to sing praises to you, you who, from before the foundation of the world, planned to redeem us, a people that you chose, to a Redeemer that you chose, a Redeemer that you sent, your son, to become man, to die on the cross, by whose blood we would be set free. Father, we thank you that you are a God who, by your Spirit, granted us faith, and we realize that we are now, through Christ, your children. What a blessing. Father, we pray that through your Word, we may come to know you better, and that we might learn to reflect you better in this world. You have loved us so amazingly, and so in this evening we pray that you will teach us that we may love as you have loved us, and that we may be known by our love. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Our scripture reading comes from two passages. First of all, from 1 John chapter four, starting at verse 7 and then our text will be from 1st Peter chapter 1 continuing where we left off this morning but 1 John 4 beginning at verse 7 Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his spirit. And we have seen and testified that the father has sent his son to be the savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, God abides in him and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him. Whoever loves God must love, also love his brother. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. And everyone who loves the father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? Now turn to 1 Peter chapter one. We'll begin reading that verse 13. And our text will begin at verse 22 and following. But always good to have context. Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy. And if you call on him as father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. And now our text. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. For all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of the grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you. So put away all malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation. Indeed, you have tasted that the Lord is good. May God bless to us the reading of his holy word. Dear people of God, called to be saints, I'm sure that with me you are amazed at God's gracious work of salvation through Jesus Christ and by his spirit among us. By His Word and Spirit, He has given us new faith. He has given us life. We have been adopted as children, and by the Spirit, He is changing us to be like Him. And He is promising us an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade. Such amazing love our God had for us from eternity. And in love and in gratitude, we have begun to live not only by some, but by all of God's word. We have begun to fight sin. We have begun to purify ourselves according to the word of God and the power of the spirit. Because as we saw this morning, we have this fear, this awe, this reverence for God. We've begun to reflect him in the power of the spirit. And you see that in our text. Verse 22, Peter takes it for granted. Having purified yourself, he says, And that's true of us, isn't it? Having purified yourselves. We who believe are born again by the spirit through the enduring word of God. And through this same word, the spirit works in us. And we begin to purify ourselves, to clean up our lives. Not just all alone by yourself, but together. We work together at that. Having purified yourselves by your obedience to the truth, Peter says, you have obeyed the truth. You've obeyed Jesus. The truth speaks of him. Spirit gives us the word and the word is truth. The instrument that the Spirit of God uses for our renewal, for our purification, is the truth. Psalm 119, verse 9, which I believe everyone memorizes. How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word. That's how we purify ourselves. In the high priestly prayer, Jesus asked God to purify his people through the truth. And then he adds, your word is truth so that we know. Ephesians 5, 26 tells us that Christ purifies his church through the word. And Jesus says to his disciples, you are already clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. He's not just telling them. that they are born again. He is telling them that the process of sanctification has already begun. Purification or sanctification happens as we submit to the word, as we believe the gospel of Christ, as we take it to heart Jesus is the truth and his word is truth because it speaks of him and his way of life and through that he reveals the father to us when we accept this by the power of the spirit then we are cleansed in the sight of God and we continue in this way of cleansing as we follow Jesus walking in obedience to the word of truth subjecting each aspect of our lives to him through the word And Peter here assumes that his readers are people who have purified themselves according to the word. And he is mentioning this to encourage these people who are living in the world as exiles, as strangers, their home is now in heaven and they are living according to the standard of holiness. And well, this world is no longer their home as it were. even though they live there. But he mentions this, having purified yourselves through the word, he mentions this so that it encourages them to further purify themselves. He says that this purification manifests itself in a sincere, brotherly love. People who purify their lives do so by obeying Christ. Christ has two commands that summarize everything. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. So it's fair to assume that they have begun to purify their lives by loving one another. And you find exactly the same assumption in the other apostles. Paul is often giving thanks for the love of the saints. And how does he know this? Because he sees them walking according to God's word. There is a close connection between love and obedience to the word. Love expresses itself in living. according to the word. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. Peter takes love for granted, because Christians obey the truth. They walk in the truth, as Christ is in the truth. And he encourages them to continue in this, to love each other earnestly, he says, to love each other deeply. And he adds the phrase there, from a pure heart. Since you're purifying yourself, the love that you have must also be pure. You know that love is a beautiful thing to receive. It's a beautiful thing to give. And it's so necessary for a healthy life as individuals, as families, and also as a church. And the Spirit of God repeatedly emphasizes the importance of love. 1 John 4, 11. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. Hebrews 13, keep on loving each other as brothers. John 13, a new command I give you, love one another as I have loved you, so you also must love one another. By this, all men will know that you are my disciples, that you have loved one another. Romans 12, we read that this morning. Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. And you can go on. There are many such passages. This love for God and for each other arises out of God's saving grace that we talked about this morning. How God from eternity had this plan of redemption and he brought it into fruition in time. He is redeeming us to be like Him. This love poured out in us results in us loving God and loving all those who are in Him. Peter's instruction this morning to fear was based on that, and his instruction to love is based on that. that we have been born again by the enduring word of God. That passage in the middle of this section that we read, the middle of our text, talks about the word. Grass and the flowers of grass, it fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever. That section on the word is planted right in the middle of these passages encouraging us to love. We're born again through the enduring word of God that was preached. And the same spirit that brought forth that life in us and made us siblings in Christ brings out in us this love. We must love each other deeply because of who we are. keeping in mind that love must express itself in obedience to God's word. And in obedience, we always try to be true to who Christ is, doing that which is for the welfare of others, as he has done. Spirit is not just encouraging us to nurture a liking to each other, We may not all like each other very much. We are people who have our own likes and dislikes, our foibles. He's not just encouraging a spirit of camaraderie, of kindness and our emotional bond, people with alike interest. He's talking about something much more profound than exchanging pleasantries when we meet after church or during the week. The love that we are to have is to be sincere, he says, it is to be pure. It is a love that is to be free from sin. And here we have to go back to this idea that he just talked about before this, that we talked about this morning. If we understand who God is, all of his attributes, these attributes must come to expression in our love toward each other. It must be pure. It must be holy. It must be righteous. It must be just, and so on. Love is based on truth. It rises out of a relationship that we have with a triune God through the living and enduring Word of God. It is a committed unity based upon the work of Christ as revealed in the Word. It's a deep respect and a commitment to each other because we are now together siblings. We're part of the family of God. We are the body of Christ. And we show this. by together removing all evil, all falsehood in our relationships and daily activities. It's not always an easy thing to do. I, in my ministry, have gone on many visits I didn't really want to go on. Because we were going to admonish. We were going to confront somebody about sin. And who likes to do that? Nobody. And the elders understand this. But you have to do it, don't you? If you love one another, you're not just going to smile and let them continue on in the way of sin. Your love has to be pure. It has to be like God's love who sacrificed himself for our purity. And so on those visits, you always pray, help us to speak with love. Help us to be doing this out of a spirit of love. Help us to be doing this out of a concern for redemption. Always the motive. And that's the way it should be with each other, the same way. We remove all evil and falsehood from our lives and from our fellowship, daily activities by our mutual submission to the Word. In 1 Peter 2, the Spirit comes back to this after he talks about how the Word bears fruit and brings new life to us. He focuses on several things here that we have to get rid of that have no place in the love that we have for each other and the new life that we have in God. And the things mentioned are malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. He says, get rid of them. Anybody born of the incorruptible word and the eternal seed of the word of God must sever all ties with things that corrupt our fellowship and us. Get rid of malice, he says. You know what malice is? That's a mean spiritedness. It's an ill will. in which we inside kind of think badly of others and even desire some kind of harm comes to somebody else. It's a hateful desire toward others. Sometimes a desire to see them humiliated or even to humiliate them ourselves or maybe we want to undermine their success or their reputation. maybe undermine certain projects they are working on or involved with. Malice can reveal itself in a quiet bitterness or sometimes just a word of gossip of slander. Sometimes it reveals itself in a conversation when just give short and indignant responses or responses that can taunt somebody. to get others to act wrongly. And this kind of relationship can result in murder, but most often it results in degrading another person's name. And like the call to love, the call to get rid of malice is found throughout the scriptures. Ephesians 4, get rid of all malice, rage, anger, rolling, slander, along with every form of malice. Pardon me, get rid of all bitterness, rage, along with every form of malice. Colossians 3 verse 8, get rid of anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language. That ill will toward others in the church, to groups in the church, has absolutely no place. We may disagree with some people very strongly, adamantly, but must have no ill will whatsoever. We must love with a love of Christ. If we don't get rid of malice, it will destroy the fellowship of the church. We know what deceit is. deceiving someone to advance our own welfare, to frustrate or harm another person's welfare. An example would be Ananias and Sapphira, who lied about the money they were getting to appear good before others and to yet gain financially. Deceit or pretense is two-facedness. To a person, we can be very nice, we can be very kind and friendly, but it can be a sham. In our hearts, we really don't feel it, but we have some of that malice in us. It's incredibly destructive to fellowship. to have that kind of deceit, two-facedness. Proverbs 24, 28 says, I do not testify against your neighbor without cause or use your lips to deceive. And in 1 Peter 3, verse 10, whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. It's the way false teachings come into the church. is through deceitful speech. People can use words, but by that word means something totally different than what historically or what the word means. And you can steer a church in a completely wrong direction The problem has been wreaking havoc in the Christian church as you come under the influence of this thinking where everybody can just identify as they want and they can interpret words the way they want and it has their own meaning. There's been increasing disunity in the church and controversy. One big illustration is that you can go to church after church and they will speak about grace. But they don't always mean grace as we understand grace to mean from the Word of God. Grace being total, unmerited favor from God. They don't mean it that way. They mean grace is something, well, God offers but it's Very nice of him, but it's up to you to take it. It's not a gift. It's only a gift if you take it. The scriptures warn very often that we are to be on guard for this kind of deceit in our fellowship. Speak the truth, says the Spirit. There must be no deceitfulness. Closely related to that, of course, as we mentioned it already, hypocrisy. Again, this pretending or play-acting. We can really get involved in an issue or a cause that our heart is not really into for the sake of making others believe something about us. We're easily prone to that. We can become involved in something for the sake of our reputation. We can be silent about certain things for the sake of our reputation. Others may not know it, but the hypocrisy is there. Get rid of it, says Peter. Christ condemns the Pharisees. They were very pious on the outside. And there was no piety at all. They were zealous for the law. not the law of God, so much as their own interpretation of the law, and their comfort, and their reputation. Paul warns about such people who put on a mask of piety, a mask of love, but their motives are personal, selfish, or revenge, or any other motive. Such hypocrisy has no place in the fellowship Envy is the ugly spirit of jealousy and spite, one of the strongest enemies of church unity and loving fellowship. Spirit warns against it often. Paul says, since we live by the spirit, let us keep in step with the spirit, let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. It's Galatians 5, 26, 1 Corinthians 13, love is patient, love is kind, It does not envy. Proverbs 14 tells us that envy rots the bones. Brothers and sisters, envy can rot our fellowship. And envy can come in different ways. Sometimes we can be filled with an envy for what the world has. And if we're sitting here tonight with that kind of envy, it's having an impact on our worship. automatically. We can be envious of another person's abilities, character traits, positions, possessions. Sometimes we can even get envious when our way is not followed in the church, but they take a different direction. Sometimes we can be envious of somebody's gifts that we don't have. That kind of thinking destroys the fellowship. It's the lack of gratitude to God for who he made us. We should be grateful for the gifts, positions, authority, and possessions of each one, and praise God for them, and encourage them in the use of them. But when we are envious of these things, we usually speak in ways that undermine the reputation, authority, and position, and love of others. that can make us look better or more qualified than the others or make them, of course, appear worse. Love cannot continue where that kind of a relationship exists. Paul says we move all slander. Paul writes Titus and tells him to remind the people to slander no one. James reminds us of the damage the tongue can do, and in chapter 411 says, slander no one. It's very quick, but these things have no place in our fellowship. The love we have for each other must be a reflection of the love of Christ, which is perfect and pure honorable. It glories in the others. That does not mean we have to agree on everything. We don't. Thank God we don't. The variety of opinion is good as long as it finds its basis in the Word of God. That's our foundation. It's Christ. We do strive to be of one mind. But never allow that deceit, that slander, that envy to creep in. We must be sincere in our love. How is it possible to love each other that way? Well, how were you born again? How did you come to life? Not of perishable seed, but of imperishable seed through the living and abiding word of God. And this word is the good news that was preached to you. The spirit uses this living word, it's powerful, to bring people to life, and to lead us in the way of life, shaping us to be like Christ, preparing us for eternity of fellowship with the triune God. We come to know God as he reveals himself in his word, and then we can reflect his glory, his love. That's what pulls us together. We have Sunday school, adult Sunday school. I can't speak of all the other classes, but I can speak of that class. That class has been a blessing. You sit and you talk and you go through the word of God. And we have some pretty frank and very amusing sometimes discussions, but it's challenging and it helps. And what happens? grow in love for each other because it's a love that is based in coming together in the word of God. Nothing unites us more than when we submit to the scriptures and allow it to shape us. That's Peter's instruction. Love each other as brothers. John says, obey the truth, obey the word, Obey what Christ says. Peter says, love means get rid of sin. Another fellowship. Together, we hide the word of God in our hearts that we might not sin against God. And for this to happen, we submit to preaching, we submit to studying the word together, Let the Word of God dwell richly in us. We have to examine ourselves to see if any of this envy, malice, deceit, hypocrisy, and slander and the like has entered in. But to deal with it, pray. Pray for the spirit to apply the Word, but drink the pure milk of the Word of God. This is so important. We have been born again. God has chosen us from before the foundation of the world, and he has redeemed us through the life and death of Christ to a new life of new obedience so that we might reflect God's character in this world and bring him glory. We have this marvelous heritage. Let us walk in it, praying, keeping in step with the Spirit, following Christ. We are going to be together for all eternity. Let's prepare by learning to love one another deeply from the heart. Amen. Our song of response is number 410, and the Trinity Soldier Christian Hearts in Love United will stand to sing number 410