How to Recognize the Holy Spirit’s Conviction | Dr. Andy Brown

This powerful message takes us deep into the heart of what it means to experience true conviction from the Holy Spirit. Through the historical account of young John Merritt, who entered a meeting intending to disrupt it but instead found himself overwhelmed by God's Word, we discover that conviction is far more than holding strong opinions. It's about being held by something greater than ourselves. The sermon explores John 16:7-11, where Jesus explains that the Holy Spirit will convict the world concerning three crucial realities: sin, righteousness, and judgment. What makes this teaching so compelling is how Jesus personalizes each element, centering them all on Himself. Sin is revealed not as a list of bad behaviors, but as fundamentally rooted in unbelief in Christ. Righteousness is shown not as our best efforts, but as receiving Christ's perfect righteousness as our own. And judgment is presented not as a future threat, but as an already-accomplished reality through the cross. We learn that conviction strips away our self-justification and defenses until our need for Jesus becomes undeniable. This isn't about feelings of shame or regret, but about the Holy Spirit pinpointing exactly what's wrong, taking us directly to God's Word, pointing us to Jesus, and pressing us to respond. The question that confronts each of us is simple yet profound: Have we personally responded to the Holy Spirit's conviction and received Jesus as Lord and Savior?

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Transcript

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I want you to go back with me 256 years to the year 1770. And we're going to join a young 13-year-old named John Merritt, who's walking down the streets of South Carolina. Now, John was an accomplished musician. He had already, by the time he was 13, had mastered two instruments. He'd mastered the violin as well as he'd mastered the French horn. And he was invited oftentimes to go and play for certain events. But as he was traveling one night, he looked and there was this house that was filled full of light, and people were flooding to it. And he ran across someone and he said, Well, what's going on there? And they said, Well, there's some preacher in there. He's hollering about a bunch of nonsense. And John said, Well, let's go in and let's find out what he's saying. And this friend that he ran into said, I'd go in on one condition. You go in and you take your French horn, and in the middle of that preacher's preaching, you blow it and interrupt everything. And John thought to himself, as a 13-year-old boy, sounds good to me. Let's go. And so he, the story goes as he walks in and he makes his way to the front through the crowd, and he gets his French horn about to his lips. And there's a preacher who takes the stage. His name is George Whitfield. And he announces his text. And just as John Marin is fixing to blow his French horn, Whitfield looks right at him and says, Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. And John said he was so overcome by the power of the Word of God in that moment that he fainted. For 30 minutes, he lay on the ground, unconscious. And he said he found himself coming to, and there were two gentlemen tending to him. And there was a lady that was splashing water on his face just to make sure that he was alright. And he sat there, unable to come to his feet, listening to the words of that preacher. And he reports that the word of God was like daggers in his soul. And he himself began hollering, so much so moaning that he was causing a commotion. And so he had to be carried out because he couldn't walk to the vestry. Until finally, after the crowd had left, the preacher came to him, looked him in the eyes, and said, Jesus Christ has gotten thee at last. Three days later, John Marin accepted Jesus Christ and became a born-again believer. But there's a word that the Bible uses to refer to that event. It's a word that maybe you here this morning have felt. That word is conviction. Now I know that all of us are people of conviction, right? We know what sports team we like. We know how we want our money spent. We know which politics fit our convictions. We call ourselves people of convictions. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking so much about the opinions that you hold. I'm talking about what is it that holds you? That's conviction. I had a great uncle, his name was Uncle Emery, pastor of a church in Chattanooga, and I read one of his sermons one time, and in that sermon he said, conviction are powerful, convictions are powerful things. People hold opinions, but they are held by conviction. And I wonder this morning as I'm talking to you have you ever come under the conviction of the Holy Spirit? Has God ever come to you and made you aware of your sinfulness and made you aware of your need for Him? So that you were so miserable. The only solution, the only satisfaction, the only thing that would soothe your soul was for you to confess the sinless Savior. When I think about conviction, I want to take you to a passage of Scripture that Jesus helps to find exactly what we're talking about in John chapter 16. So if you have your Bibles, please join me over there in John chapter 16. And as you're turning over there or powering up your device and scrolling over there, whatever you're doing, just get to John chapter 16. And Jesus, this is one of my favorite passages of scripture in John chapter 16. This is known as the farewell discourse. Now, what does that mean? It means Jesus is heading to the cross. What's going to happen at the cross? He's going to die for the sins of the world, my sins and your sins. He's going to make a satisfaction of the wrath of God that is going to be poured out upon him himself. He's going to do that all for us. And he's preparing those that are closest to him for the events that are not only going to change their life, but those events are going to change the whole world. And he's preparing them for not only those events as he's saying farewell, he's also preparing them for what the next stage of his ministry is going to look like. And he's going to say something that's surprising that's here, but it greets us this morning. And you're going to see a word if you're reading the English Standard Version, which is what I'm reading, you're going to see the word convict right away. Listen to it. John chapter 16 at verse 7. Jesus says, Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it's to your advantage that I go away. See, this is why they call it the farewell discourse. He's preparing them for his going away. He said, It's to your advantage that I go away. For if I don't go away, the helper won't come to you. Now let's stop just a minute. Who's the helper? The helper is the Holy Spirit. That's right. But he's preparing his disciples for the coming of the Holy Spirit. So he says, it's better for me to go away, because when I go away, then the helper comes. Listen to what happens next. But if I go, I will send him to you. Now look at verse 8. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. All right. So those are the three points of the sermon already that we have for us today. What's the ministry of the Holy Spirit to convict? And we're going to talk about what that means. But what is he going to convict us of? Sin, righteousness, and judgment. Let's say those together. Sin, righteousness, and judgment. Now Jesus is going to take that proposition. It's like, well, what does that mean? He's going to take that proposition, what is sin? What is righteousness? What is judgment? And notice what's going to come next. He's going to take it out of the realm of proposition and he's going to make it very personal. Listen to what he says. Concerning sin, verse 9, because they don't believe in me. Concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you'll see me no longer. Concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. Notice the way that's written. Not will be judged, not might be judged, but is already judged. You say, when was he judged? He was judged when Jesus came. He was judged the moment of conception. When Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life. He's on the way to the cross. Judgment has already fallen. And so notice this. Let's go back to that word convict for just a moment. That word convict, you know what it means? It means to expose. It means to bring to light. It means God puts something in our face that we can't get away from. Here's a definition that I want you to write down of conviction. I've supplied it for you. Conviction is the Holy Spirit proving us wrong. Now let's stop right there. None of us like that. None of us enjoy that. None of us enjoy somebody coming up and pointing out our faults. Matter of fact, the first thing we do when someone comes to us and starts pointing out faults, what's the first thing we do? Not today, buddy. Because you're going to point my fault out. Boy, I got 10 coming right back at you. That's the first thing that we do. We automatically put up our defenses. Conviction is the Holy Spirit proving us wrong. This is, after all, the living God coming to us in an act of mercy and grace because he loves you too much to see you destroy yourself. He loves you too much to allow you to go through that and continue to pursue that path that leads you far away from the good purpose that you were designed for. The good purpose that He secured for you through a salvation that is guaranteed for you through His cross. Conviction is the Holy Spirit proving us wrong before God. Now here's the defensive part. Until our excuses fall away, and our need for Jesus becomes undeniable. And some of you here this morning, and if you're not here this morning, you know somebody who is under conviction right now. Sometimes the conviction of the Holy Spirit comes all at once, and your defenses are knocked down. Other times it takes years. Sometimes it takes decades. But the Holy Spirit's relentless pursuit of you. This is the ministry that Jesus said the Holy Spirit is going to accomplish. When he comes, he's going to convict. He's going to expose. He's going to come to you, get in your face, get in the middle of your circumstances, get in the middle of your life. He will not leave you alone. You know why? Because he loves you, that's why. He won't let you pursue something that's going to take you far away from him. He's going to prove you wrong before a living God, stripping away all of your excuses so that your need for Jesus becomes undeniable. I like the way the NIV translates this verse. It doesn't even use the word conviction. Listen to what it said. When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong. I love that. Now we live in a world that likes to fact check. We live in a world that is filled full of ego. You know, my ego's pretty big, your ego may be bigger, and the only reason I said that is because mine's bigger than yours, you know, those kind of things. We live in a world where we don't like to be proven wrong. We live in a world where if we come in second place, there's some excuse that we can, well, you know, my back hurt that day, or whatever the case, I wasn't on my bed. Whatever. We live in this world of self-justifying. We live in this world where we try to make excuses, but the Holy Spirit comes and strips away all of those excuses that we have. When he comes, he'll prove the world to be in the wrong. And so let's look at this text for just a moment. Let's look at this text and understand this ministry, this convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit. The first thing that I want you to write down, and it's right in the text here, the Holy Spirit, number one, convicts the world concerning sin. Sin is not something that we talk about a lot. Sin is not something that we really enjoy. Sin is usually something that we keep in secret. We have it behind a private browser. We have it behind a mattress. We hide it behind a paywall. We hide it behind all of these other places where we hope no one will find out, but God knows. Nothing is hidden from him. None of our thoughts, none of our attitudes, even our reason for doing something, the motivations of our heart, God knows. Sin. You know what the root of sin is? Jesus tells us. Jesus gets very specific. He takes it from the propositional way up here. What is this? And he defines it. And notice the way that he makes notice the way that he makes it personal. All of these three, notice carefully, he centers them all on who he is. Sin, notice this, because they don't believe in me. Friend, do you believe in Jesus? Let me say, the question of the ages is what are you going to do with Jesus? He's the one that's you can't escape from. There's no point in denying that he really came. There's no point in denying that he's Lord. You know what he did? He's the eternal Son of God who was sent by the Father willingly. He came and lived a, was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died a substitutionary death. What does that mean? It means he died for you in your place. He took your sin as his very own. And then you know what else he did? Three days later he rose again. And now he stands as the risen ascended Savior. And he commands every man, woman, boy, and girl to repent. You say, Well, I believe all of those things. Well, let me say this to you. Even the demons believe and they tremble. Belief, dear friend, is not enough. Believing about some oh, Jesus was a good teacher. He was a real historical figure. Yeah, he may have done some crazy things that we can't explain. The Bible says even the demons believe. They probably believe more than you do if you're here and you're an unbeliever. They believe more than you do. It's not a matter of you believing something, it's a matter of you receiving him as your Lord and Savior. Have you ever come to the point where he has stripped away all of your self-justification? All of the times where you say, Well, I did this, or I went here, or I spent my time this way, or I was willing to give my money here, or all of those opportunities of our self-justifying, they fall flat. Jesus says the Holy Spirit convicts of sin. And what's at the root of our sin? Unbelief. The root of all of our sin is unbelief. And who is the center of belief? Jesus is not just one way amongst many ways. Jesus says, I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No one's ever done what Jesus did. No one ever lived the life that Jesus lived. No one ever rose from death. Oh, there are many claims of people who have rose from dead. But the proof is not only in the empty tomb, the proof is in the people that trust him. Me and you. Those of us who call ourselves people of faith, we believe in the Lord. Because believing in the Lord Jesus Christ is the only way for us to have our sins satisfied. The Holy Spirit comes first and he convicts us of sin. What is sin? The root of that sin is not believing in Jesus, who he is, what he's done, receiving him as your Lord and Savior. The next thing the Holy Spirit does is he convicts us of righteousness. Now, what is righteousness? It's our right way. That's what it is. It means that all of the ways that we have shown ourselves to be true and right and just. But here's the problem. You're probably comparing yourself to the best person that you know. But when God looks at you, you know who he compares you to? He compares you to Jesus. Notice what he says. He says, concerning sin, because they don't believe in me. Now, verse 10 concerning righteousness. Because I go to the Father, and you see me no longer. You know what that tells us? It tells us that Jesus is the one by whom our lives are compared to. So let's just do a little test. Anybody here been born of a virgin? Already disqualified right off the bat. Anybody in here lived a sinless life? Do you love your neighbors? Are you willing to die for those who would spit in your face? Do you see the righteous standard by which we're being compared to? You can try to self-justify. You can try to put your best effort, your best face forward. And Jesus says, All of your righteousness, listen, is as a dirty dish rag. All of your righteousness, the best you can do, you can't compare to him. And so here's what Jesus does. Jesus says, I'm the standard. You can't live this life. There's no way for you to do what I have done. Jesus, because he's a savior. Jesus, because he loves. You know what he does? He says, I'm going to do what's impossible for you. And he says, I'm going to give my life for you. You deserve judgment. You deserve death. You deserve hell. Jesus says, I'm going to take your place so that the wrath of God can be poured out upon me on the cross. Jesus gave his life for you. Now listen carefully to this next point. Some of you you say, yeah, I believe that. I believe Jesus gave his life for me. But listen to the next point. Jesus not only gave his life for you, he gave his life to you. So now by grace through faith, whatever is true of Jesus is now true of you. What does that mean? It means when the Father looks at you, you know what he sees? He sees his son. And you know what he said of Jesus? He said, This is my beloved in whom I'm well pleased. So now by grace through faith, whatever is true of Jesus is also true of you. Jesus says in 1 Corinthians, he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 30, that Christ is our righteousness. In other words, it's not a righteousness that we can perform. It's not our best efforts. It's receiving by faith Jesus as our Savior. He says in Philippians chapter 3 and verse 9 that He becomes our righteousness. He himself is our righteousness. So here's what that means: it means you can either live your life based upon your best effort, and you'll never know how much is enough. Or you can live your life based upon Jesus. And Jesus' word for you is simple. Paid in full. Jesus says when the Holy Spirit comes, he's going to show us that our best effort will never amount to a right standing with God because He Himself is the standard. And you either receive Him as your Lord and Savior, you take His righteousness as your own, or the other alternative is your lost forever. The third thing that he says is that the Holy Spirit's going to come and he's going to convict the world of judgment. But I want you to see this twist in the text. He says, concerning judgment, this is verse 11, concerning judgment, because you're going to be judged at the final day. Is that what your Bible says? Doesn't say that. And a surprising twist, he doesn't talk about our judgment, he talks about the ruler of this world that's been judged. There is a reality that has come to bear now that Jesus is here. Jesus is a Savior. That's why He's come. He's not come to condemn the world, He's come to save the world. And so we know what He does. He takes us ahead to the future and He shows us this coming day of judgment. And there are two sides. One are those that are with Jesus, those who have declared their righteousness is in Christ and Christ alone. And the other is with those that are against God, those that don't believe in God, those that want to self justify God. themselves, oh, they're good people, they go, they do all the right things, they have all the forms of godliness, the Bible says, but they deny the power thereof because they've never been called, they've never responded to his call, they've never chosen Jesus Christ. Jesus said, None can come to me unless the Father draws him. And when the Father draws, they've rejected him. They've chosen to deny him. And so here's what he says about those that say, Lord, didn't I do all of these things in your name? I was a good person. I came to church, I sat on a pew, I listened to preaching. And Jesus says, Yeah. But you never believed in me. You never responded to me. You tried to live your life based upon your best effort instead of my effort for you. You didn't live by faith, you lived by effort. And so Jesus says, I never knew you. Oh, there's a judgment that's coming. But notice what he says. It's not, Jesus is reorienting us, not towards the judgment that's coming for us, but the judgment that's already happened. In other words, there's not many ways. There's only one way. There's only one way for you, and it's Jesus Christ. Go back with me, if you wouldn't mind, to a familiar verse. Go back to John chapter 3. I want to show you something. Now, you probably know John chapter 3 and verse 16. You probably know that. But Jesus is a Savior. That's why He's come. Jesus saves. Amen. Jesus is Lord. Jesus came not to condemn, but to save. And today, if you hear his voice, listen to this. Today, if you hear his voice, today is the day of salvation. Don't turn inwardly. Turn to him. That's what he wants. John 3.16, you can probably say it out loud. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Now that's pretty simple, isn't it? Whoever believes in him will never perish, but have eternal life. Listen to this next part. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world. Why is that? But in order that the world might be saved through him. Now, why didn't he send his son to condemn the world? Listen. Whoever believes in him is not condemned. Praise the Lord. And my prayer is that that's you here this morning. But whoever is, whoever does not believe is condemned already. Why is that? Because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. Oh dear friend, there is a judgment that's already happened. You're either with Jesus or you're not. You either believe in Jesus or you don't. You've either responded to the Holy Spirit's conviction in your life, or you haven't. And if you haven't, the Bible says there's a judgment that's coming. But how is it this morning that the Holy Spirit convicts us? Because if you're here this morning and you're trying to discern your feelings, I'm not talking about your feelings. I'm talking about the fact of the conviction of the Holy Spirit. How do we know that it's not shame? How do we know that it's not regret? How do we know that it's truly the Spirit of the living God coming to us, convicting us of our sin, righteousness, and joy. How do we know? Four things very quickly. Number one, the Holy Spirit's gonna pinpoint exactly what's wrong. He's gonna show you that spot in your life where you're not believing in Jesus. He's gonna put his finger on that moment. He's going to pinpoint it. That's what he does. So that he gets rid of all of your self-justification, takes your defenses all the way down. He pinpoints and he puts his finger on that one spot in your life where you are not confessing Christ. Remember what Nathan in the Old Testament, when he came to David, he didn't say, Well, there's some man somewhere who did this. No, Nathan the prophet, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, when David had sinned against Bathsheba, Uriah, and all of Israel, he said, Thou art the man. Holy Spirit's conviction doesn't give you any wiggle room to wiggle your way out of it by your own self-justification. Remember what David said in Psalm 51? He said, Against you and you alone have I sinned. He knew exactly what he'd done because the Holy Spirit told him. The second point of how do we know if the Holy Spirit's convicting us? Not only will he pinpoint what's wrong, he'll take us directly to his word. God will never tell you anything outside of his word. He'll never point you any other place than his word. Remember what his word is according to 2 Timothy? It's the inspired word of God. The Holy Spirit inspired it. What's he do? Through this text, he comes and he convicts you of sin, righteousness, and judgment. The third thing that happens. Once we've been, once we've pinpointed what's wrong, once we've seen in God's word what we need to do, the next thing that happens is so important, he points us right to Jesus. He points us right to Jesus. Again, not so that you can go into yourself and say, Well, I can maybe fix this somehow. I can maybe come up with a way that I can fix. No, no. He points us exactly to Jesus Christ. And then finally, here's what he does: he presses us to respond. Some of you have been feeling that pressure and you've ignored it. The Bible says today, if you hear his voice, today is the day of salvation. Let me tell you something about the way that I read scripture. I believe that Jesus Christ calls everybody to salvation. I don't know if necessarily he calls more than once. There's a pursuit that happens. And for some of you, you've been resisting God. He's told you exactly what you need to do. But you said in occasions like this over and over again, Billy Graham, when he was leading his crusades, he and John Stott they both agree that the problem in America was not the pornographer, was not the gambler, was not the corrupt politician. The problem in America are people that sit in pews week after week after week, listening to sermon after sermon after sermon. They remain unconverted because they're unconvinced of their need for Jesus. In Acts chapter 2, when the Holy Spirit fell on preaching, the Bible says the men were cut to the heart. And they said, What must I do to be saved? And you know what the Bible says? Repent and be baptized, every one of you. In other words, there's a there's a call that God gives for you to respond. Listen to the text in Hebrews today, if you hear his voice. Don't harden your heart. As in the day of rebellion. I want to take you to about the 1970s. I want to tell you a story about a man who was a Vietnam veteran. Came home from Vietnam and met a woman in his hometown. He knew of her, but she was younger than he was, about six years younger. These two started dating and they got married. They eventually had a child and they buried that child together. And this man's heart was hard from the carnage of Vietnam. He wanted nothing to do with God, nothing to do with God's word. But there was a lady who was his grandmother. She was an old Methodist lady. She was a praying lady. She kept witnessing to him. And he kept turning her away. Well, he went to work one day, and there was another man that had lost his child, and he went to the funeral and heard the preacher preaching. And later on at work they were talking, and after they talked, the man left a track on the table. The name of the track was something about the impending judgment that was coming. This man began to read that track, and all of a sudden he said he got sick to his stomach. He went home, tried to sleep that night, couldn't sleep a lick. Finally got out of bed, and early in the morning, as soon as he got out of the bed, he heard a knock on his door. And it was his grandmother. He answered the door, and the grandmother said, Now, honey, I know you told me not to talk about religion with you, but I want to let you know that the Lord has had you on my heart all night long. And this man said, Mohaney, I sure am glad that you came this day because I hadn't been able to sleep. I've been reading God's word, and something's going on in me I can't explain. And his grandmother looked at him and said, I know exactly what's going on. She clapped her hands, she got so excited. She said, You under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. And this man said, What do I need to do? And she said, You need to go in and get your Bible. Do you have a Bible? Get that Bible, and you need to read that Bible, and you know exactly what to do. And it wasn't a few days later that that man got on his knees with his wife and he prayed and he confessed Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. And I am so glad to tell you that I have never known a daddy who did not know the Lord Jesus Christ. All because the Holy Spirit came and convicted him of his sin. Showed him his need, stripped away all of his defenses, so that he was ready to confess Jesus Christ as his Savior. And I wonder about you this morning, those that are listening, your story may not be that dramatic. It doesn't have to be. But here's the simple question. Have you personally ever responded to the Holy Spirit's conviction? Have you ever received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? You say, How do I do that? I've never done that. How do I do that? Maybe you want to pray something like this. Dear Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner. You've shown me that. And I also know that the only solution for my sin is what you did on the cross for me. I believe in you. I ask you to save me from my sins. And I receive you as my Lord. Thank you, Lord God, for saving me. Help me, Lord, to live my life, to honor you in faith. Lord, I'm not asking for a feeling. Instead, I'm trusting you at your word to save me. And you know what Jesus says? Jesus says, Whosoever comes to me, I by no means will turn away. Well, what about but you don't. But I did. Jesus says, Come to me. And Father, it's my prayer for those that don't know you. That today would be the day that they call upon you for salvation. And Father, for those that do know you, may we rejoice in the great mercy that you've given us. Lord, you didn't have to save us. You didn't have to. You chose to because you wanted to. And Lord, now we just simply say thank you. In Jesus' name. And everybody said, Amen.