Love One Another Earnestly

1 Peter 1:22-25

Immanuel – 5/2/21

For two months we have surveyed the great truths of the gospel – and their many implications – as explored by Peter. Most certainly this has taken us into some deep theological waters; but sweet waters, and every drop of it a gift from God. How we should all desire to plumb these depths and get from them every treasure waiting there!

Today is much the same, but we do come to the most practical verse we have seen thus far. But the practical is grounded in the profoundly theological. So, we will still find ourselves swimming in the deep waters again today.

Purpose

How does obedience purify our souls?

What is the nature of the love we are to have for one another?

Read 1 Peter 1:13-25

Sanctification

Before I get into our passage I want to pull on a string that is woven throughout chapter 1. In verse 3 Peter writes that you who are among the elect have been born again to a living hope; meaning God has awakened you to faith in Jesus Christ. This is something that God has done monergistically, unilaterally, without any aid or influence from you. Just as Peter says in verse 3, God caused your new birth.

Then there’s the phrase “obedient children” in verse 14. Back in that verse Peter is not exhorting the readers of this letter to become obedient children, he is acknowledging that they already are. The elect have heard the gospel and responded in faith. Faith is the only possible response of obedience in the hearing of the gospel. Again, this is something that God has done. If you have ears to hear, or eyes to see, God has given them! Your obedience – through faith in the gospel – is a gift from God.

The theme continues in verse 16. God has made us holy – not because we are holy – but because He is holy. To simplify all of these ideas and bring them into a single, theological term, Peter is talking about justification.

When God justifies the elect, He brings us to life spiritually and causes us to love Jesus as our greatest treasure. He makes us obedient children, able to respond to the gospel with unshakable faith and a living hope.

But when we come to verse 22, where we begin our study today, something else seems to be going on.

Read vs 22

We have run right into a very complicated sentence, one that doesn’t end until halfway through verse 24; and it is going to take a lot of thinking to decipher its meaning.

First, Peter seems to be indicating that we have something to do with the purification of our souls. Look at that first phrase again: Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth. How is this not a contradiction to the thread of justification I was just pulling on, running through chapter one?

This is not a contradiction, this is a second thread, set in parallel with the first. Yes, God has made you holy, but you are also called to be holy in all your conduct, like Peter says in verse 15. Yes, we are children of obedience, but now we must live in that obedience.

God is totally and entirely responsible for our justification. But now that we have been born as children of obedience, we work – with tremendous help from the Holy Spirit – for our sanctification, for our growth in holiness, for our more complete obedience.

So, to continue Peter’s logic, and not abandon the twin threads of justification and sanctification that run through this chapter – that run through our lives – the obedience mentioned here is a result of our justification, not the means of our justification.

In other words, if God has caused us to be born again, as justified and holy children of obedience, then we grow spiritually by obeying Him. We live out our justification through obedience; which is the same as saying obedience to the truth – as Peter says in verse 22.

With every act of obedience, a bit of our former disobedient selves are purified. When we are further purified we have a greater readiness and willingness to obey again. Obedience leads to purification, and purification leads to more obedience. This is cycle of obedience and purification is the nature of spiritual growth; it is sanctification.

You might compare obedience to a spiritual muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. And the stronger it gets, the more able you are to lift heavy objects and go longer distances. Your soul, once emaciated and dying by sin, grows in spiritual strength through obedience. You are responsible to exercise this muscle!

Of course, spiritual growth and sanctification are not our work alone. The Holy Spirit is very much alive and active in our obedience. He is the power behind it and within it. He is the metabolism that drives the muscle, the protein needed for its growth, the electric signal that causes it to fire. But sanctification is still a partnership, where God works within us and He asks us to work with Him.

Listen to how Paul writes about the process of sanctification; and I think you will hear many of the same elements which Peter has mentioned in chapter 1.

My beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure. -Philippians 2:13

It is God who works within you so that you can will and work for His good pleasure. And, as Paul just mentioned, the willing and the working is all about obedience. This is sanctification. And sanctification is what Peter has in mind as he begins verse 22.

I just love how we can spend all that time on 10 words! Of course, those 10 words could be a sermon unto themselves. But we keep moving, because sanctification has an effect and obedience has an object: sincere brotherly love.

Sanctification Through Love

Sanctifying obedience happens through sincere brotherly love. Peter employs the Greek word “philia” for love, a brotherly love, the affection of friendship. One of the effects of the new birth is that we obediently love the people of the church.

We need to be crystal clear about who Peter is directing us to love. This is not love of neighbor, as Jesus commands. This is a much deeper love. The brothers, in brotherly love, are those in the faith – not just male members of the church. This term is used generically for men and women. Peter is talking about a sincere love for all those in the church.

Sincere means love without pretense, without hypocrisy, without deceit. We will talk about these things more next week when we begin chapter 2. But true sanctifying obedience, a response to all the great things God has done for you, does not pretend to love people in the church. With sincere brotherly affection, you love authentically.

Of course, this does not mean that we love perfectly. Loving others in the church can be a very challenging; mostly because we are a bunch of broken and sinful people with a lot of sanctification still to go. But in obedience we sincerely desire and work to love our brothers and sisters more truly and more completely. Yes, we most certainly should desire to love better than we do.

Which is precisely why Peter, after saying that brotherly love is the effect of gospel truths, he follows with a command: love one another earnestly from a pure heart. That is a command to love!

What you can’t see in the English is that Peter changed the word for love. Formerly he used “philia,” but in this command he uses the word “agape.” Where “philia” signifies brotherly love – which can be shared among friends – “agape” signifies the kind of strong love that binds together a family. And this love must be held earnestly from a pure heart; which is very similar to saying this must be a sincere love.

And “earnestly” signifies intensity; a striving and straining to love.

Justification causes you to sincerely love one another. Sanctification would drive you to love one another more deeply, more completely; so that your affections for one another moves you from friends to brothers and sisters, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters.

Like Jesus said: “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking about at those who sat around Him, he said, “Here are my mother and brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.” -Mark 3:33-35

Likewise, whoever lives in obedience to the truth, these are our family. The church is our family. Look around the room. Whoever here that does the will of our Heavenly Father, these are our mothers and brothers, sisters, sons and daughters. Love one another earnestly from a pure heart.

Brothers and sisters, I am so often pleased by the ways in which you love one another. Right now there are some of you working together to help an ageing individual find suitable housing. Some of you go out of your way to drive people to church that couldn’t otherwise be here. A number of you meet together and help carry each other’s burdens. You open the Bible together and disciple one another. You open your homes to one another. You cry together and laugh together, celebrate and mourn together.

We all, with diverse backgrounds, with a wide variety of preferences and opinions, with all kinds of different weaknesses and strengths, we are a family; and this is the household of God. Love one another earnestly from a pure heart.

There is nothing in this world like the church.

When the government advised that we shut down in response to COVID, we respectfully did so for four months. What the government does not realize is that it was asking a family not to gather. Just as distressing as it would be to be separated from your natural family – as it was for many of you – so should it be when you are separated from your supernatural church family.

We do not gather because it’s nice to have social connections or because we belong to the club called Immanuel. We gather because we are bound together by the precious blood of Christ, together adopted by the Father, born into the same living hope.

We worship the God who has done all of this in song, and even now as we obediently receive His word, but our very gathering is an act of worship: that God can take individuals as different and sinful as us, and make out of them one holy people. Together, we are the living reminder of the power of Jesus. Together, we are the embodiment of Jesus on earth. Gathering as a church family is obedient worship of our great Father.

Can the government then tell us that this is non-essential? Never! Should we act – with or without COVID – as if church is non-essential? Never! Shall we treat church like we treat restaurants, and just go where the staff is nice and the food meets our preferences? Never! To do so would be sinful, disobedient to the apostolic command to love one another earnestly from a pure heart.

You should be as committed to your church family as you are to your biological family!

Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. -Hebrews 10:24-25

And you cannot forget Peter’s point. You exercise your muscles of obedience, to the God who has justified you, by loving one another. Your sanctification will flourish or languish, in large part, based on how you are loving your brothers and sisters in Christ. How foolish to make a habit out of not going to church; or as if church were an institution that exists to serve your preferences! And the phrase, “I love Jesus but hate the church,” is Biblically incoherent!

And if you think that my language is strong, just look at where Peter goes next.

Read vs 23-25

Again, Peter is working with one continuous thought. How do these two verses help us understand Christian love? First we need to understand Peter’s illustration in the context of the passage he quotes.

First, the passage in Isaiah he quotes.

A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is like grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord will stand forever. -Isaiah 40:6-8

Abiding Word of God

The point is clear, what man produces is fading and temporary. What God accomplishes through His word will never end. This refers to God’s word both in spoken form and in written form. When God speaks, it always accomplishes, it always lasts.

A testimony to the endurance of God’s word is that we are examining His words some 2000 years after Peter put pen to paper. What I say will soon be forgotten. In fact, I would be quite pleased if you remember a quarter of this sermon by the end of the day. But I do pray that God’s words, spoken today, will have lasting effect!

Now the illustration. Peter contrasts the procreative nature of God and man. The human seed is perishable, failing, weak. The human seed is so weak that God ensures millions be released to fertilize a single life. And even if that life was to grow into great success, fame, and power; it is like a flower that blooms in splendor – only for a moment – and soon falls brown and wilted into the dirt below. All the might of men amounts to a moment, a passing vapor.

But that which is born of God’s seed will never fade or fall. What God gives life will live always; what He makes beautiful will have its beauty for eternity. What is the life giving, beauty producing seed of God that is so enduringly powerful? The gospel of Jesus Christ, just as Peter indicates in verse 25.

(Parenthesis)

This is why church must be centered around God’s word, and not programs, and not diluted seeker sensitive attractions, and not the talent of the worship team, and not the eloquence of men. Church must be centered around the faithful and potent proclamation of God’s word.

This is my great endeavor and happy burden as your pastor. And until He says otherwise, I will proclaim the oracles of God with all the grace He provides; as will all the others entrusted with this pulpit. And when we sing, we sing the gospel, rather than the fleeting feelings of men.

As the poet Samuel Valentine Cole wrote:

Hammer away, ye hostile hands;

Your hammer breaks; God’s anvil stands.

This church is about the anvil that stands, the enduring word of God, so that all people know joy in God!

(Close Parenthesis)

God’s seed, as sown through the gospel, lasts forever. But how exactly does that relate to Christian love; and Christian love that is as deeply committed as a family?

Peter is answering the implicit question, “What is the reason we love each other with such deep sincerity and commitment?” I will paraphrase the answer found in verses 23-25: Because God spoke, we were born; and we were born to live forever.

But there is one more connection still needed. If you are one of the elect, justified and born again, you will live forever. So will all the other elect. Together we are beings that will live eternally. That is a long time to live with one another.

God does not want us to wait for heaven to start loving one another. For we are a people who daily pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Therefore, when we love one another earnestly from a pure heart, a little bit more of the kingdom of heaven touches earth; and we are further sanctified as we obey the truth of the gospel.

And once more, the truth of the gospel impels us to love the people of the church. How can it not? Remember what Jesus said?

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one that this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” -John 15:12-14

“These things I command you, so that you will love one another.”

-John 15:17

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” -John 13:35

And the Jesus prays:

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one.”

-John 17:20-22

Can you see how concerned Jesus is that we love one another, that we are so united we are one. He died for this; to make out of such broken and different people one pure and spotless bride, sanctified and holy, purified by our love one for another. Since you have been born again, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. This is your eternal family! This how you live obediently to Jesus Christ!