Sermon Central
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Why Should We Love One Another? Series
Contributed by Chad Bolfa on Oct 23, 2008 (message contributor)
Summary: We will learn today that there can be no mistake about the importance of love, remember this was written to a people who were severely persecuted for there faith, they were on the run, running for there lives, it is vitally important that true love exists
Why Should we Love One another?
Introduction
There is no greater force than love. If two people truly love each other, they will do anything for each other. There is no greater bond on earth than true love.
This is especially true for believers. Why? Is there a difference between the love that believers have for one another, and the love that unbelievers have for there neighbors?
Scripture says yes, emphatically yes. We has believers are to have a different kind of love than neighbors have for one another. The love that believers are to have one another is what the Greek calls “Philadelphia” love, a very special kind of love. The word is rarely found except in Christian writings.
Philadelphia love means “Brotherly Love”, the very special love that exists between the bothers and sister within a loving family, brothers and sisters who truly cherish each other. It is the kind of love that binds us together as a family, that binds us in an unbreakable union, which nourishes and nurtures one another, that shows concern and looks after the welfare of one another.
The importance of believers loving one another with Philadelphia love cannot be over emphasized. We will see today that verse 22 of this passage teaches we are to sincere love for each other. Sincere means genuine, without pretension, without hypocrisy (whoa), or playing or acting. We are not to pretend, play, or act like we love one another; we are to love one another genuinely and sincerely.
We will learn today that there can be no mistake about the importance of love, remember this was written to a people who were severely persecuted for there faith, they were on the run, running for there lives, it is vitally important that true love exists within this body of believers as well as us today, because you will not find it in the world. We will learn that verse 22 teaches to love deeply from the heart. The word “deeply” does not mean with warmth but actually with “full intensity”. It literally means to “stretch love fully out”, or to love one another in an “all out manner”, meaning to have a “reckless” love for each other.
This is the kind of love believers are to have for one another, a Philadelphia kind of love. Today, the apostle Peter will teach us three reasons why we are to love one another deeply.
Read Scriptures: 1 Peter 1:22-25
I. We should love one another because, our souls have been purified.
Vs. 22 “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.”
When something is purified it totally cleaned form any impurities. The scripture says, “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth”. Listen, the only way that we can truly love one another the way the bible says we are to, is to be cleaned from all the junk of the world.
Cleansed from selfishness, and any self-seeking attitudes that we may have had as unbelievers. We are purified by obeying the truth. Jesus says “He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the father except by Him.” Jesus is the truth, He and only He is the one who can purify us and get rid of the dirt and junk that we bring to Him for forgiveness.
Once we have been purified we have the capability to love as the scripture teaches.
Jesus says in John 13:34-35 “As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Don’t miss this, as believers who have been purified by the truth we are commanded by Jesus to love each other. It is not a suggestion it is a command. But not just love, but from the heart. Not just lip service, but when I love someone form the heart my actions will show it.
II. We should love one another because, we are born again through the Word of God.
Vs. 23 “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.”
All true believers have been spiritually born again and spiritually remade. We have been spiritually created to be new men and new women, created brand new by God Himself to be brothers and sisters to each other and to love each other
1 John 1:5 says this “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves His child as well.”
What is the significance of being born again, because before we were born again the only nature that existed within us was our human nature; the nature that is abusive, self-seeking, hypocritical, prideful, angry, selfish, jealous, withdrawn, arrogant, bitter, deceptive, envious, snobbish, hateful. This is the human nature, this is what comes natural to us as human beings.
