Baptists Preaching is a column from the Baptist Standard. It is not an effort to advance any one theology or style but to present what a collection of Baptists considers a word from God. Likewise, Baptists Preaching offers a repository of Baptist preaching for future study and research. To recommend a sermon to be featured in Baptists Preaching, please contact eric.black@baptiststandard.com.
Doug Diehl: Cut to the Heart (Acts 2:32-41)
Doug Diehl, senior pastor of Crossroads Baptist Church in San Antonio, pointed to something his hearers take for granted—the ability to read. Few people in biblical times were able to read. But when they heard God’s word read to them, it could cut them to the heart (2 Chronicles 34, Nehemiah 9, Acts 2).
When the people were cut to the heart, they wept as a result of conviction—“a natural outgrowth” of hearing God’s word. Peter’s sermon that brought this about was built on the written word of God and the living Word, Jesus, Diehl explained. Such a “true word from God” convicts, he declared.
Diehl offered a test for determining the difference between a true word from God and a false word. He illustrated a false word with reference to a week-long camp in California that teaches children how to create their own religion. A true word always points to Jesus, he proclaimed.
This sermon was delivered Jan. 29, 2023, for the morning worship service of Crossroads Baptist Church in San Antonio. It is part of a series titled “Hearing God.” The sermon passage was taken from Lifeway’s Bible study series Bible Studies for Life being studied in Crossroads’ Sunday school classes.
The sermon illustration referencing Camp Qwest West was adapted from an entry on PreachingToday.com, which cited two articles by Richard Chin: “Camps sign up freethinkers,” USA Today, April 11, 2007; “Ungodly fun,” Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.), Sept. 9, 2004. Diehl supplemented the illustration with information he obtained from the Camp Qwest West website.
A sermon script is available here and sermon notes are available here.
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