Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

(READ Acts 10:9-16)

If you want to hear a good, exciting story sometime, ask Lizzie Null about that one time Levi saved her life!

It all happened a couple of years ago when Jodee was driving our kids and the Null kids back from CCHS in Clarion.

The van had been giving us trouble for a while, but it was still driveable.

We had been driving it a couple times a week back and forth to Clarion and Brookville for school.

Well on the way home one afternoon, the engine light came on and the van stalled—just as they were getting onto I-80.

Jodee called and told me, and from what I could figure it sounded like it was losing power because the alternator was going bad.

So I said, “Just keep driving, when it stalls, see if you can get it started again and get home and we’ll have it looked at.”

And so, (with a degree of trust in my ability to diagnose car troubles that I am sure she will never have again), Jodee kept starting the van again every time it stalled, all the way from Clarion through Brookville.

But then, as she climbed 322 just past Mike’s Comet Market, the van quit for the last time as [this] piece of one of the pistons punched through the bottom of the engine and through the oil pan, igniting what was left of the oil and leading to one of the most exciting Monday afternoons in living memory for the kids (including Levi picking up Lizzie and taking her out of the van as the smoke from the burning oil poured out from underneath!)

As it turns out, the issue was that there had been an internal oil leak that had drained the crankcase dry—and as the engine overheated the van’s computer kept shutting it down to avoid the catastrophic failure that we actually caused by ignoring the warnings!

Moral of the story—when your car’s emergency systems kick in to prevent major damage, don’t ignore them!

You can already see where we’re going with this illustration, can’t you?

One of the things that we’ve been emphasizing through this series is that—in the words of Martin Luther— “To go against conscience is neither right nor safe”.

You will answer to God someday for the way you obeyed your conscience: If your conscience told you something was a sin and you went and did it anyway, then you sinned—even if what you did wasn’t even inherently sinful.

This is what the Apostle Paul is saying in Romans 14, where he is teaching about people who have a conscience that tells them it is sinful to eat meat considered “unclean” by the Law of Moses, so they will only eat vegetables.

He says in verses 22-23,

Romans 14:22–23 (ESV)

22 ...Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves.

23 But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith.

For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

In other words, if you go ahead and eat non-kosher meat even though your conscience causes you to doubt whether it is right or not, you are sinning.

This is why Martin Luther was prepared to go to prison—or even die—rather than violate his conscience.

It is a very serious thing to do something your conscience tells you is wrong (and we need to understand that when we approach the issue of dealing with each other’s consciences later on in this series.)

But here is the question for us today is, how can we be sure that our conscience is accurate in what it tells us is sinful?

If this faculty given to us by God really is that powerful a voice in our lives, and if it really is a massively serious thing to violate it, what do we do if our conscience needs to change?

How can we even know if our conscience needs to change?

This isn’t an academic question—there are people right now—in North America—who are losing their jobs because they cannot in good conscience use feminine pronouns to refer to a man, or businesses who face fines and penalties for not paying for employees to murder their babies in the womb.

What will this church do when a sodomite couple asks to use the church for their “wedding”, or if the government threatens to take away our tax exempt status unless we change our bylaws to endorse such abominations?

Are we ready—are you ready—to lose your job, your income, your liberties rather than do violence to your conscience?

And I hope you can see why it is so vital that you be sure—rock solid sure—that your conscience is accurate, that it is, for want of a better metaphor, calibrated accurately.

It would be a real tragedy to lose your job or your freedom needlessly because of a misinformed conscience, a conscience that was out of step or misaligned with God.

As one author puts it:

“Your conscience is not identical to the voice of God.

That voice in your head is not necessarily what God would say.

So how do you cultivate a conscience that aligns with God’s voice?” (Naselli, A. D., Crowley, J. D., & Carson, D. A. (2016).

Conscience: What it is, how to train it, and loving those who differ (Illustrated ed.) [E-book].

Page 60.)

As it happens, we have an example in the Scriptures of a time when someone had to “recalibrate” his conscience in order to line it up with God’s voice.

I want us to look at this account from Peter’s life in Acts 10 as we consider this question of how we can be sure our conscience is “calibrated” accurately—and what I believe these verses are showing us is that

Your conscience should be CALIBRATED only under the DIRECT SUPERVISION of God

This is because calibrating your conscience means you have to work against your conscience in some way—in other words, calibrating your conscience runs perilously close to violating your conscience.

And so you must be sure that God is the One who is calling you to adjust your conscience.

I believe this passage gives us at least three ways to discern whether you are following God’s leading to calibrate your conscience or following your own desires to violate your conscience.

You should only attempt to calibrate your conscience under God’s direct supervision—the first indication is

I.

When God LEADS you by His SPIRIT (Acts 10:9-12)

Look at verse 9 again:

Acts 10:9 (ESV)

9 The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray.

We have observed earlier that the closer your walk with God, the clearer your conscience can be—and here we see Peter demonstrating that truth.

You can be confident that you are calibrating and not violating your conscience when

You have a HEALTHY WALK with God (v. 9)

We see that it was the “sixth hour” of the day—twelve noon.

And even though Peter was hungry (v.

10), he didn’t say to himself, “Well, I think I’ll go get some lunch before I spend time praying—don’t like praying on an empty stomach!”

(In fact, you might say that Peter didn’t like eating on an empty spirit!)

In one of those exquisite little echoes of Jesus’ life that we see in the apostles, notice that Peter was praying “at the sixth hour”—which was the same time of day when Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well—telling His disciples when they returned with lunch that “I have food to eat that you don’t know about!” (John 4:33).

Peter’s desire was for God more than for physical food.

Peter was not looking for an excuse not to obey God, he was prioritizing his time with God in prayer.

So I think we can see from this that when it comes to your conscience, you know you are calibrating it when it is in the context of a healthy walk with God, and you are violating your conscience if you are pushing against it while you are distant from God, or chafing against His presence in your life.

When God leads you by His spirit you have a healthy walk with Him, and when you have a healthy walk with Him,

God can GET your ATTENTION (vv.

10-12)

Look at verses 10-12:

Acts 10:10–12 (ESV)

10 And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance 11 and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth.

12 In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air.

Peter went up on the roof to pray there in Joppa for a couple of reasons—first, it is a place where he was likely to have some privacy where he could speak undisturbed with God.

(Again—see the parallels: the Gospels tell us Jesus would go up on a mountain to be alone to pray to His Father, and here is Peter going up on a rooftop to be alone to pray to His Father!)

Not only did he have privacy there, but Peter also was able to so something that was more common with First Century Christians than it is for us today—while we pray by closing our eyes and bowing our heads, First Century Christians (especially from Jewish backgrounds like Peter’s) would usually stand up and lift up their eyes to the sky while they prayed.

They would literally turn their eyes away from “the things of earth” to “the things of Heaven”.

And verse 10 tells us that while Peter was standing this way—focused on his relationship with God, lifting his eyes toward heavenly things—he “fell into a trance”.

Now, the English word “trance” has some frankly very unhelpful connotations associated with drug use or the occult.

But that’s not at all what is being described here.

The Greek word that the ESV translates “trance” is actually the word ekstasis, meaning literally to “stand outside oneself” (ek - “out of” and stasis - “stand”).

So whatever Peter’s state of consciousness was at this time, the emphasis was that he was “taken out of himself”—that is to say, Peter was able to see beyond his own limited, earthly perspective, and see things from God’s perspective.

I daresay if you’re a Christian, you’ve had that kind of experience with God?

Not some weird “altered state of consciousness” kind of event, but have you ever suddenly had your eyes opened to understand your situation from outside your own experience?

All of a sudden, as you are reading God’s Word or speaking to Him in prayer, you are suddenly filled with an understanding of your situation from God’s point of view, and things become clearer, and you have understanding that you didn’t have before.

You can know that you are calibrating your conscience and not violating it when you are being led by the Spirit of God—when you have a healthy relationship with Him—not distant, not pushing Him away because you want to embrace your sin.

And when you are walking closely with Him He can enable you to see yourself and your circumstances from outside yourself; from His perspective.

Think of it this way: We are calibrating our conscience when we are looking to God for direction, we are violating our conscience when we are looking to the world for direction.

You must only calibrate your conscience under direct supervision from God—and you can be confident that He is calling you to adjust your conscience when He leads you by His Spirit, and

II.

When God DIRECTS you into TRUTH (Acts 10:13-16)

Look at verses 13-16:

Acts 10:13–16 (ESV)

13 And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” 14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.”

15 And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”

16 This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.

Peter was standing there on the rooftop, watching this vision of a great sheet full of animals coming down from Heaven—and judging from Peter’s reaction, they were not animals that were considered clean under the Mosaic Law.

In Leviticus 11, God’s Old Covenant people are given very specific instructions on what kinds of animals were “clean” and “unclean” for food.

Peter had grown up his whole life believing that it was a “sin” and “detestable” to eat lizards or other reptiles, or scavenger birds like vultures or ravens, or other animals like pigs or rabbits or camels.

Peter had believed all his life that it was detestable, sinful, immoral to eat “unclean” animals (v.

14).

But here on this rooftop in Joppa, Peter was

CONFRONTED by God’s WORD (vv.

13-16; cp.

Mark 7:14-19)

regarding his conscience.