<\/p>\n
\u201cNow when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, \u2018Brothers, what shall we do?’\u201d (Acts 2:37).<\/p>\n
WOULD YOU SAY BEING \u201cCUT TO THE HEART\u201d IS A GOOD THING? These days, most people wouldn\u2019t. We want, at all costs, to experience happy feelings, and we would be turned off by any sermon that called on us to pass through the wilderness of godly sorrow. We only want to hear how much God loves us (forget the sorrowful things God\u2019s love might require of us), and if our wonderful \u201cself\u201d needs any change, it just needs to be \u201cactualized.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the gospel \u2014 preached first by John the Baptist, then Jesus, and later the apostles \u2014 was disturbing.<\/em> The first thing it produced, at least in the hearts of honest hearers, was not joy but grief. When people heard about \u201cJesus Christ and him crucified\u201d (1 Corinthians 2:2), they contemplated His death with tears of repentance, asking fervently, \u201cWhat shall we do?\u201d (Acts 2:37).<\/p>\n There is a sense in which conservatism<\/em> (\u201cpreservation of the status quo\u201d) is our deadliest spiritual enemy. The truth is, we are lost in sin and alienated from God, but we think we\u2019re doing fine. If the gospel can\u2019t break through that complacency, it can\u2019t save us. Not even the gospel can save those who see no need to be saved.<\/p>\n Our \u201chouse of cards\u201d is unstable.<\/em> The gospel wants to disrupt our assumption that the lives we\u2019ve built are secure (Luke 12:16-21). Eventually, our \u201chouse of cards\u201d is going to come crashing down, and if we\u2019re not shaken up by the prospect of that, we should be.<\/p>\n Our sins are serious.<\/em> In Luke 18:9-14, the Pharisee would have admitted that he had a few imperfections, but he was out of touch with how serious those shortcomings were. He needed nothing quite so much as to be troubled by the truth about himself.<\/p>\n Our character is far from God\u2019s character.<\/em> Those who have been Christians for many years often overestimate how much they have grown spiritually. If we keep listening to the gospel, it will often disturb us with the reminder of how far we still have to go.<\/p>\n The bottom line is this: if the seed of the kingdom is going to grow within us, the fields of our hearts have to be plowed up. And the harder the ground, the more painful the plowing is going to be.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Christianity has never disturbed us, we have not yet learned what it is\u201d (William Temple).<\/p>\n Gary Henry \u2013 WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com<\/p>\n