Some Things Should Never Change (1 Peter 1:22-25)

A hand-cranked washing machine, “miracle” cough lozenges, a coal stove endorsed by Mrs. Spurgeon, and one painfully memorable first-date outfit all make the same point: time changes almost everything. But there’s one Christian distinctive that’s supposed to stay stubbornly the same in every generation, whether it’s first-century Rome, Victorian London, or your life right now.

We open with the strange but beautiful reality that believers often feel immediate kinship with other believers, even when they’ve just met. Then we turn to 1 Peter 1:22–25, where the main verb is impossible to miss: love one another. We dig into Peter’s foundation for that command: “obedience to the truth” as surrender to the gospel, and a “purified” soul as God’s past act in the new birth. Real Christian love is not a personality trait or good manners. It’s the fruit of being born again through the living and enduring Word of God.

From there, we get concrete about what biblical love looks like: sincere love without masks, fervent love that stretches like an athlete to the limit, and intentional love from the heart that starts as a decision of the will and becomes action. We close with Peter’s incentives to love, our shared family identity in Christ and our shared authority under Scripture that outlasts every trend and empire, plus a final challenge to push the walls of our love wider than we thought possible. If this encouraged you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

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Transcript

Instant Kinship Among Believers

SPEAKER_00 0:31

The fourth century Roman emperor Julian the apostate once remarked that Jesus had successfully implanted in the Christian the belief that they were somehow related. Minutius Felix, a Roman attorney who lived in the third century, wrote of the Christians they love each other even without being all that acquainted. And you meet someone in an airport or in an office, and it doesn't matter where it is, and you find out they're they're followers of Jesus Christ, and there's immediate kinship. One of the members of our elder team gave me a real treasure now for my study. It's a copy of a magazine edited by Charles Spurgeon in the late 1800s. I thought of bringing it, but it's a little fragile, thin paper, and I hope to frame it here soon and sort of protect it. Spurgeon was a renowned pastor, as you know, many of you do of the Metropolitan Tabernacle for many years in downtown London. And the magazine is called The Sword and the Trowl. It was published monthly. That title is taken from Nehemiah. Of course, they built the wall. They had in one hand a trowel as they laid bricks, and in the other hand a sword in case they were attacked. My copy that I was given is dated February 1887. And uh it includes sermons and devotionals and a lot of things. In fact, I read it from cover to cover and found it very interesting. A couple of surprising things to me, uh, though, uh, in these monthly editions, uh, Spurgeon would list the name of every donor to his pastor's college, which is Tanema to a seminary, which we have today, every donor to the school, and also to the orphanage. And then beside their name, he would uh publish what they gave for that month. That's some high-pressure fundraising, uh, let me tell you. What I also found interesting were the pages given to advertisements, which I'm sure helped fund uh the publication. I wish I could show you what they look like, but I did copy into my notes several uh illustrations, and it just struck me how a lot of the language of these advertisements really hasn't changed over 130 years, although a lot of the stuff we purchase certainly has. Just inside the fly leaf is an advertisement for Keating's cough lozenges, which we could all use, uh especially this season, and the words absolutely the best remedy ever made for coughs, asthma, and bronchitis, strongly recommended by the most eminent doctors and sold everywhere. End quote. That doesn't really change in this language, does it? There's an advertisement for a new washing machine. Of course, it's hand cranked, but it's still promised, quote, magical effects on your washing, end quote. There's an ad for a coal-burning stove, which they all were. It's called the Kitchener. In fact, it's spelled like kitchen and then added with the E R at the end. And I wondered if that's where we got our word kitchen from. I didn't have time to look it up, but it was called a kitchener. And the kitchener promised the housewife to use half the coal to cook your meal, and it cures your smoky chimney. What I found really interesting about this is they had a little drawing of it on one page, and underneath, in fine print was the word testimonial, colon. Mrs. Charles Spurgeon is pleased to use a kitchener for herself. Oh my. Then there are advertisements. I mean, there are so many of them. There was one I saw for Swedish seaweed fluid. It's a treatment that, quote, immediately cures lung problems. I'm sure it kills you, that's why it cures it, but you take it. Several ads for baby foods that, quote, promote the formation of firm flesh and bone. Advertisements for dress patterns, calico prints, flannel suppliers, a number of advertisements for pearl soap. Pages were dedicated to pearl soap, quote, the perfect soap in the world for your complexion. And uh cross the page was a full page ad that said, and quote, grasp this startling fact, big bold letters. Why drink inferior tea? The United Kingdom Tea Company provides the finest tea in the world. We know that's Chick-fil-A now, by the way, in case you're wondering. On the same page is an advertisement for Beatham's Capillary Hair Fluid. It is, quote, unequaled in preserving hair and arresting it from falling out. Should have had mine arrested, but it's too late now. At any rate, I thought, wow. Times have changed. The medicine seems so primitive, along with, you know, things like seaweed and cranked uh by hand washing machines, co-heated stoves. Even the fashion designs, I wish you could see some of the pictures with the starch collars for men, the wrap around their necks, and all the buttons on the dresses. Very, very interesting. It made me think, you know, in the world of fashion, things change, but even in your own lifetime, right? Changes. A few weeks ago, my wife and I were with three other couples, and we were having dinner, and we were recalling uh when we first met, and some of the um uh some of the funny things to remember even from those first few dates. Um my wife uh finally chimed in when it was our turn with our first date, which she uh can laugh about now. I went to the same college as she did, and and I picked her up at her dormitory for our first date, and I took her to church. Now, is that spiritual or or what? But at any rate, I was dressed to make the best impression possible. I was wearing my finest suit. It was dark, navy, with thick mafia style pinstripes. It's pretty cool looking. And a dark blue suit, so I had a dark, navy blue suit, heavy wool. It was 95 degrees, never mind, it was my best suit, and a dark blue shirt, and then my 100% polyester white tie to go with it, which glowed in the dark, paid extra for that. And then to top it off, my favorite cream and blue Saddle Oxford shoes. Yes, yeah. And when she opened the door, she almost fainted. I thought she was impressed. And it would be years later that she would tell me her real feelings. She said, When I showed up, she said, Stephen, I really, I really wanted to be with you. I just didn't want to be seen with you. Poor girl, what I put her through. I do take some comfort in the fact that Charles Spurgeon, and I'd like to be a little like him, I guess I uh can identify in this one area. He made the same kind of impression when he arrived to preach his first sermon at the church in downtown London. A small congregation would grow to several thousand very quickly, but he was from the country and first time in the city. And when he preached, he had on his finest clothing, and a teenage girl in the audience wrote about the impression that he made in her diary that night. Here's what she said. He wore an oversized black satin coat and a mismatched blue handkerchief in his breast pocket that had large white polka dots. And he used his handkerchief as an illustration, which called all the more attention to it. He awakened in me feelings of amusement. Within two years he would ask her to marry him, which she did, on the condition she could pick out his clothes, I'm pretty sure. But at any rate, awaken more than amusement. So many things have changed from the publication of that little magazine to today. From medicine to fashion, uh what you feed your infants, what you cook on. But when it comes to the distinctives of a genuine believer, some things should never change. In fact, there is a unique distinctive that sets us apart. And if you're older in the faith, you've already encountered it, and it's convicting every time you encounter it. It was first published 1900 years ago. You've got a copy in your lap, perhaps. Its author is Peter. So let's go back to his first letter in chapter one, as we bring that chapter to a close. Let's rejoin our study where we ended at verse 22. First Peter chapter 1, verse 22. Peter writes, Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart. For you have been born again, not of seed, which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and lasting, enduring word of God. Now those verses are actually one long sentence. But you might circle or highlight the primary verb in that sentence because everything sort of hinges, attaches to it. It's the verb there in verse 22, love one another. That phrase, underscore that command. It's an imperative. Everything else ties to it. From the time this was written, 1900 years ago, to this day, that truth hasn't changed. Now, before we get to the command to love, let me point out the foundation of love that Peter gives us here. In fact, without this foundation, you can't really begin to love. So let's find out what it is. The foundation is described back in verse 22 as obedience to the truth, and, if I can somewhat artificially separate the phrases, purification of the soul. Let's look at this for a minute. The phrase obedience to the truth might make it sound like this is something you've got to earn. You've got to work your way. You've got to obey enough to get saved. No, this is a reference to the gospel and to your salvation. In fact, in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 and verse 3, Paul warns the unbeliever by saying, they do not obey the gospel. That is, they don't submit to it. To the Ephesians, Paul identifies the word of truth with the gospel, Ephesians 1:13. Even, in fact, Peter later on in this letter refers to the unbelieving world in chapter 4 as a world that does not obey the gospel of God. Now it might be helpful to understand the word obedience, isn't what you might automatically think of. You got to obey in order to be saved. That's not what he's saying. Obedience to the truth or to the gospel. That word obedience is a compound noun made up of two words. One is to hear or hearing, and the other word is under. In other words, obeying the truth is another way of saying you have come under the sound of the gospel. You are hearing under the truth. You have come underneath it, which is the implication then of surrender to it. You believe it, you accept it, you follow its commands to repent and pursue Christ. So Peter is effectively saying that if you haven't come to love the gospel of Christ, if you haven't come under, if you haven't obeyed the commands of the gospel, you'll never be able to love anybody else. If you don't love Jesus Christ, you'll never be able to love anybody else the way it'll be loved. In fact, when you became a believer, you first then began to be able to love like Christ. Now, Peter also mentions here in verse 22 the foundational element of a purified soul, and that also is synonymous with spiritual conversion. It might sound like, well, you've purified your soul, you've done the work, and you've made it clean. Well, if you know Scripture, you know that that not only is physically impossible, but it is theologically incorrect. It's helpful to know that Peter uses a tense for this participle, for you could render it for having been purified. Having been purified, it refers to a past tense, transaction, event. Peter refers to a past moment. In fact, in verse 23, if you look down there, he refers to that as being born again. Again, he uses the perfect tense. It is past with ongoing effects. Ongoing results. There was a moment in your past, if you're a believer, when your soul was purified. It was purified by the Spirit of God who came to live within you, and the blood of Christ that Peter has already described for us as cleansing us. And you were made alive. You were made alive through faith in Jesus Christ. Peter refers to it as being born again. That is, you've been born physically, but now you are born again, and that is spiritually. Before you came to faith in Jesus Christ, you might have been born physically, but your spirit was dead. Dead in sin and trespasses, Ephesians tells us. But the Spirit of God came in and dwelt you, infusing life into you, and your spirit, which was dead and separated, is now brought to life. The world can talk about their spiritual experiences, but according to the scriptures, their spirit is dead. It has not yet been brought to life. So when Peter pictures here in verse 22 that moment in the past when you had your soul purified, what he means is there was a past moment when your soul by the Spirit was purified in the past, and it has continuing results in the present. We were purified by God's Spirit through the blood of Christ. And that will never change. We have ongoing purification that's taking place as we sin daily and confess daily. But our status remains permanently pure. Ezekiel the prophet looked forward in time to this dispensation, this covenant, this new covenant, this spiritual reality. And he prophesied of it, and with it he gave the implication of responsibility. He writes it this way, quoting God, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. In other words, the Spirit of God cleansed your soul from every sin at the moment you were born again, when you were saved. He gave you a new heart. He now inhabits you. That didn't happen in the Old Testament. The Spirit came upon followers of God to commission them or ordain them. That's why David would pray, don't take your Holy Spirit away from me. You don't pray that today. The Spirit of God doesn't come on you for some special anointing. He indwells you, and that's permanent. From now, that moment of salvation forward, you are his living temple. So back then, he permanently changed your status, your identity. You went from lost to saved, from corrupt to cleansed, from dead to alive. Now, choose. Choose daily to demonstrate the demeanor of someone who's been brought to life. See, he's writing to believers here. He's not telling unbelievers, here's how you want to live. They need to be saved. Don't turn over a new leaf, by the way. It's just a new leaf. It'll get old quickly. You need a new life, which comes by means of the Spirit of God as you come under the truth of the gospel and you believe. Again, the question: how do you most effectively demonstrate the demeanor of someone who is spiritually alive through love? That which the world can never produce. Genuine love. It isn't going to be the soap you use. Isn't it going to be the clothing you wear? Isn't it going to be the stove you cooked on last night that you have in your kitchen? It is going to be your love for the brethren. Now, what Peter's going to do is give us the specifics of what this love looks like. Three words are going to surface in this passage that describes genuine love. And the first word is the word sincere. Look at verse 22. A little into the verse again. You've purified your souls, having had your souls purified. For a, here's what happens now: a sincere love for the brethren. Generic term for brothers and sisters. Peter describes it as a sincere love. He uses an adjective hypocritas, which gives us our transliterated word hypocrite or hypocrisy. He says by adding an alpha or an A, it is no hypocrisy. He says, this is love without hypocrisy. To understand that, go back in time. If Peter saw a dramatic play, the actors would have been holding in front of their faces a hypocriton, a mask. And the mask might be painted with a big smiley face on it, or a big frown, still used to represent the dramatic Broadway scene to this day as an icon. It could be a frown or a smile, but the true feelings of the actor could be hidden behind the mask. Peter uses the word here to describe the love of the brethren to be without any acting. There are no masks. Nobody's pretending to love someone else, but hiding their true feelings of resentment or grudges or bitterness behind the mask. This might happen today. This is more than a handshake and a smile, but I hope you don't sit next to me. This is more than a smile and hey, how are you doing? But thinking inside, I hope they don't start telling me. I don't have time. No mask. Genuine. Sincere love. Peter uses another descriptive word here. It's the word fervent. Notice, fervently love, a little later on. Fervently love one another. Sincerely thou, fervently. This doesn't get any easier, does it? In fact, the word he uses here for fervently is used only here in the entire New Testament. And it means, get this, fervently. I mean, that's a passionate word. Fervently. It has heat and emotion, doesn't it? Keep in mind, as you pursue holiness for the glory of God, which is the overarching context here in this passage, other people are going to intercept your life. Other people are going to be brought into your life, and God is going to sanctify you through them. There are relationships that are sanctifying relationships, marriage being the chief one. It sanctifies you. One author put it this way instead of struggling with the thought, I wonder why God is allowing that person, either in the assembly or in my family, or in my life, why is God allowing that other person? To bother me, to irritate me, to hurt me. No, think this way: God is using that other person to sanctify me, to move me forward in the process of holy pursuit. Now, maybe you think after that, well, that's gonna stretch me. That's gonna stretch me to think this way. Peter would agree. In fact, the background of that word fervent or fervently is the world of athletics. Just picture in your mind something akin to what Peter probably saw. You, perhaps, if you watch a little football, or maybe you've watched some baseball recently and you've seen the athletes doing the same thing, what are they doing? They're off somewhere and they're stretching. They're pulling, they're bending, they're torturing, they're doing everything they can to push to the limit their muscles' capacity. That's the word here. Love to the stretching, to the capacity of your ability. So if loving somebody in your life has you say, Man, that's gonna stretch me, I'm gonna probably sprain something. I won't be able to move for a week. That's the idea. Love the brethren, even though it takes you to the limits of your capacity. He adds another descriptive phrase: genuine love is not only sincere and fervent, I'll use the word it's intentional. Notice again, fervently love one another, notice, from the heart.

unknown 24:26

Wow.

New Family And The Word Endures

Push Love Wider Than Your Walls

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Now that just completely exposes us from the heart. This isn't external pressure. This isn't here are three rules, okay, and now you love. No, this is internal. This is an internal principle. A principle of spiritual life initiated by the indwelling Holy Spirit, who grows within our hearts that continually come under the sound of the gospel and the truth of the word so that he produces this crop and the first nuance in that crop, the fruit of the Spirit is what? Love. Galatians 5, 22. Love. From the heart. From the heart. Is he thinking of that beating red blood pumping muscle? Of course not. You know, I get a little irritated with people saying, you know, you really shouldn't have children pray to ask Jesus into their heart. Because that's just a beating red muscle. Do you really think that's what we're talking about? In fact, in the New Testament, just do a search on the word heart. The word heart references the inner core of your being. Where else would you ask Jesus to come? The heart is who you are. The heart in the Western mind was the place where you think. It is the place where you decide. That's why you're to believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead in order to be saved. Believe in the very core of your being, that he is alive. By the way, when we're told, when we're commanded to love from the heart, that's very significant. Because love then can be commanded. How do you command somebody to love somebody? You love from the heart, that place where you decide I'm gonna love him. I'm gonna love her. They're part of my family. When I do a wedding, typically in that ceremony, one of the things I'll say to that couple is, you are here today. Not because you have fallen in love. And I let everybody gasp. You are here today because you have chosen to love. The very inner core of who you are, the place where you make up your mind and your heart. It is not a matter of feeling, it's a matter of willing. See, agape, which is the word he uses, involves deep feelings and affection. But agape begins with a decision. Agape doesn't wait for merit to be built up in the life of the recipient. Okay, now they've done enough, and now I'll love them. Agape doesn't wait for inspiration. Aren't you glad? I mean, did you ever do anything and you think, well, now I've done something, God will love me. We unfortunately tend to think that way. You don't earn merits. And once you reach a point, okay, now God will love you. You don't live in such a way as a believer. Well, God really loves me today. When he saw me do that, he was up there, wow, now I love him. No. Agape is an act of the will, and the body follows through. Agape is a decision in the heart and the hands and the feet and everything about you. It cooperates. It's hard to love. It's a hard to love. But it is possible. You know how I know that? Jesus loves me. How about you? We often overlook as I could just if I could just pull over for a moment on the side. We often think of Jesus as commandment to his disciples, which is then reiterated throughout the New Testament that Peter no doubt is picking up on. Jesus Christ is saying, I'm going to give you a new commandment. By the way, get that commandment that you love one another. I'm commanding you to make a decision to love one another and demonstrate it. You think, you know, okay, that's to the church. Frankly, that'd be easier. If Jesus were to come here today and say to all of us in this assembly, I want you to love 3,000 people, we'd go, that's easy. I can do that. A lot different if he tells you to love three people, a handful of people. That's exactly what he was doing. Because when he issued that new commandment, he's in the upper room. It's hours before his crucifixion. And he's sitting in a room with 11 disciples, and he's effectively saying, Peter, I know you are worlds apart from John. You have entirely different personalities. You don't even think alike. I command you to love each other. He's looking at Andrew, the guy that he's always first out of the bus. Would never need a map. He'd be lost forever, like some of you guys and me too. You never ask for directions. And there's Thomas, he won't go anywhere unless he's, you know, got a map. And he's going to doubt every step of the way. He's never going to take that step of faith. And Andrew is going to get irritated and say, come on, let's go. And Thomas said, I don't know. You guys love each other. There's Simon the zealot. Hated Rome. Hated Romans. Would just as soon take his Sakaria's dagger to the throat of one of them, and any Jew who would so collaborate with the Roman Empire, and they're sitting in the room with one of the chief collaborators, Matthew the tax collector, who'd sold his reputation in order to get a job from Rome so he could turn around and tax and overtax his fellow Jewish nation. You guys love each other. Love each other. Put it into action. I don't want you to talk about it. I'm not so interested in how well you can define it. I want you to act upon it. I love that little penis cartoon I came across some time ago, and and uh, you know, Schroeder's always got that little miniature grand piano that he plays. He'll pull out it, and he's always playing away. And and Lucy has had a crush on him for about 50 years, and never can't get anywhere with that one. And he's playing away, and she comes over and sits down and listens, you know, just adoringly, and and then finally interrupts him and says, Schroeder, do you know what love is? Schroeder stands to his feet and rather woodenly states, Yes, love is a noun, a strong affection for, an attachment or devotion to a person or persons. And he sits back down and starts playing. Lucy's crushed, disappointed, but then says somewhat hopefully, you know, on paper, he's terrific. Jesus doesn't tell us to love on paper, does he? He doesn't ask us, you know, getting us that walnut, you spit out the definition. What is it? We could probably do it. We could probably do a good job of it. He's not asking us to love by definition, he's asking us to demonstrate love by application. Put it into life. Now, what Peter does next is reinforce the command of love by adding two more thoughts. Let's complete this chapter by looking at these, and I'll call these incentives to love. The first incentive to love like this is that the believer is in a new family. You're in a new family. Again, verse 23, for you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable. That is the living and enduring word of God. You have been born again. Again. The tense of the verb, the perfect tense, emphasizes an event that took place, but it ought to have continual repercussions. If you are married, you were married. Now it ought to have continual repercussions. Same idea. You were born again. And the chief result, that repercussion, that activity in the mind of Peter is that you love one another. And why? Because you belong to the same family. You know, we we we incorrectly say of our nuclear family, we are related by blood. So are we. We are related by the blood of Christ. And as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God. That's why Paul will tell the members of the assembly to treat older men as fathers, older women as mothers, younger men as brothers, and younger women as sisters in all purity. Why? Because you're brothers and sisters in Christ. You happen to belong to the same family. And by the way, this family represented even in here is going to last forever. Minutius Felix, a Roman attorney who lived in the third century, wrote of the Christians they love each other even without being all that acquainted with each other. There is that camaraderie. And you meet someone in an airport or in an office, and it doesn't matter where it is, and you find out they're they're believers and they're followers of Jesus Christ, and there's immediate kinship. Which is the perfect word. You're a brother, a sister, a son, a daughter. We are children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. Galatians chapter 3, verse 26. You're in a new family. That's an incentive to love your brothers and sisters. You're not only in a new family, you're under a new authority. Look at verse 24. For all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The flower falls off. But the word of the Lord endures forever. There's something else that's going to last forever. Not only the family you belong to, but the authority you're under. Now he's quoting here from Isaiah 40, and let me very briefly say this isn't a coincidence. This isn't because he memorized this passage in his devotions, and he really is looking for a place to stick it in. This is highly meaningful at this particular context, because Isaiah 40 was given to the Jewish people who are wandering in a culture that is growing more and more hostile toward them. That's a perfect analogy of Peter who's writing to the church and a hostile culture. It's growing more and more hostile because in that kind of culture you could have perhaps the impression or the thought that the Word of God was good for people back then, you know, when they were, you know, using a certain kind of soap and burning coal and stoves, but not now. I mean, this is a lot more sophisticated now. We got a lot more troubles now. No, he's telling these first century believers what those who followed God went through BC. God hadn't forgotten them. God hadn't overlooked them. It looked now like the Empire of Rome was gonna last forever. No, it's like grass. It's like a flower. It looks great. What a pomp and circumstance. What beauty beneficiality, but it's it's gonna wither away. But my word. Medicines are gonna change, thankfully. I'm not taking seaweed. Fashions are gonna change. I've never worn that suit in your presence. When you fed infants, what you cooked on, it's all gonna change. But the word of the Lord is as fresh and relevant today as it was in the days of Peter. The word of the Lord will stand forever. So? Because we have come under the sound of it and we have submitted to it by faith in Christ, we have a new family, and we're under a new authority. And then, because of all of that, we dare to even attempt to love with sincerity, no masks, with fervency, stretched to the very limit and willingly from the heart. Let me close with the words of John Henry Jowlett, a lesser-known but wonderfully effective pastor from England during the same period of time Spurgeon lived. He wrote in his commentary on this text in Peter's letter, these words, and I want them to resonate with you as we close. He wrote, There is a love which is like an umbrella. There is a love that is like a great tent. There is a love that is like the immeasurable sky. The aim of the New Testament is to convert your umbrella into a tent and the merging of your tent into the canopy of the sky. So, he writes, push back the walls of family love until they include your neighbor. And then, and then push back the walls again until they include the stranger. And then again, push back the walls until they include everyone, including your enemy. And with that, we will begin to love like our Lord loved. As he loved us, and gave himself for us.