1 John 4:7-8 “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

Love comes from God. It’s that simple. This, of course, includes the love which we have received. We have all received love from God in the person of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of sins. In love God has cleansed our loveless hearts, declared them pure and lovely for Jesus’ sake, even come to live in them himself. You and I have personally experienced and benefited from the love which flows from God to us.

But there is more to this love. That love which comes from God to us cannot continue to pour into us without overflowing to others. “Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” When John speaks of those who are born of God, he is not referring to natural birth. He is referring to the same kind of birth Jesus described to Nicodemus: “Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” This is our second birth, the birth of our spiritual life, the birth of our faith.

When John speaks of knowing God, the word he uses for knowing doesn’t emphasize knowing facts about God. This is not like the knowledge we have about Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Edison from history books at school. This is the kind of knowing that comes from having met someone and becoming his friend. In this case we even become part of his family. This is how we know God when we are born again.

Such faith and knowledge are our connection to God’s love. As God’s love pours into us, it fills us up and it spills over in a life of love to everyone else. And so, when we love one another, we are not the source of that love. God is, even when our hands are serving and our mouths speaking.  

Do you see how such a life of love is the product of so much more than just a long list of rules to keep? When an earthly father wants his children to behave in public, he may give them a long instructions. He warns them to stay away from this, not to touch that, to stay out of everyone else’s way, to “stop picking on your brother.” But maybe sometimes your father simply said to you, “Why don’t you sit next to me here and hold my hand.” As long as we did so, we not only kept all the rules, but we enjoyed a warm and loving relationship with our fathers. (I owe this illustration to Don Matzat in his book Christ Esteem).

In a similar way, with his message of love and faith, our heavenly Father wants to take us by the hand and say, “Why don’t you come over here, hold my hand, and stay close to my side.” What a blessing to enjoy such a warm and loving relationship with the heavenly Father! What a joy that he not only expresses his love to us, but allows it to be part of our own lives! We may know or may be learning his instructions, too. But as long as we are holding his hand and receiving his love in faith, his own love will be the source of ours as we love one another.

Matthew 13:16-17 “But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your hearts because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”

Jesus pronounces us blessed for what we see and hear from his word. Literally the word means “happy.” That happiness isn’t always obvious to see. If we think that it automatically translates into an easier or more fulfilling life in this world, we haven’t fully understood the secrets of the Kingdom. Eleven of the twelve men to whom Jesus was speaking here were going to meet violent deaths because of what their eyes saw and their ears heard in Jesus’ words. Every day around the world, 425 Christians still do. Persecution in our own country may be less violent and more subtle, but it exists nonetheless.

Still, Jesus refers to us all as “blessed,” “happy.” That privilege comes from knowing that the Lord of heaven and earth himself makes every single circumstance of our lives his personal and passionate concern, even the trying and painful ones. That privilege comes from knowing that nothing we do can make God love us even the tiniest bit less, because his grace never wavers and his forgiveness is never exhausted. That privilege comes from knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain, because Jesus is alive, ruling, and controlling all things at the Father’s right hand. That privilege comes from knowing that we are above death, because Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and those who believe in him will live, even though they die, and whoever lives and believes in him will never die.

That privilege makes us the envy of the ancient believers. “For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.” Have you ever wished that you could go back to the days of Adam and walk in the Garden of Eden; or go back to the days of Abraham and be at his home when God visited with the two angels to announce Isaac’s birth; or go back to the days of Moses and walk through the Red Sea with a wall of water on either side of you; or go back to the days of Elijah when God sent fire from the sky to burn up his offering on Mount Carmel? Have you ever wished you could go back to meet these heroes of faith, see the miracles they saw, and experience the power of God the way they experienced it? Have you considered that they wished to trade places with you even more?

We live in the time of fulfillment. We know the outcome of the story. We have the full revelation of God’s love. We know Jesus by name. What they wouldn’t have given to know all the details of the gospel the way we know it! Enjoy the privilege we have been given to see and hear the full story of Jesus’ saving work.

Matthew 13:10-11 “The disciples came to him and asked, ‘Why do you speak to the people in parables?’ He replied, ‘The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you…’”

The word “secret” Jesus uses is from a word often translated “mystery” in the New Testament. For the people of Jesus’ day, a “mystery” wasn’t a crime that needed to be solved, like the story in an Agatha Christie novel or a Scooby Doo cartoon. It was something for which you needed inside information to understand.

We might compare it to an inside joke. You may hear someone say something that doesn’t sound funny to you, but others around you start laughing. They all know something that you don’t. The kind of “secret” or “mystery” Jesus is speaking of here isn’t funny, but it is something for which you need some “inside information” to understand.

The “secrets of the kingdom of heaven” started with faith and understanding that Jesus himself is God’s Son, the promised Savior. His word is the key to understanding how God’s kingdom works, how one becomes a member, how that kingdom spreads to others. These were the truths Jesus taught in his parables, truths he taught in straightforward ways in other places.

The fact that these truths are “secrets” or “mysteries” teaches us that our grasp of these things is a gift given to us by God. We would not understand them on our own. We are no smarter than Peter, Andrew, James, or John. Doesn’t that say something to us about the way that we conduct ourselves as we share Bible truths with others?

We were not the authors of the Bible truths that we believe, nor are we responsible for coming up with the faith and understanding we have. Left to ourselves, we would be mystified. It is right for us to be concerned about preserving the truths of the Bible as our Savior has given them to us, but we have no excuse for selfish pride if we retain that truth today. The secret you and I have been given is a gift from someone else.

Then let’s not forget the content of that secret. “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you.” The information Jesus is interested in sharing has an otherworldly ring to it. To put it as the Apostle Paul once did, “The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). There are those who want to turn the Bible into the handbook for everything about life in this world. Little emphasis is placed on the help it gives to get us out of this world and into the next. In your Christian book store you can find books that try to use the Bible as a guide to healthier eating and savvier investing. Those secrets are best found somewhere else. Jesus is more interested in insider training than he is in insider trading.

Nothing can be more practical than the secret we have been given: knowing what to do with our guilt or how to find the solution to the problem of our impending death. Nothing could be more beautiful than the solutions that Jesus’ secrets provide. The kingdom of heaven is not a place where God just sits as king while everyone else does all the work. It is found wherever God himself is working. He is the one sweating blood, enduring insults, and finally gasping his last breath in death on the cross to pay for my sins. He is the one who inhabits the gospel words that worm their way into our hearts and overwhelm us with his love. He makes his message spring and grow into a living faith and active love. He is the one changing my life now, and promising that an even better one is waiting when this one ends.

Some secrets are meant to be kept. Jesus’ secrets are meant to be shared. Don’t be afraid to let it spill.

Isaiah 42:3-4 “He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.”

Have you heard of Tony Dungy? He is a former NFL coach who led the Indianapolis Colts to a Super Bowl championship in 2007. You can still find him on TV today commenting on games for NBC. Six or seven years ago Dungy wrote a book titled Quiet Strength. In it he described his style of coaching and approach to life. You see, on one of the first days of training camp he would calmly tell his players, “The way you hear me talking to you now is as loud as you will ever hear me speak.” Unlike so many coaches, he did not raise his voice and scream at his players. He didn’t threaten and insult them. He saw himself primarily as a teacher and mentor. It didn’t mean that he failed to hold players accountable or neglected to correct and discipline them. It meant he did so in a way that continued to show them respect and assure them that he was on their side.

Jesus was not a screamer. He did not “shout or cry out or raise his voice in the streets.” No one on earth ever had more reason to be frustrated with the people around him, to be angry about the behavior he saw. The whole world was a rebellious, undisciplined team that ganged up against him. But even when they verbally attacked him he gave composed, winsome answers. He patiently taught and calmly debated. He had compassion. He was gentle and humble. Why?

“A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.” You’ve seen reeds growing from the edge of a lake or near the bank of a river. Once they are bent over and bruised, that plant is beyond repair. You’ve seen a candle wick with just a little glow left. It’s just a matter of time before that last glow goes out. It’s not coming back to life on its own, and sometimes we just pinch it to be done with it.

Jesus did not come to break off those whose spirits were bruised, or snuff out the last light of faith. He came to repair them. He came to rekindle their faith. He himself said it this way to his critics at the house of Matthew the tax collector: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick…I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Sometimes we get frustrated with these kind of people. We have weak believers in our church who never come. It’s work to bring them back, and it would just be easier to erase their names. Young Christians start thinking the world’s way. Then they start acting and behaving the world’s way. We would like to shake them, or beat some sense into them. “What’s wrong with you? You know better than this.” Elderly Christians get weary of all the battles and foolishness in their churches. They lose their grip on the promises. They have trouble seeing the comforting face of their Savior behind all his messed up family. So they slip away and disappear into inactivity. Nothing we say convinces them to come back. “Can’t you see we need your help?”

Are we so different? Have you done things that gravely disappoint your Savior? Has your faith been rocked by your own failures, or by the failures of people you thought were strong Christians? Has faith ever dimmed to little more than a fading ember in your heart because God made no sense and seemed so unfair?

Then aren’t you glad the Lord doesn’t shout, and doesn’t break off, and doesn’t snuff out; but he encourages, and he repairs, and he warms and enlightens the beaten, bruised, and battered people he came to save? There is something for everyone of us to appreciate about his methods.

Isaiah 42:1 “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight.”

Jesus is a King, but that is not what the Lord calls him here. He is the Conqueror of sin, and Satan, and death, but that’s not the way he’s introduced, either. He is a Lawgiver and a Judge and many other things. He holds unsurpassed power and authority, but Isaiah says, “Here is my servant.” Here is the one the Lord chose to serve you. Jesus fully agreed with this when he told his disciples, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

It’s not that Jesus lacks power and authority and leadership, but that is not the place to start. Before he became a teacher at our seminary, one professor was the pastor of a multi-cultural congregation in the inner city. At his first meeting with the church council, he invited the men to talk about their ideas for his ministry, and to share any questions or concerns they might have for this white pastor leading a black congregation. After talking about a number of things, one wise old leader at the meeting said, “I have only one question for you: will you love us? Are you going to serve us?”

What we need are those who serve. Sometimes we might think that we want our Savior to be all about fury, death, and damnation. We get so full of zeal for morality and holiness that we want him to come in wrath and power. We want him to cleanse all the filth and all the degenerate producers of that filth away. We think that way because we are just arrogant enough to think that we stand above it all, and we could survive the cleansing fire on our own. There will be a time and place for judgment. But God grant that we aren’t so dull that we approach that day with nothing but our own tote bag of good works and accomplishments, or we will be burned up with the rest.

Jesus did not come to scare you, or to damn you. Here is the One the Lord chose to serve you. He is going to save you. And he has the qualifications to do so.

The Lord calls this servant, “…my chosen one in whom I delight.” Isn’t that the same thing the Father said about Jesus at his baptism? “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” On a thousand fields and courts spread across the country you can find proud papas pleased with the sporting skills their sons display.

But these words here aren’t about skills. The Father isn’t pleased that his Son is competent (though he is in every way). He is pleased that his Son is good: loving, honest, kind, decent, faithful, sober, obedient, self-controlled. Here already he is serving you and me, keeping the commandments we broke, and keeping them perfectly. He does it to repair our tarnished record, to restore our lost credit.

You see, because Jesus pleased his Father, when God pulls the file with your name on it, and looks inside the folder, Jesus’ perfection has completely replaced every record of our crimes. He was not only his Father’s servant. He made himself ours. And his service gives us every reason to delight in him as well.

Ephesians 4: 32-5:2 “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

What does new-life, Christian behavior look like? “kind…compassionate…forgiving.” Notice that Paul does not focus on the kind of behavior that is mainly concerned with my personal purity. These are not the kinds of things we can practice if we withdraw from the world with all of its corrupting influences. We can’t practice these things if we lock ourselves in our rooms. These all have to do with relationships. These all deal with the way we treat others. You can’t be kind, compassionate, or forgiving when you are all alone.

There is no secret, no mystery, to what these words mean. We know what kindness looks like. We see it when someone makes himself useful, when he goes out of his way to help, to relieve suffering, to fill a need.

We know what compassion feels like. We see the pictures of people suffering some tragedy on the news. We listen to a friend tell us about his or her pain or grief. We don’t just sit there like a stone wall. We get a knot in our stomach. A tear wells up in our eye. We are moved to make a donation or offer our help in some way.

We understand what forgiveness is all about. We have received it often enough ourselves. It doesn’t mean that the offense or injury was unreal or acceptable. It was horrible. But we aren’t going to hold it against someone for as long as they live. We are releasing them from living under our anger and judgment. We are setting them free. And in doing so, we are setting ourselves free from the burden and misery of living with a grudge as well.

Our new life has a gracious model to consider: “Just as in Christ God forgave you.” Whether our sin was big or small, God has forgiven it. Whether our sin was mean and malicious, or thoughtless and careless, God has forgiven it. Whether our sin comes from pride, or whether it comes from moral weakness and a lack of discipline, God has forgiven it. Whether our sin was premeditated, or whether it was a passionate outburst, God has forgiven it. Whether our sins are many or few, God has forgiven them all.

This is not a guilt trip to manipulate us into forgiving. It is not even so much a roadmap to follow, or a checklist to work through. It is the gracious gift that God has used to release us, to set us free from his judgment. And when we are free, we are changed, we are transformed, into kind, compassionate, and forgiving people ourselves.

In this, we are children who resemble our Father. “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children.” When you were little, did you like to imitate your parents? When I was a little boy I had a plastic lawnmower and a plastic tool set. When I was a little older my dad would let me make things with the bent nails and scrap wood in his workshop. My cousins who grew up on farms had huge collections of toy tractors and wagons and farm machinery. We were imitating our fathers with our play. We wanted to be like them when we grew up.

You and I are children of the heavenly Father. More than that, we are dearly loved children. He isn’t a neglectful father who starves us for his love. He isn’t an angry and abusive father who beats us into behaving ourselves. He loves us lavishly. He dotes on his children. He is always taking care of us.

So how do dearly loved children imitate their Father? “And live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Love led Jesus to give up his life for us as the full payment for our sins. You and I cannot repeat that sacrifice. That was a “one-time-only” act of love. But God’s love will lead us to give ourselves up for other people in other ways, because that’s what love does. We imitate the gracious model our Father gave us in Christ.

Ephesians 4:25-27 “Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.”

Someone has said, “When you see the word ‘therefore’ in a sentence, you should ask what it is there for.” That is especially true in Scripture. “Therefore” indicates that we have a conclusion based upon what came before, as is the case here.

What came before was Paul’s reminder that God has made us new. He led us to faith in Jesus. He made Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection to new life our own. He cleansed us of the sin that belongs to our old life. He forgave (and continues to forgive) our offenses. He put a new attitude in our minds. He recreated us inside to be like him: righteous and holy.

That is the basis on which Paul urges a new way of life. Here he starts with honesty: “Put off falsehood…speak truthfully.” In another letter he wrote to his friend Titus, “Cretans are always liars.” It seems that problems with honesty are an old, old problem.

What about us? Are Americans honest people? Seven years ago a bottled tea brand called Honest Tea did an experiment. They set out bottles of tea with no salesperson. Then they put up a sign asking people to leave a dollar if they took a bottle. According to their findings, 92 percent of us were honest enough to leave a dollar.

More carefully controlled studies of our conversations suggest that the average person tells a lie about twice each day. Maybe you have heard about the results of telephone surveys taken to measure America’s church attendance. When asked in surveys, about 45 percent of Americans claim that they attended church each week. When compared with the real attendance records of actual congregations, we find that half of those people were lying. If that many people were physically ill, we would call it an epidemic.

So we stretch the truth once in a while. What’s so serious about that? Consider the people affected by our fibs. “For we are all members of one body.” Lying to anyone is a sin, but lying to a fellow Christian is a little like injuring yourself. We are all different parts of the same body. Would you do something to your own body that would make it more difficult for that part of your body to remain a part of your body? Would you purposely infect one of your own vital organs and risk needing transplant surgery later? Would you cut off an otherwise healthy finger, or hand or arm, or seriously wound it so that you were in danger of losing it?

That’s the effect of lying on the relationships we have with other believers. Few things tear at the fabric that holds relationships together like dishonesty. Consider the damage it does to marriages, families, friendships. The list of those who have been torn apart by lying is sad and long. Why not just amputate a healthy arm or cut out your liver instead?

Our place in the body of believers became a reality only by the miracle of a divine transplant surgery. Ordinarily, our doctors place only a healthy organ into the body of someone who needs it. In the wonder of his grace, our Lord took us, sick and diseased as we were, cleansed and healed us of our sin, and then attached us to the body of Christ. He continues to pour out his grace and forgiveness on us to keep us there. He gives us the privilege of serving that body with whatever humble talents and abilities he has created in us.

Now he reminds us to consider the health of that body as we speak to one another. Let our conversation begin with honesty.

Ephesians 5:8-9 “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.”

We all remember that Jesus called himself the Light of the World. Maybe we forget that he called us the light of the world, too. That is his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, where he tells us that you don’t light a lamp and put it under a basket. You put it on a stand so that it can give light to the whole house. That’s you. That’s me. Let your light shine so that people may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Here Paul calls us light, too. Light suggests knowledge. We know things other people don’t know because the light makes it possible for us to see what they can’t. What we see is not the secrets of quantum mechanics. What we see is not the next great investment opportunity. We don’t see dead people.

We see that Jesus is the Savior of the world. We see all our sins laid on him at the cross. We see forgiveness and salvation as God’s free gifts. We see the truth of everything Jesus claimed, and the promise of eternal life, confirmed by his resurrection from the dead. If we see Jesus’ power and love so clearly, then we see that we can trust his word completely.

What difference should that kind of seeing make for our lives? “Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.” Notice that Paul calls goodness, righteousness, and truth the fruit of the light. He is mixing his metaphors a little bit. We don’t usually think of fruit coming from light. But he is emphasizing the connection between being children of light and behaving God’s way. I used to have three trees that produce fruit in my yard: a fig, a pomegranate, and a pecan. There were no figs on the pomegranate tree, no pomegranates on the pecan. Each kind produces its own thing. When we are children of light, we see what’s good, we see what’s right, and we see what’s true. That, then, is what we produce. These things “grow” from us.

When you bring light into a dark room, what happens to the darkness. Does it mix with the light? Do the two stand side by side? Doesn’t the light make the darkness go away? When we are children of light, we are also incompatible with the darkness. We are in the business of making it go away. Paul explains, “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible” (Ephesians 5:11-13).

If we live as children of the light, then we expose the sin and evil produced by those in darkness. We see it, we confront it, we point it out. Maybe you are tempted to say, “But that’s judging! I thought we weren’t supposed to judge.” And you are right. It is judging of a sort, the kind of judging we have been called to do. As children of light we can see right and wrong, and we expose it. We identify sin, and we call it that, because we are in the business of driving the darkness away.

But we don’t do this in a loveless, prideful, self-righteous way. It is all about calling other people out of the darkness, waking them up to save them. “This is why it is said: Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Ephesians 4:14). I know of no faster way to wake someone up who is sleeping in a dark room than to turn all the lights on. I know of no other way to wake up those who are sleeping in unbelief than to turn the lights on, to make their sin clear to see, and to make Christ clear to see, so that they can have the light of faith, too.

Letting our light shine is our blessed privilege as children of the light.

Ephesians 5:3-4 “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.”

We can identify three behaviors that don’t fit the people who belong to God in this list. First is sexual immorality. “Impurity” falls into the same category. This is a catch-all way of describing every use and abuse of the sexual union. Rather than taking an hour to discuss all those possible sins, why not just remember that we belong to God? He has cleaned us up and given us a purpose, including this part of our lives.

The sum total of the world’s thinking on this topic has to do with personal pleasure. Pleasure is certainly part of God’s blessing, but it is not his purpose. God’s purpose has to do with creating a new generation–producing children. It has to do with cementing a relationship, uniting the unique gifts of a man and a woman to create a stable family–and thus a stable society. This happens only in heterosexual marriages based on life-long commitments. Everything else obscures God’s purpose for sexual union or undercuts it. Everything else is out of place for the people that God has claimed as his own.

Next Paul lists “greed.” Greed is another sin that fails to recognize that God has given us, and our material wealth, a purpose. He gives money and possessions to provide genuine needs, not to create huge stockpiles that may prevent others from having their needs met.

One place we see this illustrated is in some of the “hoarders” shows you see on reality TV. These people collect and collect and can never let anything go. Open the front door of their homes, and every inch of floor space is covered three, four, five feet high with things. You have to climb up on top of the pile to enter the house. You can’t even stand up straight because you are so close to the ceiling.

Who is being served by all this stuff? Who is being served by the junk collecting dust in our storage units? Who is being served by the unopened boxes stuffed into our garages? How many TV’s can we watch? How many cars can we drive? How many rooms can we live in? How many shoes can we wear? Granted, we may need a nest egg to retire someday, but how much money is hoarded when it could be helping someone? As children of God we need to learn how to say, “Enough.” Accumulating huge stockpiles makes no sense when we have a heavenly Father providing for us.

With three terms Paul addresses sins of the mouth: “…obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking.” Why should perversions of sex be funny? Does that kind of humor build our respect and appreciation for God’s good gifts in marriage and family? No, it lays the groundwork for adopting ideas about these things that are in conflict with God’s will. It has to be out of place for members of God’s family.

In place of all this Paul urges “thanksgiving.” Thankful people see the good and wholesome gifts our Lord has given. There is nothing for which we are more thankful than his forgiveness for these very sins. He has not rejected us for misusing our bodies, our possessions, or our mouths. In Jesus, he has cleansed us. He has reclaimed us. He has enlightened our minds and changed our hearts to perceive that his plan and purpose for our behavior is better, and then blessed us to enjoy the pleasant fruits of that way of life.

In his love, God has shown his people a better way. That way does not include a life with no boundaries for sex, wealth, or speech.