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In this series of posts, we’ve been attempting to think about how to listen to sermons to derive the most benefit and to understand the preached word as best we can.  We’ve been using a filter analogy to picture what sometimes happens with our listening.  Imagine something like an air conditioning filter lying across your ears.  The preached word is the clean air we need to breathe and enjoy in order to live well.  But our filters may have varying amounts of dirt and dust collected in them, making the word’s passage into our hearing and understanding quite difficult.

To hear and understand we need clean filters.  But a number of things may clog the filter, like our preferences, our feelings, sources that rival the Bible, or our misunderstanding of Christian freedom.  There’s one final issue I want to consider in this series of posts: what to do when we’re convicted by the word and the Spirit during a sermon.

Conviction: It Hurts So Good

Christians often talk about a sense of conviction that grows when God’s word does its work.  But what does it mean to be “convicted” of something?

Well, a range of things may be in view.  We may mean we’ve been found guilty of an offense or a sin.  The word enters our lives and exposes our wrong.  We have our eyes opened to something that previously went unnoticed.  We see and feel the guilt that we should have felt all along.  David’s famous words written after Nathan the prophet exposed his sin with Bathsheba are an example of awakening conviction: “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment” (Ps. 51:4).

But conviction also includes growing more settled in the truth.  We are “convinced” of an argument or a position and subsequently become more fixed in the truth.  It’s not that a sin has been exposed; rather, something we have already believed and cherished becomes more dear to us.  The truth is pushed more deeply into our hearts with the additional argumentation or evidence.  This is perhaps what the apostle feels when he writes in the face of his suffering for the gospel, “But I am not ashamed, for I know whom i have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me” (2 Tim. 1:12b).

Whether it’s the conviction that exposes sin, or the conviction that roots us more deeply in the truth, the believer experiences such Spirit-given convincing as a blessing.  In fact, it’s not too much to say that believers love to be convinced of their sin and of the truth.  The pleasure comes from knowing that God is either pruning and purging, or He is molding and shaping.  The Lord is either removing contaminants or He is growing us “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13).  What a happy prospect that is!  God is treating us as sons and daughters so that we may participate in his holiness and enjoy the peaceable fruits of righteousness (Heb. 12:5-11).  Surely the Master correctly taught us:

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled (Matt. 5:3-6)

We are blessed when we are convicted by the word and the Spirit of God.  We should, then, eager anticipate and seek the word’s conviction in our lives–both the correcting power and the confirming influence of the word.

But why do some people not enjoy conviction?

Condemnation: The Enemy of True Conviction

One reason some professing Christians do not like the feeling of conviction is that they don’t distinguish those feelings from condemnation.  While conviction opens our guilt before us, it does so in a way that leads us back to Christ and His atoning work.  The apostle Paul summarizes the difference thus: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).  Because of Christ’s work, work we could do in the weakness of our flesh (Rom. 8:2-4), we sho are in Christ are free from the condemning power of the Law and sin.

“Condemnation” is a condemnatory judgment, a verdict rendered against the offender.  For the Christian to feel condemned before God, there must be the woeful forgetting that Christ satisfies God’s justice on our behalf.  One forgets that Christ bore the wrath, He suffered our condemnation, and He freed us from the separating negative judgment of God.  Our sin and guilt were nailed to the cross.

If we forget this, if we lose sight of the cross, conviction may be interpreted as condemnation.  If that happens, the gracious motions of the Spirit in the preaching of the word may be resisted and rejected.  The sting and pinch of the Spirit’s pruning work may be interpreted as malicious stabbings and attacks.

The more tender our conscience, the more careful we must be to distinguish conviction from condemnation.  The more eagerly we must run to the finished work of Christ.

But the more tempted we are toward coddling our sin, the more quickly we must embrace conviction as a good gift from God.  Sometimes our longing for sin’s false pleasures motivate us to count genuine conviction as condemnation.  In other words, because we want to enjoy sin for a season or we find ourselves in love with the world in some measure, we run from conviction when what we most need is to run to it.  We are tempted to avoid Spirit-filled preaching of the word because it makes us uncomfortable.  It challenges us.  It stirs conflict in us as our spirit’s yearn for the things of God and our flesh wars against the Spirit.  We’re torn and we feel the conflict–sometimes with great distress.  And the danger is that some persons would rather avoid the convicting influence of God’s Spirit to live “at peace” with the world and their sin.  We must be careful of this, for it may simply be a form of hardening our hearts.  Against which we must hear the multiple warnings of the writer of Hebrews: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Heb. 3:2-8, 15; 4:7).

Feelings of condemnation are never proper for the Christian.  Confusing condemnation with conviction may prevent us from receiving God’s gracious correction through the preaching of the word of God.  Condemnation requires we take our eyes of Christ, and that is the worst kind of “gunk” to clog our listening filters.

How to Respond to Conviction

So, we should conclude with a few thoughts about what to do when the truth of the Bible is heard in the preaching and by God’s grace we are convinced of what we hear.

1.  Give God glory and praise for speaking to you.  For that’s what’s happening in conviction.  God is speaking to us and working on us.  Rejoice!

2.  Give Christ praise for suffering and satisfying your condemnation.  In our conviction, God is treating us as legitimate children and not as the rebels we were.  He has poured out His holy wrath upon His only Son instead of on us.  Remember the work of Christ that turns condemnation into loving conviction and rejoice!

3.  Heed the Spirit’s voice.  If the Spirit identifies a particular sin, either in thought, word, or deed, take note of it.  Consider it.  Embrace the correction as grace from God.  Then repent of the sin.  Do not resist the Spirit’s promptings but embrace it.  Pray: “Thank you Lord for lovingly pointing this out.  I confess that it is indeed sin in your sight, and now mine.  Grant me grace to repent of it in these specific ways.  Holy Spirit, please continue your work of conviction, repentance, and sanctification in my life just as purpose to do.”  Similar thanksgiving, praise, and obedience should be given when the Lord further roots us in the truth.  Praise God for affirming the truth in our lives and establishing us more firmly on the foundation of His word.  Turn those moments of conviction into specific plans for progressing in the faith and holiness by God’s grace and in reliance on His Spirit.

4.  Share your conviction.  Tell somebody how the Lord addressed you and pointed out either error or truth in your life.  Telling others will have two effects.  First, it will encourage others as they reflect on God’s graciousness to them and see a model for responding well to conviction.  Second, it will be accountability for us as we confess the Lord’s gracious dealings with us.  “They have conquered him [the accuser] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony…” (Rev. 12:11).

5.  Keep listening.  The Lord will continue to speak through His word.  The Spirit will continue to illumine and enlighten by the word.  All of the Spirit’s sanctifying work is not exhausted in one sermon or instance of conviction.  He has more for us!  Much more!  So, like young Samuel, our prayer at every sermon and every time we open God’s infallible word should be: “Speak, Lord, your servant listens.”  What a glorious thing it is, the sovereign God of all creation speaks to His creatures!  Live by every word that proceeds from His mouth!

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