Title: Flowers Fade
Text: 1 Peter 1:22-25
Topic: The eternal word should produce an eternal love.
Sermon Purposes:
1. That the listener will realize that there is more to salvation than the hope of heaven; there is the mandate of love for the brethren.
2. That the listener will be challenged to think about how they ought to love as compared to how they currently love.
3. That the listener will be motivated to love freely based upon God’s model of love through Christ, The call of their salvation and the fact that love is an eternal investment based upon an unfading promise.
Theme: We are reborn through an eternal seed so that we might produce an eternal love.
Introduction:
In our home is a bowl of flower petals… a reminder of past expressions of love to some. To others, a picture of a lot of money dried up and shriveled away. Warning men… this dried up money is a good investment.
But God gives us a better investment that is guaranteed to never fade. How many of you would really like to get an investment tip this morning from God?
Background of text:
Peter tells us that Christ has done a great work on our behalf. Then he shows us that in light of this work and our response to it there ought to be changes in our lives. In this passage He tells us of a mandate for Christians to invest their lives to love. Have you ever thought, “I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who, who wrote the book of love?” Well, Peter adds his chapter as he explains the when, who, how and why of love.
Read 1 Peter 1:22-25
1. When does the mandate for love begin?
When we are saved, it is not only for heaven, but for a renewed relationship with our Father and thus with His family (brethren). vs 22 a.
-not just heaven
-not just health and wealth
-not just right doctrine
-not just kingdom work… but to love.
When? This mandate begins at our salvation… and only then are we fully able to love. Mind, body, emotions, will and SPIRIT.
2. Who are we to love?
-Salvation is regarded as many things but one of the greatest pictures is that of ADOPTION. Rom 8:15-16 (read)
-Adoption brings a restored relationship to the Father through the Son.
-Adoption, according to Peter, also brings us to a restored relationship with those who by grace also receive this cleansing!
Who? 22b. We are to love one another (brothers and sisters in Christ)
Therefore, the last place there ought to be ill will or lasting resentment is the church. The place where it should be the hardest to rock the boat should be the church. The one place where we ought to find true love in this world is in the church… not just the building, but the homes, the workplaces, the playgrounds and the classrooms of God’s people. And before it happens in the church it must happen in it’s leader.
- If this doesn’t begin with the one who proclaims the word of God, where and when will it?
3. How are we to love?
A. We are to love one another with agape love (not eros nor philea) according to Peter’s text. 22 b
(1 cor 13) based on a decision to love. It is unconditional. It is a guaranteed love.
-We decide to love even if we don’t want to. Just like going to work in the morning, or going to the doctor for a test. Like paying taxes, we love because we decide to love.
-We love those who are not easy to love. Jesus tells us to love these folks too. Anyone can love the rich, good-looking, nice… but Jesus did not love like that. Think about it! He loved His enemies… that’s me and you.
B. We are to love one another fervently(in the Greek this means to strain with all of our energy). Here Peter also adds an adverb. By the way, an adverb can only describe a verb. Hint. Love is a verb, something we do, and the way we are to love (agape) is with all of our strength.
Ill: snowman. Recently my son and I built a snowman. We rolled the ball around the yard too far away from the base and when we got it back to the base it was huge. Since my son is only 7 years old, the job of lifting that ball on top of the base was mine. It took every sinew of muscle in my body to strain and lift that ball of snow into place. That’s how we ought to love one another.
(other possible illustrations of how we ought to love)
-soldiers in the battlefield
-mothers with their children
ILL: William Gladstone, in announcing the death of Princess Alice Maud Mary to the House of Commons, told a touching story. The little daughter of the Princess was seriously ill with diphtheria. The doctors told the princess not to kiss her little daughter and endanger her life by breathing the child’s breath. Once when the child was struggling to breathe, the mother, forgetting herself entirely, took the little one into her arms to keep her from choking to death. Rasping and struggling for her life, the child said, "Momma, kiss me!" Without thinking of herself the mother tenderly kissed her daughter. She got diphtheria and some days thereafter on Dec 14th 1878 she too died from the disease that killed her daughter. Real love forgets self. Real love knows no danger. Real love doesn’t count the cost. The Bible says in Song of Solomon 8:7, "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it."
Source Unknown.
That’s the way God loves us and that’s how He wants you and me to love each other.
4. Why are we to love?
Follow this progression that Peter gives us: Why do we love?
A. Because our salvation is based on the eternal promises of God (Peter uses the term for gospel) and is thus secured forever. 23-25
B. All other things will fade (like the flowers of Valentine’s Day) but our salvation and what we’ve been saved for will never fade.
To illustrate, Peter quotes the prophet Isaiah: (read)
- Our lives are birthed by perishable seed from our parents. the DNA we receive from them is the DNA of death. Therefore, all we chase in this life perishes with our lives. All men are like grass. Great men are like the flowers that rise out of the grass but they all wither and fade away as well. Because of this truth, the things we set our hearts on are often fleeting.
-however, our eternal lives are born through the imperishable promises of God. God has reborn us with the DNA of eternal life…His Word. Thus, love is an eternal call based on the character of the one whose seed has birthed us and an eternal investment based on the fact that the gospel that birthed us will not fade. 1 Cor. 13...all other things fail.. preaching will one day end, teaching will cease. Building programs and Sunday school ministries will be obsolete. Clever strategies of ministry will not be needed. All of these things will cease…but not love.
Main Idea: Peter tells us…
We are reborn through an eternal seed so that we might produce an eternal love
5. Applications:
the challenge then is…
1. See our salvation as more than just heaven, but restored relationships. Teach others this truth as well. Obedience to the imperishable word cleanses us for a love of the brethren.
2. Be fervently committed to our decision to love. That means we are to strain with all of our might to love those who are difficult to love.
Ill. My grandfather taught me an important lesson… a gentle answer turns away wrath.
-Many of us pastors tend to cut and run “when the honeymoon is over.”
Ill: Concerns about whether pastors keep any job long enough are especially common among Southern Baptists (87% of whom feel pastors in their denomination don’t tend to stay at one church for enough years); Southern Baptist ministers are also more likely than average to have held multiple positions over their years in the ministry. Ellison research
Surprise #1: Long Pastoral Tenure Impacts Effective Assimilation
The average tenure of a Southern Baptist pastor is just over two years. For all churches in the United States, the tenure is only slightly better at three years. But the average tenure of pastors in the high-assimilation churches is 9.83 years. The lower-assimilation church pastors had an average tenure of four years.
Though new pastors can often implement significant changes in the "honeymoon" years of their ministry, some changes take time. Rarely will a church transition from a low-expectation church to a high-expectation church in a short period. Such changes require time, and they require the leadership of a pastor who is committed to see the church through these changes. Thom Rainer
We call it the calling of God. Whatever it is, the calling of God is without question to love when it is not easy. Pastors and congregants have a lesson to learn don’t we?
3. See love as an eternal and guaranteed investment.
Ill: Neil Strait shares the following illustration:
William Dixon lived in Brackenthwaite, England. he was a widower who had lost his only son. One day he saw that the house of one of his neighbors was on fire. Although the aged owner was rescued, her orphaned grandson was trapped in the blaze. Dixon climbed an iron pipe on the side of the house and lowered the boy to safety. His hand that held on to the pipe was badly burned.
Shortly after the fire, the grandmother died. The townspeople wondered who would care for the boy. Two volunteers appeared before the town council. One was a father who had lost his son and would like to adopt the orphan as his own. William Dixon was to speak next, but instead of saying anything, he merely held up his scarred hand. When the vote was taken, the boy was given to him.
That’s how Christ loved us. That’s what our people are looking for in us. When we bare the scars of loving others, they will love us. That’s how it is with Jesus and us…He loved us first. We love Him because He first loved us.
When we bare the scars of loving others, they will forgive us of our failures because love covers a multitude of sins. They will be more willing to bare scars for one another. And, they will be much more likely to place their hope in the imperishable word of God rather than the fading glory of a dying world.
4. To not call ourselves people of the word without the evidence of love which the word ought to produce in us. Peter says to love “sincerely”, or as the Greek says, without hypocrisy. When we wear the gospel as a mask which hides our loveless hearts we are hypocrites. Our families and our churches soon see beyond the mask to a life unchanged by the imperishable word. It’s little wonder why we are often mocked and too rarely trusted.
(slowly)
-Recently, at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s convocation, Pres. Mohler declared the first true mark of a church is gospel preaching. Peter’s text agrees. However, in this passage we see that the first true mark of a hypocrite is to preach without love a gospel that is supposed to birth love in us.
Pray with me: (imagine yourself standing at an altar opposite of that person you really don’t like) Dear God of Covenant Love, I will love according to the definition of love found in 1 Cor. 13 for better of for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as I shall live. May I reflect your DNA which has reborn me to an eternal love through your eternal word. AMEN
