Catholic Crimes and Cover-Up
One of the most heartbreaking stories in the news today is the abuse of thousands of boys and girls by Catholic priests. As I read the grand jury report released this week concerning the decades of abuse in the dioceses of Pennsylvania, I cried and prayed and was angry and cried some more. The depth of depravity present among those who claim to represent God while taking advantage of the most vulnerable among us is immeasurable. The audacity of the bishops and other Catholic officials to cover-up the rampant sin in order to avoid scandal, instead of protecting the children entrusted to their care, is mind-boggling.
The grand jury’s report is a great first step toward justice and reform and, I pray, repentance. They’re following the lead of the investigative reporters from the Boston Globe who uncovered the same pattern of abuse and cover-up in the diocese of Boston in 2002, as chronicled in the 2015 movie “Spotlight.” Their goal was simple, as stated on page two of their report: “We are going to name their names, and describe what they did – both the offenders and those who concealed them. We are going to shine a light on their conduct, because that is what the victims deserve.”
The grand jury gave two years of their lives to “shining a light” on the dark conduct of hundreds of Catholic priests and bishops. Darkness cannot escape light. When lights are turned on, darkness has to flee. As the light of our justice system shines on the dark practices of men living in the shadows of their sin and the safety of an institution willing to turn a blind eye to their behavior, it exposes the darkness and demands that action be taken.
Be Light and Shine Light
Because we’re all made in the image of the God who is light, we have a God-given instinct to bring light to bear on darkness. Even in a secular society like ours, we feel compelled to shine light on ugly things hidden in darkness. Of course, because our society has rejected the notion of absolute truth and the goodness of God’s word, we pick and choose what issues to shine light on. Thankfully there are still some things that our culture is willing to call wrong – like the abuse of children. By God’s grace, our culture is still willing to shine light on some areas of pervasive darkness.
Lots of people shine light on darkness. But followers of Jesus are specifically called to do this. Those who’ve repented of their sins and placed their trust in Jesus are commissioned by God to be spotlights in the world. Jesus says this explicitly in the Sermon on the Mount, “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 5:14-16).
Followers of Jesus are the light of the world and are to shine their light to the world. This is Paul’s point in our text this morning, Ephesians 5:7-14. His main point is that believers should be light (vv. 7-10) and shine light (vv. 11-14).
“You Are Light in the Lord”
In verses 7-10, Paul says that followers of Jesus are light and should therefore be light in the world. Notice first that Paul says in verse 8 that believers “are light in the Lord.” He doesn’t say that they’re in the light. He says that they “are light.” Becoming a follower of Jesus is more than a change of behavior. It’s most fundamentally a changing of our nature. Paul calls this the “new self” in 4:24. The gospel of Jesus Christ, the message of his love for sinners like us, is meant to change our hearts, not just our habits. Christianity is not most fundamentally a new lifestyle, but receiving a new identity. The gospel of free grace changes us from ignorers of God to lovers of God, from lovers of the world to lovers of Christ, from lovers of sin to lovers of righteousness.
The gospel changes us from darkness to light. This is the point of verse 8. Outside of Christ, we are darkness. In Christ, we are light. Outside of Christ, our entire existence is defined by darkness. This doesn’t mean that we were as bad as we could’ve been. It simply means that we had no hope and were without God in the world (2:12) and that our understanding of spiritual things was “darkened” (4:18). We assumed that we were good enough to go to heaven on our own. We assumed that our sin against the God who made us was no big deal. We assumed that Jesus was simply one religious option among many. We assumed that we could live however we wanted with no eternal consequences. Outside of Christ, we lived in spiritual darkness.
But everyone who’s believed the gospel has been rescued from the “domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of God’s beloved Son” (Col. 1:13). They’re made “light in the Lord.” In the gospels, Jesus says that he is the “light of the world” (Jn. 8:12). So the only way we are made light is “in the Lord,” through union with the One who is the light of the world.
This means that a Christian’s light is a reflected light. Followers of Christ are like the moon. We can’t produce light. We can only reflect light that is shone upon us. We don’t have anything inherent in us that makes us lights in the world. We’re born with the same darkness as everyone else. But when we encounter the glory of Jesus Christ, we’re changed by his light and we become bearers of his light.
“Walk As Children of Light”
After Paul establishes that believers are light, he proceeds to command us to be light. End of verse 8, “Walk as children of light.” He says, “You are light,” therefore, “live as children of light.” Like he’s done throughout this section, he commands Christians to be what they are. He says that we’ve been made new so we must live like we’ve been made new (4:22-24). He says that we’re God’s holy ones so we should live like it (5:3-4).
A believer’s behavior must correspond to their new identity in Christ. If Christ has transformed our hearts with his grace, then our lives will show it, not perfectly, but more and more each day. There was an old Christian rock band called DC Talk. At the beginning of their song “What If I Stumble,” they quote an author named Brennan Manning, who said, “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”
There are lots of reasons why people reject God today. But Manning is right to point out the connection between what we say we believe and how we live. People aren’t stupid. If we claim that Jesus is Lord and yet live our lives as if we’re the lord, how can we expect them to believe that Jesus is Lord? If we believe that Jesus is good and righteous and kind and compassionate, and yet live lives full of unrighteousness and unkindness and hatred, how can we expect an unbelieving world to believe in the Jesus we claim to follow?
All believers have failed to live as children of light. Even we need to go back to the cross of Christ again and again. In “What If I Stumble,” DC Talk asks: “What if I stumble, what if I fall? What if I lose my step and I make fools of us all? Will the love continue when my walk becomes a crawl?” Then they conclude, “I hear you whispering my name, you say my love for you will never change.” Even though we fail to walk as light, we must remember that we are light in the Lord. We aren’t saved by our walk. We’re saved by Jesus. Therefore, when our walk becomes a crawl, may we hear Jesus reminding us of his unending and unchanging love. Jesus never leaves the children he loves, the people who he shed his blood for (5:1-2).
Bear the Fruit of Light
In verse 9, Paul tells us what a life of light should look like. The “fruit” of a new life of light is goodness, righteousness, and truth. When the light of Jesus shines on the dead and decaying garden of our lives, good fruits will start to grow.
Jesus’ light produces tangible things in the believer’s life. As one scholar says, “Just as children share their parent’s nature, so the fruit of a plant shares the nature of the plant that produced it.” This is why there’s absolutely no biblical warrant to think we’re a Christian if there’s no discernible evidence of spiritual fruit in our lives. Light makes things grow. Jesus’ light produces goodness, righteousness, and truth. So if these things aren’t growing in your life, then you haven’t encountered the light of Jesus.
The light of Jesus produces “all that is good,” or a benevolent, kind, caring, compassionate, and generous attitude toward others. This is the opposite of the greed and self-centeredness described in verses 3-5. Instead of taking advantage of people, we want to serve people. Instead of ignoring those who’re different from us, we go out of our way to show them kindness and compassion. Instead of hoarding resources for ourselves, we gladly give away our time and money and energy for the good of others.
Believers should be willing to do good to their neighbor, their family, their classmates, and their fellow church members. Paul says elsewhere, “As we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10). There’s much good we can do in the world, but we must focus our efforts on “the household of faith.” For example, our first responsibility is to provide food for the hungry among God’s people, not the world at large. We should find creative ways to do good to one another. Older saints should invite college students over for dinner. Younger saints should offer to do yardwork and provide transportation for older saints who can’t get out as much. What are ways you can do good to other believers?
Other fruit that Jesus’ light produces is “all that is…right and true.” Righteousness and truth are indelible marks of Jesus’ followers. They love the things Jesus loves and hates the things he hates. They love his word. They saturate themselves with its truth and seek to live it out.
Live to Please the Lord
This is closely related to what Paul says next in verse 10. Those who are “light in the Lord” make the effort to discern what will please the Lord. Paul knows that deciding what is good, right, and true is often complicated. God doesn’t tell us exactly what to do in every situation. He wants us to think through things carefully before we make decisions.
This verse has widespread application. For college students, it means you should think carefully about who your friends will be, what places you will and will not go, if and who you should enter a romantic relationship with, what your field of study should be, and what church you should join while you’re in college. The Lord loves you no matter what. But we can please him, or not, with the decisions we make in these and many other areas. One of the wisest things you can do is to join a gospel preaching and believing church and put yourself in mentoring relationships with older saints. When we learn from the wisdom and experience of other believers, we surely please the Lord.
This applies to all believers. Learning from others means truly taking their counsel to heart. Often when we go to others for wisdom, we don’t want their counsel, we want their approval. For more on this topic, check out the article “Ask Someone Older Than You” at desiringGod.org. Making bad decisions usually means refusing to listen to those older than you. May we all seek to please the Lord by thinking through decisions we face with older saints.
May we “try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord” in every area of our lives. One of the reasons we’re offering Financial Peace University in a few weeks is because most of us weren’t taught about how to handle our money in a biblical way. We need help thinking through how to manage what God has made us stewards over. We need to find out how to please the Lord with our finances.
Expose Darkness
In verses 11-14, Paul says that believers should shine light into darkness. Believers are light and should therefore shine light. These verses are a bit confusing, but the point is simple: because believers are light, they should expose darkness.
Paul’s argument in verse 11 is that it’s impossible to be light without adopting some attitude toward those in darkness. Negatively, this means that believers are to “take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness.” The light produces the fruit of goodness and truth. But the works of darkness produce nothing. The garden of those outside of Christ is barren. Why would we want to take part in things that are empty and valueless? Paul says plainly back in verse 7 to “not become partners” with those who live in darkness. Those in the light want to stay in the light because the light is where life and warmth and safety are found. They know that the “works of darkness” only lead to death and decay and coldness and emptiness.
Positively, this means that believers should “expose the works of darkness,” or show them for what they are. We naturally don’t want to do this. Especially in a culture whose most important virtue is tolerance, we’ll shy away from calling darkness darkness. But as light, we cannot help it. As John Stott says, “This is what light invariably does.”
Evil deeds deserve to be exposed, to be unmasked and rebuked because it’s “shameful to even speak of the things they do in secret” (v. 12). The “works of darkness” must be brought to the light because they’re so shameful that people don’t like talking about them in public.
What things does Paul have in mind? In context, he’s referring back to verse 3. Sexual deviance of every kind, and the greedy impulses behind them, are “shameful.” They’re so shameful that they must not be mentioned. The only way to appropriately mention them is to expose them, to call them what they really are.
Christians must remove the attractive veneer placed over sexual immorality and those who practice it and show its true colors. Sexual activity outside of marriage is shameful. God created sex as a good gift to be enjoyed within the safe confines of a marriage covenant. Every other context that sexual activity happens is disgraceful. It cheapens and objectifies women, disregards God’s good commands, idolizes personal pleasure, and in the cases of child abuse, it takes advantage of the most vulnerable among us. We must call sin what the Bible calls sin.
Other Ways to Expose Darkness
Exposing the darkness of sexual deviance is primarily in view here, but there are countless ways that believers can “expose works of darkness” in the world. We can call corporate greed what it is. We can hold political leaders who lie habitually accountable when we vote. We can uncover the darkness of abortion by serving at pregnancy centers like Prestonwood Pregnancy Center. We can expose the lie that a government has the right to redefine one of the most basic institutions in the world by trying to persuade people regarding the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman.
There are countless dark things that need to be exposed. This generation is always looking for a cause to get behind. I saw a news story this week about how Reebok is starting to make some of its shoes out of corn because it’s biodegradable. They’re doing this because they know that millennials want to support companies with a social conscience.
Millennials shouldn’t be the only ones with a social conscience. All Christ followers should love light and expose darkness. We must remember that our first responsibility is to our faith family, not the world at large. And we must remember that people’s biggest problem is the separation that their sin has created between them and God.
“Christ Will Shine On You”
This is what Paul is getting at in verses 13-14. When Christians shine their light on the darkness in people’s lives, “it becomes visible.” With humility and grace, we can help people see the darkness that they live in. No one will come to the light until they’re honest about the darkness in their hearts. So with gentleness and compassion, we encourage people to be honest with themselves. We shine the light of God’s truth on their lives.
Verse 14 says “anything that becomes visible is light.” In other words, things made visible by light become light. Remember in verse 8 that believers are called “light.” Paul is saying that when darkness is made visible and dealt with, light comes as a result. He’s describing what happens at conversion. The light of the gospel exposes sin and gives the light of salvation.
The quotation at the end of verse 14 describes what happens at this moment. Our former condition is described as sleep and death. Apart from Christ we’re dead in our sin. But when the light of Christ shines on us, we come awake and rise from our spiritual graves. We’re removed from darkness and make “light in the Lord” (v. 8). Some here this morning need to stop shutting their eyes to the light of Jesus. He’ll shine on you and make you light if you’ll go to him.
The Light of Jesus Must Shine Through Us
Because of the light-giving grace of Jesus, we should “walk as children of light.” We should be what we are. We should work hard to please the one who turned the lights on for us. We should avoid the dark things we used to do. We should expose the dark things that our world does in secret. And we should seek to shine the light of the gospel into every corner of every dark room and every dark people group and ever dark person we know.
May God help us to be light and may God help us to shine light, so that others may see his light in us and be drawn to him.