Holiness by the Word

On Friday night, I had perhaps the most fantastic, artery clogging, chicken sandwich I’ve ever eaten. It was from a little shop in a Chinese food court off K Road called Sneaky Snacky. Not only was the chicken incredible and juicy, and the dill mayo fantastic, but to top the whole thing off, it was all between two halves of a glazed donut.

And I don’t if words can really convey how delicious this was and I’m sure if I tried to replicate it, it would be horrible. But the way that the sweet donut and the spicy fried chicken worked together in this sandwich was magical.

Here Peter presents to us an imperative sandwich which is a command to love one another sandwiched between two proclamations about our New Birth. And just like eating a sandwich, taking in all the flavours, we must consume the whole thing together to get the full effect.

The command that Peter wants us to obey cannot be taken apart from the truth that we can only do this because of and by the Gospel producing new birth in our souls. This passage before us this evening continues the argument Peter started back in 1:13. We like soldiers girding up our loins, ready for battle, must fully set our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As those who call God our Father, like children we are to live in our family lineage and pursue Christian love.

What is Christian love? Everyone wants to be seen as loving but what this is equated to is tolerance, affirmation, and celebration of sin. What Peter asks us to do is a different kind love with a different root.

It is not love that has its seed in the world, but a love that has as its seed, the blood of Christ. But this is a love that none of us can ever attain. We read this and think that we can love, but we can’t. We can be friendly, we can be affirming, we can give off the appearance of love, but we can’t love without being born again through the Word.

It doesn’t come naturally to us. That is why Peter felt the need to write this. He wouldn’t have written this command to love if there was no need to be reminded of it.

This is what I want us to get this evening, that we would pursue a holy love for one another by the imperishable Word of God through which we have been saved.

We will look at this text under three headings of what the word of God does. The Word of God Purifies, It causes us to Love, and it causes us to be Born Again.

The Word Purifies

Beginning in vs 22, read with me.

It seems odd to us initially that Peter phrases this section in the way that he does. What does Peter mean that we have been purified by our obedience? We might have a good protestant, knee-jerk reaction to this, “We’re not saved by obedience! We are saved by grace alone through faith alone!”

And indeed, we are!

This obedience is not our obedience, but obedience to the Truth. Which is to say, we have believed the truth of the Gospel. This is incredibly important for us to understand, if we make the mistake that obedience means something we do, because we expect a command to follow and so dont read closely, then we will run the risk of thinking that our purification and holiness is something brought about by our own working.

But Peter says with definiteness to us, the foundation of all our Christian living is our obedience to the truth, not to a command.

That truth he has already proclaimed to us. The truth is that we were ransomed from the futile ways we were born into. The futile ways of sin that only leads to death. We were ransomed, not with things that can perish and pass away, but with the precious blood of Christ. It is through Him we are believers in God who raised Jesus from the dead.

Now, our faith and hope are in God. The same one who has raised Jesus from the dead, will also raise you. And indeed, he has raised you. As surely as Christ is raised and reigns with God in heaven, so too you have been purified by your belief in this Gospel Truth.

We are purified, not by our belief in itself, as if there was any measure to it, but we are purified by the object of that belief. Through that object, what was once impure has now been made pure.

We have heard the proclamation of God’s Word that we are clean by Christ’s life and death. We are purified not by the greatness of our faith and belief, but because of the greatness of our saviour.

Come, not with pride, but like a beggar, with the empty hands of faith. Like the woman with the flow of blood, if we are only to get a fraction of the grace available to us in Christ, it would be enough to heal us. Because it is not with how much, or how little, we come to Jesus with, but that we would come to Jesus, believing that He is the One who has purified us. Like a lamb without spot or blemish, Christ is the perfect lamb, full of grace and mercy.

He is the one who has purified you and made you clean. And He cleanses you for a purpose.

This leads me to my second point.

The Word Causes us to Love

So, when Peter declares to us here having purified, he means to speak with finality. That we have been. This is a perfect, complete action that has been accomplished in the past. This past reality forms our present life.

So, Peter immediately moves on to give a reason for our purification.

Read with me the second half of vs 22.

When we think of Christian holiness what do we think of? Usually when we think of pure hearts and sanctified lives as a result of being born again. Our usual markers consist of things like the kind of clothes we wear, or whether we drink alcohol or not. Although these aren’t necessarily wrong for us to consider when we look at the Christian life, in fact thinking about our conduct is a godly thing to do.

But here, Peter doesn’t say to us that we are purified for the purpose of dressing rightly or drinking the proper things. No, Peter says the purpose of our purification is much larger than these things.

Peter points us to love. He says that we have been purified, “for a sincere brotherly love.”

Head

What does he mean by this? Peter is drawing our attention to the kind of familial affection we ought to have. Together, we call God our Father and as such, we are His children. So as those bound together by Christ, we should display to one another a love that does not speak out of the corner of its mouth but is sincere.

For Peter then, love occupies a significant place as a marker of salvation in the Christian life. He is not alone in this. Paul says the same to the Ephesians in Chapter 1,

“because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you.”

What does Paul also say in Romans 12? Under the heading in our bibles “the marks of a true Christian,”

“let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection.”

Notice the correlation, evil is that which is not love and goodness is love, specifically for one another.

Jesus also says to His disciples,

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

And so, for Peter, following in this says to us, “love one another earnestly from a pure heart.” Because, this is simply put, this sums what he said earlier,

“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.”

Heart

That means that true holiness = love.

And we have seen this in the Gospel. The greatest display of God’s holiness is not retreating far off from us but coming near to us. It is God’s holiness that causes Him, out of love, to come down to us. It is God’s holiness that drove Him to claim a people for his own, that He might dwell with them in the Old testament. It was God’s holiness that meant Christ incarnate came down to tabernacle with us.

And it was God’s holiness in love that meant that Christ would die on our behalf. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends.” If you believe this Word today, you are a friend of Christ. He has paid fully for your sins and impurity and claims you as His own. Now, your faith and your hope are in God. If you do not believe this Word. Christ calls to you now, come to Him. He is gracious, kind and merciful, abounding in love.

Hands

We now, because of the love that has been shown to us, ought to also love. We ought to love with a genuine love, that has no show. By saying that we should love earnestly, Peter means to show to us how we are to pursue love. It is the same word used by Luke to describe Christ in the garden before His arrest. In agony, Christ prayed more earnestly; and his sweat become like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

This is the kind of love that we should seek to show one another. This love though goes against what is natural to us. We should see in that descriptor that there is no way that we can love in the way that God requires of us. We don’t have a deep, earnest love from a pure heart toward one another. We fall far short of this standard of perfection.

That is why we have to turn to the One who has loved perfectly, the only one who can love perfectly. It was His love for us that drove Him to pray in such a way that his sweat become like great drops of blood.

When we feel the significant lack of love that we have for one another, for our spouses, for our families, for our neighbours, workmates, and friends, we should turn and humbly fall before the One who has perfectly loved for us. It is by and through Him that we are able to love.

How do we know of this love He has for us? Through the living and abiding word of God.

This leads me to my final point; the Word causes us to be born again.

The Word Causes us to be Born Again

The reasons that Peter commands and expects the perfect, holy love, is because that is the standard of love shown to us in the cross. That is the standard of love that comes from God’s holiness.

But He reminds us again, that he requires this standard because that is the new life that we live.

Read with me vs 23-25.

Head

He begins by saying to us, “since you have been born again.” In case we wallow in the despair that we can never show the kind of love required of us, Peter reminds us that we can love (though it may be imperfect), but it is not of our own doing and power, but by the power of God alone.

He says that we are born not of an imperishable seed, but of an imperishable one through the Word of God. This Word is the good news that was preached to you and that you believed.

This seed is unlike any other seed. A grass or a flower seed is planted in the ground and though it produces beautiful life, it eventually withers away and falls. Our flesh is like this grass, it grows up but eventually withers away due to sin. But the word of God is unlike this.

It is planted into our hearts; it takes deep root, and it grows and matures producing in us fruit that is far beautiful than any we could ever imagine. And it never stops, it never perishes, it never withers away, the seed continues to grow and flourish in all the people of God. It’s roots go down deep and its branches out wide until even the greatest oak pales in comparison to the seed by the Word of God.

The seed promises to us that the salvation that we have received now will one day be brought to completion. As Peter says earlier in the chapter

Read 1:3b-5

An imperishable seed produces an imperishable inheritance and this is our hope. This is our goal and our motivation. The command to love now comes from the fact that our inheritance is God Himself, the Father who loves the Son by the of love, the Holy Spirit. And we together will be bound up in that love.

We don’t love now because it is just good to do. We love now because our imperishable inheritance is love.

Heart

Peter knows how great a command it is to love one another. He knows how impossible the task is for us. This is why He sandwiches the command in the way that he does. The only way we could ever begin to love one another as we ought, is by the Word of the Gospel that was declared to us and plants the seed of new birth in us.

It is in the Word of the Gospel that we find true love, the holy God has come to be with us in the incarnate Christ. He has laid His life down for us in order that we might have life in Him. It is only in the Scriptures that we find this proclaimed.

This is what Ryan touched on this morning, love is deeply connected to the Scriptures. It is they, which contain the Truth, that produce love in us. They produce love in us because of what they proclaim to us. Love for one another is bound up in the truth that you and I are sinners, impure and estranged from God.

But together by the blood of Christ, we all are made pure and called Children of God. So, the same Gospel that revealed the love by which we are saved, is the same Gospel that enables us to love. God’s love is what produces our love.

Hands

This Word is the only way we can know the love of God for us and the love which we ought to love one another. It is a love that is far bigger and far greater, than any love that we could ever conjure up ourselves. But it is a love that has been planted into our hearts through the Word of the Gospel.

So, when we see our failings before God and before one another. We know our lack of love, the only way by which we can truly love as we ought to, is by taking the command to love and sandwiching it between the two realities that in Christ, we have pure hearts for the purpose of loving one another because we have been born again by His seed proclaimed to us.

We have nothing. We are but poor beggars before Christ. Daily we need to go to Him through the Gospel. We are sinners by natural birth, unclean and impure, unable to come to our heavenly Father. But by the New birth through Christ, we are born again. Born of an imperishable seed. This is our hope. May we daily see our lack of love and our need to be refreshed by Christ’s love for us.