Part 5: 1 Peter 1:22–25
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22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. 23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For,
“All people are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
25 but the word of the Lord endures forever.”
And this is the word that was preached to you.
Intro
Intro
We may wonder from time-to-time whether we can ever really be right with God. As David says our sin is always before us. And no doubt that is true in Heaven too for the Devil accuses us, rightly, before the Father, but our righteous Judge, Jesus, paid the penalty for all our sin, so there is no condemnation. This then should lead onto holy living for we grasp the grace that has been given to us. And so we saw last week. Holy living or the idea of getting more holy as we go on in our Christian lives is called sanctification.
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Part of this holiness is shown in our love for one another. Today we are admonished to love one another fervently or enthusiastically or passionately and with complete sincerity and genuineness. Since we have come to the Gospel it also means that we love our brothers and sisters or else the love of God is not in us for love is at the very centre of Christian lifestyle. In fact, love is the very character, the very essence of God:
8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
And Jesus contended that it would be by this love that everyone would recognise His disciples:
35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
But we may be getting ahead of ourselves and Peter here for he first says that before all this we must purify our souls. In the Old Testament the way this was done was by killing the sacrificial animal and sprinkling or pouring the blood upon whatever needed to be cleansed which included the altar, the ministers and the people of God as we find in
30 Then the priests and Levites purified themselves, and purified the people, the gates, and the wall.
So, how do we in the New Testament era purify ourselves? Again it relates to the sacrificial lamb of God and His blood that was shed for us, poured out for us and upon us for our cleansing.
19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
This is the start of our being able to love with sincerity. We must be cleansed of our sins through Jesus Christ. We must no longer live but Christ live in us. We must be dead to self and alive to God. In Paul’s letter to Timothy he said:
22 Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
Knowing we are forgiven is key to us being gracious to others. We must have received the unconditional love of God first before we are able to love others. We love for He first loved us.
If being purified is first then secondly, according to Peter, we must obey the truth through the Spirit. “What is truth?” should be rephrased: Who is truth?
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
Truth, love and obedience are in alliance. All who love Him obey Him according to
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commands.
21 The one who has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father. I also will love him and will reveal myself to him.”
23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.
We are called on repeatedly by Jesus and the Apostles to love one another. The consequence of this love is that the world looks on and sees and takes note for the world knows we are His disciples if we love one another. The kind of love that Peter is talking of can be illustrated by these true stories:
William Gladstone, in announcing the death of Princess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria, to the House of Commons, told a touching story. The little daughter of the Princess was seriously ill with diphtheria. The doctors told the princess not to kiss her little daughter and endanger her life by breathing the child’s breath. Once when the child was struggling to breathe, the mother, forgetting herself entirely, took the little one into her arms to keep her from choking to death. Rasping and struggling for her life, the child said, "Momma, kiss me!" Without thinking of herself the mother tenderly kissed her daughter. She got diphtheria and some days thereafter on Dec 14th 1878 she too died from the disease that killed her daughter. Real love forgets self. Real love knows no danger. Real love doesn’t count the cost.
It might seem too much for us to love in such a way but this is exactly what is required of us but not by One who was not willing to do it Himself in sending Jesus for us.
William Dixon lived in Brackenthwaite, England. He was a widower who had lost his only son. One day he saw that the house of one of his neighbours was on fire. Although the aged owner was rescued, her orphaned grandson was trapped in the blaze. Dixon climbed an iron pipe on the side of the house and lowered the boy to safety. His hand that held on to the pipe was badly burned. Shortly after the fire, the grandmother died. The townspeople wondered who would care for the boy. Two volunteers appeared before the town council. One was a father who had lost his son and would like to adopt the orphan as his own. William Dixon was to speak next, but instead of saying anything, he merely held up his scarred hand. When the vote was taken, the boy was given to him.
That’s how Christ loved us. That’s what our people are looking for in us. When we bear the scars of loving others, they will love us. That’s how it is with Jesus and us…He loved us first. We love Him because He first loved us. This is the Gospel – He loves us and we love Him and we love each other.
To love fervently means we are to do it with all our strength. And is this not what Jesus Himself requires of us?
30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. 31 The second is, Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other command greater than these.”
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The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 34: James / 1 & 2 Peter / Jude Loving from the Heart
Peter proceeds to inform us that the quality of loving God sincerely, fervently, and with a pure heart flows from that marvelous and necessary experience of “having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever”
We are born again. It is the Holy Spirit who has brought us into this living relationship with the Father by indwelling us and becoming the guarantee of eternal life. Guarantee? Yes, absolutely. The seed has been planted in us and cannot be corrupted or go bad or produce bad fruit.
The seed sown is none other than the Word of God and it can only bring eternal life in those in whom it is planted. The Word who lives and abides forever lives in us. We have been adopted into God’s family:
15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
1 Peter–Jude (King James Version) C. Love One Another Fervently, 1:22–25
Note that God’s Word is the incorruptible seed; it is the seed that is planted within our hearts and lives. The word incorruptible means that it does not perish. Imagine! The Word of God recreates us, and it is incorruptible. This means a most wonderful thing: we are incorruptible; we will not age, perish, deteriorate, or decay. As this verse says, “the Word of God … lives and abides forever.” Therefore, we shall live and abide forever.
Life though is not the only outcome of the Word of God but as we have seen it is also love.
The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 34: James / 1 & 2 Peter / Jude Loving from the Heart
The Word of God will endure forever, and so will love. We should not be surprised. For if God is love, and if God is eternal, so must love be eternal. Love never comes to an end (1 Cor. 13:8). Love goes on forever (1 Cor. 13:13).
Isaiah says of God’s Word:
10 “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,
And do not return there,
But water the earth,
And make it bring forth and bud,
That it may give seed to the sower
And bread to the eater,
11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
God says, “It will accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” And what is the full intention of God’s Word? Isn’t it that He would be made known in all his fullness? God, we know, is love. Therefore, the imperishable seed not only gives us life but gives us love. The activity of God’s Word brings life. And the full intention of God’s Word brings love. And all of this is because within the Word of God we gain Christ, who is both life and love. And He living in us causes us to become loving.
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The in verse 24 Peter talks of the grass that comes up and then withers. I think though that you get the point – soon we shall see daffodils, and they will flower but it is not long before they die. We can get sick very quickly and really this is what this is saying – we are here today and gone tomorrow. It speaks here of the glory of humankind. What is its glory? We heard a little about this on Wednesday about coveting. But what is the point?
1 Peter–Jude (King James Version) C. Love One Another Fervently, 1:22–25
People work and work to be glorious, to be …
• attractive
• acceptable
• honorable
• upstanding
• recognized
• charming
• appealing
• esteemed
• dignified
• beautiful
But no matter how much glory man achieves, he ages, wrinkles, deteriorates, and passes off the scene.
This is in contrast to God who lives and loves eternally. God’s Word is eternal but our flesh is not. But it is worse than that for it says of the grass in
16 For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
And its place remembers it no more.
This is a good reminder for us all. You and I will not be remembered within two generations of our death. Think about that for a minute. Each of us can remember back one generation—we know our parents’ names. We can recall the place of their birth and the resemblance of their face. We can even hear the sound of their voice—and at times we hear it in our own. But what can you recall of the second generation? How much do you know about your grandparents? Do you know all their names? What about their place of birth? Can you speak at length of their vocation or interests? And beyond them, what do you know about your great-grandparents? Anything at all? Yet, they are separated from you by only two generations.
Verse 24 and 25 is a quote from Isaiah to make a point in contrast to God’s Word that lives even when we are dead and gone. The seed of the Word of God lasts longer than seed for grass.
Peter wants Christians everywhere to be a people known for living lives that demonstrate God’s love. The time is short. All flesh is like grass. Get about the business of growing up in love. It may be that the glory of people will pass away but those who are believers are like the Word of God that lasts forever for we have been given eternal life. Get your priorities in order, Peter says.
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The Word of the Lord is forever.
Thru the Bible Vol. 54: The Epistles (1 Peter) Suffering and the Scriptures
we need the preaching and the teaching of the Word of God above everything else. I do not mean to minimize the place of music, the place of methods, and the place of organization, but there is absolutely no substitute for the Word of God today. “The word of the Lord endureth for ever.”
Darby said: God is unchangeable, and the Word which by its sure certainty secured divine blessings to us who are the objects of God’s favour, has formed in the heart to beget a life as immortal and incorruptible as the Word.
This is also the Word who was preached to us and the same Word we need to make known. One of the greatest ways to show love is in telling someone the Good News of Jesus.
When we speak of the Word of God we refer to the Bible for that is its name. There is another who is known as the Word of God and that is Jesus. He is the Word of God. If we have Jesus in mind we will get our perspectives right. When Jesus is held in high esteem, when we praise Him, when we admire Him, when we think on Him and the love shown to us then it naturally flows back to Him and to those who are His people and to those who are yet to be His people.
Earlier I told you two tales of love: one about a mother for her daughter and the other about a man who saved a boy from a fire. But there is no greater love story than that told of Jesus who died for you and for me. This is the Gospel we heard, and He, by His Spirit, He, by His eternal Word lives in us.
Conclusion
Conclusion
As believers we have received the Word of God into our lives. Therefore, we are also going to be living together forever, for eternity. This also means that we are family, the family of God. Therefore, we are to live and act like the family of God, that is, to love one another with a pure heart fervently. And all this is in response to the great love and grace we have been shown by our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Benediction
Benediction
12 And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you, 13 so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Cedar, P. A., & Ogilvie, L. J. (1984). James / 1 & 2 Peter / Jude (Vol. 34). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.
Darby, J. N. (2008). Edited by Ian Thomas. Synopsis of the books of the Bible: Colossians to Revelation. (p. 434). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
Helm, D. R. (2008). 1 & 2 Peter and Jude: sharing christ’s sufferings. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.
Leadership Ministries Worldwide. (1996). 1 Peter–Jude. Chattanooga, TN: Leadership Ministries Worldwide.
McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: The Epistles (1 Peter) (electronic ed., Vol. 54). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
Exported from Logos Bible Software, 17:08 12 January 2019.