If you want to know why you do the things you do, ask yourself the question, “What do I love?” Human beings are fundamentally creatures who are driven by various loves and desires. These loves and desires provide striking insight into why we do the things we do.
In Community Bible Study this week, we looked at Acts 13:4-12. As Barnabas and Saul are sharing the gospel in Paphos, they encounter a Jewish magician named Elymas. And when Barnabas and Saul try to share the gospel with the proconsul (a sort of governor in the Roman Empire), Elymas interferes and tries to turn the proconsul away from the gospel.

Think about why Elymas might want to do that. What did he do for a living? Verse 6 says that he was a magician for the proconsul. In case you’re wondering, this doesn’t mean that he did cute magic tricks like pull a rabbit out of a hat—he wasn’t that kind of a magician. In today’s world, it would be reasonably accurate to call him a consultant for the proconsul. However, instead of using computers, research, and public opinion polls to determine what the proconsul should do, he used sorcery.

So you can imagine that if the proconsul became a Christian and stopped paying attention to all of this sorcery, it wouldn’t exactly be a boost for Elymas’s career. And so, in Acts 13, Elymas tries to use his influence with the proconsul to undermine the gospel message. He didn’t want to lose his job.

At first glance, there doesn’t appear to be much in common between Elymas in our text and people today who reject the gospel. Not many people have a career that’s incompatible with Christianity like Elymas did. But even though many people may not reject the gospel because it’s incompatible with their career, they most certainly do reject the gospel because it’s incompatible with something that they love and desire.

It might be personal autonomy, it might be the approval of others, or it might be a sinful habit or addiction—it could be a thousand different things.

At the end of the day, people reject the gospel not because they’ve objectively weighed the evidence and determined what’s most reasonable. They reject the gospel because they’re enslaved by their own desires and just can’t bring themselves to renounce those things and embrace Jesus.

That’s pretty much the explanation Jesus himself gives in John 3:19-20: “Light has come into the world [talking about Jesus], but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.”

Ultimately, people reject the gospel not because of their mind but because of their heart. They have other loves and other functional gods that stand in direct opposition to the One True God.

Thankfully, when God works in someone’s heart, he’s able to free them from these desires that enslave them. And that’s what we see in Acts 13 as the proconsul receives the gospel.