Election day is fast approaching, and if you are 18 and you are an American citizen, then you are allowed and can vote. But if you are under 18, or if you're not an American citizen, then you're not allowed to vote. And throughout this campaign season, We have been encouraged to exercise our right to vote. We're told to make sure you're registered, know where you need to go to vote on the day or on election day. Fulfill your duty as an American citizen by going out to vote. Well, if you are a citizen of the world, if you're a member of the kingdom of darkness, if you're someone who is in the flesh, then you cannot please God. You cannot be holy as God is holy. However, if you are a citizen of the world to come, If you are a member of the kingdom of God, somebody who's been raised from the dead, born again to a living hope, someone who is in the spirit, a citizen of the kingdom of God, then you can please God. You can keep God's commandments and his exhortations. Indeed, you are encouraged, you are commanded, in fact, to do so, to fulfill your duty as a Christian, as a citizen of the kingdom of God. You see, this is what Peter is getting at with the word, therefore, in verse 13. And indeed, he does the same thing in verses 22 and 23 as we will shortly see. He's saying because of who you are in Christ Jesus, because you are members of the kingdom of God, recipients of so great a salvation, this is what you are to do. This is what you can do. This is how you are to live. And Peter mentions four things that we are to do in our text. One, we are to set our hope on our final salvation. Two, we are to be holy as God is holy. Three, we are to fear God. And then fourth, we are to love one another. Now last week, we looked at the first two. And so this morning, we want to look at the latter two, to fear God and to love one another. Now, since we are God's chosen people, we are the apple of his eye, his beloved children, we might become presumptuous and think that it doesn't really matter what we do or how we live. because our father is our father and he will take care of us. Our elder brother will look out for us. Family always takes care of family, and so we're all good. It doesn't really matter how I live because I'm already part of the family. Bruce Springsteen's 1982 album, Nebraska, has a song called Highway Patrolman. And it's about a highway patrolman named Joe Roberts and his brother Frankie. And Frankie, as the song says, ain't no good. He gets in trouble with the law. And that, of course, puts his brother in a predicament. What does he do with him? Does he arrest him and put him in jail? Well, near the end of the song, Joe is in his car chasing his brother who was on the run. But when they get near the Canadian border, he pulls over to the side and lets him go. And a key thing throughout the song is that you take care of family no matter what. So here's a few lines from the song. Frankie's in trouble downtown. Well, if it was any other man, I'd put him straight away. But when it's your brother, sometimes you look the other way. Man turns his back on his family, well, he just ain't no good. Man turns his back on his family, he ain't no friend of mine. You see, this is how we might view God our Father. We might think that, hey, we can be a Frankie. We can be no good and live how we want to live and get in trouble with the law all the time. It doesn't matter because we have God as our Father and he will strengthen everything out. He will judge the unbeliever straight away, of course, and throw him in the prison, as it were, but not us, because we're family. He won't turn his back on us. He will look the other way, right? Well, if God were like us, if he were like the world, then he certainly would act that way. But God, our Father, is holy. He is just. He doesn't use double standards. play favorites. And so when he judges, and he will judge every single person, he will judge justly and fairly. And that means he will judge including you and me, according to verse 17, impartially according to each one's deeds. Now, of course, Moses had said the same thing in the Old Testament, in the book of Deuteronomy, that the Lord your God is not partial and takes no bribes. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow and loves the sojourner. This is why, of course, judges in Israel were to be impartial in their judgments. They weren't to favor the rich or the poor, family members or not. They were to be like God, holy as he is holy, and judge justly and fairly. And that is what Peter is saying here. The God whom we call Father, who is our Father, but who is also our judge, judges impartially, and therefore according to each one's deeds. Now Paul says the same thing in Romans 2. He will render to each one according to his works. And so if a Christian lives like a pagan, he should not think that God whom he calls Father will turn a blind eye to what he has done. God is not going to say, well, if it was any other man, I'd put him straight away. But when it's your covenant people, sometimes you just look the other way. That's not what he's going to say. God will not look the other way. He treats people justly. He's impartial. And we know this, of course, again, from the Old Testament. God judged the Canaanites for their great sins and threw them out of the land. But then when his own people committed those same grievous sins and refused to repent, what did God do? Did he look the other way? Did he turn a blind eye? No, he sent prophet after prophet after prophet, urging them to repent. Why will you die, O Israel? But they refused to repent, and so he did what he told them he would do if this was the case, and he too cast them out of the land. Paul says the same thing in Romans 2. In that passage, he's indicting his fellow Jews who think that they will be saved because they are Jews and they follow the Jewish customs. They are, after all, God's chosen ones. So, of course, they will be saved. The Gentiles, well, they're sinners. They won't be, but they're Jews. They're God's people. But Paul points out to them that they do the very same things that they condemn the Gentiles for. He also points out that they all know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who do such things. And then he says this, do you suppose, oh man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? God is our father, but he's also our judge who judges impartially. And so it doesn't matter who we are, in fact. We could be the apostle Peter or Paul. If we live like a pagan, if we live like the world, then we will die along with the world. But if we live like a Christian, then we will continue to live like a Christian. Because God will judge us impartially according to what we have done. And this is precisely why Peter exhorts us to conduct ourselves with fear throughout our time of exile. Now, of course, this does not mean that we should be terrified of God, unless, of course, we don't sincerely love the Lord. then we ought to be terrified of the wrath that is to come upon those who hate the Lord. But for us who do love the Lord, we have no reason to be terrified of him because we are saved in Christ Jesus. And yet, there is still a sense in which we ought to fear our God. We certainly ought to reference him, but a part of that fear is being afraid of doing that which will bring us great harm. A fear that will keep us from being presumptuous and turning our back on the Lord and falling away and living like the Canaanites or like the world. Now think of it this way. Although drinking poison will kill you, there's no need for you to go through life terrified that you're going to die from drinking poison. And yet, when you see a bottle of poison, you should be afraid to drink it because you know if you do that, it will kill you. And so even if it might be tempting because you've heard how good it tastes, you're not going to drink it because you have that fear that if you do so, it will kill you. Or consider this. Tom Stoltman has won the world's strongest man competition three times. He is 6'8", and he weighs 408 pounds of muscle. He's a big lad, you might say. Now, imagine he has two sons. We'll call them Frank and Bob. And Tom loves his two sons, and he loves them both equally. They know that. They feel safe and secure with their dad. They know, they are convinced that their dad loves them and is kind to them. But they do fear him in a healthy sense. Frank knows that if he were to start beating his son to a pulp, or his brother rather, Frank knows that if he starts beating his brother Bob to a pulp, that his dad is going to intervene and do something about it. And Frank doesn't want his dad to intervene and do something about it. Because his dad is much bigger than he is. He has a healthy fear of his dad, who loves him. God is our father and our judge. And so we should not become proud. or complacent in our walk with the Lord, but rather conduct ourselves with fear throughout our lives, throughout the time, Peter says, of our exile. Fear of God and of his wrath that we be poured out on all who practice such things should motivate us to stay on the straight and narrow path that leads to eternal life. Let the fear of God keep you from, as it were, drinking the poison. Let it keep you from beating up on your brother. You know, this is why Paul himself says that he disciplines his body and keeps it under control, lest, after preaching to others, he himself should be disqualified. So, the sum of the matter is this. that we should fear God and keep his commandments. For God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil. That's Ecclesiastes 12, verse 13. Now, the coming judgment is not the only thing that should motivate us to fear God and keep his commandments. The nature and cost of our redemption should do that as well. Peter says that we should fear God knowing that we were ransomed from our useless former life, a life that ends in death and eternal destruction. In other words, we fear God because God has saved us from slavery in Egypt. We aren't slaves to sin anymore. He has set us free so that we can love God and serve him. And moreover, think about what it took for God to do that for us. We were ransomed not by material things, silver or gold, things prized by the world around us, but by the precious blood of Jesus. He had to come as our substitute to bear our sins so that we might be set free from sin and all of its consequences. And this is something that God had decided to do before the foundation of the world. And he had chosen Christ to come before the foundation of the world to come and to rescue us. The Lord Jesus was foreknown before the foundation of the world. And so that goes to show that he has intended and has always intended to save us. And not through the works of the law, not through the sacrifices of the Old Testament. It's always been the plan from the beginning. to send his son, our Lord Jesus, to come and rescue us through his once and for all sacrifice. And so our faith is in him. Our hope and faith as Christians is in God, the one true living God, the God of the Old Testament, the God of the New Testament. And so we fear God by keeping his commandments because God has so loved us that he sent his son to rescue us. So that's the first thing that we are to do that we want to consider this morning as Christians, as God's redeemed people, we are to walk in the fear of the Lord. But secondly, we are to love one another. Peter says in verse 22, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. Now, since God is love, we might say that this is a commandment, a subset of the command to be holy as God is holy. We are to be like God and imitate him. Well, what does that mean exactly? Well, God loves, he is love, and so we are to love too. And here the focus is on our love for fellow Christians, for one another. We are, of course, to love all persons, including our enemies, but we are to have a special love for our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Paul says that we are to do good to all, but especially to the household of faith. Again, we are family, and we have a special love for our family members, to be sure. But even more than that, I think we need to be more specific than that. And this, that we are especially to love those in our own congregation. Peter is, after all, writing to churches, to congregations, to Christians who know each other and who interact with one another. And so the command isn't so much to love Christians in general, well, that is certainly true, but to love one another, the Christians you know, the people in front of you, behind you, and beside you. And that, of course, is not always easy. We all know it is hardest to love well those who are closest to us and with those we live day in and day out. And it's harder to love those in the same church than those who are members of another congregation. It's easier to love those out there than those in here. Loving from afar is way easier. That's why we tend to think that the grass is always greener on the other side. To think if I were just in a different relationship, if I were just in a different family or a different church, ah, it would be so much better. But we have to wrestle with the fact that life with sinners is never easy. So no matter where you go, no matter what church you become a part of, your fellow Christians there are going to irk you, they're going to let you down, they're going to annoy you and offend you. And when that happens, of course, the natural reaction is, I just want to get out of here. Enough of this already. And people, of course, do that all the time. But then you won't grow as a Christian. Your ability to love, and so to be patient, and kind, forgiving, and so on, is going to not grow at all. It's going to be hindered. Relationally, you're going to be immature. And so if we're going to love one another then, because we are loving sinners together, we are all sinners, that means we're going to have to love one another as Jesus has loved us. It means we're gonna have to love one another sacrificially. We're gonna need to love them even when they're not lovable, which is of course how Jesus has loved us. We will need to focus on their well-being, on their interests, and not just our own comfort and interests and desires. And if you're going to do that, you have to truly love them. Love, as Peter says here, must be sincere, earnest, and from a pure heart. Love is not a matter of just being nice to people when you are harboring hatred in your heart for them. It's not just playing the game, as it were. It's not hypocritical. It's sincere. Love is not a matter or merely a matter of saying or thinking that you love them. It's earnest. It's serious about it. It's something you want to do. You're intentional and proactive in doing, even and especially when it's hard to do so. In fact, Peter says here that we became a Christian for this very purpose. We were converted so that we might love one another in this way. So he says that when we obeyed the truth, when we obeyed the gospel, when we turned to Christ in penitence and faith, we purified our souls, he says. And so in our conversion to the Lord, we set ourselves apart from the world to Christ. We said no to the world. And we said yes to Jesus. And in saying yes to Jesus, we are saying yes to loving his family, his bride. Yes to loving one another. So one of the angles of our conversion and of our profession of faith is, as Peter says here, for a sincere brotherly love. For. to the end of, the goal of, a sincere brotherly love. So if a family of three, a dad, a mom, and a son, they adopt a little boy, One of the goals that they're gonna have for that adoption is so that that new little boy into their family will love their son, and vice versa. They will all love each other. He's brought into the family for the purpose of being loved, and for loving as well. Reciprocating that love. I mean, that's what families do, right? They're to love one another. Well, it's the same in the family of God. We have chosen Christ. Christ has chosen us so that we might be loved and that we might love one another. And here we see, of course, once again, that becoming and being a Christian is never an individual matter. It's never just me and Jesus. It's me and Jesus and his bride. It's me and Jesus and the church. You are brought into the household, the family of God, when you become a Christian. And of course, that can't be done without being a part and an active participant of the household of God, which is, of course, the church. Being a Christian is being part of a community, a community that is supposed to love one another. And this is what we can do because we, you might say, were reborn this way. Peter says, to love one another since or because you've been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. Peter then quotes Isaiah 40. And that passage refers to promises God makes to redeem his people who are exiled in Babylon. Things, of course, were quite bleak in those days. Jerusalem was destroyed, the temple destroyed, the people exiled, the nations around them way too strong and powerful. It seems like all is lost, except that it isn't. All flesh is grass. The greatest nations of the world, they rise and they fall. They fade away. They do not last. But God's word, though, remains forever. In Deuteronomy, God had actually promised that when his people are cast out of the land, that he would restore their fortunes, have mercy on them, gather them from all the places that they've been scattered. He will bring them back to the land. He will circumcise their hearts so that they will love the Lord their God. with all their heart and so that they might live. God renews those promises in Isaiah 40 to his exiled people. He will redeem and restore them. Doesn't matter how powerful Babylon is. All flesh is grass. God's word remains. It is living and abiding. But then notice what Peter says about this in verse 25. And this word is the good news that was preached to you. The promise of new life, new hearts, of restoration, redemption that were made to God's people in the Old Testament are the very same ones that are made to us today in the New Testament. God's Word in the Old Testament remains true today. Babylon faded long ago. It perished. But God's word is imperishable, living and abiding. And God continues through his word to redeem and to restore, to cause his people to be born again to a living hope so that they might love God with all their heart, so that they might love one another. Indeed, Jesus says, people will know that you belong to him by your love for one another. And that's why we can do it. because we've been born again through the living and abiding word of God. Well, as God's redeemed people, we are to set our hope fully on our final salvation. We are to be holy as God is holy. We are to fear God and we are to love one another.