Text: 1 Peter 1:22 – 2:3
OPEN:
As we come to the close of chapter one and the beginning of chapter two, we encounter a fourth command. The three previous were:
Live in hope. "Set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you" (v. 13).
Live in holiness. "Be holy yourselves in all your conduct" (v. 15).
Live in fear. "Live in reverent fear during the time of your exile" (v. 17). Last week we saw that the river that should run through each of our lives is the fear of living in a way that does not honor God.
The fourth imperative is found in verse 22: "Love one another deeply, from the heart.”
Live in love.
A noticeable thing about these verses is the imagery of growth: seed, grass, withering, and newborn babies. How is the imagery of growth related to this command to love?
Grown-up love in our church is expected but also commanded as an indication of spiritual maturity.
Two thoughts on this grown-up love that the world is supposed to see in us . . .
I. THE LEVEL OF LOVE IN OUR CHURCH DETERMINES OUR REPUTATION. (1:22-25)
1. Christian love/unity is both assumed and commanded in verse 22.
Assumed/expected: “Now that . . . so that . . .”
“sincere”: ahupokritos = without hypocrisy.
“love for your brothers”=Philadelphia=fraternal affection/brotherly kindness.
Peter assumes/expects that there would at least be affection and kindness in the church. This is his minimum standard. Anything less than this does not qualify as a church.
Commanded: “Love one another deeply, from the heart.”
“Love . . . deeply”: Aorist active imperative of the word agapao. Comes from the root word meaning “much.” The early church took a relatively unused noun (agape) and turned it into an action word/verb.
They understood that to truly contain agape/ God’s kind of love, it must agapao/ be put into action.
2. Why are we commanded to display a deep love in the local church?
Love is THE identifying mark of a disciple – love of God/love for others.
The Apostle John wrote a pastoral letter to several churches in which he emphasizes the necessity of love among the members:
1 Jn. 2:9-11: “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.”
1 Jn. 3:11: “This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.”
1 Jn. 3:16: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”
1 Jn. 4:12: “No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (John is saying that the only way the unbelieving world will ever see God us through our expression of deep love for one another in the church!)
That’s what Jesus meant when he said in John 13:34-35:
“A new command I give to you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
*The only thing the world has to judge us by is whether or not we love one another – at least affection but growing deep into God’s kind of love.
We love each other without partiality/prejudice because salvation treats us the same.
Without Christ we are the same (v. 24) – “like grass.”
With Christ we are the same (v. 23) – “not of perishable but of imperishable seed"
If God treats us the same in salvation, who are we to do any differently in the church?
John 13:34: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
James 4:12: “There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you – who are you to judge your neighbor?”
II. THE DEPTH AND AUTHENTICITY OF OUR LOVE IS DETERMINED BY OUR LEVEL OF SPIRITUAL MATURITY. (2:1-3)
The only way we get to the place where we love this way, is by deepening our walk with Jesus Christ:
1. We Need To Get Rid of Some Things (2:1):
The meaning of “rid yourselves” is literally to undress.
a. All malice.
Kakia= badness, active or passive wickedness.
Comes from a root word meaning “intrinsically worthless.”
Get rid of anything word, thought, action that is intrinsically worthless.
b. All deceit ("guile").
Dolos= a trick, bait
Comes from an old word meaning “to catch with bait.”
We bait each other at times with our words, trying to catch them in a mistake so that we may pounce on them for it.
c. All hypocrisy ("insincerity").
Hupokritos
Be real!
d. All envy.
Phthonos=jealousy.
Comes from a root word that means to shrivel or wither. May mean desiring the other person to shrivel and may mean it causes you to shrivel.
e. Slander of any kind.
Katalalia=to defame the character of someone
We are told to add these:
a. Crave the Word of God (2:2)
b. Grow-up! “grow up in your salvation”
The Christian life is a continuing process, not a past experience!
What is Peter getting at here? He is telling us that we prove our spiritual maturity by having deep love for one another.
The reason for most church disunity and conflict is a group of people who have never grown-up in their salvation and they attempt to run the body of Christ in place of Christ who is the head of the Church.
James knew this. He wrote about it in James 4:1-12. The content is corporate, not individual.
CLOSE:
Grown-up love in our church is expected but also commanded as an indication of spiritual maturity.
One Sunday on their way home from church, a little girl turned to her mother and said, "Mommy, the preacher's sermon this morning confused me. The mother said, "Oh? Why is that?" The little girl replied, "Well, he said that God is bigger than we are. Is that true?" The mother replied, "Yes, that's true, honey." "And he also said that God lives in us? Is that true Mommy?" Again the mother replied, "Yes." "Well," said the little girl, "if God is bigger than us and he lives in us, wouldn't He show through?"
I am saying this morning that God wants to show through us. He wants to reveal what the Father is like by the way we love each other.
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