Think about this poem called “What Is Love?”

  • Love is silence—when your words would hurt.
  • Love is patience—when your neighbour’s curt.
  • Love is deafness—when a scandal flows.
  • Love is thoughtfulness—for other’s woes.
  • Love is promptness—when stern duty calls.
  • Love is courage—when misfortune falls. – Source unknown

Read 1 Peter 1:22. In this verse, the first word “love” is philadelphia (brotherly love), and the second word “love” is agape (sacrifical love). Peter acknowledged that his readers had Christian brotherly love and then commanded them to love one another with sacrificial love. In some verse, these two words seem to be used as synonyms, yet they are not the same. Peter points this out in his second book when he wrote, “And [add] to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity (agape).” (2 Peter 1:7) You may have philadelphia love but you must also have agape love.

Transition

God commands us to love one another with agape love. To help us with this duty, the Holy Spirit describes the equipment for love, the requirement to love, and the enablement to love.

The Equipment for Love (v.22)

You cannot give agape love without first being equipped.

  1. Be sure you have purified your soul
    1. Peter said, “ye have purified your souls”. This action took place in the past with results that remain in the present.
    2. To purify our souls we must obey the truth of the Gospel. (Ephesians 1:13) In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, We obey that truth by admitting our sinfulness. (Jeremiah 17:9) The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? The Gospel is what Christ did to save us. (1 Corinthians 15:3) For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; (4) And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: We obey this truth by heeding the Holy Spirit’s conviction and trusting Christ alone to save our sinful souls from hell.
    3. This purifying continues its transforming results as we yield to the Holy Spirit. “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” (Gal 5:16-17)
  2. Brotherly love is a result of a purified soul.
    1. When the Holy Spirit purifies the soul, a natural result is love for Christians. Brotherly love is philadelphia. It is a friend or companion love. It is a cherishing love. It enjoys interaction. God wants you to develop genuine friendships with Christians. (Cf. Ro 12:10, 1 Th 4:9, Heb 13:1, 2 Pe 1:7)
    2. Brotherly love must be unfeigned (not faked), sincere, not that of an actor.
      1. This brotherly love is a desire to be around godly Christians who love and obey the Bible. (Romans 12:10) Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;
      2. If you love to fellowship with carnal, weak, backslidden, disobedient, worldly, or ungodly people something is seriously wrong with your brotherly love. If your soul is pure, you will dislike that kind of fellowship.
      3. Remember the old saying, “Birds of a feather flock together.”

The Requirement to Love (v.22)

  1. God requires more than brotherly love.
    1. When Peter wrote the command, “love one another”, he used the word agape. This is more than brotherly love.
    2. Christian brotherly love is affection, cherishing, sharing, enjoyment, communication, and companionship because you are related in Christ. But agape takes love a step farther. “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.” (1 John 3:14)
    3. Agape is giving, sacrificing, and meeting needs.
      1. Agape is a sacrificial love. It is more than just being nice to others. It is the self-sacrificing giving of one’s self to meet the needs of another. It is loving like Jesus loved. (John 15:12) This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
      2. Agape is a forgiving love (Eph 4:32). It is a giving love. It is an empathetic love.
      3. Other forms of love are reactions to a common bond or to kindness, but agape comes from the heart not from feelings or emotions.
    4. We are to have agape toward fellow Christians. It is to be a mutual love between Christians.
  2. Agape love gives even when it hurts.
    1. We are to love fervently. Marvin Vincent tells us that “fervently” implies to stretch out with intense strain; he compares it with the feeling of being on the torture rack. Pulpit Commentary says it means literally, “intensely,” with all the energies strained to the utmost.
    2. Agape love requires that we stretch out to meet another’s need with a pure heart. It may hurt. It may cost us. It may take time. They may not deserve it. But God wants us to stretch ourselves to meet needs of others.
      ² Wiersbe: “Christian love is not a feeling; it is a matter of the will. We show love to others when we treat them the same way God treats us. God forgives us, so we forgive others. God is kind to us, so we are kind to others.”

The Enablement to Love (v.23-25)

How is it possible for us to have agape love?

  1. God made you a new person.
    1. True Christians have been born again.
    2. This is not a physical birth by human parents that has a limited lifetime (corruptible seed). Instead, it is a spiritual birth by the Word of God that lasts forever (incorruptible). If Christ has saved you, you were born again. God changed you from the inside out. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
    3. Without new birth, true agape is impossible. However, when the eternal Word of God gives new birth through the Gospel preached to you, He gives the enablement to have agape love.
  2. New life is empowered by the eternal Word of God.
    1. If it was empowered by human flesh, it would not last. All flesh is as grass and all the best man can do is like the flower of grass. Both perish in time.
    2. Since the new birth is empowered by the Word of God that endures forever, the enabling to love will last forever.

Conclusion

Have you purified your soul by obeying the Gospel? You must be saved to even share true brotherly love. You cannot hope to have agape love without being saved.

If you have been born anew, you have God’s power within you. God will help you love the agape way. You simply must obey. Choose love instead of revenge. Choose to reach out in love when someone is hurting. Stretch yourself and sacrifice to meet a need of another. Stop being selfish and self-centred. Begin with those closest to you – your spouse, your parent, your children. Love is not giving foolishly. Love is giving tenderly to meet a genuine need. Love is comforting, caring, sharing, listening with empathy. Agape love comes from the heart.

Song: More Like the Master – 325
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Christian Love
7 June 2015 AM – 1 Peter 1:22-25 – 1Pe15 – Scott Childs