An All Encompassing Command to Love

Introduction: Peter's Recommissioning and the Context of Submission

0:05 Now may I encourage you to turn with me in your own Bibles to the first letter of Peter, the book in the New Testament that we commonly designate as First Peter,

0:20 written by the inspiration of the Spirit of God through the very man of whom we read this morning, who in a moment of weakness took upon himself solemn oaths and maledictions, saying that he had no relationship to Jesus. Yet the passage we read this morning ended with Peter weeping bitterly in deep and true repentance. A few days later, after the Lord Jesus died and rose from the dead by the sea, the Lord has very deep and tender dealings with this very same Peter and, as it were, recommissions him. To his task, telling him to feed his sheep and to feed his lambs. And here in his letter to these Christians scattered throughout what is now the land of Turkey, then Asia Minor, addressed in the opening words of this epistle, Peter, in a very real sense, is fulfilling that task. The task of seeking to be a shepherd to God's people, shepherding them by...

1:32 instruction. And I would ask you to follow as I read this morning First Peter, chapter 2, beginning with verse 11.

1:42 First Peter 2 and verse 11.

1:47 Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners in pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your behavior seemly among the Gentiles, that wherein they speak against you as evildoers, they may by you, as they speak against you as evildoers, they may by you, as they speak against you as evildoers, they may by you, as they speak against you as evildoers, by your good works which they behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme, or unto governors as sent by him for vengeance on evildoers, and for praise to them that do well. For so is the will of God that by well-doing you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, as free, and not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as bondservants of God. Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God.

2:49 Honor the king. Now Peter was obviously one of those present when Jesus spoke the well-known words that we find in the Sermon on the Mount. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. There are unmistakable echoes of those words of our Lord as Peter begins in this section of his letter, this second series of exhortations and directions to the people of God scattered throughout the Roman provinces of Asia Minor.

3:31 There in verse 12 he says that they may by your good works, which they behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. He is picking up that theme that he learned from his Lord and now pressing it upon the consciences of these believers, telling them how it is that they can so live in the midst of an ungodly world as to show forth the light and power of God's saving grace towards them. As he moves from that general exhortation of verses, 11 and 12, he then focuses on this specific area in which they are to glorify God by their good works. And that first area is the issue of submission to the constituted settings and frameworks in which God requires submission of us. Verse 13, Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. And then he focuses, upon the civil authority. In verse 18, Servants in relationship to their masters.

4:43 And in chapter 3 in verse 1, Wives be in subjection to your own husbands. And in our recent studies, and for those of you visiting with us, we are going through verse by verse in this letter seeking to unpack its meaning and to apply it and show its relevance to where we live day by day. We have considered, verses 13 through 16, setting forth the revealed will of God for the people of God in relationship to the civil authority. We are to be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme or as unto governors as sent by him.

5:28 And the fundamental exception is this. Whenever the civil authority would require of us that, which is in direct violation of the law of God, then in the language of this very same Peter, we must obey God rather than man. But with that exception, and that is the exception, God calls upon us to be exemplary in our submission to the civil authority. When Peter wrote these words, there was no Christian government.

The Four Imperatives of 1 Peter 2:17

6:01 Nero occupied the imperial palace there at Rome, the very place, from which Peter most likely wrote this letter. But then before he moves on in verse 18 to address the obedience that servants owe to their masters, as we saw two weeks ago in verse 17, Peter gives us these four very clipped, terse, succinct imperatives. Honor all men. Love the brotherhood.

6:33 Fear God. Honor the king. Now it's obvious that these are not just stuck in there as some kind of a fleeting thought that passed through Peter's mind and he had to stick the thing in somewhere because the final imperative in these series of four obviously relates to the subject at hand. Honor the king.

6:57 And so in ways that we may not fully perceive, there is a connection between these four imperatives and the subject that Peter is dealing with. Namely, the Christian manifesting the power of God's grace in the way in which he relates to the civil authority. He is, by God's grace, in being subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake constantly to honor all men. Perhaps Peter injected this for the reason that by and large human governments will respect, and honor the wealthy, the influential, the powerful.

7:42 But those that are considered the scum of society, the off-scouring or the outcast of society, are not given honor. But Peter tells these believers, as you demonstrate that you embrace the will of God in your relationship to the civil authority, constantly make it evident as well that you understand, understand who your fellow men are. They have a created dignity which demands that you honor them as fellow image-bearers of God. No matter how much they may have sunk into horrible, grotesque manifestations of sin, they still have a created dignity and they have a redemptive potentiality. They could become those who will shine as the stars forever. They could become those who will shine as the stars forever. They could become those who will shine as the stars forever.

8:36 They could become those who will shine as the stars forever. If God in grace is pleased to transform them by the power of the gospel. And so the first imperative is honor all men. Now this morning, we take up the second imperative in verse 17.

Duty Explained: What is 'The Brotherhood' and 'Love'?

8:52 Love the brotherhood. Love the brotherhood. Now those of you who have been here for the previous expositions will remember, I trust, when we came to chapter one, verses 22, and we saw that there was an imperative to brotherly love. Seeing you have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth, unto unfeigned love of the brethren, love one another from the heart fervently.

9:25 Here was a clear command to love one another from the heart fervently. And now a relatively short time later, the very next chapter, we find Peter, giving another imperative, saying love the brotherhood. Now did Peter forget that he had already commanded them to love one another from the heart fervently? Of course not.

9:50 And because Peter is under the direct and unique influence of the Holy Spirit in giving us that which is scripture, the spirit of God has given us this fresh emphasis upon the duty of brotherly love in a differing setting, in a differing setting, in a differing setting, in a differing setting, in a differing setting, and with a differing nuance of emphasis. So let me first of all seek to set before you the duty explained, then we'll consider the duty expanded and the duty applied. The duty explained. When Peter wrote, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, love the brotherhood, what was he saying?

10:30 In the original, the word the brotherhood comes first. If we were to give it a wooden literal rendering, it would be, the brotherhood be continually loving. The brotherhood be continually loving. Now this word, translated brotherhood, is used only one other time in the New Testament.

10:54 And it's Peter who uses it in chapter 5 and in verse 9. Whom withstand steadfast in your faith, knowing that the same sufferings are accomplished in the same way. In your brotherhood who are in the world. Peter nowhere uses the word church in this epistle.

11:18 But twice he uses the word brotherhood. And nowhere else in the New Testament has the Spirit of God guided any of the writers to use this precise word. It's obviously used as a beautiful descriptive synonym for the people of God. The company of those bound together in a spiritual family.

11:43 As in chapter 2 and verse 9, he says God's people, true believers, have become a royal priesthood, that is a company of priests unto God. So likewise, we are constituted a brotherhood, a company of brothers and sisters who are constituted, God's brotherhood. According to this very same epistle, that which binds them together is their participation in a common salvation. You remember Peter began the letter by saying, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead unto an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fades not away. And all through this epistle, he gives these rich descriptions of this salvation that is the common possession of God's people. And as they have experienced a common new life, here the people of God are described in their collective identity as a brotherhood. When Peter commanded believers in chapter 1 and verse 22 to love one another, to love one another,

13:07 there is a highlighting of that individual responsibility reaching out to individuals. Love one another. Here it is love the brotherhood. There is a collective overtone as Peter uses this word, we are to love the whole family of God.

13:30 We are to love the whole brotherhood of the people of God. When believers, are described in their relationship to Christ, they are often called disciples. He is the master, and they are the subjects and the learners. When we are described with respect to our relationship one to another, we are regarded as brethren, one of the most frequently used terms in the New Testament.

14:01 And so Peter then uses this unique word to describe the people of God in their corporate, corporate identity as the brotherhood. Now what are we to do with the brotherhood? He says, be continually loving them. The verb is a present imperative.

14:21 It is a command, and it's a command that carries with it the idea of continuous action. Be continually loving the brotherhood. Now in the mindset of this generation, the whole idea, the idea that love is commanded, is a strange notion. We live in a generation that thinks that love is sort of like the flu.

14:50 It's something you catch, or that catches you. Or others may think of it as some kind of a hawk that falls down from the sky and sinks its talons in a poor little field mouse, and the more the mouse struggles, the deeper the talons embed itself in its flesh. The whole idea that love is something that you catch, or something that falls down and seizes you, and the whole idea that love can be commanded, and that love is to be exercised as obedience to precept, is a notion very foreign to this generation. But it's not foreign to the Word of God.

15:35 It is not foreign to the Scriptures. The first commandment is, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. The very first commandment is a commandment to love God. We are not to think of love as something that comes from without and seizes upon us, something that drops down upon us.

16:05 No, there is a commitment of will, a commitment of the heart to love. And here we are commanded to be constantly loving the brotherhood. So the duty is clear. While submitting to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, while seeking to honor all men, demonstrating that as the people of God we understand their created dignity and their redemptive potentiality, we as God's people are to be committed to love the brotherhood.

16:43 The brotherhood of which we are a part in a local expression, but obviously when Peter uses the term in chapter 5, he understands that the brotherhood is broader than those who are there in Asia Minor. He says you are to resist the devil steadfast in your faith knowing the same sufferings are accomplished in the brotherhood who are in the world. You Christians, you Christians in Asia Minor are not the only ones who are part of the brotherhood. And as part of that larger brotherhood you need to draw comfort from the fact that your brethren in other places are suffering what you are suffering and you are to draw consolation from that knowledge of your affinity in suffering and in opposition. And so the duty is very clear. As the people of God we are to be committed to constantly loving the brotherhood. The brotherhood in all the realism of its present imperfect state.

17:52 The brotherhood in all the diversity of its composition. The brotherhood in all the reality of what it is. And Peter is not naive. In this very epistle he goes on to speak of the necessity of having the love which covers a multitude of sins.

18:14 He goes on in this very epistle to speak of the necessity of believers being compassionate, loving his brethren, tender-hearted, humble-minded, not rendering evil for evil or reviling for reviling. He's writing to believers.

18:31 He is not some pie in the sky theoretician who has this rose-colored view of the people of God. He remembers what he did in a moment of weakness. He cannot forget his own spiritual history. And yet he says, fully cognizant of all of the imperfections and all of the sins and limitations of the brotherhood, he says, love the brotherhood.

18:59 And surely as the people of God at any given point in my life I can stand in relationship to any of my fellow creatures and know that it is the will of God for me to honor all men, at all times, in all circumstances. I am to honor all men so I can stand at any place, at any time, in any set of circumstances and know it is the will of God that I love the brotherhood. I love the brotherhood. John Brown in his excellent commentary on 1 Peter writes, with respect to this matter of the brotherhood being the people of God, what we call generally and use the biblical terminology the church, it is impossible to read the New Testament carefully without perceiving that it is the intention of Jesus Christ not only to render his followers individually holy and happy as so many distinct children of God but in subordination to this end to form them into a happy, holy fellowship the bond of which should be the faith and love of the same truth, and the objects of which should be the united worship of their common God and Father and the united promotion of the honor and interest of their common Lord and Savior. Further, it should be

20:27 their mutual improvement in the knowledge of Christian truth, the cultivation of Christian dispositions, the performance of Christian happiness, of Christian duty and the enjoyment and diffusion of Christian happiness. This society founded on Christ's institution, subject to his authority, regulated by his law, animated by his spirit, devoted to his honor and blessed by his presence is the Christian church. This is the brotherhood. None ought to be admitted into or retained in this society but those who by an intelligent, consistent profession of the faith of the gospel give evidence that they are truly brethren. And all who are brethren should readily join themselves to and be readily welcomed by the brotherhood. Love the brotherhood. That's the duty explained.

Duty Expanded: How to Love the Brotherhood Practically

21:26 Now, the duty expanded or amplified. In the concrete and specific, what will it mean in day by day experience to love the brotherhood?

21:40 Well, obviously it will mean maintaining a disposition of goodwill, not allowing envy, jealousy, unforgiveness, to enter and eat away like cancer within our souls and destroy that which God calls the bond of perfection in the life of the brotherhood. John Brown, in seeking to answer that question, suggested six ways in which we can practically love the brotherhood. I'm not going to open them up. I'll just mention them.

22:08 It's a very fruitful field of reflection and meditation. He suggests you love the brotherhood when you do love the brotherhood. First, when you join yourself to the brotherhood. Secondly, when you are regular in attending all of the gatherings of the brotherhood.

22:23 Thirdly, when you endeavor to preserve the purity of the brotherhood. Fourthly, when you endeavor to preserve the peace of the brotherhood. Fifth, when you are determined to labor for the increase of the brotherhood. And finally, when you are fervent and frequent in your prayers for the brotherhood.

22:44 Now surely, those six lines of thought can be amply demonstrated as biblical duties and privileges from the Word of God. But I've chosen not to go in the direction that John Brown went. One of the frustrating things for many of us is several of the key and cardinal graces found in the Word of God. God gives us no formal definition of them.

23:11 Without faith, it's impossible to please God. He that believes not shall be damned. He that believes shall have eternal life. But when people ask, give me a nice, simple, succinct definition of faith.

23:26 Well, we don't find that in the Bible. We have many descriptions of the actings of faith. We have clear testimony in the Scriptures as to the various objects of faith and the way faith is exercised. But no formal definition.

23:41 Well, the same is true of love. There is no formal definition. There is no definition of love in the Bible. Ah, you say, what about 1 Corinthians 13?

23:50 That's not a formal definition. That's a description of what love does and what love does not do. But it's not a formal definition of love. You see, God comes to us in the concreteness of what love does and what love does not.

24:06 And when He says, love the brotherhood, He expects us to go to the fuller unfolding of His mind and will in Scripture and to love God. there learn what it means in the specific, nitty-gritty, day-by-day interaction with the brotherhood to love the brotherhood. What I want to do in a few minutes is simply to direct you to three watershed passages. These passages are by no means exhaustive.

Pattern 1: Love as Christ Loved (John 13)

24:35 They are critical passages, but they are just three among many that tell us you want to love the brotherhood, you want to know how love will act, how love will conduct itself. God says, this is what love will do, this is what love will not do, this is what love ought to do, what love ought not to do. And so, let me give you the three passages. Love the brotherhood, first, according to the pattern given by our Lord in John 13, 34 and 35.

25:07 Love the brotherhood according to the pattern given. Here on the eve of his crucifixion, our Lord in the upper room with his disciples says, A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this, you will love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another.

25:52 Surely when Peter wrote, Love the brotherhood, having been there, that night when the Lord Jesus spoke these memorable words, he could not think of the duty of loving the brotherhood without bringing into the orbit of that duty this standard, loving the brotherhood according to the pattern given by his Lord. And what was the pattern? Love one another as I have loved you. And that love wherewith he loved them was about to take him out to a place called Gethsemane.

26:29 And from a place called Gethsemane to Gabbatha, and from Gabbatha to Golgotha, and thereupon Golgotha, to endure the wrath of God against the sins of his people, until he would cry out in agony, My God. My God, why have you forsaken me?

26:51 Love one another as I have loved you. Having loved his own, he loved them unto the end. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. And now the Lord says, You are to love one another according to the pattern of my own love for you.

27:10 Selfless, sacrificial, self-giving love. Love. The brotherhood. With this kind of love.

Pattern 2: Love as Described by Paul (1 Corinthians 13)

27:21 Secondly, love the brotherhood according to the description given by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. Love the brotherhood according to the description given in 1 Corinthians 13. Sandwiched in between the chapters dealing with various spiritual gifts, Paul is underscoring that the grace of love is supreme. Supreme over all gifts.

27:52 He begins by saying, If I were to speak with the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. I'm just like someone beating with a mixing spoon on the lid of a garbage can. That's what I've become. If I don't have love, and if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and all things, and all things, and all things, and all things, and all things, and all things, and all things, and all things, and all things, and all things, and all things, and all things, and all things, and all things, and all things, and all things, and all things, and have not love, I'm nothing if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, give my body to be burned.

28:26 Now notice particularly verses 4 through 7. Love, and here we have no formal definition, but we certainly have a graphic description of what does and what love does not do. Love suffers long.

28:44 Love suffers, and love suffers long. Love the brotherhood. When in loving them, it puts you in a position of emotional trauma and internal suffering. Love the brotherhood.

29:01 Love suffers long and is kind.

29:08 When someone in the brotherhood is not kind to you, love is kind.

29:16 Love the brotherhood. Love with the love that is kind. Love envies not. When love sees the blessing of God in the conferral of gifts or blessings upon another instead of the green-eyed monster growing up in the soul, love says, No, I rejoice in that which God has given to that one within the brotherhood.

29:41 I am enabled in the language of Romans 12 to rejoice with those who rejoice. Love does not envy. Love does not want itself, is not popped. Love does not cause a person to be over-inflated with a high view of themselves.

30:01 Love is not that which motivates to an inflated, an over-inflated view of one's importance. Love does not behave itself unseemly. That is, against the scheme of things. Love does not cause us to do kooky things, either to attract attention to ourselves, or to gain sympathy.

30:27 No, love is not concerned as it works among the brotherhood to act in an unseemly way to grieve the brotherhood, or in some kind of a sick way to draw an inordinate amount of the attention of the brotherhood to ourselves. Love does not behave itself unseemly. Love does not seek its own. When decisions have to be made among the brotherhood, love does not push us forward saying, My feelings, my perspectives are ultimate and they must regulate all others.

31:01 No, love does not seek its own. Love does not seek its own. It's not provoked. Love is not one big sore toe waiting for someone to step on it.

31:16 Whatever makes people become large big toes just waiting for an offense, it's not love. Love doesn't do that, Paul says. Love. Love.

31:25 Love. Love. Love. Love.

31:25 Love. Love. Love. Love.

31:26 Love. Love is not provoked, takes not account of evil. Love doesn't keep a ledger book to remember until one's grave the faults of others. Love doesn't make someone a constant accountant of the sins of others.

31:42 Oh, did you not, did you not? No, love, love, whatever it is, makes someone, it's not love.

31:48 Love takes no account of evil.

31:53 Love rejoices not in unrighteousness. It isn't love. It's love that makes someone inwardly gloat when they hear a juicy tale of another believer within the brotherhood. That's not love.

32:08 Love does not cause anyone to rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoice with the truth, bears all things. That means there are things to be born in the brotherhood, and love enables us to bear all things, to believe all things, to hope all things. And to endure all things. Love the brotherhood.

32:33 Pray in an independence upon the Spirit of God. Relate to the brotherhood, not only according to the pattern given by our Lord. Love one another as I have loved you, but love the brotherhood according to the description given by the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 13. And pray in these specific principles, and even as I've gone over them very briefly, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps at one or more of them your own conscience has, has felt a twinge, and you've said, Lord, that's me.

33:05 I don't love in that area. Well, isolate that area and plead with God that by the grace and power of the Holy Spirit you will in that very area where you've known a pattern of defeat in the past, know the grace of God enabling you to love the brotherhood. Love the brotherhood according to the pattern given by our Lord in John 13. Love the brotherhood according to the description given by the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 13.

Pattern 3: Love in Deed and Truth (1 John 3)

33:35 In one other passage briefly, love the brotherhood according to the exhortation given by the Apostle John, 1 John chapter 3.

33:47 What's it mean, love the brotherhood? John's going to tell us. John, 1 John chapter 3, verses 16 to 19. 1 John chapter 3, verses 16 to 19.

33:58 1 John chapter 3, verses 16 to 19. Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for us. He laid down His life for us. We know love by the action of God in Christ.

34:09 He laid down His life for us. And we ought, we are under obligation to lay down our lives for the brethren. That's loving as He loved. But, whoso hath the world's goods, I'm not talking about laying down your life, but just parting with some of your stuff.

34:29 But whoso hath the world's goods, and beholds his brethren needy. And shuts up his compassion from him. How does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither with the tongue, but in deed and truth.

34:50 Hereby shall we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. What is John's exhortation? It's an absolute for the relative. Is he saying, don't use your lips to say to one another that you love one another?

35:03 Of course not. The Bible is full of examples of believers expressing their love one to another. God verbally communicates His love to us in word and in deed. God makes it plain.

35:18 He loves us. But what John is saying is, look, let your love be something more than an exercise of your lips and of your tongue. Let your love be validated by your actions in the presence of perceived need within. The brotherhood.

35:35 If you see your brother have need, this is the brotherhood. And there is need. Legitimate, bona fide need. Now that at times is difficult to discern.

35:49 Is this real need that demands real benevolence? And I'm not going into all of the principles that need to guide us. Stick with the major emphasis. And the major emphasis of the passage is, we are to love not in word, neither with the tongue.

36:05 But in deed and in truth. We are to look for the opportunities to do what love does in responding to the perceived needs of the brethren. Now as I said, these are but three passages among many in the word of God that mark out the path of loving the brotherhood. And as you read your Bibles, and I trust you do have some system of working through the scriptures.

36:34 Over a course of two, three, four years, you've covered the full range of scripture. For man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. When you find a passage that describes what love is to do and what love does not do, whether by precept or by example, fasten your mind upon that passage and pray, oh God, here is this terse, simple, straightforward imperative in Peter's letter. Love the brotherhood.

37:04 Now Lord, here's where you're filling in some of the details. This is what it means to love the brotherhood. And then a few days later you're reading another passage and you come across another example and you say, ah, this is what it means to love the brotherhood. Keep that imperative constantly before your mind.

37:22 It stands in all of its stark terseness. The brotherhood be continually loving. What that means, it will take a lifetime to learn. We will learn in our experience and then by the grace of God when we are taken to a better place, we will know fully what it means to love the brotherhood.

Application to Unbelievers: The Yearning for True Relationships

37:46 Well, we've considered the duty explained, the duty expanded, now the duty applied.

37:54 And first of all, I want to apply it to those among us who are not part of the brotherhood. And here I would plead with you who are not Christians, would you let me, as it were, sidle up next to you in the pew and look you straight in the eyeballs and seek to reason with you.

38:14 I'm going to ask you some questions and I don't want you to answer out loud, but would you frame your answers just as clearly and definitively as though it were just you and me sitting in a room and I were asking bona fide questions, expecting bona fide verbal responses. My unconverted friend, young or old, whatever your background, let me ask you, hasn't God made you a social being? Hasn't he made you a creature that yearns for true, solid relationships with other human beings? You couldn't really be content to be holed up with your favorite pet for the rest of your life, could you?

38:57 Could you? Could you be satisfied with cats and dogs and minor birds and whatever other pets you have? You say, no, I couldn't be. I'm not very socially.

39:10 I'm not very socially outgoing, but yes, deep in my soul, I do have a yearning for acceptance and a context of relationship to other human beings where I know I'm loved, where I'm accepted, where I can be honest, where I'll not be exploited, where I don't need to be afraid that someone's going to take advantage of me. Don't you yearn for that? Isn't that a yearning within your soul? Now, I think for a minute, unsaved man, woman, boy or girl, someone who's been under the gospel for years or perhaps sitting under it for the first time, answer that question.

39:51 Isn't there a yearning? Didn't God make you a social being? Not only a being that has a God-shaped hole that only God can fill. I'm talking about that man-shaped hole that only other human beings can fill.

40:08 In real, loving, trusting, open, human relationships.

40:17 You know why you have that yearning? Because you've been made in God's image.

40:22 I say it reverently, God is a social being.

40:26 Within the mystery of his own Trinitarian life, there has been communion and fellowship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from all eternity. The idea that God created because he was lonely is heresy. God was fully satisfied in himself. The one God in the mystery of his three-person Father, Son, and Spirit.

40:55 I cannot fathom it, but it's a wonderful, glorious truth. And when God made man in his image, he made him an image-bearer, a creature who could not only hold communion with his God, but made to have communion and interplay of thought and heart and affection with fellow creatures. That's why God, who had made Adam upright and perfect, looked upon Adam without Eve and said, He is not good. He is not good.

41:29 First thing in his creation concerning which God said, Not good. It says everything else, he looked at it and said, Good, good, good. But he saw Adam alone and said, Not good. I will make a helper, answering to his need.

41:44 It's God who has made us with these social instincts and desires. Now follow me. When sin entered, what happened? Not only was man's fellowship with God fractured, ruptured.

41:58 Instead of the man running to meet God, he runs to hide from God among the trees of the garden. But the first two children born, Cain and Abel, what happens? One rises up and murders the other. What a tragic symbol of the utter destruction of those social instincts, of love and acceptance and goodwill.

42:23 One brother rises up and kills another. The firstborn becomes a murderer. But you see, God in grace is not only committed to restore us to a right relationship to himself, but he's committed to restore us to right relationships to our fellow human beings. And that's what he does in his grace.

42:46 That's why Peter could write, Love the Brotherhood. There was a brotherhood in Asia Minor, groups of the brotherhood, from totally diverse backgrounds, Jews who had all their lives despised the Gentile dogs, and Gentiles who had looked down upon the Jews for all of their weird religions, with no temples that had idols in them, etc. And idolaters looked askance upon the Jews, and the Jews looked upon the Gentile hordes as dogs and unclean. And now they are all part of these little enclaves of the brotherhood here, and the brotherhood here, and the brotherhood here.

43:30 Why? Because the same grace of God in the gospel that blew the roof off and brought them into fellowship with God, knocked the walls flat, and brought them into real, meaningful communion one with another. Listen, my unconverted friend, listen. I would urge you to flee to Christ, not only because of the greatest and most fundamental need you have, namely to be right with God, but you'll never know fulfilling, true, satisfying relations with others, because it's only among those in whom the dominion of sin and the commitment to self-serving and self-will has been radically changed by the power of God that you'll find a community who are committed to love as Christ loved. To love with that love described here, described in 1 Corinthians 13, that is not quick to envy, that love that does not vaunt itself, that is not provoked, that love that suffers long. In other words, what I'm saying, it's only in the fellowship of Christ's church that those deepest yearnings can find satisfying fulfillment. You see, you may think you have a measure of that among some unconverted friends who have agreed together

44:58 that in this area and that area you will be content to violate God's laws together. And the unwritten rules of your commitment to one another is don't you expose me and I won't expose you. But the problem is you all have a conscience. You all have a conscience.

45:16 And that's the worm in all the pleasure you have with your unconverted, quote, brotherhood. As Paul says in Romans 1, knowing the judgment of God that those who do such things are worthy of death not only do them, but they rejoice with those who do them. There is this horrible bond of mutual commitment to defy the law of God and to try to silence the thunderings of conscience. What a miserable way to live.

45:45 Because the thunderings of your guilty conscience are just a preview of the day of judgment when you won't be able to stuff your ears anymore. When the voice of God thunders and calls you to judgment and marks your sins and consigns you to everlasting darkness. There'll be no refuge in your group. No refuge in your group.

46:07 Dear child of God, can you not say with me you've never known what real, meaningful human relationships were until you came into the brotherhood and you found a group of people. You don't trust them in terms of what they are in themselves, but the grace of God that is at work in them. A community where there is a commitment to love not in some superficial, sentimental way, but in the concreteness of the ways described in these passages that we've looked at briefly and a host of others. You see, it is only when you have experienced what Peter describes in verses 22 and 23 of chapter 1 that you can become a part of that brotherhood, seeing you've purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto unfeigned love of the brethren, loved one another from the heart fervently, having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible through the word of God which lives and abides forever. You see, you must experience the same gracious work of God's saving mercy to deliver you from that native, self-centeredness and self-will that makes this kind of relationship with others impossible.

47:33 But as you purify your soul in obedience to the truth of the gospel, as God is pleased to transform you by the renewing work of His Spirit, then it is unto unfeigned love of the brethren you will now have the capacity and the disposition truly to love the brotherhood. It's one of the things that is an amazement to the true child of God, of what happened to his most visceral attitude to the people of God after God saved him. We thought God's people were the most dull, restricted, restrained, funny group on the face of the earth until God was pleased to save us. And we've been bitterly happy that we're part of them ever since.

48:17 Love the brotherhood! You can't do that till you're part of it! And my unconverted friend, I plead with you to ponder, what will it be to live out your days in a society, no matter how restricted or large it may be, where you cannot count upon the dynamics of true love, self-giving concern that is truly ready to lay down its life for you? And what comfort will you have in that companionship in the place described as outer darkness, where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of things to make you normal? Be upright and be multitudinous. And we'll always keep the promise of unending love in our hearts and in our hearts as we remember the Lord Jesus and the way in which he called us to deliver us from our sins. So we acknowledge our faith We've been sanctified, we've been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God.

49:33 The blood of Christ is as efficacious, His Spirit as free as ever. Come to Him and then come to us. Give yourselves to Him and then give yourselves to us by His will. Come to Him and He will put you among the brethren.

49:49 He'll not be ashamed to call you brethren. He'll give you the brother's inheritance, the goodly land. Come to us, we will do you good. We will love you as brethren and you will love us as brethren.

50:01 We will strengthen one another's hands and comfort one another's hearts and move onward until one by one we join the goodly fellowship in heaven. And when God has filled up the number of His chosen ones, a number which no man can number, then shall be completed the holy brotherhood and presented by their elder brother as a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, with exceeding joy to dwell forever in His presence, where there is fullness of joy and rivers of pleasure forevermore. There will be no need then to press the exhortation, love the brotherhood. That's my closing application to you who are not the people of God, but let me take a few moments to apply this more closely to those of us who are His people.

Application to Believers: The Burden of Formal Commitment

50:58 I trust after our... I trust after our study last time together two weeks ago that the imperative honor all men is now like a sentinel there in the deepest recesses where moral and ethical sensitivity registers in your consciousness.

51:16 When you're contemplating something, when you've thought something, when you've said something in that deep place where the eyelash of God, as it were, brushes over the soft, sensitive tissue of the soul and says, and there's either excusing or accusing of conscience, I trust in that place this text has set itself up like a sentinel. Honor all men. The moment we are tempted for whatever reason to think, to act, to speak in a way that is demeaning, in a way that is degrading of another fellow human being, I trust this text will come thundering into our...

52:00 Our consciences honor all men, without exception. In the same way, dear child of God, I trust this simple command. Love the brotherhood. The brotherhood be continually loving, that when we would be tempted to indulge attitudes of ill will, suspicion, envy, unforgiveness, indifference to each other's perceived need, that God will bring this word back again and again, the brotherhood be continually loving.

52:39 But Lord, I don't feel very loving. God says, I don't care what you feel like. It has nothing to do with your feelings. I command you to be loving.

52:49 Loving the brotherhood. Love the brotherhood. Does this not place a burden of responsibility upon those of us who have experienced the grace of God that's...

53:04 That's made us part of the brotherhood, but we've not formally committed ourselves to the brotherhood. In other words, I'm talking to those of you sitting here whom God in grace has made brothers and sisters in this family of God. But you have not committed yourself to the brotherhood. You have not said, look, I want to make it known that I have experienced the new birth, that God has...

53:35 In his grace, begotten me again to a living hope that I hold as my great and glorious expectation that I'm moving to that inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and it fades not away. God has made me part of the company of a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a people of God's own possession. But my friend, no one can force you to be identified as part of the brotherhood. You've got to say, this is what God has done for me.

54:05 You've got to openly declare that and in the proper way make it known that you want to become part of a visible community of the brotherhood. There is a sense in which over the history of the church the term the invisible church has been used. It's an awkward term trying to describe the fact that all of God's true people are ultimately known only to God and they're never found in any one place at any one time in church history. God's people are one throughout the whole earth.

54:33 But you see, the church is not an individual. It's a visible entity. It's the company of brothers and sisters, real, live, flesh and blood brothers and sisters who have made commitments openly and consciously and deliberately before God and man and they constitute the brotherhood.

54:53 And for some perhaps who've not reflected upon this, let me just turn you for a moment to Acts chapter 9. If there was ever someone who could consider himself as privileged to such a degree as to be lifted above the necessity of a mundane issue such as formal church membership, it was the Apostle Paul. In Acts chapter 9, in the first 18 verses, you have an account of Paul's conversion. Saul of Tarsus breathing out threatenings and slaughters against the church.

55:26 The Lord is pleased to open his spiritual eyes, to reveal Christ to him, to commission him. And then we read in verses 19b through 25, how he spent certain days with the disciples at Damascus. And he preached in the synagogue and people were amazed. They said, isn't this the one who was making havoc of the church?

55:47 And now he's preaching the very faith that he was attacking. Well, then the Jews got angry and tried to kill him. Their plot became known to Paul and Paul escaped by night, lowered over a wall in a basket. And he never forgot that incident in 2 Corinthians when he's giving his credentials.

56:05 Right at the end, he says, oh, since by the way, I'm the Apostle who was let down over the wall in a basket, a rather inglorious way to make an exit from the city. But that's what happened at Damascus. Now, what does he do? Look at verse 26 of Acts 9.

56:21 And when he was come to Jerusalem, he assayed. And that word translated assayed is an imperfect verb. It means he made repeated serious efforts to join himself, to the disciples. The first thing Paul wanted to do when he came to Jerusalem is say, hey, I'm a part of the brotherhood.

56:45 God has worked in me and made me a brother. I was once an enemy. I was on the outside. Now I'm part of a family.

56:52 And now that I'm here in Jerusalem, just as I was with the disciples there at Damascus, I want to become part of the brotherhood. I want to join myself to you. And apparently, he made more than one effort. And they were suspicious of him.

57:09 They didn't think he was the real thing. They didn't just let any old Tom, Dick, and Harry who said he'd heard a voice from heaven and had heard Christ speak and the rest. They didn't just roll over and play dead and say, well, it sounds like a good story. Let's open the door, shake your hand, welcome him in.

57:23 They were exercising discretion. The brotherhood has got to be constituted of real brothers. Is this guy a real brother? So the Lord brings along Barnabas, and Barnabas becomes the instrument who, apparently, hearing Paul's testimony, maybe checking out some of the details of it, Barnabas took him, brought him to the apostles, declared unto them how he'd seen the Lord in the way he had spoken to him, how at Damascus he'd preached boldly in the name of Jesus, and he was with them going in and going out at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus.

58:00 You see, Paul was not content to simply be an internal part of the brotherhood, but a spiritual. A spiritual part of the brotherhood. He wanted to be a formal, visible part of the brotherhood. And what I'm saying is that, for some of you, God has done the internal work.

58:19 My question is, why do you linger in becoming a visible, formal part of the brotherhood? You say, well, I've just not thought about it. Well, good. I hope what you've heard today will make you think about it.

58:34 So that when we read, be continually, loving the brotherhood, we will have no question that that includes you. We'll not have to say, well, I think so-and-so is a brother or sister. And they say that they are brother or sister, but their profession has not had an orderly expression and a formal commitment to be identified with the people of God makes it so much easier to obey the injunction, be continually loving the brotherhood. When the brotherhood, is clearly marked out and identified as God's visible community of his people.

Conclusion and Prayer

59:16 Well, as we bring our study to a close this morning,

59:21 I trust that you with me have a fresh sense of appreciation at how wonderful the Christian faith is in taking the most elevated realities of spiritual privilege and tying them to the most practical, mundane responsibilities and duties. The same Peter who took us up into the heights, speaking of our inheritance, speaking of redemption by the blood of Christ, being made a spiritual temple and spiritual priest and all of those wonderful privileges. Here in this passage where he says, I want you so to live that God will be glorified and the mouths of ignorant people will be shut. He says in your subjection to all, every ordinance, every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. Live out a life in which it is evident you honor all men. But in honoring all men that you have a peculiar affection in your relationship to your brothers and sisters, love the brotherhood. May God help us by his grace to be a people marked as those who honor all men, who love the brotherhood.

60:37 And God willing next week we'll take up fear God and honor the king. Let us pray.

60:46 Our father, we do thank you for your word that it is a lamp to our feet and a light to our pathway. Bless this portion of your truth. We pray especially for those, our father, with whom we have sought to reason and plead that they might forsake their sins and the world and give themselves up to Christ and then become a part of his people. Be part of that brotherhood that cannot be dissolved, by death.

61:16 O Lord, we pray that you would seal your word to our hearts as your people, that we would under no circumstances allow ourselves the luxury of thinking we have a right not to love the brotherhood. Give us, we pray, fresh measures of your Holy Spirit, the fruit of whose indwelling presence is love, as well as joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control. Seal, then, your word to each of our hearts, we plead. In Jesus' name, amen.