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Now, here's today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. According to Forbes magazine, recent studies have found that despite being more connected than ever before, more people. feel more alone than ever before. Surprisingly, those who report feeling most alone Are those you'd expected from the least, young people under 35 who are the most prolific social networkers of all? Let me give you a case in point.
Been to a coffee shop lately? Go to a coffee shop and look around. It's now the place where people go to be alone together. That is an oxymoron in and of itself, alone together. Here we are together.
But we're alone, they're not communicating with each other. They're looking at a device, a screen. They're communicating, but not. Not personally, but virtually. Harvard Business Review found that team performance went up 50%.
When teams socialized more, and emailed less. Isn't that interesting? When I was a kid, social ner networking was called outside. Right? Get outside.
Go find your friends. Go play. There's one thing that we ought to be great at as a church, and that is love. It's the personal, not the virtual. If there's one place love should flourish, it ought to be in the body of Christ.
Psalm 68. Describes God as somebody who sets the solitary into families. God is about taking the isolated, the solitary, the alone person, and bringing. He or she into a A network, a family. Reality.
A computer can't do that and social networking can't do that. That's where it takes real people. We live in a love-starved world. Our love should flourish. With that thought in mind, I take you to 1 Peter chapter 1, beginning in verse 22, finishing off.
That first chapter. And Peter's first thoughts. Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit. In sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently. With a pure heart.
Having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but Incorruptible through the Word of God, which lives and abides. Forever. Because All flesh is as grass. And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers.
And the flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever.
Now this is the word. which by the gospel was preached To you. I want you to see something as we start. The very core of this paragraph. Is a single phrase in verse 22: the sincere love of the brethren.
That's the core, that's the center. Everything else revolves around the thought of this sincere love for the brethren, followed by a command to love one another fervently. Everything is connected to those thoughts. Allow me, if you will, to catch you up to where we are by seeing where we have been. Peter sits down with pen in hand to write a letter to young believers who are struggling.
And this is what he tells them. You guys have been picked by God, selected by God, brought on the same team. You are elect. That's verse one and two. Once you have been selected by God, He has given you a living hope.
Because of a resurrected Christ. That's verse 3. That living hope gets better and better. all the way into heaven. Where it is reserved for you.
It is incorruptible. It does not fade away. That's verse 4 and 5.
So that even though you may struggle now and go through trials now and not be able to see God clearly now, that's verse 6, 7, 8, and 9. You have What the prophets predicted, what preachers proclaim, and what angels ponder. That's verse 10, 11, and 12. Therefore, he says in verse 13, therefore You and I ought to live holy lives and be obedient to God because He redeemed us at an incredible price, the precious blood of His Son. That's verse 13 through verse 21.
And now he caps it off. And says and A sincere love. A brotherly love. an accepting love, a healing love for your brothers and sisters. When you think of love, you usually don't put that in the context of sports.
What does it take to win a football game? Not love. You don't need love on a football team, right? You don't love, you got to be a good football player. You'd be wrong if you said that.
According to one source, in fact, a legendary source, Vince Lombardi, the legend, the coach. One time of the Green Bay Packers was asked this, coach. What does it take to make a winning team? Not love, right? Listen to what his answer is, and I quote.
First, you teach the fundamentals. A player's got to know the basics of the game.
Next. You gotta keep him in line. That's discipline. The men have to play as a team. Third, They've got to care for.
And love. Each other. The difference between mediocrity and greatness is feeling that these guys. Have a love for each other. When you've got that sort of team spirit, You've got a winning team.
I want to give you four basic instructions on how to have a winning team here among us as believers. Four Aspects of Christian Love. that are put in four directives. that are memorable. First, demonstrate your personal liberty.
Second, celebrate your spiritual family. Third, radiate a mutual loyalty. And fourth, cultivate. Scriptural dependency. All four.
are mentioned in these verses. Look back to verse 22, where the paragraph begins. He says Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit. in sincere love for the brethren. Let me unravel that, if I may.
It will help to know that the vocabulary is put here so that when it says you've purified your souls, it speaks about something that happened in the past. But it has continuing results. In other words, you were saved in the past, and that makes a difference now. It's the present participle. That simply is there to demonstrate not only have you been cleansed in the past.
But you therefore have new capabilities. In the present. You've been saved. and you have the capability of loving, you now love your brothers and sisters. Simply put, the first reason that love should be evident among us is because you're a saved person.
Why should you love? Because you're saved. And the fruit of salvation, the fruit of the Spirit. It says in Galatians 5 is love. There's so many scriptures, and we don't have the time to chase them all down, but especially in the New Testament, it is filled with.
Indications or commandments to love each other. The most famous are the words of the Lord Jesus, who said, A new commandment I give to you. that you love one another. For by this shall all men know that you are my disciples by the love that you have for one another. Boy, that's quite a powerful statement, right?
You prove that you're saved By your love, For each other. A few years ago, I was in an airport in Trivandrum. Most of you have never been to Trivandrum. It's a little town in India, quite a big town, actually. I was going from one town to another town, hopefully, to get to this town.
That was my goal, coming back home. I'd been there speaking in India for a couple weeks. I was with a buddy of mine. Another pastor. We were in the airport in Travandrum, and we noticed this girl.
She was having a tough time paying for her meal. She ran out of money. She had big suitcases, but little money.
So I paid for her lunch. We carried her bags to the plane. We got her situated, sort of calmed down. She'd been in India for some time, and she was trying to get back home. And we were able to share the love of Christ with her.
Well, she had been on in ashram. In India, Rishi Kesh, that's where the Beatles once stayed to get spiritual enlightenment. She went there to get spiritual enlightenment, and she said in our conversation, I didn't find any spiritual enlightenment here. I was in this ashram, and they were just all trying to take advantage of me. I felt very used and cheapened by this whole experience.
But just our being with her, she said something interesting. She said, I was raised in a Christian home. And now my faith has been affirmed. by you showing me unconditional love. An amazing statement.
That's the principle. Salvation should affect Relation. Our salvation should affect every relationship in life. Once we have been loved, We have been set free now to love other people. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition.
When you give to this ministry, you help reach thousands of people every day with God's life-changing truth. encouraging them to know him, trust him, and walk in his freedom. And this month, we want to thank you with a special resource package. you'll receive Skiff's book, Biography of God, which helps you explore God's nature, his power, the mystery of the Trinity, and the hope that comes from removing the false limitations we sometimes place on him. Plus, you'll get Skip's six-message CD series, Expound Galatians, where Skip unpacks the book of Galatians and the freedom believers have through grace, not works.
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Now, here's more from Pastor Skip. Hudson Taylor put it this way: if your father and mother, sister and brother, if the very cat and dog in your house are not happier for you being a Christian, it's a question whether you really are. I hope you have a happy cat. Notice what it says in verse 22. What kind of love of the brethren?
Sincere.
Now, you know what sincere love is. It means it's the real deal. It's not fake, it's sincere, it's real.
Now the Greek word, listen to it, because you'll recognize it. On Hupacritas. Without Hypocrisy. Don't be phony in your love. When Paul wrote to the Romans, he said, chapter 12, verse 9, let love be without hypocrisy.
Don't pretend. Really love people. There's nothing worse than fake love. Nothing worse than saying, oh, I'm at church now. Click.
Hi, brother. If you don't really mean that, don't do that. Because it's weird otherwise. It's sort of like plastic fruit. My mom had a bowl of it.
I remember as a kid, she bought this plastic fruit, and my job was to dust it every week. That is like the worst. And it was bad because I didn't know it was plastic when she first brought it in, and I took a bite of an apple. And it got this waxy plastic Junk in my mouth. By the way, do you know that the word sincere?
In our language, comes from the Latin that means without wax. Sincere, Sine, Sarah. Literally means without wax. Let your love be without wax. This is where it comes from.
In ancient times, porcelain dealers, statue makers, Would use wax to fill in They're mistakes. Can you imagine making a statue, spending hours and hours upon a work of art, only to have the ear or nose of the statue you were making fall off with the chisel? You have two options. You start all over again, or you get some marble dust and wax and you fashion a fake appendage, put it on. Or, if you were a porcelain maker and you got a chip and a cup or a plate, you could put some wax and porcelain and hide that little.
scoff quite easily.
So that when Statue makers and porcelain dealers wanted to say that Their product was the best. And it was real. They would say, it is sine sera. It's without wax. And the way to tell is hold it up to the light, hold it up to the sunlight.
You can imagine how embarrassing it would be on a hot summer day if a woman decided to honor her uncle Fred at his birthday party by putting a statue of Fred in the backyard, and about 12 noon when you unveil the statue and the hot sun comes out, Fred's nose just drips down to his mouth. It's with wax. It's not sincere. Insincere love. is when you fill in your love with cheap substitutes.
Example. You pay somebody a compliment. You don't really mean it. You're not really trying to encourage them. You're trying to manipulate them.
and get something from them and to butter them up is the best way. Or you give somebody a hug, not because you care, but you want to get close to that person physically. That is insincere love. Matthew Henry put it this way: hypocrisy is to do the devil's work. in God's uniform.
Who among the twelve apostles was the one who had insincere love. Easy answer. Judas Iscariot. He was the guy who, when the woman poured oil on Jesus to anoint him for burial in that house, he spoke up and he said, This could have been sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor. Ooh, sounds like he loves the poor.
He doesn't. It's insincere love. It's got wax in it. It's dripping with wax. Because John says, P.S., this guy didn't care for the poor.
He was a thief, and he wanted to take that money for himself. On another occasion, Judas Iscariot sees Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He has Roman soldiers in tow. He walks up to Jesus and kisses him. That's a sign of love.
Affection. That's insincere love. That love has wax in it. He was simply trying to identify Jesus to the soldiers who would take him away. Let love be without hypocrisy.
Sincere love. Real love. Not fake love, not phony, turn on a click smile, fake Christian love, the real deal. Because the real deal will heal people's hearts. Dr.
Paul Tournier, a physician, a Swiss doctor, said, I'm convinced nine out of every ten people seeing a psychiatrist don't need one. They need somebody who will love them with God's love. and they will get well. Demonstrate your personal liberty. Second aspect.
Second directive. Celebrate Your spiritual family. Look at the word in verse 22. See it with your own eyes as you look down at the word brethren. Brethren, brother.
Sister. It's a family word. We're in a spiritual family. And then in verse 23. having been born again.
These are family words. You're in a spiritual family because you've had a spiritual birth. The basis of our unity, the real basis of our love and unity. is our birth. Not our first birth, our second birth.
We're in the same family. We call on the same Heavenly Father. We trust in the same Savior. We all have the same Holy Spirit living inside of us. We all come to salvation exactly the same way by trusting in the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed for us.
There's an old saying in families: blood is thicker than what? Water. Simply put, You can mess up. You can fall down, you can fail, but if we're related by blood, We're going to get you through this, man, because we're family. Blood is thicker than water.
Well, Peter has already said that we have been redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, a lamb without blemish and without spot. Moody said, You can be a good doctor without loving your patients, you can be a great lawyer without loving your clients, but you cannot be a good Christian without love. Because we're part of a family and we recognize that. We're part of a family. The woman sitting next to you right now is your sister.
in Christ. Might be your wife, but it's your sister. The man sitting next to you is your brother in Christ.
Some of us have really messed up. But we're family. And we love each other in spite of the mess. That's real family love. There was a uh a psychiatrist who came home after a busy day.
He was tired, bone-tired, dragged himself into the front door and saw his wife, and he just put his head in his hands. He said, Sweetheart. I have heard. of one problem after another problem. After another problem all day long, I do not want to hear.
Any more problems.
So, whatever you have to say to me, give me good news. Don't tell me about another problem we're having in our family. She thought a moment and she said, Well, The good news is two of our three children didn't break an arm today. Yeah. That's one way to put it, right?
One did, but I won't tell you that. Two out of three did not. It could be that two out of three people sitting around you right now is okay. But please be sensitive to that one who is not. And your family.
So let's get through that.
So, demonstrate Personal liberty. Celebrate spiritual family. Third, where to radiate a mutual Loyalty. And that brings us to verse 22: the command that is written in the text, that which everything revolves around. In verse 22, love one another fervently with a pure heart.
Now, here's what I want you to notice. This is important. This is put Listen carefully in the imperative Mood. Which makes it a what? A command.
An imperative is a command. Peter is writing, I'm commanding you. To love each other fervently. No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Can you do that?
Can you imagine me going up to my girlfriend who would become my wife, Lenny, at one time, and saying, I command you, love me. You think that'll go over well? You think it would work? She would say, give me one good reason why I should. How do you command somebody to love?
How do you do that?
Now listen again. Here's why. Because there is a kind of love that does not depend on emotion. But it's an act of the will.
Something you choose to do. You don't necessarily feel to do it. I'm going to clear up this whole mess by simply saying this. There's two times the word love is used here. Same word, love, love.
But there's two different words in the Greek language.
So you'll notice in verse 22: since you've purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love. That word is Philadelphia. which means brotherly love, family love. In sincere love of the brethren, here's the second time. Love one another.
Different word, it's the word agape love. This is divine love, this is sacrificial love. Since you already love each other as brothers, now I'm commanding you. Love like God loves. Love with the sacrificial divine love.
Love fervently and with a pure heart. Yeah. We're so glad you joined us today on Connect with Skip Heidsek. Before you go, here's a reminder. As our thanks for your gift this month, we'll send you Skip's book, Biography of God, along with his six message C D series, Expound Galatians.
These two resources work together to help you understand God's character more deeply and experience the freedom that comes from the gospel of grace. Your support helps keep this Bible teaching ministry on the air, connecting more people with God's Word. Gift today at connectwithgift.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your March resources. We'll see you next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect the Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition. Make a connection!
Make a connection left or foot. Of the crossing. I can't solve the blood. Love in song. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of connection communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
