June 30, 2024 | The Roots of Love

Transcript

This time, children, if you're headed out the back door to Children's Church, you're welcome to go there. If you'd like to stay in the room with us as well, you're welcome to stay. We love to have you here. We're going to continue in first Peter, beginning in the end of chapter one.

As we work our way through First Peter, we've been reminded over and over that we are God's people, that those who believe in him belong to him. We are his. By his great mercy, he's caused us to be born again. And so we are loved as his children. But we've seen the challenge with that is we don't yet live in our father's house.

We're exiles who live here in this world as as strangers who in many ways don't belong. The old song said, this world is not my home. I'm just passing through. And that's true. And Peter points us to that. We do have a home. We do have a father, but we're not in that home yet. So how are we to live in these two realities?

And one of the big challenges is it's not just me living by myself. It's all of us together. And it doesn't take you long to figure out that other people will let you down. We'll sin against you. Oh, and you'll sin against them. So as exiles who live not yet in our father's house, how are we to love one another as adopted exiles?

Travelers? How do we relate to one another that avoids bickering and fighting judgmental attitudes? Division. How do we relate? And truthfully, you can look through plenty of sections of history and find examples of God's people being pretty bad at living together in a way that doesn't include bickering and fighting. And so in this text, Peter, writing to loved exiles, says, I want to point you to the roots of the kind of love that you are supposed to have.

Where does that love come from? And we're going to pick up reading in verse 22, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. 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. So put away all malice, and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn infants. Long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation. If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Let's go before him in prayer one more time this morning and ask for his help. Father, you've given us in your perfect, inspired, inerrant word. You've given us these truths. Would you guide our hearts? Would you work by your spirit to open our eyes to the things that we should see? Would you shape us for the life you want us to live?

We pray that you would be honored. You would be glorified in all of the words and the meditations of our hearts. This morning, in Jesus name, Amen. He's going to point you to to two roots of love. The first is this you have been born again by the imperishable. Good news. You see, in verse 23, he begins with the word, since he's given a command.

Love one another earnestly, and he says, do that because this has happened. Here is a root from which that love should flow. You have been born again through the living and abiding word. And we might think, well, okay, Peter, what word are you thinking about? For sure? He tells us in verse 25 that the word is the good news.

It's the gospel that they have heard specifically. It's found throughout Scripture, and all of Scripture points us to the truth of the gospel or the implications of the gospel. And so as we look at this, he says, you have been born again because of God's truth that God has revealed to you in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We just sang, I once was lost in darkest night.

Another way to talk about the same thing we just sang would be to say we were going about our lives like the grass or the flowers of the field. He quotes here all flesh is like grass, and its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls. We all had natural human desire and perishable, temporary fading life energy, purpose, glory.

The best glory you can find in creation is temporary. You think about any glory you might pursue. Say, I've got the best education. I'm the most expert in this field. Somebody will pass you. I've got all the money I need. I've achieved that. Things get more expensive. Somebody else has more money. They're all temporary. They're passing. Much like a flower.

That's the picture used here is he quotes from Isaiah. All the glory of flesh is like the flower that blooms. And it's beautiful. Many of you I know love flowers. And you, maybe you have a favorite flower and you think it's just a great time when that flower blooms. Then it goes away. The wildflower fields that look amazing don't last forever.

They usually don't even last a month. Our physical strength and beauty may last longer, but we all know that ends too. At some point. So we going about our lives like the grass or the flower. There's some good glory that's there. That flower is beautiful, but it's temporary. Strength and use and energy is good, but it's temporary. We were going about our lives like that.

And God, in his great mercy, he gave us his word. We heard it. And if you're here is a believer in Jesus Christ, this may not be the way you describe it exactly, but this is what happened. It's what we just saying. We heard the truth of God's word. The gospel. We see God the Son, Jesus taking on himself human form, living a perfect life, loving all of those around him perfectly.

Dying in our place. Coming back from the dead. Things we're very familiar with. If you're in church, normally you've heard these stories. But this is what changes us. This is what changed us. If you were a believer in Jesus, we heard these truths. We see God's extravagant mercy and grace, and His spirit opens our eyes to see the reality of what I just described.

And if you see the reality that Jesus came and died for you and that he was raised, there's at least two things. There's more. There's two things I want to point out that it is going to embed deep within you. Number one, it's going to humbling us. It humbles me because I was so bad that Jesus had to die.

Jesus couldn't just look at me and say, well, this isn't really that bad. So I guess we'll give you a little bit of some hard work and a few things that are difficult in your life, and that will make up for it. When we see the gospel, the good news preached to us, which brings about new birth as the spirit works through it.

When we see the gospel, we are humbled because Jesus had to die for me. But we're also astonished. That Jesus loved me enough to die for me. Now that reality changes you, if you really see that Jesus did this for you, and God fills you with the knowledge and joy of that combination of truths, I should be so humble and I am so loved.

It transforms you and gives you new desires. It gives you new instincts or new life. Or we could use the phrase he uses here you are born again.

That is the first root of love that he describes in this passage. If you're going to have the kind of love that Peter says you need to have, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. As a believer in Jesus Christ, if you're going to have that, it must flow from the fact that you have been born again.

The reality of the gospel by God's Spirit has shaped you.

Now, if you were to think about people who are very loving, this would probably make sense to you. I'm going to guess if you think, just think in your mind of whoever you think of right off you say this person is maybe the most loving person I have ever seen. I'm willing to bet that you would also not say they're one of the most proud people I've ever seen.

Because humility and love go together in a way that pride and love don't.

When we are humbled by the gospel, but amazed by the love that we've been given, it is a route that brings growth in us to show love to other people. The second route is actually stated first verse 22. I'm going to say it in a simplified way, and then I'll go back and explain where this is in the text.

The second root of true love is that faith purifies our souls for a purpose. Now, if you're reading verse 22, that probably raises some questions like why did I say faith? What does it mean to purify our souls? For what purpose? Why has that happened? So I'll take them one at a time. Why do I say faith? Well, if you look back at verse eight and nine of chapter one, he describes his readers and says, though you have not seen Jesus, you love him.

Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. So you love Jesus. You believe in him. You rejoice. And that's described here as faith obtaining the outcome of your faith, which is what the salvation of your souls. Down here in verse 22, Peter is referring to the same goal of your faith.

Earlier he said, you're obtaining the outcome which is the salvation of your souls. Down in verse 22 he says, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth. Here's the goal the salvation of your souls is described and said as purifying your souls. Now the reason I say faith he uses this phrase obedience to the truth. If you stop and think about it, that might strike you a little bit funny.

He doesn't say obedience to the law.

If he did, you'd say, okay, I understand that a command was given. I obeyed. But he doesn't say obedience to the law. He doesn't say obedience to commands. He says obedience to the truth. So how do you obey a truth? If I were to tell you there's a truth, gravity exists. How do you obey it? We don't normally think that way, but I'd say there's two steps.

One. You believe it? Yes. That's right. Gravity exists. And number two, you don't jump off a skyscraper. It's a good way to obey the truth. You believe it, and you react in a way that follows from the truth that you say you believe. That's what obedience to the truth is. And so when you're talking about obedience to truth by phrasing it that way, instead of saying obedience to a command, he's telling you faith is the primary thing.

Belief is the primary thing. But he doesn't just say faith because he's also drawing attention to this. Like James says, real faith has implications for your life. So in calling it obedience to the truth, he is saying something has happened within you. You've seen that truth, been born again. You've seen it. You believe in it and you're living in light of it.

That has happened in you.

So faith purifies our souls for a purpose. What does it mean to purify our souls? I think we probably instinctively know this. If you think about again the person I asked you to think of earlier, who's the most loving person you know? If you think of that person, we probably don't say it this way very often. But we know there are some of those people that just seem to have this purity of who they are.

This self-sacrificial purity that says, I want to show kindness and love for someone else. And you might not use the term, but you could. You could say they just seem like a pure soul. Contrast that with someone else who you don't see as very loving. And you might say they seem toxic, like something is polluting them inside.

When we've been born again, through the life transforming power of the gospel, we respond with faith, reliance on Jesus. And our souls are purified, transformed now, not perfectly morally pure yet. So how do you know that? Seems like he could be saying that because he's about to tell them. Put away malice, put away deceit, put away hypocrisy. Says all those things could be in you and you need to put them away.

Well, if your soul is full of malice, it's not perfectly morally pure. Yet. He's going to go on and give them command after command after command throughout the book. So obviously he doesn't think they're perfectly living in everything when he says, having purified your souls. He's not telling them you're living perfectly. So go love other people. He's saying there's been a transformation through the new birth that has happened, and you've seen that through the word that has also seen your souls be purified through a response of faith.

So therefore, based off of these two roots, new birth and faith, love one another earnestly. Now called both of them roots. But they're not roots in exactly the same way. Some of you may be familiar with the way corn roots work. Some of you may not. I wasn't until I looked it up. But there's two kinds of roots.

There's a tap root or a deeper root, which before the plant really, you know, shoots up the root, goes down, and it digs deep. It's foundational. It's the first thing that happens. There's a second kind of roots. You could call them shallow roots. They're more fibrous. They spread out all these different directions and they're closer to the surface.

They draw nutrients for the plant. It's not going to grow really tall if it doesn't have shallow roots, but it's not going to grow shallow roots if it doesn't have a deep root. And the same way when I say these are roots of love. They're roots, but they're not quite the same kind of root. You can see that in the language he says, love one another earnestly.

The end of verse 22. Since or because you have been born again, do this because this deep root has happened. But he starts by saying, having been purified since this other, more shallow root has happened. He doesn't say because like that's the sole cause. He says, since this has happened and this has happened as well, which draws from the deep root.

Love one another earnestly.

The root of faith can only grow in your life. If you hear the good news that was preached to you. Sometimes our world, we might have something that really is, is like taking the tap root out and only having the shallow roots. And you might say, oh, I have faith. Faith in what? I'm not sure. Just faith. Faith without an object is useless.

You could put your faith in all the wrong things. So Peter is carefully laying out. He's drawing them to two commands. One is love. Earnestly. That's the first one. But first, he says there's a deep root. You've been born again. You've seen something according to the mercy of God. He's opened your eyes through the gospel. And what goes along with that deep root is belief that says, yes, I love that.

I celebrate it. I rejoice in it.

And so he looks at the people that he's writing to and says, if you have those two roots, there's a reason that you have them having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love. God does not give you new birth and faith so that you can then live for yourself. He doesn't give you new birth in faith, so you can say, oh good, I've got heaven.

I can do what I want to now, or I've got heaven. And that guy annoys me. So I'm not going to love my brother. Now, the reason he's given you new birth, one reason, new birth and faith is so that you will love. Have a sincere brotherly love because we are part of the same family having been born again.

In other words, living as exiles, we recognize that all believers in Jesus have been adopted. We're his children, so we love one another like brothers.

So he gets to command number one, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. That means that the church he's writing to believers. The church is not supposed to be a big, impersonal organization that runs smoothly but has no love. I do not care at all if the people at Walmart loved me. That may be a bad example of running smoothly.

We could talk about that differently, but you can pick whatever corporation you want. They can run a good show. I don't care if they love me. I don't really care if they love each other. I just want them to accomplish the consumer oriented task. That's not a church. We are to love one another earnestly, genuinely, eagerly, fervently love one another.

That means we're going to have real community. Real relationships. Do you know, if you look around our world, so many people are looking for community. They're reaching out. How do I connect in a real way with people? There's a million reasons for that. One of them is we hide behind social media. We create fake worlds where we have our our TikTok plan or our Twitter or our Facebook.

Or we just spend all of our time sitting in our little modern castles after we close the garage and we watch whatever entertains me. And I don't care what entertains you. Our world is in claims to be more connected than ever, but is probably less connected.

People are starving for real relationships. And Peter points and says we're supposed to be real relationships, not because you just make it up on your own, but because you have the new birth and joy and belief in what Jesus has done for you.

Sometimes people don't know where to look for those relationships. The church ought to be a beacon for that. Sometimes people just aren't willing to sacrifice what it takes to have real relationships. Because if you're going to really connect with somebody, you're going to have to inconvenience yourself at times. You're going to have to forgive.

Peter says, love one another earnestly, fervently, really. From a pure heart. It's not love that exists for what I get out of it. It's not love that even exists just so that I feel good about myself. That might be the harder one, the more deceptive one. We know better than to say, well, I love them because they'll do this for me.

But sometimes I might show love to them because I feel really good about myself. If I show love.

I don't think that's love from a pure heart. The way he says you should have it.

If love is sacrificing ourself for the good of another, pouring yourself out and he says you should have real love. One thing that gets said a lot and there's a good reason for it. We'll say love is not a feeling. It's a choice. Now the point is good. You can do loving actions in a moment where you don't necessarily feel love.

And if you don't feel love, you shouldn't go forget it. I'm just going to harm them. There's a good point to it, but within a marriage, if you were to say since love is not a feeling, but choices, then I'm just not going to worry about ever having that feeling of love. In fact, I don't even want it.

I'm just going to do the choices. We'd say there's a problem. That's not healthy. When he says love one another earnestly from a pure heart, he is not saying, come, gather with God's people. Be really annoyed at all the things they do. Don't get any joy out of them, but do loving actions. That's not what he's saying. He says you've been saved for a sincere brotherly love.

So love one another earnestly. That means joy in the other person who's a believer in Jesus, who's a brother or sister. Joy in them despite the fact that they're different from you. That means joy in another believer, despite the fact that they need your forgiveness. That's why we need the root of new birth. Because I remember I needed forgiveness because I'm humbled by the fact that Jesus had to die for what I did on my best day.

That'll humble you.

But then when I look at somebody else and they do something that I don't like. But that's one of God's children. Jesus died for them. I can have joy in that. Now, this is an already a daunting command. So this kind of love to God's people that you gather with, especially the ones you're closest to, but it gets a little harder because he he's giving us a positive side.

Now he gives us the negative side. What not to do. Chapter two, verse one. Put away all malice, all deceit, all hypocrisy, all envy and all slander. You might ask, well, why this list of things? There are a lot of other things you could put away, but these five things particularly destroy love. All of them are in the way of they're hindrances to the kind of love he just described.

If we quickly ran down definitions, you could say malice, which is really kind of the force that destroys all relationships. It's desire for bad for someone else. In many ways, it's the opposite of love. I'll sacrifice myself for their good. That's love. I want something bad to happen for them. That's malice.

We might not. We might think I would never do that. But it puts on all kinds of disguises. One might be that person has treated me wrongly, and I need them to feel a little bit of what I felt so that they understand. We can wrap it all up in a nice little bow. But really, I'm saying I want them to feel something bad.

I want bad to happen for them. That's just malice. Put away deceit, anything that's not truth where you're intending to do harm to someone else. That's deceit. Hypocrisy is like it's false representation or something. That's not truth that maybe isn't harming them, but it's meant to make me look better. That gets in the way of my love over and over and over.

Hypocrisy can't be love because it's not self-sacrifice. It's selfish pride.

So put away malice, put away deceit, put away hypocrisy. Put away envy. If deceit and hypocrisy are more actions, what you would say, what you would do. Malice was kind of an attitude of your heart. So is envy. It's an attitude that says has a negative opinion of someone else because they have something that you want. I read a commentator described it this way.

He said it's a negative opinion of someone because of their apparent advantage. So you look at them and think they just have it better than I do. And when you do that, I'm sure your response is just, wow, praise God that they have this wonderful life. Maybe not.

Isn't it so easy to slip across that line and say.

I may not want something bad for them. You just have it so easy.

To have a negative opinion towards them because they seem to have something easier or an apparent advantage over you, and then that easily feeds into another action. Slander. The last one. Where then I start saying, well, if somebody thinks, look at them, they have this great life and they're really being godly. And I go, well, of course they are.

Don't you know, their life's just easier than mine?

We play this comparison game, and slander just means I'm trying to make somebody else look worse.

So love one another earnestly from a pure heart. In a way that doesn't have malice. Envy. Deceit. Hypocrisy. Slander. Because if those things are in our hearts and are rising up and controlling us, they will never let us love the way Peter wants us to love.

That's a really hard set of commands. And the more you look at it, the harder it would be, and the more you say, how am I supposed to do this? Thankfully, God doesn't leave us there. He keeps going. Command number two. Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation.

If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Well, what is this milk? He talks in a metaphor that just came out of nowhere. We haven't talked about milk before. We have talked about human growth. Life begins. Cells grow. A human is born. They drink milk. They mature. We've talked about that pattern. So he's just including milk in there as part of that metaphor or that picture for human growth.

Well, why? What do you taste? What is the milk? Again he tells us, verse three, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good, long for the pure spiritual milk, long to taste God's goodness. Long to no God. Long to drink of him. When it says the word spiritual, there interestingly it. If you know the Greek word for word is logos.

The Greek word here for spiritual is logic has the related. He's not talking about a new topic. What he's saying is, like newborn infants long for the pure milk of tasting God's goodness, which you see in God's living and abiding word. Long for that, long for the nourishment of tasting God as he's revealed himself in his perfect, permanent word.

Like newborn infants, think about a newborn.

Think about the way they want milk.

When that newborn wants milk, they don't sit here and go, well, I could have milk or I could have something else. You want to push me out to three hours between feedings? We're at two hours. Oh. That's fine. I respect your wisdom.

It's necessity I need. I mean, it is the. Give me milk or I will die the crying. And they don't have words. But if they did. Necessity. I must have this intensity. Babies do not let you forget that they're hungry. I need it. I need it. I need it. We were on a hike yesterday. Took about a two mile hike which had some pretty significant elevation climb in part of it.

We get near the top. One of my children, who will go unnamed. I need food. And when I said, hey, we'll get food. When we get to the top, we have a snack and then we get home. That was not the last I heard of it. I need food. I need food. I need milk. That's how newborn infants long for the nourishment of tasting.

That God is good in his word. I need it. But there's more than that. Infants love it too. You could probably think of a food that you eat that you say, I should eat this, but I don't like it. And maybe you still eat it. You know, this is what I need to eat, so. Okay. I'll take whatever it is I'm going to eat it.

You don't enjoy it. I've never seen a baby drinking a bottle that was like. Well, I guess I have to. In fact, you get so much, you get, you know, the sounds of. While they're drinking and then you get the kind of coma afterwards are like so good. That's how newborn infants long for milk.

Have you ever been in the word. And put it down. And just thought God is good.

Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk so that you will grow up. That's the purpose. You've been born by the imperishable seed according to the great mercy of your father. You respond with the cry of a new baby as God guards you through faith. Verse five as he keeps you. You respond and say, yes, I love him.

I believe in him. I rejoice in him. You live it out because of those roots. Loving one another, longing for the pure milk that strengthens you. To grow, grow in maturity. Why do you long for that milk? The same reason babies long for their milk. They have an instinct that says, I need this. That comes from the new birth.

Just like babies get it from their physical birth and they've tasted it before. Sometimes when a baby's hungry and they're just born, they don't know. Oh, what's in this bottle is going to be good. What do you have to do? Put a few drops on their tongue once they taste it. Oh, this is good. Long like newborn infants.

Long for this. If indeed you have tasted that God is good. This shouldn't. You shouldn't only think, well, this is God's goodness in giving me good things, but God is good in his justice. God is good in his kindness. God is good in his wisdom. God is good in his power. God is good in his love. When you taste and say, this is who God is, he's powerful like this and he's good in it.

If indeed you have tasted God is good. Drink deeply from that.

So this morning I want to connect the second command and the first command. With one sentence. Pursue pure love for one another by longing intensely for God. Pursue pure love for one another. By longing intensely for God. I want to give a couple examples of how I think this works. The taste of God's goodness helps you put off hindrances to love.

Think about it. If you know God really is that good? Do you need to have malice toward somebody else?

If God's goodness and justice are so good, perfect, in fact, do you really need to look at somebody else and say, well, I'm going to add my malice into God's justice. You don't need to, because you've tasted the goodness of God that says, I don't have to be unloving towards him. In fact, I don't want to be because my God is that good.

Or if you are content with the goodness of God's truth. Do you need to deceive others? Do you need to puff yourself up and make yourself look better? You say. The best truth in the world is that I am a sinner who absolutely deserves hell. But I don't have to get it because of Jesus. And the more you taste that, the less you have to come over and say, I've got to make sure everybody sees me as good.

I've got to lie to them. So that they think I'm better than I am. You say, like one theologian said, two things I know as he came to his deathbed. Two things I know I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior. He had tasted the goodness of God so much he felt no need to deceive or be hypocritical towards the people he was talking to.

If you taste God's goodness, you won't envy. If God gave them a real advantage, God gave them an easier life than you. This is hard for our hearts to say, but if God gave them that, you say, but I know how good God is. So if he did that, it's out of his goodness to me. That he gave me a more difficult life than theirs.

That his goodness. The more you taste God's goodness, the more it cuts underneath envy and slander and hypocrisy. All of those things that he's listed you taste God's goodness, and it removes the the impulse towards the hindrance to love. But on the other side, it helps you put on love because the more I taste God's goodness in His Word and I see the gospel shows me I should be completely humble and the gospel shows me I am unbelievably loved.

The more I drink in that, the more I can pour myself out for others in love. God's goodness, tasted in the word is your strength to love. So when someone does wrong to you. You look and say, But my God did far better than I deserved. Another theologian said, When I'm unfairly criticized, I try to remember that I am unfairly loved.

That's how we show love. That's how we willingly sacrifice ourselves for the good of others. Because we've tasted the goodness of God.

So I want to encourage you as individuals within your families, within this family. Pursue pure, fervent love for one another by intensely longing for God's goodness, and help one another to do that. When you do that, and you drink of God's goodness and you say, oh, this is so good. Take it to another baby. Have you tried this?

Have you seen how good God is here? Help them to see it. Help them to long for it. So that that love just bounces back and forth in a sincere brotherly love. Not one that's made up by us, but one that's rooted in God's mercy for us through the gospel and built on the faith that he puts within our hearts, that we respond and say, I've tasted, taste and see that the Lord is good.

I invite you to take a moment in response. I invite you just to pray before God. Ask His Spirit to guide you, to rest in these truths and to love well.