Tawa Baptist

Kidneys

Scriptures: Psalm 16:7, Psalm 26:1-3, Psalm 119:10-16, Jeremiah 12:1-2, Leviticus 7:3-6 and Mark 3:1-6.

Video Link: https://youtu.be/uQPyS8hrCLs

Audio Link: Stream Sermon – 2 Aug 2026 – Kidneys by tawabaptist | Listen online for free on SoundCloud

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • The kidneys are the seat of conscience
  • The conscience is sacred to God
  • Jesus wants to redeem our conscience
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

The human body is a wonderful thing. Take your kidneys for example.

You cannot see your kidneys; most of the time you are not even aware they are there. And yet, your kidneys are continuously working to look after your body, even when you are asleep.

According to the Health NZ (Te Whatu Ora) website, the kidneys carry out a number of vital functions including removing waste products from your blood, balancing your body’s fluids, and releasing hormones that help control your blood pressure.

Your kidneys also control the production of red blood cells and produce an active form of vitamin D that helps your body absorb calcium from your diet. Calcium is needed for building and maintaining strong bones. Today we continue our series on body parts, with a focus on the kidneys.

The kidneys are the seat of conscience:

People in Biblical times did not have the same scientific understanding of their kidneys that we do. In the Bible, kidneys were thought to be the seat of the conscience.

For those who may not be familiar with English idiom, to refer to something as the seat, is to say it is a place of high importance. The seat is the centre or the core, where decisions are made.

For example, the seat of government in New Zealand is our parliament, what we call the Beehive. This is where decisions are made and laws are passed. Likewise, the seat of justice is our court system, where legal cases are decided that often have a far-reaching effect on society.

So when we say, ‘the kidneys are the seat of the conscience’, we are talking figuratively. We mean that part of us, in our core, where moral decisions are made.

Just as our kidneys filter our blood, so too our conscience acts like a moral filter; helping us to choose right from wrong. Basically, our conscience guides our actions and our actions shape our character.  

Deciding what colour pants to wear is not a moral decision and therefore does not involve the conscience. Choosing whether to drink and drive is a moral decision and therefore does involve the conscience; although depending on how many drinks you’ve had, your conscience may be impaired. 

How many of you have ridden a horse? [Wait]

Even if you haven’t ridden a horse, you will know that you steer a horse by pulling on the reins. Pull the reins to the left and the horse will go to the left. Pull the reins to the right and the horse will turn to the right. Pull both reins back and the horse will stop (hopefully). Reins control the horse.

Does anyone here know the Latin word for kidneys? [Wait]. That’s right.

It is renes (spelt R E N E S), from which we get the English word for the reins of a horse. In fact, the King James Version of the Bible translates the word ‘kidneys’ as reins, R E I N S.

Why am I telling you this? Because I’m hoping you will see the connection between the kidneys and the conscience. To the ancient mind, the kidneys were like the reins of a horse. Just as the reins help to control the horse, so too the conscience helps to control our desires and passions.

This is difficult for our 21st Century minds to grasp, because we think about the conscience in a more scientific way, as residing in the frontal lobe of our brain; not the renal lobes of our bowel.   

Let me give you some verses of Scripture which refer to the kidneys as the seat of conscience. The first comes from Psalm 16 which reads…

7 I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart (kidneys) instructs me.

The word translated as heart (in English) is literally kidneys in the original Hebrew. The English translators have used heart instead of kidneys, in this instance, because saying ‘my kidneys instruct me’ makes no sense to the modern English reader. 

This is poetry, not science. The kidneys are a metaphor here for the conscience. A more straight forward translation might read something like this: I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my conscience instructs me.

The psalmist is basically saying: God guides me by speaking to my conscience. Just as a rider guides a horse by pulling on the reins, so too God guides the psalmist by pulling on the reins of his conscience.    

Psalm 26 also refers to the kidneys as the seat of conscience. From verse 1 we read: 1 Vindicate me, Lord, for I have led a blameless life; I have trusted in the Lord and have not faltered. 2 Test me, Lord, and try me, examine my heart and my mind (kidneys); 3 for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness.

The word translated as mind (in verse 2) is literally kidneys in the original Hebrew. The English translators have used mind instead of kidneys, because saying ‘examine my kidneys’ makes no sense to the modern English reader. 

It made perfect sense to the psalmist though, because (to his way of thinking) the kidneys represented his conscience. That part deep in his core where moral decisions are made. That part which only God can see.

The interesting thing about Psalm 26 is the way the author thinks about righteousness. For the Psalmist, being blameless does not mean never making a mistake. Rather, it has more to do with where he places his trust. The Psalmist’s conscience is clear because he lives in reliance on God’s faithfulness. In other words, he doesn’t have any idols in his life. The living God comes first.

The conscience is sacred to God:

Okay, from a Biblical perspective, the kidneys are thought to be the seat of the conscience, and the conscience is sacred to God; it is holy, set apart for a special purpose.  

The Law of Moses stipulated how the kidneys of sacrificial animals were to be offered to the Lord. In Leviticus 7 we read…

3 All its fat shall be offered: … 4 both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the long lobe of the liver, which is to be removed with the kidneys. 5 The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering presented to the Lord… 

Verse 6 goes on to say that the fat and kidneys of the animal is most holy.

Highlighting the sacredness of the kidneys (which represent the worshipper’s conscience) indicates the sort of sacrifice God wants. He wants us to offer our moral decision making in a holy way. The Lord wants us to hand over the reins of our conscience in faith to him, so our desires and passions are guided by his purpose.

Said another way, the Lord wants us to worship him from the depths of our being, from the inside out. He doesn’t want people to merely go through the motions. God doesn’t want tick box worship.

The prophet Jeremiah was grieved by the empty worship of his day saying to the Lord: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease? 2 You have planted them, and they have taken root; they grow and bear fruit. You are always on their lips but far from their hearts (kidneys).

Once again, the word translated as hearts (in English) is actually kidneys in the original Hebrew.

We sang a song earlier by Matt Redman called The Heart of Worship.

“I’m coming back to the heart of worship and it’s all about you Jesus…”

The song offers a mild critique of the consumerism which has crept into church worship in the west.

If Matt was writing that song in Jeremiah’s day, he might have called it, The Kidneys of Worship. The lyric might read: “You search much deeper within, through the way things appear, You’re looking into my kidneys (that is, my conscience).”

Jeremiah is lamenting the false religion practised by the wicked. They pay lip service to God, but their kidneys (their moral decision making, their conscience) is far from what God desires.

The idolatry of consumerism coupled with the injustice it causes were widespread throughout the nation. People had become so accustomed to doing evil at the expense of their neighbour that they no longer thought of it as evil. The consumerism of their day did not bother their conscience.

That’s the thing with our conscience; as sacred as it is, it can still be led astray by the surrounding society we live in. Our conscience is like a musical instrument; it gets out of tune sometimes. We need to keep our conscience in tune with God’s will and purpose.

Like some of you, I do the Lectio 365 devotion each day. Last Wednesday’s devotion celebrated the life of William Wilberforce. Wilberforce was a man whose conscience was in tune with God, which led him to challenge the prevailing view of the society in which he lived.

Meditating on the Scriptures was one of the things Wilberforce did to stay in tune with God. Apparently, William Wilberforce would recite Psalm 119 each day on his walks from London’s parliament to Hyde Park…

10 I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.

11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
12 Praise be to you, Lord; teach me your decrees. 13 With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth. 14 I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. 15 I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. 16 I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word.

To be clear, the word translated as heart in these verses is heart in the original Hebrew as well, not kidneys. But the heart and the kidneys are connected. The same blood that flows through the heart also passes through the kidneys. The point is that we keep our conscience in tune with God by keeping his word in our heart.

Wilberforce was elected to parliament as an independent MP in his early 20’s. He wasn’t sure, at first, whether he should stay in politics, but his purpose soon clarified. In 1787 he wrote in his diary: “God Almighty has placed before me two great objects: the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.”

By ‘manners’ Wilberforce meant the morals of the nation. The British empire saw no problem with slavery, but William Wilberforce did, because his conscience was in tune with God’s word.

For over 40 years Wilberforce acted as a Godly conscience in parliament; labouring to pass legislation to ban slavery, among other things. He faced many obstacles, but he overcame in the end. On Friday 26 July 1833 the Abolition of Slavery Act passed its final reading in parliament. Three days later Wilberforce died.

His legacy pricks our conscience today. Sadly, despite anti-slavery laws, human trafficking still flourishes in this world. Like William Wilberforce, we need to keep our conscience in tune with God’s purpose. We need to hide God’s word in our heart and resist the consumerism of the prevailing culture.

Jesus wants to redeem our conscience:

You don’t need to answer this question out loud, just think about it in your head? On a scale of 1 to 10, how strict is your conscience? (Where 1 equals ‘my conscience lets me get away with murder’ and 10 equals ‘my conscience is a fascist dictator’.)

We are not all made the same. Some people seem to breeze through life without any scruples. Nothing troubles their conscience. The strictness of their conscience might register around 1 or 2 on the scale.

People like this tend to have little regard for how their actions might affect others. They are obtuse, maybe even borderline sociopaths, leaving a trail of hurt and destruction in their wake, wherever they go. They don’t think there is anything wrong with their actions. They are strangers to guilt.

At the other end of the spectrum are those who suffer much because of an over sensitive conscience. The strictness of their conscience might be more like a 9 or a 10. For these poor souls the conscience can be a bit of a bully; criticising their every move, always condemning them, robbing their joy and making them feel guilty, even when they haven’t done anything wrong.

A conscience like that can cripple a person with fear. It locks them in a prison of sorts, where they are at war with themselves. An over-zealous conscience can sometimes drive a person down the path of legalism, forcing them against their true nature, to comply with the letter of the law at the expense of its spirit.  

Neither extreme is helpful. Ideally, what we need is a backbone conscience.

A conscience which is strong enough to stand up to our selfish desires, but also flexible enough to show mercy. A conscience which holds grace and truth together.

I believe God wants to set our conscience free; not free to do whatever we want, but free to follow his law of love. So that when we are faced with a moral decision, we are thinking, how can I be God’s agent in this situation? How can I do some good?  

Jesus came to redeem people, body and soul. That includes redeeming our conscience. Helping us to hold grace and truth together, so we can keep our moral balance.

Many of the people of Jesus’ day had a conscience which was bound by legalism. They felt compelled to rigidly follow a harsh set of rules which often missed God’s purpose of justice and mercy. They had lost their moral balance.

The gospels are peppered with stories of Jesus seeking to set people’s conscience free. On one occasion, in Mark 3, Jesus encounters a man with a shrivelled hand in the synagogue. Some of Jesus’ critics (the legalists) were watching closely to see if Jesus would break their rules by healing the man on a Sabbath.

Jesus knows this and wants to redeem their dysfunctional conscience. So, the Lord says to the man with the shrivelled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.” 4 Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” 

Jesus is showing us here the right way to use our conscience. The law says we should not work on the Sabbath, but what if someone needs our help?

Well, a conscience that trusts in God is not afraid to risk doing some good.

A conscience that trusts in God is able to see beyond the letter of the law to find its true spirit (its purpose). 

Sadly, the people remained silent. Their conscience was bound. They refused to answer the question.

5 Jesuslooked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. 

Jesus’ healing of the man’s hand proves it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. But Jesus’ critics don’t want to look at the evidence. The Pharisees’ conscience is in complete renal failure. They plot to kill Jesus.

Conclusion:

This morning we have heard how the kidneys are the seat of the conscience; that place deep in our core where moral decisions are made. Like the reins of a horse, our conscience guides us in matters of justice and morality.

The conscience is sacred to God. Mere lip service won’t cut it in our worship.

The Lord wants us to offer the kidneys of our conscience in faith and obedience to him. That is an acceptable offering.

Jesus wants to redeem our conscience; to set us free. Free from legalism and guilt. Free to follow God’s law of love. Obtaining the freedom Jesus offers requires us to step out in faith, trusting the Lord to justify us.

Let us pray…

Gracious and compassionate God, we offer ourselves to you. May your word dwell richly in our heart that our conscience would be in tune with your purpose. Set us free, by faith in Jesus, to do some good in the world. Amen.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

  1. What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
  2. What is the conscience? Why is our conscience important? What does our conscience do?
  3. How might we get a clear conscience? 
  4. Have we handed the reins of our moral decision making over to God? Is our conscience in tune with the Holy Spirit? Are we challenging injustice in our society? Or are we conforming to the prevailing culture?
  5. On a scale of 1 to 10, how strict is your conscience? (Where 1 equals ‘my conscience lets me get away with murder’ and 10 equals ‘my conscience is a fascist dictator’.) Why is this do you think?
  6. Why does Jesus want to set our conscience free? What does a redeemed conscience look like from a Christian perspective?