Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

1967 - John Lennon / Paul Mccartney (The Beatles)

1 Peter 1

There's nothing you can do that can't be done

Nothing you can sing that can't be sung

Nothing you can say, but you can learn how to play the game

It's easy

Nothing you can make that can't be made

No one you can save that can't be saved

Nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be you in time

It's easy

All you need is love

All you need is love

All you need is love, love

Love is all you need

g

An anecdote from the early 1900s (Lottie Moon’s era) beautifully illustrates how Christians ought to be grateful for what Christ has done for them.

While on a three-story scaffold at a construction site one day, a building engineer tripped and fell toward the ground in what appeared to be a fatal plummet.

Right below the scaffold, a laborer looked up just as the man fell, realized he was standing exactly where the engineer would land, braced himself, and absorbed the full impact of the other man’s fall.

The impact slightly injured the engineer but severely hurt the laborer.

The brutal collision fractured almost every bone in his body, and after he recovered from those injuries, he was severely disabled.

Years later, a reporter asked the former construction laborer how the engineer had treated him since the accident.

The handicapped man told the reporter: “He gave me half of all he owns, including a share of his business.

He is constantly concerned about my needs and never lets me want for anything.

Almost every day he gives me some token of thanks or remembrance.”

Oftentimes believers—unlike the grateful engineer in the story—forget that on Calvary there was a Substitute who caught the full impact of their sinful weight and rescued them as they hurtled toward an eternity in hell.

God poured out His wrath on the perfect Sacrifice, His sinless Son who “was pierced through for [their] transgressions, He was crushed for [their] iniquities; the chastening for [their] well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging [they] are healed”.

Isaiah 53:5

Let’s read our passage...

I.

When Were Believers Enabled to Love?

“ Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth” (1:22a)

Scripture repeatedly makes it plain that the unconverted person is far from having the ability to demonstrate genuine love.

(, ; ; ; cf. ; ; , ; ; ; )

Scripture repeatedly makes it plain that the unconverted person is far from having the ability to demonstrate genuine love

, ; ; ; cf. ; ; , ; ; ;

, ; ; ; cf. ; ; , ; ; ; )

- If you hate your brother you are not saved.

(hated is shown by action not words)

- They were concerned with the minute details of external religion and yet did not (and could not) manifest God’s love

They were concerned with the minute details of external religion and yet did not (and could not) manifest God’s love

It was at salvation that believers received the capacity to demonstrate supernatural love.

Evidence of your salvation continues to be (and will always be) obedience to God’s word.

Who gives you the capacity to obey God’s word?

The capacity to obey God’s word is given by God through the Holy Spirit.

When you see a brother/sister show hate toward another (by action or lack of action) that person is not saved.

Faith is not a human-initiated work of obedience (, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God”), but if genuinely given by God it will result in believers’ regularly obeying the truth and manifesting God’s love to others

Faith is not a human-initiated work of obedience (, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God”), but if genuinely given by God it will result in believers’ regularly obeying the truth (cf.

; ; ; , ) and manifesting God’s love to others

When Were Believers Enabled to Love?

II.

Who Are Believers to Love?

“for a sincere brotherly love” (1:22b)

for a sincere brotherly love

At salvation, believers become members of Christ’s body, the church, which then becomes the target for their new, Spirit-empowered capacity for love.

- This love of the brethren (philadelphia) is to be sincere (anupokriton, “unhypocritical”).

At salvation, believers become members of Christ’s body, the church, which then becomes the target for their new, Spirit-empowered capacity for love

- Un-hypocritical - (meaning: behaving in a way that suggests one has higher standards or more noble beliefs than is the case.)

Sincere love is the prevailing standard for believers , superseding all earthly limitations and considerations.

(To the world it shouldn’t make sense.)

God can use the loving unity of believers to attract a lost world and awaken it to its need for salvation.

(They see something that is different)

People are looking for, begging for, something different in a church.

Why would they come to yours???

God can use the loving unity of believers to attract a lost world and awaken it to its need for salvation

“We instinctively tend to limit for whom we exert ourselves.

We do it for people like us, and for people whom we like.

Jesus will have none of that.

By depicting a Samaritan helping a Jew, Jesus could not have found a more forceful way to say that anyone at all in need - regardless of race, politics, class, and religion - is your neighbour.

Not everyone is your brother or sister in faith, but everyone is your neighbour, and you must love your neighbour.”

― Timothy Keller, Generous Justice: How God's Grace Makes Us Just

“We instinctively tend to limit for whom we exert ourselves.

We do it for people like us, and for people whom we like.

Jesus will have none of that.

By depicting a Samaritan helping a Jew, Jesus could not have found a more forceful way to say that anyone at all in need - regardless of race, politics, class, and religion - is your neighbour.

Not everyone is your brother or sister in faith, but everyone is your neighbour, and you must love your neighbour.”

If the law of love (love your neighbor) dictates that we should love even our enemy this way…How much more so should we love the church here as Peter describes.

― Timothy Keller, Generous Justice: How God's Grace Makes Us Just

III.

How Are Believers to Love?

Who Are Believers to Love?

“love one another earnestly from a pure heart...” (1:22c)

New Testament verb Agape expresses the ideal kind of love, that which is exercised by the will rather than emotion, not determined by the beauty or desirability of the object, but by the noble intention of the one who loves.

Meaning: You do not love someone based on their looks or what they can offer you (or the church)!

You love them because God himself loves them.

Earnestly (Fervently) (ektenōs) is a physiological term meaning to stretch to the furthest limit of a muscle’s capacity.

As intended by Peter, metaphorically, the word means to go all out, to reach the furthest extent of something.

Fervently (ektenōs) is a physiological term meaning to stretch to the furthest limit of a muscle’s capacity.

Metaphorically, the word means to go all out, to reach the furthest extent of something

Such a strong love, does not derive from some external, legalistic requirement (cf.

; ; ).

On the contrary, Peter told his readers that this love is an attitude compelled from within, from the heart, because it is a fruit of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

(John preached about this Sunday 9/1/19)

IV.

Why Should Believers Love?

How Are Believers to Love?

“since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for ‘All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass.

The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.’

And this word is the good news that was preached to you.” (1:23-25)

since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; 24 for

“All flesh is like grass