During yesterday's sermon, I shared these words from D.A. Carson:

People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord.

We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance;

We drift toward disobedience and call it freedom;

We drift toward superstition and call it faith.

We cherish the indiscipleine of lost self-control and call it relaxation;

Wwe slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism;

We slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

Since I didn't say it the first time, I thought it was worth repeating a second.

Most of the time, we think of Spirit-filled people and Spirit-filled churches in terms of enthusiasm: vibrant worship, gifts of healing and miracles, supernatural levels of love and commitment.

And then Jesus comes along with these distinctly un-glamorous words:

And when he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin, righteousness, and judgment. (John 16:8)

Really? That's what the Holy Spirit does?

And when you further understand that the word "convict" there conveys the idea of "holding up" or "shine a light on" . . . well, the Spirit's role becomes more uncomfortable.

It's this: to hold up the sin we'd otherwise ignore.

Yes, a vital reason to pursue the dead-raising power of God in your life is to make you more aware of and sensitive to the sin that remains.

It's not spectacular. It's not sexy. It's not exciting.

But it's so very necessary.

It's why we ended yesterday's worship experience with a time of confession and reflection.

You can hear more about it here.