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Food for Thought: Love Is at the Center

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth, love one another earnestly from the heart...I Peter 1:22

Dr. Mark Ruppert

I Peter 1:22-25

Dwight L. Moody, the famous evangelist of days gone by, once said, “Show me a church where there is love, and I will show you a church that is a power in the community.” He went on to tell this story: In Chicago a few years ago a little boy attended a Sunday school I know of. When his parents moved to another part of the city the little fellow still attended the same Sunday school, although it meant a long, tiresome walk each way. A friend asked him why he went so far, and told him that there were plenty of others just as good nearer his home. "They may be as good for others, but not for me," was his reply. "Why not?" she asked. "Because they love a fellow over there," he replied.” Moody went on to say, “If only we could make the world believe that we loved them there would be fewer empty churches, and a smaller proportion of our population who never darken a church door.

Let love replace duty in our church relations, and the world will soon be evangelized.” Moody's Anecdotes , pp. 71-72

Some years ago, Dr. Karl Menninger, noted doctor and psychologist, was seeking the cause of many of his patients' ills. One day he called in his clinical staff and proceeded to unfold a plan for developing, in his clinic, an atmosphere of creative love. All patients were to be given large quantities of love; no unloving attitudes were to be displayed in the presence of the patients, and all nurses and doctors were to go about their work in and out of the various rooms with a loving attitude. At the end of six months, the time spent by patients in the institution was cut in half. Source Unknown.

Peter in our passage today gives the believer instructions to “have genuine mutual love” in order to “love one another deeply from the heart.” Let me ask you, what would our families be like, what would our work places be like, what would our schools be like, what would our churches be like if we loved “one another deeply from the heart?” I don’t think we would quite know what to do with ourselves, that’s what I think. I think we would be so dumbfounded that we wouldn’t know how to handle it. Too bad for us, isn’t it? And yet that is exactly what we should do.

What is love? Someone once wrote: “It is silence--when your words would hurt. It is patience--when your neighbor's curt. It is deafness--when a scandal flows. It is thoughtfulness--for other's woes. It is promptness--when stern duty calls. It is courage--when misfortune falls.” Source Unknown.

Wouldn’t you say that love is at the very core of the Christian lifestyle? As a matter of fact, when you think about it, love is the very essence of God; love describes the very character of God. Turn with me to I John 4:7-8 (pg. 241) because it says something about people and it says something about God. We read, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” There it is, “God is love.” And it was Jesus, Himself, who said that it would be by this very love that everyone would recognize His disciples, for Jesus said in John 13:35, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” And so here, in I Peter 1:22, Peter gives us instructions on how we should love in not one, not two, but three specific ways. So let’s look at each one of them.

First, he tells us in verse 22 to love sincerely. Another way to put this is for us to have “genuine” love or love “without hypocrisy.” Have you every known someone who just gushes all over you, and puts on a show in order to let everyone know that they love you when it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to look and see that they are a lot of hot air? And so when they put on their act you want to say, “Whom are you kidding? What “wacky weed” have you been smoking? They might say to someone else about you, “I just love Mark” or whomever. Yeh, right.

The kind of love that Peter is talking about is a love that is without pretense or without acting a part. And so if we are really going to love sincerely, then we are going to love authentically, the way God would love.

Jesus was real, He was authentic, and so was His love. He despised hypocrisy and He spoke out against it. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:2, 5 and 16: “So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others…. And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others…. And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting.” Jesus didn’t mince any words when it came to pretenses.

Peter felt that for us to have sincere love there are two fundamentals that we need to keep in front of ourselves.

The first fundamental Peter says in verse 22 is that we must have purified our souls. The book of Leviticus contains the Levitical Law and there is something known as the act of purification where a sacrificial animal was slain and the blood was poured or sprinkled on whatever it was that needed cleansing, even the altar (Lev. 8:15), all that was considered holy (I Chron. 23:38), the Levites and the priests, the walls and gates that were rebuild, why, even the people themselves had animal blood poured or sprinkled on them (Neh. 12:30). And what Peter is referring to is the cleansing that comes from Christ and the freeing up and forgiveness we experience through the blood, not of any animal but through the Lamb of God, who is without blemish and without spot. And this one of whom I speak was foreordained before the foundation of the very world. And that Lamb is Jesus Christ.

Friends, if we are to love then we need to be cleansed from our sins by Jesus Christ. And this one called Jesus is the source of all forgiveness and love.

And the second fundamental is found again in verse 22 where Peter tells us that we must be obedient to the truth. And if Jesus is who He claims to be, namely, the way the truth and the life; if this is all true, then obedience to the truth, Jesus Christ, is essential.

The second thing Peter tells us in verse 22 to love deeply or constantly. Another translation puts it this way, “love fervently.” We are to love not only sincerely but we should love one another constantly. If we are going to love this way then we need to do so with all that we have and are, with all our strength.

This reminds me of the time in Mark 12:28-31 when Jesus was asked by one of the scribes which was the greatest commandment it was Jesus who answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment great than these.”

There is a story told of a time when Lee Iacocca, who became the Chairman of the Chrysler Corporation in the late ’70 and restored them as one of the leading car manufacturers, was visiting with the late legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers, Vince Lombardi. Iacocca asked Lombardi what it took to make a winning team. In his book, Iacocca, Lee Iacocca records Lombardi’s answer. There are a lot of coaches with good ball clubs who know the fundamentals and have plenty of discipline but still don’t win the game. Then you come to the third ingredient. If you’re going to play together as a team, you’ve got to care for one another. You’ve got to love each other. Each player has to be thinking about the next guy and saying to himself, “If I don’t block that man, Paul [Horning] is going to get his legs broken. I have to do my job well in order that he can do his.” “The difference between mediocrity and greatness,” Lombardi said, “is the feeling these guys have for each other.” If we want to be on a winning team and succeed for Christ, then we must be willing to love one another deeply so that others will know, without a shadow of a doubt, that we are Christians by our love.

And finally, Peter tells us to love from the heart. Another translation puts it, love with a pure heart. Poets and writers speak about loving romantically from the heart, but God speaks realistically about loving with a pure heart.

In the book of Proverbs there is a verse found in Proverbs 20:9 that reads like this, “Who can say, ‘I have made my heart clean; I am pure from my sin?” What is the answer to the question? Well the answer is that absolutely no one can that they have made their heart clean so that they are pure, no one. And that is why Peter reminds us in verses 19-20 of our passage that only Christ can do this for us.

And how in heaven’s name are we able to love like this? Well the answer is found in verses 23 when Peter says, “You have been born anew, not of perishable but imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.” And there it is again, “being born anew” or “born again”. And a way that he brings his point home when he speaks in verse 23 about being born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, he illustrates this point by quoting Isaiah 40:6-8 when he says in verses 24-25, “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” And Peter ends our passage by saying at the end of verse 25, “That word [which is the word of the Lord] is the good news that was announced to you.”

And this Word of the Lord, the Bible will endure forever, and the Word made flesh who is Jesus Christ will endure forever, and so will love. How can I say that love will last forever?

Well, let me take it step-by-step, if God is love, and if God is eternal, then love must be eternal. And if love is eternal that means that love will last forever.

Our lives will be so enriched, or homes will be so blessed, our work place will be healthier, our church will be empowered and transformed if love is at the center of each of our loves. My prayer for us is that others might truly know we are Christians by our love. Amen.

Key Points

Introduction: Dwight L. Moody once said, “Show me a church where there is love, and I will show you a church that is a power in the community.”

Peter gives the believer instructions to “have genuine mutual love” in order to “love one another deeply from the heart”- what would our families be like, what would… f we loved “one another deeply from the heart?”

Love is at the very core of the Christian lifestyle

I John 4:7-8

Peter gives us instructions on how we should love

First, vs.22 says to love ___________

Another way to say it is to have “genuine” love or love “without hypocrisy”

Jesus was real and so was His love

For us to have sincere love there are two fundamentals

First, we must have _______ our souls

Second, we must be ________ to the truth

Second, verse 22 says to love ______ or __________

Another translation says love __________ Mark 12:28-31

Third, Peter tells us to love from the _______ or love with a _____ _______

Proverbs 20:9 reads, “Who can say, ‘I have made my heart clean; I am pure from my sin?” Answer…

How are we able to love like this? Answer - verse 23…

Conclusion: My prayer is that others might truly know we are Christians by our love

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)