Earnestly Love One Another

Right now, many of our farmers are under quite a bit of pressure. Last week Josh prayed for our farmers as planting season has begun and many farmers are not out in the fields working very hard to get seed in the ground. The challenges of a long winter, late snow, and frozen soil have put many of you under a lot of stress. Now the rains are coming and who knows when you’ll get all of your seed in the ground.

When I moved to Nebraska I was a complete dummy in all things related to farming. Over the years that we’ve been here I have learned a little and one of the things that I have discerned is that farming is a fragile occupation. Crops and seed are fragile things. Delayed winters, drought, weeks of 100 degree heat, fertilizer, soil temperatures, hail storms, tornados can all affect our crops in dramatic ways. Crops are temperamental things. And our farmers take care in nurturing them. They plant, water, and harvest with great care. Without this care, our crops may wither and die.

But farmers put this care into their crops because of what they are hoping to see in October: a great harvest. We hope and pray that this October we will have avoided the dangers that threaten the seeds that sit in planters or in the ground today and will see a harvest of strong and bountiful crops in the fall. Fragile seed is planted with hope of a great harvest. Sometimes, the seed dies before the harvest. It never produces a crop. Other times, it’s crop is so weak it’s as good as dead. But farmers plant, and nurture with the hope of a healthy harvest.

This morning, we are about to look at a passage of Scripture that talks about seed. This seed, however, is not seed that sits in a planter or produces corn. It’s not a seed that dies. Rather, this seed is one that has been planted in this earth by God and has harvested souls that have been born again and now love one another.

This morning, we are going to be looking at . I’ve entitled this message “Earnestly Love One Another”. What we will see from this passage, clearly, is that God’s Word has harvested born again Christians that now live with an imperishable hope and sincere love for one another. This message is clear from these last few verses of 1 Peter and I hope to show you how these verses deliver this message to us today. Let’s begin by reading this passage together.

Read . Pray

There are 3 things that I believe we should see from this passage to understand it’s message and follow it’s command. As you can see, there is one command that this passage is focused on. After going twelve verses without a single command, verses 13-21 gave us 3. Now, in verse 22 Peter begins teasing out how we follow the commands he has given in the preceding verses. How do you walk in holiness as God is holy? Love one another earnestly from a pure heart. But before we get to this command, we should see that this command doesn not come out of nowhere but is grounded in the truths that surround it.Therefore, the first thing we should see in our passage is this:

You Have Been Born Again By The Everlasting Word of God

This point is made to us in verses 23-25. Read them again:

1 Peter 1:23–25 ESV

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.

The command of God’s Word that shines in this passage, is powered by the battery of your regeneration. This is critical to understand. Peter’s command for our church to be a loving community is built on the foundation of our regeneration. See this in the very first word of verse 22: “since”. Love one another, because you have been born again. Our love for one another is not the ground of our regeneration but is the fruit of our regeneration. We saw this last week and yet here again Peter makes it plain: your salvation serves as a foundation and a motivation for your holiness.

Therefore, if we are going to love one another we must be convinced of, humbled by, and amazed at the fact that God has raised us from the dead. If we struggle to be amazed at God’s love for us, we will struggle to love one another. Meanwhile, the harvest of being born again is an abounding love for each other.

Notice, however, that it is not merely the fact that we you have been born again that grounds our love though. It is also what we have been saved BY that Peter wants to draw our attention to. You have been born again, v.22 - “not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” Peter draws our attention to the means of our salvation. Yes you have been born again, but what if the seed that was planted in you is fragile? What if the scorching heat of trials burns it up? What if the constant pressure of living as an exile in this world causes this seed to die? Peter says, “impossible”. It will never happen because it cannot happen.

Why? Because the seed that has been planted in you is imperishable. It is living and abiding. It remains forever. What is the seed that Peter is talking about? In this passage we see that it is the living and abiding word of God, it is the word of the Lord, and in verse 25 Peter says it is the good news that was preached to you. What seed has been planted? It is the seed of God’s Word, revealed to us in Jesus Christ, that has been preached to us through the gospel. It is the gospel, it is the word of God, it is Jesus Christ.

When the gospel was preached to you, the Word of God was being put before you, which - by the power of the Holy Spirit - revealed Christ to you. You have been born again through the imperishable seed of God’s Word.

As a side note, what encouragement this should give us as we look to share this Word with others! When we open God’s Word before others, we encounter something that is living and powerful:

Hebrews 4:12 ESV

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Our words of persuasion will never save anyone. But encountering God’s imperishable Word causes people to be born again! It is through this word that you have been changed!

But why should the fact that God’s Word is imperishable encourage us? Because God’s work in you, that has made you a new creature, will never die. It will not wither. It will not fall. His work in you remains forever. He grace has not worn off. His power has not lost its strength. His promises are as certain today as ever before. His love for you has not faded.

To remind us of this, Peter quotes Isaiah 40:

Matthew 24:35 ESV

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

Isaiah 40:6–8 ESV

A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is 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 our God will stand forever.

In , the prophet Isaiah who is speaking to the people of Israel who at the time were living as exiles in Babylon and is offering them comfort in knowing that God will work again and deliver them from their exile in Babylon. The prophet wanted the people of Israel to know that God has made a promise to deliver them and that promise cannot be resisted. However mighty and powerful Babylon may be, God’s promises will stand.

Do you know how strong Babylon is against the Lord? Babylon is like grass. Like a flower. But the word of the Lord? It remains forever! Certainly Peter’s audience that was living in exile needed this reminder AND SO DO WE! However powerful the opponents of the Lord may be, they will all wither. But your inheritance? Your future? It will remain forever. Church, you have every reason to hope today, however crushing the weight of the world may feel to you, because you have been born again by imperishable seed. The powers around you will perish. Your future is secure. God will sustain you and bring his promises to pass.

The word of God is a seed that is imperishable, therefore its promises are sure and its harvest will be abundant.

This is the first, and dominating, theme that we should see from this passage. The second thing we should see is in verse 22:

Obedience to Truth Leads to Purified Souls and Loving Hearts

1 Peter 1:22 ESV

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,

1 Peter 1:23

Once again, we see in verse 22 a foundation that is laid down from which the command of love flows out of. What is this foundation? A purified soul. How is your soul purified? By obedience to the truth. There is something very important to see here. “Obedience to the truth”, what does that mean? Obedience to the truth is not pointing us toward our obedience to the Law of Christ. Instead, it is pointing us toward obedience that the word of truth, the gospel calls for - namely, faith.

The word of truth that you heard, that was proclaimed to you, that is imperishable and powerful to save, it came to you and commanded you to do what? Believe! Have faith! Trust in the one the Word has revealed! What did God’s Spirit do? He, through his work in your heart, enabled you to believe. Now, your soul has been washed. It has been washed of all it’s unloving sin, selfishness, conceit, and every other sin. Your soul has been purified. Notice that Peter tells us that this is an event of the past, it has been completed. Through Christ your soul has been purified!

And for what?? Verse 22 tells us one of the reasons your soul has been purified: for sincere brotherly love. Wayne Grudem says that this love is one that is not simply of outward appearances or mere professions of love, but is genuine. This is what a purified soul results in!

Which leads us, finally, to the command of this passage and our last point:

Redeemed Christians Must Earnestly Love One Another

Look again at the last part of verse 22:

1 Peter 1:22 ESV

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,

You and I, by virtue of our regeneration and the soul-purifying effect it has had on our lives, are called to love one another. And not just love one another, but earnestly love one another. This “earnestness” is a strong, deeply felt emotion and desire. The same word used here was used by Luke when we spoke of Jesus’ earnest prayers in the garden of Gethsemane:

Luke 22:44 ESV

And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

The result of the new birth in your life should be that we earnestly love one another! This is the command that has been given to us as God’s people. Jesus says in John 13:

Romans 12:9 ESV

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.

John 13:34–35 ESV

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

And again, John tells us in 1 John:

1 John 3:23 ESV

And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.

Though I am very thankful to say that you are a wonderful church in loving one another. I am often amazed at how well you love one another. I am often the beneficiary of that love and am so thankful for each and every one of you. Yet this this passage gives us the opportunity to ask, “How can we grow?”

Can you imagine what it would be like to earnestly love one another from a pure heart?? What do you need to repent of in order to love other like this? What should you change about your life in order to show earnest love from a pure heart for others here? Are you too prideful to earnestly love one another? Are you too preoccupied with your own struggles? Are you too busy? Are you too fearful?

Despite the pressures of the hostile world that these churches Peter wrote to were under, he called them, perhaps more importantly than ever, to love one another.

Love one another, earnestly, from a pure heart. But know, this love is not a love that come first from you. We love because the seed of the woman (Eve) died in our place, having loved us from a pure heart. Now his love has been proclaimed to us, causing us to be born again to a living hope and a loving heart. We love, because he first loved us.

The first way that we can love one another is by encouraging each other with the greatest hope in the world. By poi

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