Love One Another

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Joke: A husband and wife could never love one another because they used to often fight over money. This man never went to work but wanted to make fast money, so he would buy lottery tickets. The wife was money minded too. She wanted her husband to get good income. Finally, fed up with the husband’s ways the wife gave him a divorce. Surprisingly, a couple of weeks after divorce the wife wrote a letter back to her husband.

“Dearest Donald, No words could ever express the great unhappiness I’ve felt since breaking our marriage. Please say you’ll take me back. No one could ever take your place in my heart, so please forgive me. I love you, I love you, I love you! Yours forever, Maria… P.S., And congratulations on willing the 1 Crore lottery.” We are living in a world where money determines love.

How is your love for the people around you? We all are comfortable with some individuals whereas uncomfortable with others. Do you feel that loving some and ignoring the difficult people is good enough? Well, Pastor, how do I love tough people?

Today, I want to speak to a message entitled: Love One Another

By the time I finish you will know the amazing benefits of loving one another.

Peter is writing to believers who are persecuted in Rome. 1 Peter 1:3 God has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Peter is telling them that now that you are saved I am giving your 2 commands.

1. Commands for the saved.

a. Be Holy.

1 Peter 1:15-17 15But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” 17Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.

Now that you are saved, strive to live holy as our God is holy. Be holy like God is holy. I have to live in reverent fear because I have been brought by the precious blood of Jesus. I need to honor God with my body. When I sin, I treat the blood of God with contempt. I fear because I do not want to treat the blood of God with contempt.

b. Love one another.

1 Peter 1:22-25 22Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. 23For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. 24For, “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, 25but the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word that was preached to you.

At the center of this text is the command for a born again person to “love one another deeply from the heart.” The emphasis here is brotherly love or love in the church. Love is a command here.

Illustration: During World War II, the American soldiers on duty in France lost one of their friends. They wanted to bury him and give him a good funeral as he fought for the country. Soon they found a church fenced with barbwire, found the priest and requested for a burial in the church cemetery.

The priest asked, “Is he Catholic?” No, they replied. “I am sorry, he cannot be buried here. This is a Catholic church cemetery.” Disheartened they went outside the cemetery. It was getting dark and they had to move on with the war. The soldiers took their friend and buried him outside the cemetery. With a heavy heart they went to their hideout and slept.

The next morning the soldiers got up and before they could leave the location, wanted to pay one final respect to their dead friend and walked to the grave. To their surprise they could not find it.

They thought they forgot the place as they had dug in the dark. As they were searching for the grave, they found the priest. They asked the priest, “Sir, can you help us find the grave outside the fence?” The priest said, “Well, for the first part of the night as you were digging the grave, I felt sorry for what I told you. But after you slept, the second part of the night I spent moving the barbed fence and included your friend’s grave in the church cemetery.”

Love one another. We are called to expand our barbed fences and hostility and include others in. Don’t you think this is the place people get hurt the maximum?