Enduring Love - 1 Peter 1:22-25

In this episode of The Long Obedience, Pastor Santosh Ninan explores 1 Peter 1:22-25 to uncover the true foundation of authentic Christian community. Acknowledging the painful reality of "church hurt," he explains how believers can only love one another constantly and sincerely when they are transformed by the eternal, imperishable word of God. Ultimately, listeners are reminded that while the powerful forces and physical realities of this world will eventually fade like grass, God's word and His kingdom will endure forever. 

Transcript

Speaker 0:05

Hey friends, good to be with you again this week. Welcome to the Long Obedience Podcast. My name is Santosh Ninan. The Long Obedience Podcast is a place where we believe that the essential thing in heaven and in earth is that there should be a long obedience in the same direction that thereby results and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living. That's from our friend, philosopher Frederick Nietzsche. Well, he's not our friend, but he gave us that great quote that we use. The long obedience we find ourselves in is our obedience to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. If you're new to the uh pod, welcome to the party. Thrilled that you're here. Regular listeners, of course, welcome back. You know, true authentic community is really difficult. We all want it, but it seems elusive beyond our grasp. We all have this deep eternal need to belong, to be loved and accepted. And yet, we humans, we're not very good at it. And sadly, churches seem to be no better than secular human organizations. I know many of you, like Felicia and I, have endured what psychologist Hillary McBride calls holy hurt or church hurt. You have been hurt by a local church. A place that you thought was safe, turned out to be dangerous. Churches should be safe places of healing. They should not be purveyors of pain and abuse. So our passage today helps us guide us into true and authentic community, helps us to see it for what it really is. And I am going to read our passage for us. It's 1 Peter chapter 1. For those of you new to the podcast, this is a teaching podcast where all I really do is uh teach through the Bible. And right now we're starting off in 1 Peter, and we have gotten up to verse 22 of chapter one. So let me read that for us and then we'll get into it. 1 Peter chapter 1, starting in verse 22. Since you have purified yourselves by your obedience to the truth, so that you show sincere brotherly love for each other from a pure heart, love one another constantly. Because you've been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For all flesh is like grass, all its glory like a flower of the grass. The grass withers, the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever. And this word is the gospel that was proclaimed to you. So Peter starts off by saying, You've purified yourself by your obedience to the truth. Purified, been made clean, cleansed, cleaned up. Peter's readers have been changed. Now, to clean something means that that thing has at one point previously been unclean. It had been dirty. So Peter is saying his readers have been purified, which means that at one time they had been unclean. And this is what it means to be a Christian, because we enter this world unclean. Theologians call it original sin. But then we encounter Jesus Christ, we encounter the cross, we pray to be forgiven, and we are made clean. We are cleansed, we are made new. Peter explains that they've been made clean. And how does this happen? It happens through obedience to the truth, adherence to the word of God, conformity to the gospel. You see, the truth of the Christian gospel is different from every kind of truth. Christian truth, gospel truth, has the power to change human character. No other truth can do that. Scientific truth cannot do that. Linguistic truth, political truth, even relational truth does not have the power that the gospel has. Paul says in Romans 1:16, I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of salvation. When the gospel, the truth and the reality of Jesus Christ, his birth, his life, his death, his resurrection, when these truths penetrate our souls, change happens. Change always happens. So the question for you and for me is are you obedient to the truth? Or are you just sympathetic to the truth? You just think the truth is nice, the truth is true, but you hold it away from your heart and mind. You are not obedient to the truth. You're sympathetic to the truth, but you're not obeying the truth. Once you obey the truth, you become clean. Because regular exposure to the word of God purifies our soul from the pollution and infection of sin. And then Peter talks about what the practical outworking of these pure hearts are. This is in the same verse, verse 22. You show sincere brotherly love for each other from a pure heart, love one another constantly. The New Living translation translates it like this Love each other deeply with all your heart. Love, the greatest, most important thing in the world. Everyone agrees with that. Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, atheists, agnostic, everyone would agree that love is the most important thing. But why? Why is love the most important thing? It can't be simply the result of evolutionary necessity that we love in order for the species to survive. That can't be true. Because the highest form of love is sacrificial love, where someone dies in order for others to live, which is in direct contradiction to the Darwinian ethos of survival of the fittest. Love is the most important thing in the world because God is the most important thing in the world, and God is love. And this is an important thing that you have to realize about God. As Christians, we believe in the Trinity. We believe that God is not unipersonal, but that God is tripersonal, that at the center of reality is a community of self-giving love. At the center of reality is this incredible relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in this ongoing reality of reciprocal love. And out of that love, everything is birthed. And you exist because of God's love. And then what happens? This love enters the human soul. And it doesn't stay static or sterile, it overflows out into creation. In John chapter 7, verses 37 to 38, we read, Jesus stood up and cried out, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. The one who believes in me, as the scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him. The water of life pours his life into us. And we become channels, we become rivers, we become outflow. This is the reality, this is the truth of the Christian gospel, is that God's love enters our hearts, our minds, our souls, and doesn't stay there. It is spot meant to go out into the world. And then Peter talks about the love here. He uses three words. It's sincere, it's pure, and constant. It's sincere, it's genuine, it's authentic, it's real, authentic love. It is not mere conventions of politeness, it's real love. And it's pure. And this is a tough one as I was thinking about it. Because do we ever really love others with pure motives? I look at my own heart and soul, and I'm shocked at how self-centered my own attempts at loving others. Often there's this secret insecurity. If I do this, maybe then they'll think I'm a good person. Maybe they will look up to me. You see, I'm seeking affirmation from others. And my love can sometimes be a manipulative tool to get that affirmation. Peter says it's a constant love, it's ongoing, it's never-ending, which again is so challenging. How do we love when other people wrong us, when they bug us, when they're better than us or when they're insensitive or they're rude? How do we constantly love? Every relationship suffers from miscommunication or insensitivity at times. How do we get this power to love even in the midst of those difficulties? New Testament scholar Ed Clowney helps us here. He says this. How can such love be commanded? Peter writes to people divided by the jealousies and hatreds of their past. Some were Jews, some Gentiles. To bind them in family love, Peter directs them to the one source. The love that binds the redeemed flows from the love of the Redeemer. Christian love is the love of grace, the love of compassion. For such love to appear, the pride and selfishness of our alienation from God must be swept away. They must be replaced by a heart made new with the motives of grace. Peter shows how both needs are to be met. It's the word of God, the good news of the gospel, that is the means both of our new birth and of our nurture in holiness. To bind them in family love, Peter directs them to the one source. Once we are connected to the source of love, we have this power to love others. And this love comes because we've been born again. We've been made new. And this rebirth is of seed that is imperishable that will never die. This is out of our passage. It says, verse 23, you've been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. We are born again through the word of God, which is living and enduring. Let's look at a couple passages, famous passages that talk about God's word. Hebrews 4 12. The word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 2 Timothy 3 14 to 17. As for you, continue in what you've learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you. You know that from infancy you've known the sacred scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God. It is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training and righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. In Hebrews, the writer is saying that the word of God is living, it's alive, it's effective. It actually has effect. It's sharper than a sword, it penetrates the soul and spirit. The word of God has this power to judge us, it judges our thoughts and intentions. And then Paul, in writing to Timothy, he's saying, continue what you've learned. You know that you've been, you've learned the sacred scriptures. The sacred scriptures are able to give you wisdoms for salvation. And that all scripture is inspired by God. To reinforce his point, Peter quotes the prophet Isaiah. He says, All flesh is like grass, all its glory like a flower of the grass. The grass withers, the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever. All flesh is grass, all its glory is like a flower of the grass. And what happens to grass? What happens to flowers? The grass withers and the flower falls. This is an incredibly sobering reality to think that we, our lives, are like the grass growing outside on your lawn or in a park. Think how insignificant one blade of grass is. Just one blade. And then all the flowers that we see fade and die. You know, I looked up the longest living flowers. Orchids. Orchids can live up to three months. All the flowers fade and die. And you know, we're all in this process of decay from the moment we're born. The process of decay is already present within us. I am now 55 years old. Next month I'll be 56. I can order off the senior uh menu at some restaurants. And let me tell you, I feel this decay. I feel this withering and falling every day. My body, physical body is withering and it's falling. Just today, I went for a short run this morning and I am in pain. When I was younger, I could go for a run, no problem, but not anymore. My physical body is withering. It's falling. Running is now a form of self-abuse. Everything is temporal. You know, I have a friend who's a very successful entrepreneur. He owns several car dealerships and companies all across Canada. And right here in Saskatoody owns several dealerships. And in fact, he has three dealerships of three different uh vehicles, uh three different uh uh car brands, all in a row up in the north end of the city. And I was I was up there one day, I was looking at them, and I was looking at all the beautiful vehicles, all this stuff there, and all the, you know, these are big dealerships, right? And I'm looking at them, and then all of a sudden I thought, someday all this stuff is gonna be gone. There'll be no trace that they had ever been there. You see, everything is temporal and temporary except for the word of God. The word of God is alive, it's enduring, it is power. Romans 1:16, again, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, it is the power of God for salvation. That's why we have to have this broader view of reality, that the same word that gave you new birth continues to nourish your new life. You know, in the next chapter, we're gonna look at it in 1 Peter. Peter writes, like newborn infants desire the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow up into your salvation. Like newborn infants desire the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow up into your salvation. We never graduate beyond the Bible. Our lives start in the gospel, we grow through the gospel, we don't move past this. Martin Luther once said that life is perpetual repentance. We never outgrow the cross. Every day we come back to the same story. Christ loved us while we were still sinners. He gave himself for us, he conquered death, our future is secure in him. Every day that story reshapes our heart just a little more. And this is why gospel love must be at the center of Christian community. And it's hard, it's challenging. Sadly, most many churches and Christian organizations often devolve into simply self-perpetuating organizations. They lose touch with the reason for their initial birth and implementation. But look at what the gospel does. Only people who know they are deeply loved by Jesus can consistently love difficult people. Only people who have received mercy can extend mercy. Only people who know they've been forgiven can become forgiving people. A church is simply a community of sinners gathered together to repent and to worship. We are a community of sinners gathered together to repent and to worship. You don't need me to tell you that our world is a mess, that our society is in crisis. The brokenness is staggering at times. Jesus said they will know we are Christians by our love. And sometimes when I'm online and I see how Christians talk about one another and how they talk about the world, I wonder if the world will ever know us because we simply do not love one another. We need a church made up of people who have been so transformed by the enduring word of God that they genuinely, sincerely, constantly love one another. And what happened, what happens when that happens? What happens is the church then starts to fulfill her original calling and becomes a signpost to another way of living, to another kingdom, a kingdom that will never fade, a kingdom that will never wither, a kingdom that will never fall, a kingdom whose king reigns forever. We need to look beyond the temporal, physical, spatial reality all around us and look out into what is really real: the word of God and the kingdom of God. I want to close out our time with a couple of quotes from my favorite scholar on 1 Peter. You know, to prepare these uh podcast episodes every week, I do a lot of research and a lot of reading, and I read a lot of commentaries. And I found one, uh, this woman, Karen Jobs, who is a professor of New Testament at Westmont College, uh, to be the best commentary, actually. So I want to read a couple quotes of hers to close this thing out. Jobs writes this Peter fully recognizes that God's message to 6th century Israel stands as Christ's word to first century Christians, because he recognizes that it is the Spirit of Christ who revealed God's promises to Isaiah. And I would just add to that is that this passage is also for 21st century Western Canadian Christians or Western Christians. Without any thought of 1 Peter in mind, P. D. Hansen writes of Isaiah's proclamation in words that show the similar historical situations between ancient Israel and Peter's readers. When one realizes that this speech was addressed to a people that had experienced the loss of nearly all of those structures and institutions which give identity to a community, it assumes a poignancy, especially for readers who face their own personal or corporate existence with apprehension or dread. This is the reflection on the word of God enduring past the grass and the flowers. Jobs goes on. She writes, the contrast between what is transitory and what is permanent, embodied in the quotation of Isaiah 40, verses 6 to 8, would be highly appropriate for a beleaguered community of Christians, facing what gave every appearance of being the permanent, even eternal power and glory of the Roman Empire. In such a situation, the announcement that the glitter, pomp, and power of the Roman culture was as grass when compared to God's eternal word spoken in Jesus Christ, available through the gospel, preached to and accepted by the Christians of Asia Minor, would give them courage to hold fast to the latter or rejecting the former. Even the hostility of that overwhelming power becomes more bearable when its ultimate transitory nature is revealed and accepted. I'm sorry, that last quote actually is not Job's, that's Actmeyer, another uh New Testament scholar who makes that point for us. Everything around us is transitory and changing. And it may look like those who are opposed to the gospel of Jesus, to those who are opposed to the church, are strong and powerful and dominant. Because they are strong and powerful and dominant. But I hope that this episode and this passage has helped to remind you that they are not eternal, that those forces that are against you, those forces that are against the Church of Jesus Christ, are temporal and they will come to an end. And there will be a day when Jesus returns as King of kings and as Lord of Lords, and you and I will be in his kingdom forever. And until that day, my prayer for you is that you will continue in this long obedience in the same direction, serving our King who loves us so much. God's best. I pray you have a good day, a good week, a good night, wherever you are listening to this podcast. Take care of the