Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

We may wonder from time-to-time whether we can ever really be right with God.

As David says our sin is always before us.

And no doubt that is true in Heaven too for the Devil accuses us, rightly, before the Father, but our righteous Judge, Jesus, paid the penalty for all our sin, so there is no condemnation.

This then should lead onto holy living for we grasp the grace that has been given to us.

And so we saw last week.

Holy living or the idea of getting more holy as we go on in our Christian lives is called sanctification.

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Part of this holiness is shown in our love for one another.

Today we are admonished to love one another fervently or enthusiastically or passionately and with complete sincerity and genuineness.

Since we have come to the Gospel it also means that we love our brothers and sisters or else the love of God is not in us for love is at the very centre of Christian lifestyle.

In fact, love is the very character, the very essence of God:

And Jesus contended that it would be by this love that everyone would recognise His disciples:

But we may be getting ahead of ourselves and Peter here for he first says that before all this we must purify our souls.

In the Old Testament the way this was done was by killing the sacrificial animal and sprinkling or pouring the blood upon whatever needed to be cleansed which included the altar, the ministers and the people of God as we find in

So, how do we in the New Testament era purify ourselves?

Again it relates to the sacrificial lamb of God and His blood that was shed for us, poured out for us and upon us for our cleansing.

This is the start of our being able to love with sincerity.

We must be cleansed of our sins through Jesus Christ.

We must no longer live but Christ live in us.

We must be dead to self and alive to God.

In Paul’s letter to Timothy he said:

Knowing we are forgiven is key to us being gracious to others.

We must have received the unconditional love of God first before we are able to love others.

We love for He first loved us.

If being purified is first then secondly, according to Peter, we must obey the truth through the Spirit.

“What is truth?”

should be rephrased: Who is truth?

Truth, love and obedience are in alliance.

All who love Him obey Him according to

We are called on repeatedly by Jesus and the Apostles to love one another.

The consequence of this love is that the world looks on and sees and takes note for the world knows we are His disciples if we love one another.

The kind of love that Peter is talking of can be illustrated by these true stories:

William Gladstone, in announcing the death of Princess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria, to the House of Commons, told a touching story.

The little daughter of the Princess was seriously ill with diphtheria.

The doctors told the princess not to kiss her little daughter and endanger her life by breathing the child’s breath.

Once when the child was struggling to breathe, the mother, forgetting herself entirely, took the little one into her arms to keep her from choking to death.

Rasping and struggling for her life, the child said, "Momma, kiss me!" Without thinking of herself the mother tenderly kissed her daughter.

She got diphtheria and some days thereafter on Dec 14th 1878 she too died from the disease that killed her daughter.

Real love forgets self.

Real love knows no danger.

Real love doesn’t count the cost.

It might seem too much for us to love in such a way but this is exactly what is required of us but not by One who was not willing to do it Himself in sending Jesus for us.

William Dixon lived in Brackenthwaite, England.

He was a widower who had lost his only son.

One day he saw that the house of one of his neighbours was on fire.

Although the aged owner was rescued, her orphaned grandson was trapped in the blaze.

Dixon climbed an iron pipe on the side of the house and lowered the boy to safety.

His hand that held on to the pipe was badly burned.

Shortly after the fire, the grandmother died.

The townspeople wondered who would care for the boy.

Two volunteers appeared before the town council.

One was a father who had lost his son and would like to adopt the orphan as his own.

William Dixon was to speak next, but instead of saying anything, he merely held up his scarred hand.

When the vote was taken, the boy was given to him.

That’s how Christ loved us.

That’s what our people are looking for in us.

When we bear the scars of loving others, they will love us.

That’s how it is with Jesus and us…He loved us first.

We love Him because He first loved us.

This is the Gospel – He loves us and we love Him and we love each other.

To love fervently means we are to do it with all our strength.

And is this not what Jesus Himself requires of us?

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Peter proceeds to inform us that the quality of loving God sincerely, fervently, and with a pure heart flows from that marvelous and necessary experience of “having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever”

We are born again.

It is the Holy Spirit who has brought us into this living relationship with the Father by indwelling us and becoming the guarantee of eternal life.

Guarantee?

Yes, absolutely.

The seed has been planted in us and cannot be corrupted or go bad or produce bad fruit.

The seed sown is none other than the Word of God and it can only bring eternal life in those in whom it is planted.

The Word who lives and abides forever lives in us.

We have been adopted into God’s family:

Note that God’s Word is the incorruptible seed; it is the seed that is planted within our hearts and lives.

The word incorruptible means that it does not perish.

Imagine!

The Word of God recreates us, and it is incorruptible.

This means a most wonderful thing: we are incorruptible; we will not age, perish, deteriorate, or decay.

As this verse says, “the Word of God … lives and abides forever.”

Therefore, we shall live and abide forever.

Life though is not the only outcome of the Word of God but as we have seen it is also love.

The Word of God will endure forever, and so will love.

We should not be surprised.

For if God is love, and if God is eternal, so must love be eternal.

Love never comes to an end (1 Cor.

13:8).

Love goes on forever (1 Cor.

13:13).

Isaiah says of God’s Word:

God says, “It will accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

And what is the full intention of God’s Word?

Isn’t it that He would be made known in all his fullness?

God, we know, is love.

Therefore, the imperishable seed not only gives us life but gives us love.

The activity of God’s Word brings life.

And the full intention of God’s Word brings love.

And all of this is because within the Word of God we gain Christ, who is both life and love.

And He living in us causes us to become loving.

24.

The in verse 24 Peter talks of the grass that comes up and then withers.

I think though that you get the point – soon we shall see daffodils, and they will flower but it is not long before they die.

We can get sick very quickly and really this is what this is saying – we are here today and gone tomorrow.

It speaks here of the glory of humankind.

What is its glory?

We heard a little about this on Wednesday about coveting.