Love One Another

Opening Statement

Beloved, it is a great joy to open to the book of 1 Peter again.

We will be in Chapter 1 verses 22-25, The main thrust of the passage is the mandate to love one another. And you’ll see it at the end of verse 22, it says “fervently love one another from the heart”

Now look, Love is not a small topic:

The Apostle Paul says, that if love is missing then all things are fruitless…in 1 Cor. 13 - No matter how gifted you are, even if you give all your possessions to the poor or surrender your body to be burned – if it is without love it’s nothing. It’s worthless.

John Newton, the author of our beloved Hymn “Amazing Grace”, Said: “I am persuaded that love and humility are the highest attainments in the school of Christ and the brightest evidences that He is indeed our Master.”

Our Lord said, “— 34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34–35)

We are to love as Christ loved us… and our Love for one another is an evidence that you are true disciple.

Love is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22)

The Greatest Commandment: Love God and Love others.

The more excellent way is love.

And look we are so prone to be selfish, to be slow to forgive others, and our love can be lazy and cold…So Peter is going to help believers with the Word, encourage encourage our faith, and exhort us to love each other.

Please follow along as I read 1 Peter 1:22-25:

Reading of the Text & Prayer

1 Peter 1:22–25 (NASB95) — 22 Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, 23 for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For, “All flesh is like grass, And all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, And the flower falls off, 25 But the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word which was preached to you.

Look, we must have love for one another. But Peter does more here than give us command; he provides the divine motivations for that love.

Propositional statement: Peter gives: Two Compelling Reasons To Cultivate An Enduring Love for the Church

Two Compelling Reasons To Cultivate An Enduring Love for the Church

1st reason is:

1. You Have Been Cleansed

Said another way, You have been saved, forgiven; your conscience has been cleanse from the guilt of sin. You were washed.

Look at the begging of vs. 22, Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls

Your translation may have rendered this as “since you have purified” or “having purified your souls” – and are both getting at the idea that this a past action with continuing results. You were saved and your capacity to love one another is wide open.

You have new desires,

· affections,

· and abilities to obey the Lord’s will.

We need to gain clarity on what Peter is saying here, so that we can grasp why this is a motivation that we should be cultivating in our hearts.

First What is – “Purification”? Peter says, “Your souls were purified”, this is not external. It is an internal moral cleansing of the soul. Your souls, the inner man, were caused to be pure.

To be clear every human being has a material and immaterial aspect –

We are created beings consisting of body and soul or said another way we consist of body and spirit.

[Spirit and soul are interchangeable terms.

And

the soul is the center of the inner life, It functions our understanding, our will, our affections.[1]

so Scripture often refers to it as our “heart”, the mission control center of your life:]

Clearly Peter is talking about an inner life purification here –

he is not referring to a ritual or ceremonial external act like water baptism (an external testimony that symbolizes the spiritual reality that has occurred in a believer),

nor is he referring to the way the Priests in the Old Testament would make sacrifice, and cleansing themselves as a temporary remedy before the Lord (Numbers 19). That was external acts done by man.

But the prophet Ezekiel, looked forward to this spiritual reality of cleansing - the cleansing of our hearts, of those in the new covenant. He says in,

Ezekiel 36: — vs. 25 “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.

Peter says that you experienced this spiritual blessing of the new covenant. Your souls were purified –

How did this happen? -

Peter tells you how, Notice back in the beginning of vs. 22, the means on how the soul was purified, was, “in [your] obedience to the truth”.

You obeyed the Gospel. The very Words of life became a real reality in your minds

and you answered the call to repent and believe in the good news of the Savior.

“obedience” is a submissive yielding of the will.

“the truth” can in other places refer to general truth of scripture, but here it is the Gospel.

And look, Peter is not deviating from reality that we are saved by faith. He merely defines an element of faith as obedience to the truth.

Look back at verse 2, the opening of the letter, 1 Peter 1:2— according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood … [same word here, “to obey Jesus Christ”]

Skip down to verse 5, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time….

And Notice verse 9 obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.

Also, The Apostle Peter in Acts 15:9, regarding the Jew and Gentile believers says this,

Acts 15:9 — 9 and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.

so Clearly, obedience and faith can be used synonymously. –

And There was a point in your life that you obeyed the truth and were washed clean,

· total forgiveness,

· your hearts were purified.

Peter continues to place the truth of our Salvation before our eyes and ears.

BUT Why does Peter take us back to our salvation?

I want you to go back with me. However many years ago it was – You were completely lost – alienated from the life of God- consumed in your sin, and you weren’t passive in it either, you were actively suppressing the truth in unrighteousness - you loved your sin; it dominated and permeated your heart, mind, and will. And whatever you were chasing in life it was like the wind – completely empty without Christ.

Do you remember those days?

Maybe you lived long time in a lifestyle sin, or maybe you don’t have as many scares and were saved young…

Either situation you recognize and know that you were spiritually dead,

· spiritually bankrupt,

· blind to the truth,

· a lover of evil,

· and your merger efforts to do good would not outweigh your bad before an infinitely Holy God.

You needed a savior because you were not perfect, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

· And Just one sin carried an infinite weight of guilt before an infinitely Holy God. You were morally culpable..

This is the bleak spiritual reality of every single person outside of Christ.

And what did God do for such a sinner like you? He love you. You didn’t merit His love and you weren’t worthy of it…

What did God do for such a sinner like you? [He washed the guilt of sin away. Total Forgiveness]

Listen to these words, you know them well.

Ephesians 2:4–5 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

OR [ Tyler*consider 1 cor. 6 “washed” instead of love here in context with what Peter is saying or forgiveness focus rather than love ]

Romans 5:8,

Romans 5:8—But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

How did it hit you when you read these verses for the first time?

Was your heart not just overwhelmed by the Mercy, and Grace, and Great Love of Our God? That Christ died for you.

Never get over your salvation.

You see, the reason Peter brings us back to the Gospel in vs. 22 and 23 – is because of this reality –

the reality of our unmerited salvation, the cleansing of your souls, your new birth…

These are the profoundmotivation for us to cultivate in our hearts as the basis of our love for one another

We love, Why? Because he first loved us.[2]

It is also encouraging that with our new purified hearts we have the ability to have pure love. Love that is without hypocrisy…

Look back at the middle of vs. 22, Peter states that one of the purposes of your salvation is, a sincere love of the brethren

You were not able to love like this prior to Christ.. Prior to salvation.

Your hearts were purified with the intent that the result would equal a genuine love of the brethren.

And It’s reciprocal – it’s receiving love and giving love in the body of Christ

–here a “love of the brethren” –

denotes a family affectionate kind of love. And we can understand this point experientially - that when you have been loved with such a great of love from God you have a unity and depth with fellow believers that transcends even our earthly unsaved family members. The Church is your family.

What is striking here is that for the first time in a persons life he can really love those in the church, notice that this love is “sincere”. “Unhypocritical”, it’s a genuine love.

You may have been able to fake it as an unbeliever or had actually done some acts of kindness toward someone else, because of the common grace of God,

but who knows about the motives,

even then your love was completely tainted by sin.

But now, you were purified and brought into the family of God - experiencing this brotherly love and fellowship that is genuine.

…The experience is like when you are in a foreign land and everyone is speaking a different language, but just then you hear somebody… I hear My language, I understand… you lock eyes with that person and there is just that warm joy that washes over you, for a minute though, right.. It’s temporary, and you go on your way? The illustration breaks down because that stranger you saw in a foreign land only has your language in common…

But not so here, your brotherly love with one another is so much deeper, and richer, because we are all members of one Body.

Do you have view one another with this type of love?

We were saved for a sincere love of the brethren.

So relentlessly cultivate this love in our hearts.

Guard it, because even now, as believers, we struggle with remaining sin in our lives,

we don’t always have a deep, warm, family, sacrificial love with one another in the body.

In fact our love can wane, be hypocritical, and even grow cold. I think of the Ephesian Church who received a letter of rebuke in Revelation 2,

although they were well taught,

· had right doctrine

· and rejected false teachers.. Christ says, …that you have left your first love. …. repent and do the deeds you did at first; …. (2:4-5)

A believer must never lack love for Christ and others.

Where do we see our love start to drift?

· We can often keep people at a distance, stiff arming one another;

· We can put up walls and be guarded;

· We can be partial with our love, too only those who complement our personalities;

· We can get jealous over other people’s gifts;

· We can start pridefully comparing families within the church, like how my kids behave compared to theirs;

· We can be rude;

· We can get offended over petty things.

NO, Peter wants our brotherly love to be genuine and demonstrate this genuine love.

Notice the end of vs. 22, fervently love one another from the heart s

This is the heart beat of what Peter wants to get across to these believers.

It is the only command in vs. 22-25, and it is the main point.

The mandate is for a Christian to “love one another”

And this is the agape love, which Christians know very well, it is so rich –

It denotes:

A love that is sacrificial; seeking the highest good of another at whatever personal cost.

Notably Peter is commanding that you demonstrate this love.

· He uses the verb form of the word love.

· It is an active love that is demonstrated,

· It is not just a warm feeling toward others, But hand in glove your love extends outward toward one another.

We are to follow our Lord Jesus in this way of love, because it is not based on the person being lovely.

· God Demonstrated His love toward and unlovely group.. Am I right? So follow you Lord and be about loving one another with everyone’s weird tendencies, quirks, and imperfections.

· Peter says Love one another.

Like Paul in Romans 5:5, where he says that God’s love was poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. We too, are too respond to such love by demonstrating love.

This is exactly what Peter is getting across here. Because of the reality of your salvation you are to love.

There are a few things that characterize this love:

First,

Peter tells us the object of our love expressed is “one another”.

That’s us, believers in the body of Christ. Love one another.

This brotherly love, φιλαδελφία love, is coupled with agape love.

· The warm family affection for fellow believers.

· And a deep concerned sacrificial love is actively being extended to one another

So if we zoom out on this text and remember Peter is writing to a persecuted group of believers.

Think about the temptations that they would have faced – Would the pressure and persecution gotten diminished their love?

Like, in those days, association with these Christians would have been costly.

· most likely this relationship would have hindered the degree of success they had in business,

· Social classes were different - some of them were slaves and others rich, and all of a sudden their in relationship to one another has changed. They were to honor each other and view each other in a bond of love.

· Temptation could have been to return to those past friends of the old life.

· and these people were hated; persecuted… talk about tough circumstance to actively love one another in.

How would you responded?

Secondly,

Peter tells us to fervently love.

“Fervently” is the adverb Peter uses to intensify our love.

Basically,

· I want your love to be stretched to the max,

· your love to be extended with intensity toward one another,

· Let your love be wide open, open the floodgates of love, don’t hold back

· extend yourselves in fervent love toward one another.

Thirdly, notice this love is “from the heart”.

The heart is the source. It’s motives are purely the highest good of another without expecting anything in return. Agape love from the heart.

It’s easy to love those that are like you, but Christians love even their enemies and those even those that are unlovely.

People see a difference in the way Christians so freely love and serve one another.

In Reference to the source of this love being “from the heart” – It is scary that he adds this…

because it means that our love could be external only - a sort of going through the motions…

I believe this is the reason that Peter literally commands it here. --

Peter reminds us of this vital spiritual reality

· that our souls have been purified and we’ve been born again. You have been saved and transformed by the word of God.

Don’t loose sight of these divine motivations to love, but cultivate them in your hearts. It is the grounds of our love and thus when these truths hit our heart, it should be like a twin turbo jet engine starting up.

Have your love be fervent and sincere and from the heart.

What are ways to demonstrate love from the heart in the church?

Love is Patient and Kind – express your love by being longsuffering with one another. Being patient with one another’s weaknesses and immaturities. Coming alongside one another in discipleship and carrying each other’s burdens. Thoughtful and kind deeds for each other.

Love by praying for one another.

You love in:

· How you send letters to missionaries.

· How you serve a family who is moving.

· Making meals for each other.

· How you minister the Word to one another.

But If you really want to grow in your love and how it should be demonstrated,

Just Study the life of our Lord, Who perfectly reveals love to us,

Fight for this love, cultivate it in your thought life. Be inhumble obedience to the truth. Peter commands us to:

fervently love one another from the heart,

And he doesn’t stop. Peter, continues to pour lighter fluid on the flame of love that was pour into our hearts --

There is another motivation he adds here:

Reason #2

2. You Have A New Nature

Peters highlights your new spiritual life in Christ. He bolsters his argument for loving each other by grounding our understanding of the new nature and the nature of God’s Word. The Word of God is living and enduring, he says.

So Your love is to be living, and enduring,

Your love is to be extending forth, and enduring under pressure…especially under pressure.

Why? because the imperishable seed that caused your new life --abides. -- you will never loose your salvation;

Look at vs. 23, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. s

Notice, You have been born again. This is a past action of when God did a work in your heart and it has lasting results.

Peter already makes references to this in chapter 1 vs. 3, “God caused us to be born again”.

· This is a work of God, and a soly a work of God

· We didn’t do anything to birth ourselves.

· This is a spiritual birth

Paul calls us a new creation in Christ. A new creature. We have new life.

And We have a very clear account of this regenerational work,

found in John 3 -- the interaction between Jesus and Nicodemus –

You must be born again to see the Kingdom of heaven. And

This is a work done by the Holy Spirit.

But Peter takes a different angle of our regeneration, We know that it is a work of God; the Holy Spirit, but notice the insight that Peter gives here

Peter says you were born of a “seed”; He adds additional color to the source of our new birth.

The seed of life –

It was imparted to you, worked into you from God, and it never wears out, it’s imperishable.

The comparison is the that human seed results in human life that is mortal, we die, whereas this seed is from God who is eternal.

The nature of the seed is imperishable.

Peter stops the metaphor of the seedand speaks plainly to you. The source being of God, a seed sown in your heart,

And now notice vs. 23 what this seed is:

“by means of God’s living and enduring word (vs. 25) Peter says this was the word preached to you.

There is such clarity here. The means God uses to save His people is the Gospel!

May I just encourage you with this text, that God’s means, His Gospel – is powerful to save,

Don’t ever forget it –

· The Word never fails,

· it’s living and active,

· it’s shaper than any two edge sword,

· it is effective,

· it purifies the soul

· When the Word goes forth it never comes back void

Don’t stop throwing Gospel seed. It is the seed that never perishes.

This Word penetrates the very souls of men and is the means that God uses to save.

Peter notes, that the Word is “living” this is no ordinary book that you hold in your hands. You have a copy of God’s Word here,

· it is the very revelation of the only true God and

· is your only source of truth.

· You read it and hear the living Word.

· Words of life.

This not only, grounds your resolve and confidence in the Word of God to save,

but also this living and enduring nature of the Word should beget a living and enduring love.

Peter illustrates his point from Isaiah 40:6-8:

vs.24, For, “All flesh is like grass, And all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, And the flower falls off, 25 But the word of the Lord endures forever.”s

That’s right, all of humanity is frail, like the grass.

· Humanity is not significant.

· One Generation is here one day and gone the next.

It is interesting that Peter pulls in the idea of glory here. I believe he is telling us that the peak of humanity in all of her achievements, success, and power is compared to the flower of the grass… The flower falls off and the grass withers.

I don’t want you to forget the context of this quotation from Isaiah 40, because is shows that the purpose was meant to comfort these persecuted believers.

Isaiah proclaim this - to the people to as a means of hope –

that God would restore them from their exile in Babylon and be active in the promises He established. His Word Endures.

The point is that nations, humanity – we are like the grass of the field and all of our power and glory, like king Nebuchadnezzar had –

Withers and falls off.

The imagery Peter uses brings perspective.

We see a generalized look of humanity being frail,

· we see our mortality,

· That we don’t last, life is temporary here,

· the grave is calling my name and I know my time is short here…

But look at what it is contrasted with –

“The Word of the Lord Endures Forever”

Peter’s illustration extols the Word of the Lord. It “Endures” – It never goes obsolete and is relevant in every age.

· It’s timeless.

· It stands!

Even when this world is crumbling and they are slandering and persecuting Christians, calling our message foolish – Know this:

The Word of God endures. It outlasts everything. It remains forever!

So the argument goes – that the nature of the Word of God,

being enduring, is be the reason why your love is to be enduring.

· Even under pressure.

· Even in difficult circumstances - where we could be prone to lose heart, become bitter, and loose motivation to love.

No… This Word, changed your life, and it produced a living love that will last for eternity.

Look at vs. 25, And this is the word which was preached to you.s

This is the message that you have heard and know.

One commentator said, “The nature of the Word is evidenced in the life it begets and the fellowship it creates.”

That’s right,

And this message was preached and did a work in your hearts -

Go back to these motivations.

It’s seen in your life and fellowship with one another.

What a blessing!

So, Let our hearts be energized by these two compelling reasons

And

for us to have an enduring love toward one another.

Let’s pray:

Conclusion

[1] Flavel wrote, “The soul of man is a vital, spiritual, and immortal substance, endowed with an understanding, will, and various affections; created with an inclination to the body, and infused therein by the Lord.” [2] 1 John 4:19