BUCKLE
UP WARNING

Topics: Behavior; Change; Consequences; Fear; Illumination; Knowledge; Perspective; Repentance; Spiritual Formation; Spiritual Growth; Warnings; Wisdom

References: Luke 19:1–10; John 13:35; 1 Corinthians 8:1–2; James 1:22

My brother-in-law would never wear a seat belt in the car. I berated him for it. Then one day he picked me up at the airport, and he had on his seat belt and shoulder harness. I asked, “What happened? What changed you?”

“I went to visit a friend of mine in the hospital who was in a car accident and went through the windshield,” my brother-in-law said. “He had two or three hundred stitches in his face. I said to myself, ‘I’d better wear my seat belt.’ ”

“Did you not know that if you didn’t wear your seat belt you would go through the windshield if you had an accident?” I asked.

“Of course I knew it,” he said. “When I went to the hospital to see my friend, I got no new information, but the information I had became new. The information got real to my heart and finally sank down and affected the way I live.”

—Tim Keller, “Unintentional Preaching Models,” Preaching to the Heart, Ockenga Institute of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary