ABOVE ALL, LOVE EACH OTHER
Living A Life Of Love – 2
1 Peter 4:7-11
March 12, 2006
INTRODUCTION:
There is a story told of an old monastery that had fallen upon hard times. It was once a great order, but as a result of waves of anti-monastic persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the rise of secularism in the nineteenth, all its branch houses were lost and it had become decimated to the extent that there were only five monks left in the decaying mother house: the abbot and four others, all over seventy in age. Clearly it was a dying order. Things looked grim.
In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a hermitage. Through their many years of prayer and contemplation the old monks had become a bit psychic, so they could always sense when the rabbi was in his hermitage. “The rabbi is in the woods, the rabbi is in the woods again,” they would whisper to each other. As he agonized over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to the abbot on one of those occasions to visit the hermitage and ask the rabbi if by some possible chance he could offer any advice that might save the monastery.
The rabbi welcomed the abbot at his hut. But when the abbot explained the purpose of his visit, the rabbi could only commiserate with him. “I know how it is,” he exclaimed. “The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no-one comes to the synagogue anymore.” So the old abbot and the old rabbi wept together. They talked for a short while and then the time came when the abbot had to leave. They embraced each other. “It has been a wonderful thing that we should meet after all these years,” the abbot said, “but I have still failed in my purpose for coming here. Is there nothing you can tell me, no piece of advice you can give me that would help me save my dying order?”
“No, I am sorry,” the rabbi responded. “I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you.”
When the abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around him to ask, “Well, what did the rabbi say?”
”He couldn’t help,” the abbot answered. “We just wept and read the Torah together. The only thing he did say, just as I was leaving – It was something cryptic – was that the Messiah is one of us. I don’t know what he meant.”
In the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered this and wondered whether there was any possible significance to the rabbi’s words. The Messiah is one of us? Could he possibly have meant one of us monks here at the monastery? If that’s the case, which one? Do you suppose he meant the Father Abbot? He has been our leader for more that a generation. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of light. Certainly he could not have meant Brother Eldred! Eldred gets so grumpy at times. But, come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people’s sides, when you look back on it Eldred is virtually always right. Often very right. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Eldred. But surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a real nobody. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Maybe Phillip is the Messiah. Of course the rabbi didn’t mean me. He couldn’t possibly have meant me. I’m just so ordinary. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? O God, not me. I couldn’t be that much for You, could I?
As they each contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat one another with extraordinary love and respect on the off chance that one among them might be Messiah. And on the ‘off’, off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary love and respect.
Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, it so happened that people still occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander among some of its paths, even now and then to go into the dilapidated buildings to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed this aura of extraordinary love and respect that now began to surround the five monks and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it.
Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery to picnic, to play, to pray. Its beauty drew them in. They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought their friends.
Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another. And another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the rabbi’s gift, a vibrant center of light and spirituality in the realm. (SermonCentralPRO)
The church can be an amazing place when it is working as its supposed to – when we are treating one another as if each person were Christ himself. When we are following the teaching of the Apostle Paul – “Above all, love each other…” (1 Peter 4:8a).
But what do we know about love in our culture today. I think it is a fair statement to say that today people know more about lust than about love. We know what we want. We know what appeals to us. We know what we desire. But all of those things have to do with lust and nothing to do with love. So how do we, living in our lust-filled world, learn to live lives of love? How do we learn to love each other above all else?
First of all, I want to begin this message by sharing with you several reasons why it is so very important that we love one another.
I. WHY SHOULD WE LOVE OTHERS?
1. LOVING ONE ANOTHER REFLECTS CHRIST.
When we love one another we are reflecting the love of our Lord. We are revealing his nature and character. Remember that Jesus is God and the Bible says that God is love.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34).
Although Jesus says this is a new commandment it is really an old commandment going all the way back to Leviticus 19:18. The Greek word for “new” (kainen) implies freshness as opposed being worn out. Jesus was taking an old commandment that they were all used to hearing and renewing it. He was saying something old, but in a new fresh way and with a new twist. What is new is not the part about loving one another. What is new is the part about loving one another as Jesus had loved them. That takes the whole concept of loving others to a whole new level. Love others because in doing so you are reflecting the love of Christ to a world desperately in need of his love.
2. LOVING ONE ANOTHER REMAINS AN OUTSTANDING DEBT.
How many of you would like to be debt free? I am pretty sure that all of us would. There was a comic strip from Peanuts. It pictures Snoopy typing a letter on top of his doghouse. The letter begins this way: “Dear IRS.” Snoopy thinks for a moment and then finishes: “I am writing to you to cancel my subscription. Please take my name off your mailing list.” (Paul Decker, SermonCentral) Don’t you wish you could do that? How nice would it be to simply have your name taken off of the IRS’s mailing list?
I also read about a man who had a unique way of paying his monthly bills. He was overextended and couldn’t afford to pay all of them every month. One month, one of his creditors called him and demanded payment on a certain account. This man replied, “Look, the way I pay my bills is to put them all in a hat and pull five of them out. Now if you don’t quit bugging me, next month I won’t even put yours in the hat!” (Paul Decker, SermonCentral)
I have a feeling that isn’t the best approach to dealing with debt, but that could be a whole other sermon. The bottom line is this: While we would all like to be debt free we all nonetheless owe a debt of love that will never be paid off or paid in full.
“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another…” (Romans 13:8a).
Why do we have this perpetual debt of love? We owe this love because of the lavish love, which Jesus Christ poured out for us. It is a level of love that we will never pay back and the fact of the matter is that Christ doesn’t want us to even try to pay it back. He wants us to pass it on instead. So we need to love one another because our love debt will never be paid off.
3. LOVING ONE ANOTHER IS A RESULT OF SALVATION.
One of the results of becoming a Christian is that you will love others.
“…love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again … through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Peter 1:22-23).
Peter says that we should love one another deeply – from the heart. Why? We should do so because we have been born again. That fact that we have been born again or spiritually reborn means that we now have the power or ability to love others deeply, from the heart.
This raises the question: Does this mean that you can’t love others if you aren’t a Christian? Well, I don’t think I would go that far. I’m certainly not going to say that a nonchristian woman, for example, doesn’t love her children. What we have as Christians is the power of the Holy Spirit enabling us to love our enemies and to love the unlovable. Jesus once asked the question: What good does it do you if you only love those who love you? Even the Pharisees do that! Through the experience of salvation we have gained, among other things, the power to love others, even those who don’t love us.
4. LOVING ONE ANOTHER MAKES YOU RECOGNIZABLE AS A CHRISTIAN.
Opal Whetset, a Christian author, was riding on a bus one night. It was a Greyhound bus traveling from Flagstaff, Arizona to Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was a cold February night, and the bus stopped in a little Native American community. A young Native American Indian teenager got on the bus and sat down behind her. Maybe it was the warmth of the bus or the rocking motion, but she could tell that by his breathing he soon fell asleep. Sometime later he awakened and ran down the aisle and asked about a certain stop where he was supposed to get off.
The driver snapped back and said, “We passed that stop a long time ago. Why didn’t you get off then?”
The boy went back to his seat. She could tell he was anxious and upset. Immediately he walked back to the driver and said, “Will you stop the bus and let me get off and walk back to where I was supposed to get off?”
The bus driver said, “No, it’s too cold and it’s too far. You’d freeze. You’ve got to ride the bus all the way into Albuquerque, then catch another bus back to your stop.”
The boy sat down in his seat behind Opal, and she could tell he was very upset. So she turned around to this young man she had never met before and said, “Are you afraid? Is there anything I can do to help?”
He said, “I don’t know what to do. I’ve never been to Albuquerque, and besides, I don’t have any money. They’re going to make me pay again. I don’t know what to do.”
She said, “Well listen, don’t worry, you just stick with me. When we get to Albuquerque, I’ll make sure you get on the right bus. And if they want to charge you, which they shouldn’t do, I’ll buy your ticket.”
Then Opal went up, talked to the bus driver, and explained the situation. She said, “Can you make sure the next bus he gets on, they don’t charge him to take him back to where he needs to go?”
The bus driver finally agreed. Opal went back, sat down, and turned to the boy behind her and said, “It’s all taken care of. Don’t you worry! Everything’s going to be okay.”
For ten minutes there was total silence and then Opal felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around and that young man was leaning forward, and he asked her this question. He said, “Ma’am, are you a Christian?” (Paul Decker, SermonCentral)
“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35).
Has anyone ever asked you, “Are you a Christian?” Loving one another is important because it makes you recognizable as a Christian. Loving one another is the hallmark of being a Christian.
5. LOVING ONE ANTOHER IS A REQUIRED COMMANDMENT.
Rick Warren in his best selling book “The Purpose Driven Life” writes: “Life is all about love! Because God is love, the most important lesson he wants you to learn on earth is how to love. It is in loving that we are most like him, so love is the foundation of every command he has given us.”
“And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us” (1 John 3:23).
To believe in the name of Jesus means much more than mere academic acknowledgement. It means more than simply believing that some guy named Jesus really lived. It means to actually pattern your life after him and we cannot pattern our lives after Jesus without fulfilling his command to love others. For Christians loving one another is a required commandment.
6. LOVING ONE ANOTHER IS A RESPONSE TO GOD’S LOVE.
Love is not something that originates with us for it is only in response to God’s love that we have learned to love.
“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another… We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:10-11, 19).
The lesson for us here is that when we, as Christians, love others it is not because we are so special or morally superior to others. It is not because we were born with a more loving disposition or raised in a more loving environment. Our love for God and man is a direct response to the love of God, which led him to send his only Son to die on the cross for our sins long before we ever thought of loving him. We love only in response to God’s love for us.
If you want to make someone a more loving person, help them to see how much God loves them because when they get that they can’t help but respond in love. And that is exactly what your response to God’s love does. It helps others to see the love of God for themselves.
7. LOVING ONE ANOTHER REVEALS GOD’S EXISTENCE.
“No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us” (1 John 4:12, NLTse).
John Stott writes: “We must not stagger at the majesty of this conclusion. God’s love which originates in Himself and was manifested in His Son is perfected in His people … God’s love for us is perfected only when it is reproduced in us or (as it may mean) ‘among us’ in the Christian fellowship.” (As quoted in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary)
“If no one has ever seen God, how can we ever know him? … When we love one another, the invisible God reveals himself to others through us, and his love is made complete.” (Life Application Study Bible note on 1 John 4:12) And we must not stagger at the majesty of this conclusion. When caught in the act of loving others, you are the greatest proof for the existence of God.
Those are seven very important reasons straight from the scriptures for loving others. However, the greater question is not why, but how do we do this? So I want to spend the rest of this message looking at 1 Peter 4:7-11 where we discover four ways to love others.
II. HOW DO WE LOVE OTHERS? (1 Peter 4:7-11)
Peter places his comments on love in the context of “the end of all things.” In other words, he puts them in the context of the end of the world and the return of Christ. We too are living in a time when the return of Christ is a very popular topic among Christians. This topic has probably resulted in more Christian books, movies and seminars than all other topics combined. (That statement may be a bit of an exaggeration, but I would dare say that the numbers are disproportionate.) Rather than giving way to the eschatological frenzy Christians should be prepared at all times and Peter says that the way to prepare above all other ways is by loving each other. So lets look together at four ways to express love to each other.
1. LOVE IS TO BE FERVENT IN SPIRIT.
8aAbove all, love each other deeply,
The words “above all” remind us of the priority of loving others in the Christians life. Other than loving God nothing else should take priority over it. Note that Peter does not simply say that we are to love one another, but that we are to love one another “deeply.” The Greek word translated as “deeply” (ektene) literally means “strained.” The idea is not that your love is strained and about to break, but that you are straining to love others as much as you possibly can. To describe this love the English Standard Version used the word “earnestly,” while the New American Standard uses the word “fervent.” The Message says, “Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it.”
You might be tempted to ask how can God command me to love someone else this way? How can I control how I feel about another person? Our culture as developed this mistaken idea that love is a feeling. The idea that you fall in love and that sometimes you also fall out of love. The concept of falling in love sounds like something that just happens to you or it doesn’t and there is nothing that you can do about it. But the simple truth is that this concept has more to do with lusting than with loving for the Bible reveals that love is not primarily a feeling or an emotion. Rather love is a decision of the will. Love is a choice and that choice results in loving behavior. So God is not commanding us to feel a certain way about others, but to behave in a loving way toward others. And that is something that we can all do if we decide to. So the first thing we learn here is that love is to be fervent – we are to love others as much as we can and in all the ways that we can.
2. LOVE IS TO BE FORGIVING OF SIN.
8Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
Now this certainly does not mean that love atones for a multitude of sin as in “I can sin all I want because as long as I love others then my sins will be covered.” Nor does it mean that our love for others atones for their sins. Only the blood of Jesus Christ can cover sins in that sense. No, our love does not atone for sin, but it does enable us to forgive those who have sinned against us. When Peter says this he is referring to a proverb, which says:
“Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs” (Proverbs 10:12).
So the idea is that hatred stirs up problems, but love covers them up. And that certainly doesn’t refer to covering them up in the sense of sweeping them under rug and foolishly hoping that they will go away by themselves. Sometimes the most loving thing to do is to expose sin and get in out in the open so that it can be dealt with. However, when you have exposed sin be sure that you quickly cover it with the love of forgiveness for when you do that you are living like our Father in heaven who covered your sin with his love.
3. LOVE IS TO BE FRIENDLY IN SHARING.
9Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.
In this passage’s first century setting Christian hospitality was a very important expression of love for one another because they were living in a world without modern day inns and restaurants. Today, no matter where you go, you are never far from a hotel or a restaurant or a convenience store or a gas station. Today you would think nothing of going on a trip across the country without the support of Christians along the way. However, in Peter’s day that would have been difficult.
In Albania, hospitality is very common. It is part of their culture. A guest, even if he is a total stranger, is offered some tobacco to smoke and given a seat next to the hearth – a place of honor. If he has traveled far, the woman of the house will wash his feet. He is served coffee and after that invited to the table to eat. Every house is supposed to keep special food ready in case there are guests. The key to it all is an old Albanian saying: “An Albanian’s house belongs to God and his guests.” (Larry Wise, SermonCentral)
“An Albanian’s house belongs to God and his guests.” That saying really reveals the key attitude that we must have if we are going to practice hospitality. And that attitude is this: What I have doesn’t belong to me, but to my God and so I will not hesitate to share what God has shared with me. Peter recognizes how difficult this can be because he says to do it “without grumbling.”
God is not only concerned with the actions of our hands, but also with the attitudes of our hearts.
So practice hospitality without grumbling and be friendly in your sharing.
4. LOVE IS TO BE FAITHFUL IN SERVICE.
One day C.H. Spurgeon was walking through the English countryside with a friend. As they strolled along, the evangelist noticed a barn with a weather vane on its roof. At the top of the vane were these words: GOD IS LOVE. Spurgeon remarked to his companion that he thought this was a rather inappropriate place for such a message. “Weather vanes are changeable,” he said, “but God’s love is constant.” “I don’t agree with you about those words, Charles,” replied his friend. “You misunderstood the meaning. That sign is indicating a truth: Regardless of which way the wind blows, God is love.” (Phil Mellar, SermonCentral)
No matter which way the winds of change may be blowing God’s love is constant. Therefore, if we are to live in love, as God loves, our love should be constant – dependable – reliable – faithful.
We see in the next verse that there are two ways that our faithful love should be expressed.
a) WE SHOULD BE FAITHFULLY GIVING GOD’S GRACE.
10Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
Every Christian is in some way capable of ministering to others. Every Christians has received some special gift or ability that God has given them. So we should view ourselves as stewards who are responsible for sharing God’s grace with others. And as we have read this comes in “various forms” or as some older versions say “manifold.” “Manifold means many-colored, varied, and beautiful in its expression.” (W.T. Purkiser, "Beacon Bible Expositions") So no matter how you have been uniquely equipped by God to share his grace with others it is a beautiful thing.
“One of the longstanding misconceptions in church practice is the idea that only one person is to ‘minister’ in the local church [or in the community]. The biblical principle is that all can and should minister in one way or another.” (the Expositor’s Bible Commentary) Our love should lead us to be faithfully giving God’s grace.
b) WE SHOULD BE FAITHFULLY GIVING GOD GLORY.
11If you speak, you should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If you serve, you should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
After referring to the many various forms of God’s grace Peter now lumps them all into two general categories: speaking and serving. Basically whatever your gift or talent, whatever your area of ministry, it will fall into one of these to categories – either a speaking ministry or a serving ministry.
But Peter’s main point is to say that whatever you are doing you should be bringing glory to God because he is ultimately the one who enables you to do it. If I preach a decent message, it’s because God enabled me to. If you teach a good Bible study, it’s because God enabled you to. If you do some great act of service, its because God gave you the strength to do it. If you are involved in a speaking ministry you should be using the very words that God provides and if you are involved in a serving ministry you should be using the strength that God provides.
The Greek word for “provides” (choregei) originally meant “to procure and supply all things necessary to outfit a company of singers and dancers.” Later, and I think you can see why, it came to refer to lavish provision of any kind. Whatever your area of service your focus should be on giving God glory because he is the source of your strength for serving. In other words you should serve in such away – in such a spirit – that He gets the credit.
A local church asked members to donate money for a new building. The building committee made one stipulation: no plaques or recognition of any kind would be placed in the building to honor the givers. The response was mediocre at best. When the committee withdrew their requirement and allowed for a memorial registry with a listing of donors, the building was quickly paid for. What had changed? At first, the building committee was appealing solely to people’s charity and generosity. Later, they offered an appeal to their egos, and the egos won. (Joel Vicente, SermonCentral) However, Christian service that is worthy of Christ’s name is never done for personal gain.
“The purpose of mutual Christian service is that through Jesus Christ God will be glorified. Serving fellow Christians does glorify God because people will praise him for his grace that comes to them through Jesus and his followers.” (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary)
CONCLUSION:
Lee Iacocca once asked legendary football coach Vince Lombardi what it took to make a winning team. Lombardi said, “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 didn’t block that man, Paul 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 is the feeling these guys have for each other.”
The church is a lot like that team and each of our players motivated by love for his or her teammates must willing do his or her part so that the others can do their parts. It is a labor of love and that is why Peter said, “Above all, love each other…”
SOURCES:
Joel Vicente, "Love One Another," SermonCentral.
Larry Wise, "Behold How They Love One Another," SermonCentral.
