How We Love One Another
So ten weeks ago today, we were in Ephesians Chapter 3, verses 7–21 — it was Part Two of our ROOTED series — and in that sermon, as we dug into the great passage of Ephesians 3, I tried to make the case that the cosmic centrality of Jesus Christ is expressed in the radical reality of the local church, and that expression is seen and felt and known when we as the church love one another.
Our love for one another is absolutely essential — we cannot be what God intends for us to be without it. Our love for one another is what effects our corporate maturity. It’s how we grow. We’ve seen that. We get that. It’s essential that we love one another, but HOW do we love one another?
And I don’t mean “What are practical examples of how to love one another?” But I’m talking about: Where does our love for one another come from? Where do we get the energy, or the resources, to love one another? Because that’s what we most need, right?
The reason we might lack love is not because we don’t know of loving things to do, it’s because we don’t feel like doing them. And this is where I think the apostle Peter helps us.
Peter’s main point in today’s passage is the command in verse 22 that we “love one another earnestly from a pure heart” — and when he says this command, he surrounds it on both sides with supports, which become like resources.
Peter makes a case for why we should love one another, which also tells us how, and I want to try to summarize his case in one sentence, and this one sentence is the only point of this sermon. This is a one-point sermon. Here it is:
Love one another because your belief in the gospel results in loving one another and because the gospel you believe is living and lasting.
I’ll say it again because it’s the only point:
Love one another because your belief in the gospel results in loving one another and because the gospel you believe is living and lasting.
For the rest of our time, we’re gonna look at this sentence in two parts and then consider the difference it makes in our love.
Let’s pray:
Father in heaven, please send your Holy Spirit now to teach us in the unfolding of your word, in Jesus’s name, amen.
It’s a one-point sermon; here’s Part One of the one point:
Part 1: Love one another because your belief in the gospel results in loving one another.
This comes straight from verse 22. Look there for a minute, and notice first the main command at the end of the verse. This is the end of verse 22, right before verse 23, there’s the sentence, the command: “Love one another earnestly from a pure heart.”
Again, that’s Peter’s main point, and he gives it two supports — the first support comes before the command, the first part of v. 22 [right hand], and the second support comes after the command in verse 23 [left hand].
Now we’re gonna focus on that first support, the beginning of verse 22. [right hand]
Verse 22, Peter says:
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, [therefore (is implied)] love one another …
So that first line is a support for the command. It’s a reason, but how exactly? How does this “purified your souls” deal support our loving one another?
Well, grammatically, “having purified” is a perfect participle, which means that Peter is talking about a past completed action that has an ongoing effect. We have purified our souls, or our hearts, so they are pure or cleansed. This is the idea of being consecrated or set apart. How’d that happen? By your obedience to the truth, Peter says. Well, what is that?
What Is Obedience to the Truth?
Our obedience to the truth is referring to when we believed the gospel. It was the event when we embraced the gospel by faith — that was obedience to the truth. The New Testament talks this way about conversion. Within the Book of 1 Peter itself, three different times Peter describes unbelievers as those who disobey the word or the gospel (see 2:8; 3:1). One place is Chapter 4, verse 17. Peter says:
For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?
So:
unbelievers are those who do not obey the gospel of God; which means
believers are those who do obey the gospel of God —
But I thought we’re supposed to believe the gospel! What does it mean to obey the gospel?
This is where the apostle PAUL helps us. (When it comes to Bible reading, the best commentary on the Bible is the Bible itself. If we have a question, we should first think: “Does the rest of the Bible say more about this?”)
Well, in Romans Chapter 1, verse 5, when Paul talks about his apostolic ministry, he uses this phrase, “the obedience of faith” (see also Romans 16:26, and 15:18; 16:19).
Paul says that as a missionary to the nations, he wants to bring about the obedience of faith, and this highlights something important about the gospel itself: it’s that part of the gospel message includes the command to believe.
And I want to show you how this works, but it’s gonna take a minute. This is a side-note, but hang with me, okay?
Side-note: The Urgency of the Gospel
The gospel is that God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to die for sinners. Jesus was perfect and faithful in every way, but he sacrificed himself in our place. On the cross, Jesus took our sins and guilt and shame, and he suffered the punishment we deserved. Jesus died for us and was buried, but then on the third day he was raised from the dead and exalted to the Father’s right hand, and he is coming again to judge the world, and until that Day anybody who turns from their sins and puts their faith in Jesus will be forgiven and saved from judgment and brought into fellowship with God. Therefore repent and believe!
That’s the gospel message, and when we hear this, there is no possibility for us to be neutral.
You either believe this gospel or you don’t believe this gospel. There’s no middle ground. If you believe that means to obey the gospel; if you don’t believe that means to disobey the gospel.
And a great example of this is in the Book of Acts Chapter 17. Paul was preaching in Athens, and he gives this amazing panorama of God as the Creator of all mankind and he crescendos with the supremacy of Jesus. Listen to how Paul ends his message, Acts 17:30,
The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed [namely Jesus]; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” 33 So Paul went out from their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed …
Did you hear how the people responded? It sounds like there are three categories, because:
some mocked;
some said, Let’s talk more about this later;
and some believed.
It sounds like there are three categories, but there are actually just two categories, because the mockers and the procrastinators both did not believe, right? Now, look, the procrastinators might be nicer than the mockers, but they’re still doing the same thing. They’re not believing the gospel, which means, they are disobeying the gospel.
And this gets at what’s called the urgency of the gospel message.
When you hear that Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the dead, and that by turning from your sins and trusting him you can be saved — when you hear that there is an urgency embedded in that message for you to believe it. Because that honors Jesus. Jesus did not do what he did as a suggestion; instead he accomplished a salvation that is announced.
And when you hear the announcement of what he’s done and you don’t trust him, you are disobeying the gospel, and that applies to this exact moment. Right now, the gospel invites you, commands you, to believe it.
So if you’re here and you’ve not yet trusted in Jesus, if you’re still kicking the tires on this thing, now is a chance for you to stop disobeying the gospel. Right now: Turn from your sins, trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved!
End side-note. Back to verse 22.
For a Sincere Brotherly Love
Okay, when you put your faith in Jesus — when you believe the gospel — you are obeying the truth, and that is how you purify your soul. Verse 22: “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth…” — which means you’ve believed the gospel, you’ve been cleansed, you’re forgiven and set apart — for what? Verse 22: “for a sincere brotherly love.”
Did you know that your belief in the gospel, your conversion, is unto, is for, results in you loving one another?
This is the state that we as believers are in: We have purified our hearts by our faith in the gospel, which has set us apart to love one another.
This again emphasizes how essential love is for the Christian. It’s as basic as you wearing your baseball glove on the correct hand.
I’m coaching youth baseball again this year, and my stress-level is through the roof. Our main team goal once again is that no kid get hit in the face with a ball — and that goal feels audacious at times. Because in this age range I’m coaching there can be an extreme gap in skills. Some kids can hit far and throw hard, and other kids don’t know which hand to put their glove on.
Look, the most repeated baseball advice every — you’ve probably heard before — it’s what? “Keep your eye on the ball.” Right?
Well, get this, before you even keep your eye on the ball, you gotta know how to put your glove on!
This is not even basic, it’s like before basic, it’s just expected, it’s part of it — just like love is for the Christian.
The Christian life (like baseball) gets a lot deeper, but loving one another is like knowing how to put on your glove.
We’ve purified our hearts by our faith in the gospel for our loving one another. And therefore, love one another earnestly from that pure heart.
Do you see what Peter says? The result of our faith in the gospel is the same as this command: it’s to love. Peter is saying Do what you’ve been saved to do. It’s that simple.
This is Part One of our one-point: Love one another because your belief in the gospel results in loving one another.
Here’s Part Two:
Part 2: Love one another because the gospel you believe is living and lasting.
Now this is the second support to the command, and it comes after it in verse 23 [left hand]. The command, again, is the end of verse 22: “Love one another earnestly from a pure heart.”
Verse 23: “since you have been born again.”
Grammatically, in the original, this is just one word, and it’s a perfect particle just like at the beginning of verse 22.
So the beginning of verse 23 is an exact parallel to the beginning of verse 22 and they both support this command to love one another.
Verse 22 is the first support
verse 23 is the second support
And what’s fascinating is that this second support in verse 23 is also talking about our conversion. This is when we are saved.
When we are born again, verse 23, is when we believe the gospel, like verse 22 says, but here’s the difference:
verse 22 is the human action in our conversion;
verse 23 is the divine cause of our conversion.
These are two aspects of the same event. The human action is our obedience of faith. It’s that we really and truly repent and place our faith in Jesus and his gospel. We must do that. This is our action. We must trust in Jesus.
But in terms of how we do that, God has caused us to be born again. Which is exactly what Peter says in Chapter 1, verse 3: “He [God] has caused us to be born again to a living hope …”
The Meaning of New Birth
And this image of being born again — called the new birth — it’s a game-changer for how we think about salvation.
It means that for every Christian in here, we had as much to do with our new spiritual birth as we had to do with our original physical birth.
To be clear, none of us decided to become a human being and be born — God did that.
And so also, spiritually, we had no life; we were dead in sin; there was nothing. But God made us alive … through faith in his word.
He caused us to be born again — and us being born again, what did we do? We believed! Our first breath, so to speak, of the new birth is our faith in the gospel (which is verse 22!). We really and truly repent and place our faith in Jesus — that’s our human action — because, verse 23, God caused us to be born again. Our faith is a gift from God so that we get saved and God gets the glory.
That’s what being born again highlights. God is the Causer, not us. And Peter says this is another reason why we love one another, as he continues to explain, verse 23:
… we are born again “not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.”
The Living and Abiding Word of God
So it’s not just that God caused our new birth, but he caused it through his word, and his word is not just any kind of word, but his word is living and abiding. Which means his word gives life that lasts forever.
And this is different from perishable seed. All the life in this world, including the lives of our enemies, is ordinary and perishable because it’s from perishable origin. That’s true of this world of this exile we live in. It’s our surrounding. It’s everywhere. But now, Peter says, right in the middle of all this, the word of God has given life to something new. And because that seed, that word, is eternal, this new life is eternal. But how do we know the word is eternal?
Well, Peter can prove it. Isaiah Chapter 40, verse 6–8. This is where Old Testament prophet Isaiah says,
All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, 25 but the word of the Lord remains forever.
And Peter comments, verse 25: “And this word is the good news that was preached to you.”
This is maybe my favorite sentence in the whole letter.
Y’all ever been online or on social media and seen that meme of different people wearing those thug life sunglasses? Like after somebody says or does something really cool, those sunglasses appear on them?
Well, I imagine that when Peter says verse 25 those the sunglasses come on. Because this is what he’s doing:
In verse 23 he says that the word of God is “living and abiding” — it gives life and lasts forever,
and then in verse 24 he grounds that statement with the prophet Isaiah when Isaiah says the word of the Lord lasts forever,
And we see how they’re related:
Peter says the word of God lasts forever;
Isaiah says the word of the Lord lasts forever
and we might think that Oh, Peter is just making some kind of vague, isolated, proof text connection — except that Peter makes sure we cannot think that!
Because he says in verse 25 that the word of the Lord that Isaiah was talking about in Isaiah 40 is exactly what I’m talking about right now — it’s the gospel that was preached and you believed.
Verse 25 is the best application of verse 12 that I can imagine.
And if we turn back to Isaiah 40, the context there is Isaiah speaking to discouraged exiles. The people of Israel were exiled in Babylon, living in a world of enemies, and Isaiah comforts them with God’s promise to come and save them. Isaiah says: Hey, these enemies, these people, they’re like grass. But the word of the Lord — the promise that he will come and restore us and bring salvation — that word will remain forever.
And in the very next verse, Isaiah 40, verse 9, Isaiah calls this word the good news:
Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news!
God is going to save his people, and Isaiah calls that good news! And so Peter, who is also speaking to discouraged exiles, reads Isaiah 40 and says that’s exactly what I’m talking about!
The word of the Lord, the good news that God will save, that Isaiah mentions, that is the good news about Jesus that we preach and that you believe, and it’s living and lasting. It gives life that will never end.
And that’s why, that’s how, you love one another earnestly from a pure heart … even when you are in exile, surrounded by enemies, in the midst of suffering.
Remember the case Peter is making: Love one another because your belief in the gospel results in loving one another and because the gospel you believe is living and lasting.
The difference this makes is that we can love one another no matter our circumstances.
Beyond the Worldly Resources
When we started, I said that our question is not so much about the practical things love would have us do, but it’s about: Where we do we get the energy to do them? What is our resource for loving one another?
This is important, because inasmuch as legit Christians are bad at loving one another, I think it’s because we look for resources in the wrong place. And that wrong place is the world, and do you know what the worldly resource for love is?
It’s a context of convenience and control.
So you want to love others? The world says, Great, and here’s the context you need:
First, it has to be convenient. That means it has to be easy and easily recognized, which means it has to be popular. This is big brush kind of love (it’s something you could post on Instagram); not specific, nuanced, or personally directed love. That’s too much out of the way.
Second, for the right context, the world says, you need to be in control. That means you need to be certain of the outcomes. If you’re going to step out in love, make sure it will have your desired effect, which includes reciprocation.
When that’s in place, the world says, when you have a context of convenience and control, that’s when you love.
And one way to test whether we operate out of this worldly resource is to consider how we think when we have an opportunity to love.
Chances are, almost involuntary, we look to this worldly resource. There’s a loving thing we could do and we think, first, Is this convenient? And will it work?
And when that’s your resource for loving others, guess what? You’ll be bad at loving others.
Because that’s a fleeting resource, and it’s especially absent in the midst of hardship — like the hardship of the Christians that Peter is writing to, or like the hardships that we face in a pandemic-exhausted, grossly-divided, self-consumed society. The context that we live in says to:
protect ourselves
and to vilify anybody who’s different from us or who disagrees with us
and to always make sure the benefit outweighs the cost.
And Peter just cuts straight through that junk and he appeals to something much deeper than any context. And he says, Christian, love one another because you are a Christian — you’ve been set apart for this — and because you have been born again by a gospel that will outlast whatever this world is throwing at you.
Church, if we’re looking there, if we’re leaning on the resource of our new, eternal life in Christ, we will love one another at a capacity that we did not know was possible.
I don’t know what exactly that looks like, none of us do, but I want that for us.
I want us to love from that resource. I want us to start thinking, everyday:
I am set apart to love; God has caused me to be born again to this new, eternal life in Christ, now, because of that, how can I gladly meet the needs of others?
That’s how we love one another earnestly from a pure heart.
And that’s what brings us to this Table.
The Table
It’s pretty obvious, I think, that love like this can’t be fabricated. This is a love that God works through us by his Holy Spirit, and it goes back to when God showed his love for us in the cross of Jesus Christ. We love because he first loved us (1 John 4:19), and that’s what we remember as we eat the bread and drink the cup. This is the broken body and shed blood of Jesus for us, and this is the true power behind our love.
And so if you’re here this morning and you trust in Jesus, if you have believed the gospel and you’ve been born again, I invite you to eat and drink with us.
