It’s about the Holy Spirit and what he does. He brings Jesus into your heart, again and again. That sermon, or the way you read the Bible, or the way you mull over the meaning of your life—that’s the key, that Jesus loves you.

I hear different kinds of sermons, some my own. Many are decently descriptive: this is what this text says, this is why this comes after that, this is why Paul said it, Amen. I usually tune those out and think about something else, but I guess some people are satisfied.

Then there is the other kind, rarer and better. They put the focus on Jesus and his gospel, how much your Father loves you, and how he desires to bring Jesus into your life today in a deeper and startling way: ‘Your Father had this written with you in mind! Behind that wonderful reality is God’s eternal plan to care for his people, sometimes interrupted by their idolatry or indifference, but always a plan full of the love of his heart. Where are you today? Here in God’s Word he wanted them to hear and understand this because of the wrong road they were on, a road taking them further and further away from him. Do you recognize that road in your own heart? Have you given up about going another way? But you hear the truth and love in this passage now, don’t you? For you personally, here is hope! How shall you begin to turn back to him? I think this little booklet will help you, pick one up and call me later, maybe Tuesday evening, and we’ll put together a group so you can work together on this.  Now let’s thank God together for his unfailing love.’

There’s more to this than what preachers should do, it’s how we all need to read the Bible and respond to it. Is it a meaningless chore, or does it refresh your heart? We’ve heard it’s the way the Lord works in our hearts, as ‘a means of grace.’ Is that big talk or reality? Is your Bible more to you than a TV rerun?

Seeing the one big story in the Bible from beginning to end helps, they call it ‘biblical theology.’ Read the Old Testament and you see so much one foolish disobedience after another, with God still keeping after us. What God says in Hosea 11, after listing all his people’s disloyalties and indifference, is that amazing ‘How shall I give you up?’ How not?

You go to the New Testament then and see why there was hope! For me it works best to get those NT letters figured out and then go to the gospels. Paul especially spells out the aspects of salvation so sharply, your forgiveness/justification, your heart-change/sanctification, your identity as a child of God/adoption, and more. But that’s where I start to miss the point, maybe you too? It’s all about how Jesus loves me, but there are all those labels Paul puts on that love, and if I’m not alert, in a while I enjoy thinking labels so much that I forget that the point of everything is Jesus and his love for me.

Who told us this one: read Paul through the lens of the gospels? Of course, what Jesus teaches is about what he came to do, but at times it’s not what you expected, if you’re looking for a word like ‘justification.’ Jesus teaches with those stories, a bunch in a row, and the point always arrests you and makes you think—if you take time to meditate!

Finally as Jesus is about to go to the cross and then back to the Father, he gets clearer and clearer; I read that John 14-17 over and over as it gets to me. It’s all about love, do you see that? The Father for Jesus, Jesus for the Father, Jesus ‘going away’ because of his love for the Father and for us, and then—the penny drops, now you disciples, you love me as I love you, including what I call you to do. ‘Peter, you’re going to go where you don’t want to go.’ ‘So what about John, same deal for him?’ ‘None of your business, follow me.’ That’s personal isn’t it? Those are not easy things that Jesus says—but it’s still all about his love for you.

I grew up in a liberal world, so I get nervous when people talk love—they used that emotional slop to take away what the Bible says about you and me and our needs, and about Jesus and the cross.  But remember, read Paul through the gospels—when you believe all that Paul and the others say, it’s still all about love!

No, not love in general, whatever that is—but the love Jesus has to you! So far what I’ve been saying sounds like academic advice; this is how to learn about God. But when the outcome, the final act, the fifth movement of the gospel symphony is the love back and forth between Jesus and you, you and Jesus—there has to be a lot more than methodology.

It’s about the Holy Spirit and what he does. He brings Jesus into your heart, again and again. That sermon, or the way you read the Bible, or the way you mull over the meaning of your life—that’s the key, that Jesus loves you. Without that, sure you can get through life without paying much attention to the Bible and what it says; without listening to what God says to you, you can have a life where it all fits together, foolishly but consistently. But if you were made to love Jesus and be loved by him and to love him again and again and be loved again and again—then this ‘means of grace’ stuff fits. The Word of God is Love in all its richness and beauty, that could be something to talk to friends about, couldn’t it? That call to love as you are loved, that could be the way to ‘connect’ with people, couldn’t it?

But how? The Holy Spirit is in charge of pointing you to Jesus and his love. We have that promise and God keeps his promises. But as I read him, he wants us to remind him of what he’s said! That big magic word Covenant says that—‘you said that God, I heard you, now deliver, send your Holy Spirit to me now so I can see Jesus better.’ (It can get complicated, putting together what God says he’ll do for us and at the same time asking him to do it—Covenant? Jim Packer’s Keep in Step with the Spirit is thirty years old now, but for me the most helpful).

Heavenly Father, thank you for giving me your Beloved Son Jesus, and now I claim your kind promise to send me your Spirit so I can see him in his love for you and me, as I turn again to your Word.  Amen and amen.    

Dr. D. Clair Davis, lives in Philadelphia, Penn., is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America, and is a Professor Emeritus of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.