The Moral Compass

Introduction

I want to start as I often do with a couple questions. The first question won’t tax your memory a whole lot because I just want to know in this prior week, in the past week that just transpired. How many of you either used the GPS or used the map system on your phone to get where you were going? Or show of hands. That’s most of us, yeah. All right. Now this one’s going to be telling on yourselves. How many of us remember having to navigate without any of that help? Yeah. You remember getting lost, and how that felt to be just kind of hopeless without any kind of navigation system to help you to get to your destination. Tell you one time where it happened to me.

The year was 1986. I was in school at Florida College. If you’re not familiar, that’s over in the Tampa area, and I lived in the very northern part of Alabama, and it was the end of Christmas break, and I was driving home, or driving back to school, excuse me, from Alabama down back to the campus in the Tampa area. And so I would come down I-65 to 231, and then I would hit I-10 and then come over and hit I-75 down to Tampa. Pretty simple route, right? Well, I had a friend and a classmate, uh, and I don’t mind embarrassing him. His name was Stuart Nyquist. He was from Canada. And he had some friends, some family friends in the Tallahassee area. And so he had asked if I would pick him up on my way back to the campus.

And so gladly I stopped by in the Tallahassee area, picked up Stuart. I had had a late night the night before and a late start on this drive back to the campus in the Tampa area. And so when I got to the Tallahassee area, I told Stuart, I said, Stuart, I need you to drive. It’s not safe for me to drive. I am so groggy and sleepy. In fact, I’m gonna get in the back seat, curl up in the back seat, and sleep. Famous last words, I said, Stuart, you can’t get lost. I said, We’re on I-10. I said, You’re gonna take I-10 until around Lake City there’s going to be a sign. You don’t even get off the highway really. You’re just gonna merge, big old sign of I-75, Tampa that way, and you’re just gonna turn around Lake City, turn south, I-75, and then by that time, before we get to the campus, I’ll wake up and and and drive us on in to where we’re going.

And so I do. I crawl in the backseat of my 19, don’t be envious, I had a 1976 Ford Maverick. Um, that sometimes the brakes wouldn’t work. And I had a piece of firewood in the backseat because the part didn’t always work and it would just roll away, and so you’d had to put a piece of firewood behind the tire to keep it from rolling away on campus. But anyway, I crawled in the back seat of that car, went to sleep, and woke up. Woke up laying in the backseat, and I can see from where I’m laying through the window, some tall buildings, very tall buildings. And I’m where? What? And so I kind of wiped the sleep out of my eyes, and I set up and I said, Stuart, where are we?

And he says, I’m not sure. It must be Lake City, and I’m like, No, Lake City doesn’t have any buildings like this. And so we set up, and then before I see it, we are in Jacksonville, downtown Jacksonville. Now you do the math, you Florida residents. That’s not on the way to the Tampa area. And so I see some sign that says something about Jacksonville. I may have been Jacksonville City Hall. I don’t remember. And I said, Stuart, we’re in Jacksonville. How did that happen? I don’t know. And so I look at my watch. It’s about 11 o’clock at night. And so I said, Stuart, pull over. I said, where? I said, just stop in the middle of the road. Stop. And I told him, and I’m not proud of this.

I said, get out. I did let him back in, but I made him sit in the back. I said, you get in the back seat, and if you say one word before we get back to campus, I’m going to put you out. And so I was in downtown Jacksonville. I couldn’t get on my phone. I didn’t even have a map. And so I had to somehow navigate from downtown Jacksonville back to the interstate and get my way back to the just completely lost, had no guidance. If he’d have had a GPS, if I’d have had a GPS, all of that would have been saved. But we can kind of all relate to that. Kind of the idea of before, or the older in the crowd, can relate to what it was like trying to navigate and try to find things.

And you remember what we used before you had GPS, before you had Google Maps or Apple Maps, you used a compass and a map. And this morning I want to talk to you about navigating, navigating through this difficult world and using a compass. But the moral compass that our faith, our Christianity, should give us. One of our Bible readings that Aaron did for us was in the book of Proverbs. I want to go back and visit a Proverb. Proverbs 11 and verse 3 says, speaking of what our moral compass, that which points us and directs us and helps us to navigate who we are, not just where we go, but who we are, is our faith. Proverbs 3.11 says the integrity, the integrity of the upright will guide him.

1. Christianity Is Radical

But the perversity of the unfaithful will destroy him. We have a guide. Our integrity, our character that is driven by our faith and our relationship to God. And I want to talk to you this morning about that moral compass and the importance of having that moral compass and how, on a very basic practical level, it changes everything about us. The first thing we need to notice about this, about our faith and about our Christianity, is that we need to know that Christianity is not some passive organization or club that we’re in. That Christianity is radical. It makes a radical changes to those whom it encounters. It makes a radical transformation of those involved in it. It’s radical. It’s not something mild or tepid or timid. It is bold and it is brash.

Notice in the book of Acts, chapter 17. The world in which Christianity first entered recognized. Even its close faith counterpart, Judaism, recognized the radical nature of Christianity. In Acts chapter 17, the apostle Paul and Silas and others are preaching the gospel in Thessalonica, and the Jewish religious world doesn’t like what is being taught and what is being promoted in this new thing called Christianity. But notice the language. Acts 17 verse 5, but the Jews who were not persuaded, that is not persuaded by their teaching, who were not persuaded, becoming envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace. And gathering a mob set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason. That’s where the apostles and others were staying. Attacked the house of Jason and sought to bring them out to the people.

But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, these who have turned the world upside down, have come here too.

It’s this new little fad that some people are involved in. It’s a new club, it’s a new name that people are wearing. No. They recognized it for what it was. This was a radical transformational movement. They’re turning the world upside down. It’s changing, it’s transformative. That’s true on a personal, individual level. Look in the book of 1 Peter. We’re studying 1 Peter or 1st and 2 Peter in our Bible class. We haven’t got to 1 Peter chapter 4. We’ll get there. But let’s let’s skip ahead and look at it this morning. 1 Peter chapter 4. Look beginning in verse 3. For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lewdness and lust and drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries.

But notice what verse 4 says. What’s the world going to think when you don’t participate in those things? In regard to these, they think it’s strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you. This thing known as Christianity has turned the world upside down, they said.

You’re weird. You’re strange. Do we see that this is not just some kind of mild decision that we make? This is not, I prefer Coke over Pepsi. No one looks at, no, no coke drinker looks at a Pepsi drinker and says, Well, that’s just radical. You’re turning the world upside down. It’s strange that you, no, we just thought, okay, that’s your choice. You do that, I’ll do this. That’s no big. But that’s not Christianity. It’s not just some little change in our life. It’s not a change of title.

2. Christianity Is Pervasive

It’s radical transformation. The second thing we notice when we study the New Testament about Christianity and what it will do is we understand that it is pervasive. It’s going to invade, and I mean that in a positive sense, it’s going to invade every cell of our body. It’s going to change everything about us. Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2 tells us that it’s to be a transformation. Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. You may have heard before that that English word transformed there in Romans 12 comes from a Greek word that we’re all familiar with. It’s the Greek word metamorphosis. That’s a complete changing. And if you’re like me, the only thing you remember from science class about metamorphosis is a caterpillar changing to a butterfly.

That’s called a metamorphosis. And that’s a change, isn’t it? I’m going to tell you, you never look at a caterpillar and say, that looks like it could be a butterfly. Caterpillars are ugly, slimy. You don’t even want to touch them. The butterfly is beautiful. You don’t, it’s such a change that you can’t, it’s unrecognizable in that change. And by the way, when a caterpillar goes through the metamorphosis to become a butterfly, it doesn’t become part butterfly and part caterpillar. It’s it’s a complete, it’s pervasive change. So much so we won’t turn over there, but passages such as Colossians chapter 3, that whole chapter. In fact, it’s so long it bleeds over into chapter 4 in talking about our Christianity and how pervasive it is. He says, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, children, slaves, masters, citizens, government.

It’s going to affect everything about you. It’s going to affect every relationship you have. It’s going to affect everything you do. And so it’s our moral compass because it is radical, it’s changing us drastically, and it’s changing us completely. If it’s done right.

3. Our Moral Compass Directs Our Words

Of a moral, ethical nature, is addressed to New Testament Christians. To my knowledge, there’s not one book of the New Testament, one epistle in the New Testament that was written to atheists and unbelievers. And so these subjects that we’re going to talk about, for which we have a moral compass, are issues that we deal with and must fight against. First of all, our words.

Look with me in the book of Colossians, chapter 3. And unapologetically, we’re looking at some very basic principles here and some things that should be logically at least obvious to us, but apparently, according to the Holy Spirit that inspired the New Testament, are issues that we’re going to have to deal with. Colossians 3, look what he says in verse 9. Again, not writing to the world, not writing to the idol worshippers of that day, but writing to baptized Christians who were sitting in the pew every Sunday, he says, do not lie to one another, since you’ve put off the old man with his deeds. Lying seems pretty basic. That’s wrong. But why would the Holy Spirit point out, not just here, but in other places, Christians don’t lie.

And really specifically in this context, he says, don’t lie anymore. You used to do that, but now because you’re a Christian, because you have a relationship with God, you shouldn’t lie. Now we understand, or we need to understand that lying is a broad term, isn’t it? There’s different ways that we can deceive. We call what we call a bald faced lie or just an out and out lie. You say something that’s just obviously counter to the truth. But there’s other ways of lying. Let me illustrate one, and I’m not trying to give any of our young people any ideas that you haven’t thought of, because again, you’ve got that phone that navigates. Your parents have a way to navigate where you are, and so you better tell the truth.

But when we were younger, you might say, Mom, dad, I’m going to the library. And so you get in your car and go to the library, walk in the door, walk out the side door, get back in your car and go to a friend’s house. And when mom and dad asked, Where did you go? I went to the library. Is that telling the truth? Well, in my immature mind it was. I went to the library, and that’s what I told mom, but it wasn’t really telling the truth, was it? Because I didn’t tell the what’s the thing, I tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And so lying has no part. The Christian, and that’s why Jesus would say when he was a parallel on this, let your yes be yes and your no be no.

And so for the child of God, our moral compass is going to direct our words. Look in Ephesians chapter 5. Another way this moral compass, this pervasive and radical Christianity is going to change who we are. Ephesians chapter 5, verse 4. After he says things that are not fitting for saints, among that list, verse 4, neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of things. Filthiness, coarse jesting. That’s we would say vulgarity. Back home in Alabama, we called it cussing. It’s just that has no part. And again, we don’t find it surprising, do we, that condemnation, that prohibition was written to Christians. Not to the worldly people in the barbershop, but to Christians in the pew, that that has no part.

To those of us who have this moral compass. Look in 1 Timothy chapter 5. Now here’s where you begin to realize you’ve been set up. Don’t lie. And I heard the amens, or I saw the church of Christ amens. You were nodding your head. Vulgarity. Oh, yes. But look in 1 Timothy chapter 5 with me. And in verse 13. And besides this, those who had too much time on their hands, 1 Timothy 5, verse 13, besides this, they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle, but also gossips in busybodies, saying things which they ought not. You know, sometimes we struggle with the definition of gossip. What is gossip? Well, it’s talking about somebody else. Well, it’s not really talking about somebody else, because you know, I could say, you know, Sister Schwanson, Marilyn Swanson, she’s in the rehab unit, and she, you know, she’s recovering from surgery.

I’m talking about somebody, but that really wasn’t gossip, was it. I think Paul gives us the perfect definition of gossip saying things which they ought not. I said something about Marilyn Swanson, but that was something I ought to have said. But we know, if we’re honest with ourselves, we know when we’ve crossed that line, talking about somebody, that when we said something that we ought not. Because, and please excuse me, Marilyn is sweet. I’m not saying this about her, but if I went on to say, and do you know she’s had plastic surgery? Yeah, you shouldn’t have said that. See, there’s a difference from saying she’s recovering from surgery, she needs help, but saying something that I ought not. And so the same Bible that condemns lying, and same Bible that condemns vulgarity condemns gossip.

That, by the way, may not include vulgarity or lying, but is saying something that we ought not. And then turn back one chapter or one chapter from where we looked at earlier in the book of Ephesians, chapter 4. Here’s something else, this moral compass will do and correct and prohibit in our life and in our speech. Ephesians 4, verse 29. So we’ve seen that this moral compass is going to prevent us from lying, from vulgarity, from gossip, but also Ephesians 4, verse 29, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. Now you might read that and say, wait a minute, we already talked about cussing, vulgarity. But that’s not really what he’s talking about here. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification?

They it may impart grace to the hearers.

This is just talking about hurtful words. Doesn’t have to be lying, doesn’t have to be gossip, because this is something I’m saying to you, not about you. And it doesn’t have to be vulgarity to be what he calls corrupt. Corrupt means it’s just something that’s hurtful, hateful. That has no place in this radical pervasive moral compass that drives our lives.

4. Let Him Who Stole Steal No Longer

Look with me still. Are you in the book of Ephesians, chapter 4? Here’s another curious passage that always made me scratch my head. Ephesians 4, verse 28. To New Testament baptized Christians, they went to church every Sunday, filled out their Bible workbooks for Bible class. He says this, Ephesians 4 28. Let him who steal, stole, steal no longer. He’s saying, Christians, don’t steal. Is that really a problem? Then is it potentially really a problem now? Look over in the book of Romans and see how it might be a problem. In Romans chapter 2, after having excoriated the Gentiles and how they lived ungodly lives because they did not have a moral compass, he turns to believers and says this in Romans 2, verse 22. You who say do not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?

But then notice this you who abhor idols, do you rob temples? Now, in what sense were these believers, whether this be Jews or Christians, and how were they robbing temples? Well, one way we could explain that is maybe it’s kind of a Malachi thing. They were robbing God by not giving their service to God that God was due. That’s a way of robbing. But he doesn’t talk about God, he talked about idols.

But stealing from somebody that deserves to be stole from. You can see how somebody, even a believer, could try to rationalize that in their mind. That’s, you know, it’s like stealing from a thief. Well, he doesn’t deserve it. And so maybe that they had somehow rationalized. And the point I want to make from all of that is, is that it is possible in our minds to incorrectly, and underline that word, incorrectly rationalize immoral behavior. That here’s this company that I work for. They’re a billion dollar company. They’re not going to miss it. And they’ve done me wrong. They cheated me in my overtime last year. And so if I steal from them, that’s okay, isn’t it? And by the way, the New Testament would have us to know that like lying, there’s different ways of stealing.

One way of stealing, somebody, let’s say I made a deal with somebody to mow my grass. You mow my grass, I’ll pay you for mowing my grass. They mow my grass, and then I refuse to pay them. That’s stealing. I didn’t take anything from them in the classical way of stealing, but I took something that they owned or deserved. And I can do that on the job. If I don’t give what that employer is paying me for, then that’s a form of stealing. And so no wonder the New Testament says to slaves that you’re going to do what your masters tell you to do. And we’ve transferred that to the employee employee. That’s a form of stealing. We have this moral compass. Look with me in the book of 1 Corinthians, chapter 6.

5. Flee Sexual Immorality

These passages weren’t written to people who were going to the idol’s temple and engaging in all kinds of illicit activities. These passages were written to Christians like you and I. When he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, and let’s begin in our reading and in verse 18. Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, who you have from God, and you’re not your own? You were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and your spirit, which are God’s.

6. The Moral Compass for Our Hearts

That all that heathen pagan world was engaging in fornication, but it might just have been that some of them. We can trick our minds into thinking that these things don’t happen to us. And the words of the apostle Paul ring in our ears, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. We need the moral compass to keep us from lying, from using vulgar language, from gossiping, from hurting another with our words. We need a moral compass to prevent us from stealing, to prevent us from committing fornication, to fleeing sexual immorality. Don’t live in this lofty, holier than thou world that thinks you are not prone. You are not subject to these temptations. And so let’s be careful. Lastly, this radical pervasive Christianity is the moral compass for our hearts.

Turn with me to James chapter 4. This is the key.

Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify to cleansing their hands was purifying their hearts, becoming single-minded, pure in their thoughts, motives that would spill out into their actions and their words.

Conclusion

The question is, is Christianity just a part of who I am? Is it just a mild change? Or is my Christianity real? And if it’s real, it’s going to be radical and it’s going to be pervasive. My world is going to be turned upside down. Every thought, every word, and every action is going to be guided by the moral compass that God gives me. And it begins with the heart. You remember the old bumper stickers years ago, speaking of navigation, that said, God is my co-pilot. And somebody wanted to one up that one and came up with another bumper sticker that said, if God is your co-pilot, you’re in the wrong seat. We have a compass. We have a help that will drive and drive us and change who we are.

And don’t ever get so complacent and so arrogant to think that these sins that we’ve talked about and a myriad of others won’t be a problem for me because I’m a Christian. Would you come to Christ this morning, obeying the gospel, making a radical and pervasive change and commitment in your life? Can we help you in that? In this radical, pervasive thing known as faith that will lead you to heaven. Can we help you that? Let it be known. As together we stand and sing.

Trust and go away for this way to be not be in Jesus, but to trust and no day, but we never can prove the lights of his life unto all we offer we lay for the neighbor he shows and the joy he sold are for those who will trust and no dead.