Word of Salvation – Vol.13 No.02 – January 1967

Brotherly Love

 

Sermon by Rev. J. J. C. Westera on 1Pet.1:22b

Scripture Reading: 1Pet.1:17-25

Psalter Hymnal: 95, 52, 427, 433, 463

 

Beloved Congregation in our Lord Jesus Christ,

By this our text we are pushed into the world of love, wherein we have to stay, to work and to live.  We are asked to love one another.  That does not seem to be a natural thing but a thing to which we must be brought and which we must seek.  Moreover, it is said that we must love one another with a pure heart fervently.  Does that not make it even harder?

Where do we get a pure heart?  And how do we love fervently?

With a pure heart means sincere, far from all low motives and selfishness.  Fervently means without ceasing, earnestly so that many waters, of no response, of neglect, of offences, or even of enmity, cannot quench the fire of your love!

We have to love one another, without exception.

One another… as we are sitting here.

One another… as we know each other and come in conflict with each other.

One another… as we are of different character, interest, offspring, position.

It is a wonderful world indeed and it may be that we don’t feel at home there!.  That is not unlikely.  It is a world we are not used to and we are not so willing to accept.

To read the Bible is a good thing and to have faith is a good thing too, but it is not easy.  It is not cheap.  It is not flattering either!

I am not at ease when I read the Bible.  I feel myself condemned.  I feel that something is said which I, by nature, don’t like… that something is asked which I lack, completely lack.

The Word of God, His law of love is as a mirror and it shows us our depravity, our total corruption.  My corruption and yours.  Not that of others but mine and yours.  Not of the heathen, of the wicked and evil men but of ours.  Not of this world but of the church!  It is shocking to look in it and to learn to know yourself by the light of the Word of God.

The opposite of love is hatred and I hear the church, the Christian church confess that we by nature are inclined to hate God and our neighbours.  That’s not a mistake but it is true.  It is not a matter of weakness which we regret and which we will get over.  It is not a matter of outward evil or of a primitive state which we will overcome, but it is a matter of our heart.

Jesus teaches us that those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart and they defile the man.  For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.  (Math.15:18,19)

And again I say that is not another man’s heart but mine and yours!  Therefore it is good to see that Peter, when he asks of his readers to love one another with a pure heart and fervently, puts these words between two statements.  The first one is, “Seeing you have purified your souls,” and the second one is, “Being born again.”  To love each other requires a heart which is cleansed and purified.  It requires a man who is born again.  Otherwise it is impossible to love, for we’re not talking about common love.  We’re not talking about love which is asked of us as husband and wife, as parents and children, as brothers and sisters, as citizens of one city, country, state, or world.

No… it is asked of us as Christians, as members of the Church, of the body of which Jesus is the head.  It is asked of us as members of one family of which God is the Father.  Of one community or house where the Holy Spirit lives and dwells, where He reigns and woks.  It is impossible to love one another as brothers and sisters of Jesus unless you become a brother yourself by faith in Jesus.  You must know Him and be one with Him.  Jesus must live in you and otherwise you don’t know how to love.  Jesus is the only one Who can change us and make us one family, where love reigns in the hearts of its members.

Our hearts must be cleansed from filthiness by His blood and by His Holy Spirit, otherwise there is no hope.  That was what did happen to the readers of Peter’s letter, to those strangers scattered throughout Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bythinia.  They lived in a world of enmity and of hatred.  They themselves had belonged to that world but had been elected by God and were changed and converted.  They had purified their souls.  They started anyhow with that most difficult work!

It may be difficult to clean your hands sometimes – or to clean your clothes – but I tell you that it is much more difficult to clean your souls from evil thoughts.  It is impossible.  You can’t do it yourself.  How did those strangers do it?  How did the church – or churches – of Peter’s letter do it?

They did it by obeying the truth through the Spirit.  They did it by listening to the Holy Spirit of Christ.  They did it because they were born again, not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

Peter tells us this morning that to love your brother it is necessary to cleanse your heart – and to cleanse your heart is only possible by obeying the truth, that means by doing the truth not in your own power but through the Holy Spirit, in His power.

Don’t expect much of yourself, I should say: don’t expect anything.  See your weakness, your inability.  But expect much, yes all things, of the Holy Spirit.  He has come to make us brothers.  God the Spirit came to renew us, to cleanse us and to make us love one another with brotherly love.

It all goes wrong, completely wrong, if we expect it of ourselves and think that we are strong enough to do the job; that we are wise enough and willing enough to be a family where love reigns and to be a church where love moves the hearts.

It goes wrong always and everywhere and it will go wrong unless we are filled with the Holy Spirit and are led by Him.  We must purify our souls and lives but we must not do that in our own power.  We must do it in the power of the Holy Spirit.

We must realise that our Christian life is not a matter of rules, morals, customs, doctrines, but it is a matter of being born again, of new life, new hearts and also of death, self-denial, crosses upon which we are crucified.  It is a matter of knowing Jesus, of listening to Him and of living with Him.  It is not a matter of having a Bible in your house and using it as a dictionary or as a book of law.  It is not a matter of having doctrinal standards in the back of your Psalter Hymnal or in the treasury of the church.

No, it is a matter of reading your Bible, of knowing the truth and doing it!  And even that is not enough.  Even that can be very dead! …and cold and killing!  Killing yourself and others…!

Scattered all over the world as strangers we must know of our election, of our calling and do the truth out of love being worked in us by the Holy Spirit.  He works unfeigned love in us, true love without hypocrisy.  We don’t act ‘as if’.  We don’t just say that we love each other, but we really do it!

Such a love is necessary.  We can’t do without it.  Our church life is not a matter of money, though it may often look like that.  It is not a matter of sympathy, of having the same ideas, of confessing the same doctrines.  That may all be proper and in order and it may be wonderful but it does not work, it does not stand up in Gods eyes and before His face.  The thing which we can’t do without is love.  The first and the last thing God asks is love!

If we are faithful to our doctrines but we don’t love them, which is quite possible, they don’t help.  They are a lie in the ears of the Lord!  We lie!  If we give our pledges, weekly, monthly, yearly, if we give our gifts in our collections without love – true love – God does not accept them.

Before Him they are worthless and He says to us, keep your gold, your silver, keep your doctrines, your beautiful hymns and creeds, I don’t like them!  He says to us: Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that thy brother hath ought against you, leave there your gift before the altar and go your way, first be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer your gift (Math.5:23).

I do not say these things to make us examine ourselves whether our gifts and doctrines are up to the standard, though that may be necessary for all of us to do!  Do you really give… and do you really believe… up to God’s standard?  But I say these things to let us know and to realise how indispensable love is.  You may have everything, you may do everything, so that nobody has anything to criticise.  No minister, no elder, no fellow member can blame you for anything.  You might even be called to the office of a minister or elder, you might be a confessing member of the church but your heart is cold and there is no fervent love.

That is a terrible situation and very dangerous.  All kinds of things go on.  We go to church as usual, the doctrines are still in our Psalter hymnals, our contributions are as high as ever, we go to the Lord’s Supper, sit together at the Lord’s Table, eat and drink the same bread and wine, signs and seals of Jesus’ flesh and blood.  Outwardly there is no change whatsoever, but one thing is missing: love!  For one thing God is seeking in vain, love!

Love for one another.  Love to the brethren and to God.

For let us not think that we can love God and not love our brother.  For how can we love God Whom we have not seen if we don’t love our brother whom we have seen.

John the apostle says it is impossible.  This commandment have we from God that he who loves God loves his brother also.  We sometimes find it easier to love from a distance than from close by.  We love our relatives back in Holland – or wherever they are; we pray for them, for our parents, brothers and sisters, friends, but when we see them or they come to us, and we meet each other as we are with our faults and characteristics then we feel that we have drifted apart.  We don’t feel that as long as we are far away from each other.  Just the opposite…!  We idealise each other.  We experience it as soon as we are with each other, living in the same house, seeing each other time and again.  There have been some very big disappointments as far as this goes!

In church we are together, we live in one house, are of one family.  We can’t avoid each other.  We meet each other time and again and then love only can keep us together and can let us live together.  All other things are useless and fruitless.

We come across each other’s weaknesses, faults, sins, peculiarities.  The one is so different from the other.  Here nothing else can bind us but love!  Love to God and to our brother!

Love to Him Who has chosen us and has called us but Who also has given us to each other.  He has bound us and has gathered us.

Why are we together here in this church?  Because we like one another?  Because we love one another… nourishing the same ideas… having the same ambition?  Is it our own choice?  Our decision?

No it is not!  God has chosen us.  He has brought us together.  He has loved us and He says to us, love one another because I love you, I, your Father want you to be one.  We hear Jesus say: “That they all may be one as Thou Father art in Me and I in Thee that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me” (John 17:21).

Without love our church life, our life with God is dead.  It is not even there.  We can imagine Paul saying in Chapter 13 of his first letter to the Corinthians, that we may have all things, the gift of tongues, of prophecy, of compassion so that we say: hear..!  hear..!, what a wisdom!  And see what a power..!  What a faith!!

But he also says: prophecies they fail, tongues they cease, knowledge it shall vanish away and now abideth faith, hope and charity, these three but the greatest of these is charity!

We must realise that and we must ask ourselves whether we really love our brother for Jesus’ sake because we love Him.  This love can be tested as it was with the strangers scattered throughout Asia Minor.  This letter was written in a time when persecution threatened and when the Christians were in danger.  They were in the midst of manifold trials.  In such circumstances one easily gives up, becomes selfish, forgets all about faith, hope and love.

All depends on one question: How strong is your love?  How great?  The answer is, your love is as strong and great as your Master!  Your love is as strong and great as His word.

You are not born of corruptible but of incorruptible seed, by the Word of God which liveth and abideth forever.

Do you know that word?
Do you know its power?
Its quickening power?  Its comfort, peace and its mighty call?
It is the word of the Lord… and it is preached unto you!

All things pass by.  Our flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.  The grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away but the Word of the Lord endureth for ever!  Let us not be mistaken.  Let us not build our house, our church on the wrong foundation, on false grounds.

Our love is not a natural thing, which I have of myself.  It is given, sown by God Himself, poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5).

It is a new life, born of God.
It does not exist in itself or by itself.
It has its strength of the same source as where it comes from
and it is operated by it.
It has its strength from God, from His Word and His Holy Spirit.

Your love is as strong as your Master.  It endureth as long as He Himself.

His Word is attacked and so will your love be.  Your Master was crucified and you are not greater than your Master.  Your love will be tried.  But it is true and strong.  It has nothing to do with passion, with demonstration, with show.  It is genuine, being rooted deeply in your heart.  It cannot be dissolved.  It is there forever.  It is incorruptible as the seed from which it comes.  It is faithful until death.

What Jesus did Himself, he will also teach us to do.  He has loved us unto the end and before He died He said to us:

“A new commandment I give unto you
– that you love one another!
As I have loved you that ye also love one another.”

Amen