We started the book of 1 Peter actually a year ago this Sunday. We've taken a couple breaks for special events like baptisms. We took a couple weeks off because of coronavirus. We took a week off because of family camp. But today, a year after starting, we're going to finish the book of 1 Peter. On Monday morning at 5.30 I was sitting in my office before everyone else was awake. That's 5.30 in the morning, they don't sleep that late. I was sitting in my office thinking about what a rich year it's been and the Word of God for us as a church. I was thinking about in my own life the many things God has used 1 Peter to do to sanctify me. to change me to be more like Christ and more ready to serve Him in the days ahead. And I know He's probably done the same for many of you. But the old saying goes, all good things must come to an end. And today we're gonna bring the book of 1 Peter to an end. I wanna encourage you though, we're gonna take a break from our normal habit as a church is to do what we call consecutive expository preaching, meaning that normally our normal pattern is we just preach verse by verse through books of the Bible. We're gonna take a break from doing that for a couple weeks starting next week and we're doing a short series on how do I know if I'm a Christian? That's something that as I've been counseling with a handful of people in the church, I think it's important for us to just be fresh on knowing what does it mean to be a Christian? How do I know if I'm a Christian? What does a Christian look like? And so we're gonna take several weeks and we're gonna do a mini-series on that, and then we'll jump into 2 Peter after that. So that's where we've been, that's where we're at, and that's where we're going. But this morning, we're gonna finish the book of 1 Peter by looking at verses 12 through 14 of chapter five. So if you have a Bible, let's turn to 1 Peter chapter five, verses 12 through 14. 1 Peter five, starting in verse 12. It says, by Silvanus, our faithful brother as I consider him, I've written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God in which you stand. She who is in Babylon elects together with you, greets you. And so does Mark, my son. Greet one another with a kiss of love. Peace to all who are in Christ Jesus. Amen. Let's pray. And Father, we come to the end of this book, but Lord, it's not the end of your work and your people. You are continuing to sanctify us. You will continue to sanctify us. You will continue to speak truth to us. And so we pray that what you have been doing in us for the last year through 1 Peter, you would continue to do even this morning. And Lord, we pray that you will feed us a solid meal from your word this morning. We pray this in Jesus's name, amen. Well, as you look at the last couple of verses of 1 Peter, you're probably wondering, is there really a sermon there? Why didn't we just stop last week? I mean, we're kind of reading about places and people that we have never been and we have never met. Like, I've never been to Babylon. I don't know who this Silvanus guy is. Why didn't we just skip over this? And to be honest with you, there's a lot of people that do. I have a number of commentaries on 1 Peter that stop commenting at verse 11 and say absolutely nothing about verses 12, 13, and 14. And apparently the conclusion we could reach from that is that they have nothing to say to us. But this is the word of God. And it does have something to say to us. So don't go into mental cruise control just because this might seem like a weird passage of scripture. There's actually a lot of encouraging and challenging things for us in these verses. So we're gonna look at them under four main points. First, we're gonna see a gospel summary. Then we'll see a gospel laborer. Then we'll see a gospel fellowship. And then we'll see a gospel affection. Let's begin looking at a gospel summary. The middle of verse 12 says, I've written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying to you that this is the true grace of God in which you stand. So Peter knows he's bringing his book to a close, and he does so by really giving us a summary of the entire book. He says, here's what I've talked about so far. Everything I have said is the true grace of God. And what's interesting is that 1 Peter has 105 verses scattered over five chapters. And as you read through those 105 verses, what you realize is the word grace is only used five times in all of those verses. And so we would not probably say everything that Peter has said so far is summarized by the true grace of God, but that's Peter's summary. And so in what way can Peter summarize this letter and tell us it's all about the grace of God? I think there's a number of ways he can do that. For one, you have to understand what this letter is. The book of 1 Peter, like every other book of the Bible, is not a letter written by one of God's servants exclusively. The book of 1 Peter, like every other book of the Bible, is actually God speaking to his people. That's why 2 Timothy 3.16 says, all scripture is given by the inspiration of God. and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. And so while Peter is the human author, there's also a divine author to this book. God himself is the one who gives this to us. And so every word that Peter has in his mind that God lays on his heart that then reaches the tip of his pen is ultimately words given to him by the very spirit of God. And so on one level, everything that Peter has said is the true grace of God, because God has graciously chosen to speak. God hasn't left sinners in the darkness of a world with no revelation. God has graciously come to sinners and said, in spite of your sin, I'm going to continue to keep this channel of communication between me and sinners. And through people like Peter, I'm going to continue to give you light. truth, revelation. And so God has spoken to us. And so what is this revelation? It's God showing grace. It's God showing unmerited, undeserved grace and favor to sinners who don't deserve it. What did we deserve in Genesis chapter three is Adam and Eve bring the entire human race into sin. They deserve to be removed from the presence of God and for God to shut his mouth and never speak again. But what has God actually done? God says, I'm gonna continue to reveal, I'm gonna continue to speak, I'm gonna continue to inscripturate my words so that my people know who I am and how to relate to me. And so on one hand, this letter is the true grace of God because it is God's word. It's God choosing to reveal spiritual truth to sinners who deserve to be left in the dark. But it's also the true grace of God in another, and in a more narrow sense. It's also the true grace of God in that everything contained in this letter is tailor-made to meet the needs of God's people. Have you ever gotten a letter from the president or a state senator or a governor or maybe your insurance man? So when I was in like probably third grade or something like that, we wrote a letter to the president. And at third grade, you think the president sits there and does nothing but read letters from third graders all day and respond to them. Months go by you get a letter from the president and it says dear and then copied and pasted Paul Thomas It's such an honor to have such a fine young man as a citizen of our country Stay in school. Don't do drugs Signed to the president There's nothing personal about it But there's actually it's a kind gesture certainly, but let's face it. There's nothing that that says this guy knows me. I There's nothing that says he and I have any kind of relationship. It's hardly special. That's not how God wrote the letter of 1 Peter. The book of 1 Peter begins by addressing certain groups of Christians who are scattered across Asia Minor. And all of those groups of Christians, all of those churches have one thing in common. They're suffering. They're being persecuted, life is hard for them. They're going through very difficult things because of their union with Christ. And so when God gives us this book, he does so knowing this is what they're going through and this is what they need to hear. And so everything in 1 Peter is the grace of God and that God is coming to these specific needs of specific people and he's actually meeting those needs through his word. Think about just the various ways that we've seen this throughout the book. Peter started by reminding the people of God their true identity in verse 2 of chapter 1. They were God's elect people. They were God's chosen people. They were God's loved people. He also does this in chapter 1 verses 3 and 4 by telling them they were God's people who were destined for an eternal and a spiritual inheritance because they were united to Christ in his resurrection. In chapter 2, 11, and 12, he told them they are God's exiled people. Right now, they're in exile. But although they're exiles, God has not left them. He's working in their hearts to sanctify them and conform them into the image of Christ. In chapter 2, 12 through chapter 3, 7, Peter told them that while they're in exile, they also have the privilege of acting as God's ambassadors, representing God in this world. In chapter two, verse 12, Peter told them they have already received the grace of Christ bearing their sins on the tree so that they could be set free from sin's dominion. But he's also graciously warned them in chapter four, 12 through 19, that for God's people in this world, they should expect suffering. In chapter five, one through four, he reminded them, God graciously gave them spiritual shepherds to love them, to serve them, who care about them, to feed them the word of God. In chapter five, verse 10, he also told them the grace of God was working in them so that he wouldn't leave them. He would continue to work in them. He would actually, through his ongoing work of grace, sanctify them, strengthen them, settle them, establish them, perfect them, and ultimately bring them into glory. What is all of that? It's the grace of God. It's God seeing needs in the hearts of his people and bringing correction and rebuke and encouragement and truths that they need to remember, showing them their identity. He's doing everything they need through his word to meet what needs they have. And that's why Peter summarizes this letter by saying it's all grace. Everything I have written to you can be summarized in these two words, true grace. This is the grace of God coming to sinful people to meet their needs. Now before we move on, I wanna make a point of application here. Peter's summary of everything he said from chapter one to the end of chapter five is that this is grace. I take that to mean when you read your Bible in the morning, what are you doing? So Caleb and I were talking this morning about Bible plans we started with the first of the year. I start at least one, sometimes two or three Bible plans at the beginning of every year. And you know what the temptation is? The temptation is to open my phone in the morning and to read my Bible so that I can click every box of every section of scripture I read so that I can say I did that. I'm done with that. Now I can move on to the next thing I have to check today. The Word of God is not some archaic book that God gives to us so we can check boxes. The Word of God is God giving grace to us, which means when you wake up tomorrow morning and you pick up your Bible and read it, you should not be reading it thinking, OK, I'm going to check a box. You should come to the Word of God as you read it, thinking this is where God gives me grace. This is where God meets my needs. This is where God does for me and in me and through me everything that I need that I cannot do for myself. This is one of the reasons why your presence on Sunday mornings is vitally important to having a spiritual life that is growing. Because one of our commitments as a church is that whenever we meet on the Lord's Day, Unless if for some strange reason God prohibits it, we will have the teaching and preaching of God's Word. Why do we do that? Because this is where God gives us grace. This is where we come when we say, I have this spiritual need, I have this sin, I have this struggle, I have this doubt, I have this fear, I have whatever sinful remnants still remaining in me that needs to be addressed. And this is where the Word of God meets it with grace. It blows my mind how often we see people who are struggling and tripping all over themselves spiritually. And you know what? Are they in the word? Are they here on Sunday morning to hear the word preached? This is where God gives his people grace. That's what Peter's summary of the word of God is. It's true grace. There's another thing though, Peter doesn't just give us a gospel summary, he also introduces us to a gospel laborer. That brings us to our second point. Look at verse 12. First phrase in verse 12 says, by Silvanus, our faithful brother as I consider him, I have written to you briefly. Now there's two things we need to look at here. First, we need to identify who is this guy Silvanus? And then we have to ask, what does Peter mean that it's by Silvanus he writes this letter? So, first, who is Silvanus? It's helpful for us that this isn't the only time in Scripture we encounter this guy. He's mentioned a number of times in Scripture. But we might miss that if we don't realize that his name is Sylvanius, and often Scripture will actually shorten his name and give us the name Silas. And so, often when you read Silas in Scripture, you're actually reading about this same guy. And that shouldn't surprise us. It's not uncommon in Scripture to read where they'll actually shorten someone's name. We read about Peter. We also know that Peter is Simon Peter. And so, is it Peter? Is it Simon? Is it Simon, Peter? Well, the three can actually be talking about the same person. The first place we encounter Sylvanius is in Acts 15, verses 25 through 27. And listen to what Acts 15 tells us about this guy. It says, it seemed good to us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men with you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and, here's his name, Silas. who will also report the same things by word of mouth. So the first time we encounter Silvanus is in Acts 15, and he's introduced to us as someone who's in the church at Jerusalem and who has already risked his life for the gospel. And so the church at Jerusalem is like, okay, we need to send some people to help these missionaries, to help Paul and Barnabas. We need to send some people to help them. Let's scan the church and decide who's already faithful. Who's already doing the kinds of things a missionary should be doing? And they're like, well, there's this guy, Sylvanius, like he almost got killed for preaching the gospel. It's okay, check that, he can go. In the next chapter in Acts 16, Paul and Silas are ministering in Philippi. They're ministering the gospel. And then as you know, Paul actually casts a demon out of a girl and it causes this huge uproar in the city. It leads to both of these men, Paul and Silas, being thrown into prison, stripped naked, beaten with rods. And in spite of the way they suffer for the gospel at Philippi, God actually uses Silas and Paul to plant the first church in Europe. In Acts 17, we learn Silas and Timothy labored together in Berea, teaching and preaching the word of God. Paul also left Silas to continue the ministry that he had started in Corinth. And so this guy, Silvanus, or Silas, has already been a very instrumental gospel laborer throughout the book of Acts. He's been in Europe, as well as Asia Minor, ministering the gospel. And that's who this guy is. He's a bold gospel laborer who has suffered greatly because of his willingness to serve the Lord. But what does Peter mean in verse 12 where he says, by Silvanus, he's writing this letter? There's two possible meanings. The first possible meaning is that Silvanus was what we would call an amanuensis. An amanuensis is someone you would actually hire to write down whatever you dictated to them. And so it's possible that Peter, and we know Paul wrote some of his letters this way, it's possible that Peter and Silvanus are in the same room when the book of 1 Peter is written, and Peter's actually dictating to Silvanus, this is what I want you to write down, and then he's actually writing it down. That's a possibility. I don't think it's a probability, but it is a possibility. I think it's more likely that Peter actually wrote the whole letter himself and then gave it to Silvanus to deliver it and to read it to these churches in Asia Minor. Remember where this letter is going. It's not going to one location, it's going to a number of locations. We know that because chapter 1, verse 1. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the pilgrims of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. And so this portion of Asia Minor actually covers several hundred miles with churches represented in these various cities. And this one letter is supposed to go to these five churches. And so here's Peter, we'll see he's actually in Rome when he writes this, and the letter needs to get to Asia Minor. Someone needs to carry it. They don't have email. They don't have a postal service. They've got this guy, they've got Silvanus. And so more than likely, I think what happens is Peter writes the letter himself, he gives it to Silvanus and he says, now go to Asia Minor, go to Bithynia, go to Cappadocia, go to these five cities and read this letter to the church. And after you've read it to the church, take it to the next one so they can have it also. Whether Silvanus was an amanuensis or a courier is not the main point. What we need to recognize with Silvanus is that his place in ministry was not a prominent one, but it was a vital one. we would not have the letter of 1 Peter unless if Silvanus did whatever he did. Whether he carried it and preserved it for us or whether he actually penned it, we wouldn't have it apart from him. And we don't normally think of Silvanus as being like this prominent public figure in church history, do we? He's not a prominent figure, but he's an important figure. His faithfulness was vital to the spread of the gospel. Believe it or not, that actually has application in our lives, because whether Sylvanius copied the letter as Peter dictated it, or whether he delivered it and read it, he was a man who was not only saved by the grace of God, he was also put into the service of his God. He was given to God's church and to the world to minister and to labor in the fields of the gospel. And that's normative, meaning that's normal, whenever God saves a person. Whenever God saves a person, he does so to then put them into his service to somehow serve his church and spread his gospel. We know that because of Ephesians 4, 11 through 16. It says he gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. So why does God give prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers? for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men and the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, But speaking the truth in love, we may grow up in all things into him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together." Notice what it says, how is the whole body, the whole church knit and joined together? By what every joint supplies. According to the effective working by which every part does its share, it causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. So in Ephesians 4, 11-16, Paul says here's God's plan for the church. God's plan for the church is that God gives pastors and elders and evangelists and apostles to the church so that they can equip every member of the church to then engage in some form of service so that the church is actually this body that's building itself up by what every member supplies. And that's what we see in this guy Silvanus. We see a guy who found his place in the church. We see a guy who finds his ministry and he's committed to faithfully serving the Lord, not as a prominent mouthpiece, but as an important supporter. Someone who will come underneath people like Paul, underneath people like Barnabas, underneath people like Peter and say, how can I help you so that the gospel runs? We tend to think that if you don't have a prominent ministry, you're not an important person. But we tend to think that unless if you're up on stage on Sunday morning, you're not important and you don't have a ministry in the church. Silvanus is not on stage. He's putting a letter in his backpack and he's walking hundreds of miles to make sure it gets where it needs to go. That's the kinds of things that God calls his people to do. Maybe for you it's reading scripture with someone who's elderly or sick and can't even get to church. Maybe it's meeting with and discipling a young believer to help them grow into maturity. Maybe it's showing hospitality in your home and using your home as a gospel base. Maybe it's helping out with the sound system. Maybe it's teaching a Bible study. Maybe it's serving in the nursery so that mothers can sit through church. Whatever it is, if God has saved you, he's also called you to be a servant, to labor in the context of the church for the advancement of the gospel and the building up of the body of Christ till we're all mature in him. There's another thing we see in this passage, though. We've already seen a gospel summary. We've already seen a gospel laborer. The third thing we see is gospel fellowship. Look at verse 13. She who is in Babylon, elect together with you, greets you. And so does Mark, my son." The first thing Peter tells us here is that there's this elect lady in Babylon, and she's sending her greetings to the churches. And the question is, who is this lady and what Babylon is Peter talking about? One of the problems with taking Babylon literally is that at this point in time, we don't know of any churches that have been established. We don't know of any believers in Babylon. And so there's likely not a church here. And we also don't have any record of Peter going to ancient Babylon. Actually, church history puts Peter in Rome when he writes this letter. But to understand what Peter's doing here, why he's writing from Rome, saying that he's writing from Babylon, we have to understand something about the Old Covenant people of God. So between 607 and 586 BC, the Babylonian Empire was opposed to the nation Israel, God's Old Covenant people. And so King Nebuchadnezzar led his armies multiple times against Judah and laid siege to Jerusalem. and actually three times leads captives of the nation Israel back into bondage and captivity in Babylon. And so when the Jews thought of Babylon, they would think about Babylon in terms of, yes, it can be a physical location, but they would also think of Babylon as captivity. exile. When the Jews thought about Babylon, they would think about it as, I'm not in my homeland. I'm not with the people of God. They're thinking about a time and place where they're not in their homeland, and they're not amongst their fellow countrymen. Listen to Psalm 137, verses 1 through 4, and notice how it captures the sentiment of how Israel thinks about Babylon. Psalm 137, one through four says, by the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. We wept when we remembered Zion. We hung our harps on the willows in the midst of it. For there, those who carried us away captive asked us for a song and those who plundered us requested mirth saying, sing to us one of the songs from Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? Clearly, the emotion of Psalm 137 shows us that the Old Testament people of God thought of Babylon as a place of sorrow. It's a place of exile. It's a place where things are not what they should be. I'm not with my God. I'm not in the promised land. I'm not with the people of God. And so to express that sentiment of exile, being a stranger in a foreign and hostile land, often the New Testament will pick up on Babylon and they'll use Babylon as a metaphor. We see this also in the latter chapters of the book of Revelation. They'll use the term Babylon as a metaphor to help God's people think this is not our spiritual homeland. Isn't that what we've seen throughout 1 Peter? that we are strangers and exiles in this world. And so Peter can write from Rome and he can call it Babylon because what he's trying to do is help these churches in Asia Minor find a connection with these churches in Rome. And he's saying, we're all in exile. We're all separated from our true homeland. We're not yet in our heavenly country. But who is she? Peter says she who is in Babylon. Who's this elect lady who's greeting? Some have taken this to be a reference to Peter's wife. Peter was in fact married. We know he did have a wife. And some people have taken this to mean that Peter's wife is there with him and she's saying, tell them I said hi. I don't think this is his wife. Have you ever written a letter and referred to your wife as the elect lady of Babylon? It's not really the kind of way you talk about your better half. Instead, it seems more likely that the traditional understanding that Peter's actually laboring in the church in Rome and he's referring to the church in Rome as the elect lady of Babylon. And so when Peter tells us she who is elect from Babylon greets you, I take that to mean I am writing from Rome and I'm writing surrounded by your fellow believers who are like you living in spiritual exile. They're not where they're going. They're not in their homeland. They've been displaced from their heavenly Zion. They're longing for their true homes. And so as Peter is writing this letter to these churches, the church in Rome finds out he's writing a letter. And what do they say? They say, hey, Peter, as you write this letter, can you put a PS for us? Can you tell them we send our greetings? We extend to them a hello. What does it mean that they greet you? The word greet actually means to greet both with a word as well as with a gesture. And so it's to say hi, it's to say hello, it's to greet them in some way, but it's also to extend an embrace, to extend some kind of affection, to hug, to wish them good fortune. So Peter's finishing up this letter and these believers find out he's writing to another church. That church is going through the exact same thing we're going through. They're in exile. They're not yet in their heavenly Zion. And what do they do? They say, make sure that you send our warm affections to these other churches. And what's amazing about that is more than likely most of the believers in Rome have not met most of the believers in Asia Minor. And most of the believers in Asia Minor have not met the believers in Rome. And yet, in spite of that, there's something in their hearts that has affection for the people of God, hundreds of miles away that they've never met, so much so that they think it's important that Peter actually communicates that to them. Make sure they know we give our affection. Make sure we know we love them. Make sure they know that we're going through the same thing they are and we're in this together. There's actually some application here for us as well. Because almost every Sunday morning, we didn't do it this morning, we should have so I could have said every Sunday morning. Most Sunday mornings when we get together to pray before church, most Sunday mornings we read letters from other churches so that we can pray for them. And I would imagine for most of you, as we read those letters and as we pray for those churches, we're reading letters from people you have never met. We're reading about names and places of people you have never met and places you have never been. And yet we get to the end of almost every one of those letters. And what do we read? Greet your church on our behalf. What is that? Is that just like you get on Google and you're like, okay, what's the standard form letter for sending a letter to another church? Okay. Send a greeting at the end. Is that what's going on there? No, actually, there's something very important going on there. What's going on there is that that church, as they send that letter to our church, is recognizing that we are all a part of the universal body of Christ. It's represented in Kenya today. It's represented in Spain. It's in Mogadishu. It's all over the world. And we are all a part of the corporate body of Christ. And although we've never met most of our brothers and sisters, there should be in the hearts of God's people enough affection that when we communicate with other churches, we actually express that. This is also why our church is part of a network of churches. Our church is part of the Reformed Baptist network of churches, and so we partner together for the sake of the gospel and sending missionaries. We have conferences and fellowships throughout the year. The reason we do that comes from 1 Peter 5.13, because God's desire for the local church is not that we are so isolated and insulated from what God is doing throughout the rest of the world that we forget about his corporate body. So one of the reasons we're a part of a network of churches is so that we have this constant reminder, God's church is bigger than Worland. God's church is bigger than Central Wyoming. God has his people all over the world. And as that grows and expands, it's doing so fulfilling what Revelation says, that there will be a day when people from every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation will worship together as God's people worshiping their Lord. There's one more thing we see in this passage. Most of you have been dreading getting to verse 14, but it's there, so we're gonna read it. A gospel affection. Look at verse 14. Greet one another with a kiss of love. Peace to you all who are in Christ Jesus. Amen. So the final thing as Peter wraps up his letter is that he writes to these local individual churches and he says, greet one another with a kiss of love. And we have to admit that as we read verse 14, it seems really weird, doesn't it? Who's that church? Men are at church. Women are at church. Children are at church. Elderly people are at church. All sorts of people are here. And Peter comes to us and he says, by the way, kiss each other with a kiss of love. I mean, I'm all for handshakes. Pat me on the back. I'll hug any of you. But kissing? What in the world is going on here? Well, it's strange to our modern years, but you have to understand that in ancient Jewish culture, it was very normal and natural for the men to greet men by kissing them on the cheek. It was very normal and natural culturally for women to greet the women in Jewish culture by kissing them on the cheek. Well, that Jewish custom actually then moves into the church amongst the people of God so that it was normal and natural for new covenant people of God to kiss each other when they greeted each other. Paul also talks about this in four other places. He closes the book of Romans in Romans 16, saying, greet one another with a holy kiss and the churches of Christ greet you. 1 Thessalonians 5.26 also says, greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. 2 Corinthians 13.12, greet one another with a holy kiss. 1 Corinthians 16.20, all the brothers send you greetings. Greet each other with a holy kiss. What's interesting is that the four times Paul talks about the church kissing each other, it's always a holy kiss. And Peter doesn't use the word holy. Peter says, greet one another with a kiss of love. I think the reason for that is because love is actually the motivating factor behind this kiss. You understand there's actually a lot of reasons why you can kiss people. Judas, think about Judas. Judas takes this Jewish custom greeting on the night of Christ's betrayal, and he turns it not into a symbol of love, but a symbol of treason. a form of treachery, and he kisses Christ on the cheek to identify him as the one to be arrested. So Peter tells us, kiss each other with a kiss of love, because this is what should motivate this kind of greeting. And the word love here is important. It's not the Greek word eros. The Greek word eros would be a sensual or a sexual love that brings pleasure. It's not that kind of love. It's actually the Greek word agape. It's brotherly love. It's a brotherly love that is seeking the wellbeing of the one who is loved. It's the same kind of love scripture tells us God has for us. Romans 5, 8, God demonstrated his agape, his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. It's not just the kind of love God shows towards his people. It's also the kind of love that when God saves his people, he puts in their hearts for each other. It's the evidence that we've been born again. That's why 1 John 4, 7 says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 1 John 1.8, anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. And so one of the things God does when he saves a sinner is he puts in them a heart of love for the people of God so that they actually have this brotherly affection that is the evidence that they've been saved by God and loved by God. But let's get back to the kissing part. Has anyone ever seen the movie The Princess Bride? Remember how it opens. It opens with a sick boy in his bed and grandpa coming to read to him and over and over and over again, the kid interrupts grandpa, they're not gonna kiss again, are they? Well, we're getting back to the kissing part. Maybe you're saying I love my brothers and my sisters who are here, but I'm not comfortable kissing them. And I'm certainly not comfortable with them kissing me back. Think of the publicity. What's the newspaper gonna say if we start kissing each other whenever we show up in church? It's hard enough to grow a church. You just made it really awkward. I think we need to recognize on the one hand, there is a cultural element to this. And in Peter's culture, there was nothing weird, there was nothing creepy, there was nothing inappropriate about this. In Peter's day, this was a perfectly normal thing to do. If you've ever traveled outside of our country to other countries, you recognize there's different cultural forms of greeting. If you go to Colombia, Argentina, Peru, the Philippines, it's still customary to greet people by kissing them once on one cheek. If you go to Spain, Italy, Greece, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Bosnia, Brazil, a lot of the Middle Eastern countries, it's still customary to kiss people on both cheeks as a form of greeting. If you go to Belgium or Macedonia or Montenegro or Serbia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Egypt, Russia, you actually kiss people three times, once on one cheek, once on the other, and another on the other cheek, and that's coupled with a bear hug. I went on a missions trip to Haiti right after their big earthquake, and we flew into the Dominican Republic and stayed at a pastor's house the night before we drove into Haiti. And when we got to this pastor's house, I had heard of him, I knew something about him, but we had never met in person. And so we show up at their house late at night, and his wife came to greet us and she kissed me on the cheek. I don't know you. Gross. Not really, but like that's normal in other cultures. In American culture, that's weird. And so while we are not a kissing culture and we need to recognize there is a cultural element to this, let's not also excuse this away as merely a cultural thing and miss Peter's point. Peter's point is that amongst the people of God, there ought to be some kind of public display of brotherly affection. You shouldn't walk into this place where the brothers and sisters who are all united to Christ are gathered and think, man, what a bunch of stone cold, like emotionless people who don't care about each other. There ought to be not only words that express our love for each other, there ought to be PDAs, public displays of affection amongst the people of God. For me, when I think about some of this and how I navigate all of the cultural difficulties that go with this, here's some things I take into account, maybe you would too. For me, it's a case-by-case thing, how I greet people. There's people I hug every Sunday. There's some people I put my hand on their shoulders. There's others I shake their hand. There's some that I don't actually physically touch, we're working on that. A lot of the factors that go into that are, is it a man or is it a woman? Is it a married man or is it a married woman? Is there a spouse here? Are they a child? How are they responding and relating to my public displays of affection? These are all things we have to take into account. Think about this. If you give someone a hug and they stand there like this, they're probably not ready for that culturally. If you shake someone's hand and they actually pull you close and then put their arm around you and give you a hug, that's where they're at. Be culturally sensitive, but don't use cultural sensitivity as an excuse to not show physical displays of brotherly love amongst the people of God. Maybe it's a handshake, maybe it's a hug, maybe it's a pat on the back or on the arm. Whatever culturally acceptable way it is, what God is calling us to do is not merely love our brothers with our words. He's calling us to love each other with public physical displays of affection that actually communicates that when we are the people of God, this is not a business transaction. This is not a Wyoming greeting. In Wyoming, we greet people two ways. If we're driving, we have one hand on the top of the steering wheel and we lift one finger. If we're walking down the street, we pick our head up like that and just, I acknowledge you. That's not a Christian greeting. That's a Wyoming greeting. And we are not Wyoming when we're the people of God. We are actually brothers and sisters in Christ. And so when we come together, this is not a business transaction. This is a family reunion. This is God's people corporately gathering together. And just as you would come to a family reunion and greet your cousins with a hug, Greet your aunts and uncles with a handshake. We should have some kind of physical public displays of affection that communicates we appreciate and love our fellow believers. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you will increase our love for your people. Lord, there's some challenging things for us at the end of 1 Peter as we think about Silvanus and his gospel faithfulness. We pray that you will cause us to be more like him, to be content, to be on the back burner, but oh, so important to your church. We pray also, Lord, that you will create in us a love and a willingness to overcome awkward cultural barriers, to love each other, to hug each other, to shake each other's hand, and to be willing to publicly show we are brothers and sisters in Christ. We pray all of this, Lord, because commanding it to us, you're also revealing to us that it glorifies you. It's pleasing to you. And so, Father, conform us into the image of Christ. It's in his name we pray. Amen.