how I judge myself, I’m more concerned about what God thinks!

Paul had thick skin and a sensitive heart. He didn’t care what people thought. He cared about what God thought, so his heart was soft and pliable in God’s hand. Too often we are just the opposite, we have thin skin and a hard heart. We care too much about what people think and not enough about what God thinks.

B. The Court Of Conscience Is Not The Highest Court

(1 Corinthians 4:4 NIV) My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.

Paul’s conscience was clear. How’s yours today? Is everything right between you and God? Are you clean before him? How has your thought life been? If you can say, “Yes, my conscience is clear.” that does say something. But Paul says it doesn’t say enough. Some of us have a clear conscience thanks only to a bad memory! Is it possible that if God were here he would jog your memory? “What about BLANK and BLANK and BLANK?” Oh yeah.

Here’s another way to put it. Don’t always let your conscience be your guide. Besides a bad memory there’s another reason not to fully trust our conscience as a guide.

It is possible to have a faulty conscience

You may have been taught to let your consciences be your guide. But here Paul teaches us differently. Paul is saying our consciences can judge wrongly. God is telling us, “Don’t Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide, let me be your Guide. Your conscience is fallible. Your conscience is flawed. Your conscience has been desensitized.” God says to us in his revealed word. “Your conscience is desensitized by repeated exposure to sin.” He calls this hardening your heart. This concept is throughout scripture. God let’s us know that our conscience is desensitized by repeated exposure to lies. God has also told us that our conscience is sensitized (healed) by: Repentance, Confession, and Forgiveness. He has let us know that our conscience is also sensitized by repetitious exposure to truth. Prolonged periods of protection from the repeated exposures to lies or sins will sensitize your conscience. After prolonged periods of protection, the things we were numb to before will prick our consciences once again.

Prolonged periods of protection will make you sensitive again. A sensitive conscience is a safeguard. I believe we should blush more, and be ashamed more than we are. Our consciences have become numbed by the bombardment of sin in our culture. I wish I could say it isn’t by choice. But sadly I believe many Christians choose to expose themselves to the bombardment of conscience dulling entertainment!

Guiding Question: Do I make decisions on the basis of MY feelings?

Do we make decision based on what’s right or based on what we feel like. A mature person bases decisions on character, doing the right thing. Immature people do what they feel like doing. Usually these feelings are justified with excuses, but nonetheless the decisions are made based on MY feelings, not on what is RIGHT. You notice I’ve already made some assumptions here. Here is the assumption. There is a right thing to do and a wrong thing to do, and I’m not talking about something “right for you.” Morality isn’t so subjective that we can only talk about what is right for you and wrong for you. My assumption is this. God has given us some moral instruction so that we can know the difference between right and wrong. Under that instruction we are urged to develop a character based life rather than a subjective feelings based life? We are not our own bosses to decide on every issue what is right and wrong for us.

ILLUSTRATION: Paul Little tells of a woman he knew who had signed a contract to teach. In August she received another offer from a school closer to where she wanted to live. So she broke the original contract. She said afterwards something I have heard Christians say before. She said, “I have a peace about it.” The department chairman commented rather sarcastically, “ ‘I’ve got a peace about it.’ Isn't that lovely? She's got the peace and I've got the pieces."[ii]

What do you think? Was that peace from God? Was her “clear conscience” due to the fact that the Holy Spirit was whispering to her spirit, this is OK? What about Psalm 15:4 where God says he is pleased with the one “who keeps his oath even when it hurts.”

I believe that girl missed the will of God. She violated a principle which, if she had been alert and had applied it to her situation, would have given her clear guidance in this specific detail of her life.

Our conscience is like a compass. But a compass is of very little help if you have no reference points. Without reference points we don’t know where we are or where we are going. God has not left us without reference points. He has revealed his moral will to us. The problem is that we do not avail ourselves of those reference points, and our built in, onboard compass, our conscience, is rendered useless as a result.

C. Concern Yourself With the Court of Christ

Guiding Question: Does God’s wisdom really have a greater influence upon me than conventional wisdom because I have come to know, love, and live it?

When you know, love, and live out God’s will He will guide your desires, your attitudes, and your actions.

Let me ask you some personal questions.

How well do you know God’s word?
If you don’t know it that well, why is that?
Do you spend more time with the propagators of conventional wisdom than you do studying and listening at the feet of the Lord?
Do you love his laws, his principles, his instructions?
If you don’t, why not? Is it because you haven’t really spent any time testing his wisdom?
Is it because you have failed to submit to him?
Are you still trying to run your own life, even under the guise of Christianity?
Here’s a blunt way to put it. Are you right now reinterpreting, or ignoring the explicit commands of God found in the Bible because you don’t feel like following them?
Do you need to confess some sin today, do you need to repent today?
Do you need to plan a prolonged program of sensitizing your conscience today?
What will that plan look like for you?

PRAYER

“Dear Jesus, thank you for making me and loving me, even when I’ve ignored you and gone my own way. Thank you for giving me your reliable guidance. Thank you for giving me a conscience, but thank you most of all for giving me your revealed truth, as found in your Bible to train my conscience in your ways. I realize I need you in my life and I’m sorry for my sins. I ask you to forgive me. Thank you for dying on the cross for me. Thank you for conquering sin and death by your death and resurrection! Please help me to understand your will more. Help me to know, love and live out your truth, your wisdom, more than the world’s flawed conventional wisdom. As much as I know how, I want to follow you from now on. Please come into my life and make me a new person inside. I accept your gift of salvation. Please help me to grow now as a Christian.”

[i] Mary Pipher. From the files of Leadership.

[ii] Paul E. Little in a sermon, "Affirming the Will of God" (in Great Sermons of the 20th Century). Christianity Today, Vol. 33, no. 16.