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Thank you so much. Do keep your bibles with you. I do hope you have a Bible with you. We're going to look at a couple of places that we've just had read, so you might want to keep a finger in one john and one Peter. We are starting a new series today and it's based around these verses in one Peter that we've just heard read.

This week we're going to think about loving one another. Next week we will think about sharing hospitality. And then in two weeks time, we will come to think about using our gifts. But today we're going to think about God's love as we come to his words. We pray.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, our Lord. Amen. Amen. Well, the story is told of a preacher once who got up, walked into the pulpit with his Bible and opened the passage, said a prayer, held up his Bible and said to the people, it's like this. His sermon went like this.

Speaks for itself, doesn't it? Closed the Bible and then sat down. If ever there was a sermon where it speaks for itself, you might think it was one about love, wouldn't you? I'm sorry, that's not going to happen today. We will be here for a little while.

But we know all about love. At least we feel like we know all about love, don't we? You know, we hear about it in all of the songs, don't we?

I'm trying to think now, what the world needs now is love. You know, love. Love is all around me saying, wet, wet, wet. If you can remember that. I remember that.

Love is all around me. They don't explain what love is. We all know what love is. We know all about love, don't we? We can say love is love.

We know all about what that means, because we know. We know love, don't we? But then, come to think about it, do we actually know all that much about love? I mean, if we really were so good at love, if we really did understand what it was all about, why do we struggle with it so much? You know, why is it that we seem to wrestle with love in the world?

There seems to be so much hate. If we're really that good at love, why is there all this hate going on? We tend to think that just we're pro love and everyone else is pro hate, don't we? But, you know, you go on the other side and they think the same thing. We struggle with it.

You know, what really is this thing called love after all. Maybe we do need to think about what love really is. We do actually need to be taught what it is.

Peter here, in chapter four, verse eight, is writing to a persecuted church, a struggling church, and he's encouraging them. You need to be held together by love. You need to be held together by love, because love's going to cover a multitude of sins.

And what we're going to think about this morning is the what, the why and the how of love. The what, the why and the how. What actually is love? And if we struggle with knowing what it is always, what is it that Peter's talking about here? Why, you know, why should you bother loving?

What's actually the point of all of this? And finally, we'll think about how. How do we actually go about this? How do we go about this? Well, turn with me to one John, chapter three, because this is a just.

I couldn't. I could think of no better passage in the Bible to tell us, you know, what is love? There's so much here, but I really just want to think about the first verse we had read out, verse 16. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us. I mean, just pause there for a second.

By this, we know love not by anything else, not by other experiences, not by the feelings we have. You know, we know love by looking at Jesus. You know, that is the place. Here's the place. We find out what love is about.

He continues by this we know love. He laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers, brothers and sisters, our fellow christians. See, there are all sorts of different applications, aren't there, of the word love? You know, if you recorded everything you said in the day and you made a list of the things you applied love to, I suspect it will be quite, quite a broad range of things. You know, as I think about it, in a day, I might say to my kids, I love you.

Good night. I might say to my wife, I love you. I might pick up my guitar and say, I love you. Certainly after lunch, I will say, I love you to the pudding. I love cheesecake.

I hope. I hope that the love in all of these situations is different.

That should certainly be the case, shouldn't it? That I don't love my guitar and a piece of cheesecake in the same way that I love my children and my wife? That should be obvious. So which type of love are we talking about? This is precisely what John's getting at.

And this is what I'm going to tell you it's the love that Jesus displayed for us, the love we're to share with one another in church is the love that Jesus displayed for us.

And it's a. It's an amazing love, isn't it? When you think about that, what is Jesus love for us? It's a love that shows us, that shows you above himself. That's the essence of it, isn't it, Jesus, would you prefer your life or the lives of those you love?

He says, the lives of those I love. I prefer you to me. He laid his very life down for us. And John goes so far as to say, that's the standard, you know, that's what you're to do now with one another, with your brothers and sisters. We ought to lay down our lives for the brothers and sisters.

That's a massive call, isn't it? Even to go so far as to lay down our lives to one another. This is the love that we should be having for one another in the church.

And it means it may not always be as extreme, it may not always be as extreme as laying down our actual life like Jesus did, but it does mean preferring someone else's good, you know, working for their benefit, above your own benefit. That is what we're called to do. Jesus said this in a few ways, didn't he? He said, do to others as you would have them do to you, didn't he? That's a demonstration of how you love.

You do to others, should have them do to you. He said in John 13, this is probably what John's remembering when he writes this letter, that Jesus has said, as I have loved you, so you are to love one another. This laying down your life, preferring the benefit of others to your own benefit.

And we get a better handle of this, I think if we think about what the other type of love is, what other types would be, and I think the main type is love of delight. Let's call it love of delight. By this I mean love that stems from really enjoying the object. This is the kind of delight I have in a guitar or a cheesecake. I delight in it.

It pleases me, you know, it's got a lovely soft texture. I'm talking about the cheesecake now. Lovely sweet taste crumbles just right on the fork, you know, it's a lovely. I'm getting quite hungry now. It's a lovely thing.

It's a delightful thing. And of course I delight in it, you know. But this love of delight, as soon as it's not delightful anymore, I don't love it anymore. You know, the delight goes and the love goes. This is how much of what we call love works, doesn't it?

Now the problem comes, and it should be obvious when we apply this to people.

You know, Jesus didn't love us because he delighted in all that we were. We've heard in romans that when we were still far off, Christ died for us. Yeah, he sanctifies us and we become more delightful because he loves us. But that's not why he loves us in the first place. And if we love other people like that because they please us, it's not going to work, is it?

It's not going to work because there will be times when we don't please each other. And then what happens? The love goes.

Just think, if we had to be eternally delightful to our Lord to retain his love, that would be quite the pressure, wouldn't it? Eternally trying to be delightful to Jesus to have his love. Well, that's not how it works. And our loves to be like his, so it's not to work that way for us either. So the cool that, the what of what Peter's saying, the what is that we're to prefer the good of others to our own good.

Prefer the good of others to our own good. Well, let's turn back to one Peter, and we can think about the why.

Because the why is really important. Peter has it right in this verse, doesn't he? If we read again, one Peter, four, eight. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly. Why?

Since love covers a multitude of sins, since love covers a multitude of sins, this is the why. Why? Because love holds the community together. Peter wants the church to be united. How does that work?

It works because our love that prefers others to ourselves overlooks sins. It covers over sins.

Now, by the time we get to one Peter, chapter four, there's obviously been quite a lot of letter already. If you want to think more about one Peter, there are sermons online. We've had this sermon series in Cornerstone, so you can look those up. But let me just draw some things out of one Peter, because if you look with me right at the beginning of the letter, chapter one, verse one, you should flick your page one back or scroll your screen a little bit higher, whatever it is. Peter writes, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles.

Right? He's writing to the church and he's saying, I'm writing to those whom God has chosen to be his people. And this right at the beginning indicates who he's talking about. He's talking about those whom God has chosen. In chapter two, he elaborates on this, where he says being God's chosen call to be in his church means that you are living stones.

You know, you're called to be a living temple, the place that God himself is building up to dwell his bride. He's going to make you a kingdom of priests so that everyone in this room is a priest serving the world in the name of Christ. So Peter has been talking about this high calling, and in chapter one, verse 22, he talks about having purified your souls by obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love. Love one another earnestly from a pure heart. You know, Peter's talking about all that we are in Christ, and so we should sort of grow into that, you know, being purified.

In chapter two, verse one, he speaks more about what this purification means. So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. If you do have that verse up, chapter two, verse one, you see that they're all community destroying sins, aren't they? Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander. They're all things that get in the way of our relationships with one another, aren't they?

You know, cause division in the church. And these things are not to be because of who we've been called to be in Christ.

And as Peter writes to, he's writing this, remember, to a persecuted church, a church that is struggling. And he knows that there are all sorts of stresses and tensions. You can imagine someone's saying, should we meet in your house today for church? And they think, oh, I don't know. I don't really want to get arrested.

Let's meet in your house. Oh, I can't believe she didn't let us meet in her house this week. You can imagine people haven't changed. These are the sorts of questions you can imagine going on. And of course that causes strain, doesn't it?

Causes strain. Love's going to cover over those. Remember, says Peter, who we are in Christ, purified people living stones being built into his temple, and that love covers over sins. We should say at this point that what Peter is not saying when he says love covers over a multitude of sins, he's not saying, let's be involved in cover ups. Let's avoid any sort of issues.

Don't worry about safeguarding, because love covers every multitude of sins. That's not what Peter's saying at all. Jesus himself tells us, doesn't he, when there's an issue that needs dealing with. Go to the person and speak to them. If they don't listen, you take a second and if they don't listen, you take the elders of the church.

So it's really important to deal with stuff Peter's not saying. Let's ignore stuff he's not saying love covers over sin so that, you know, God didn't really need to send his son at all. He may as well have just covered it over with love. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about those issues that cause division in the body of Christ, those things that niggle us, that start to break down our unity.

And so he's saying by love covering over this, stop this at the sea, don't allow this to grow, you know, let's forgive one another. Well, if we've got the why, the what and the why, then let's think about the how. Because this is not always easy, is it? It's not always easy to love, love others. If it was easy, Peter wouldn't have written a command, would he?

Just think about that for a second. You don't write a command to something to tell somebody to do something they find really, really easy. Now I have to tell my children, tidy your room, I don't have to tell them, mess up your room. They do that perfectly fine on their own. You know, Peter tells the church love each other deeply because we find that hard.

That's why we've got a command for it, so we should be encouraged. This has always been a struggle for God's people. That's why it's here.

And I think part of the tension Peter's dealing with is between the vision and the reality, let's put it that way, between the vision and the reality. He's just given this picture of what it means to be God's church, his elect, people purified to be a temple of Christ in whom he dwells. Kingdom of priests representing God to the world. Amazing picture, amazing picture.

But I wonder, I don't know about you, but I wonder whether you walked into church this morning and thought, wonderful, I love being amongst God's living stones. This is really a kingdom of priests. I actually feel I'm walking in the courtrooms of heaven itself. Maybe you did, maybe you did, but I doubt we feel like that every week. You know, maybe you thought, oh, it's him preaching again.

Maybe you thought, it's wet outside, I'm going to sit on a wet coat. Maybe you thought, is my lunch going to be burnt? I don't know. There could be any number of things going through our mind and there's a certain tension, isn't there, between this reality that the scriptures say you've been called to be this amazing thing, the temples of the Holy Spirit, kingdom of priests. And then there's the reality of the church.

You had to come and I was here and that's attention. Peter knows that. Peter knows that. He knows that. There are just basic frustrations.

There are all sorts of types of people in church, aren't there? Here are some characters we might meet in church. I'm not talking about anybody here, I'm just going in alphabetical order. But you know, we know these characters. You might know an Anne who frankly needs to learn a little bit about hygiene.

Bill never knows when a conversation is supposed to be over. Catherine frustrates you because she worries about mundane things all the time. Doug doesn't get on with Eve. Fred doesn't speak to his wife very nicely. Gareth, a teenager that just knows how to say the wrong thing at every time.

Hillary grumbling about everything. Irene loves stamps and just assumes everyone wants to hear about them all the time. So on and so on. These. This is the reality, isn't it?

Real people, we're here and this is what we're like. So it's not always easy. It's not always easy. So we have to love deeply, earnestly loving at full stretch, you could put the word, you know, it's like love sort of pulled to its extreme breadth and depth. Love deeply, but also love long.

And so to all those people here who do love God's people, who do love God's people deeply, with the love of Christ, the message to you is persevere. Persevere. Continue loving it full stretch. Continue drawing on Christ to love people, to overlook those things they've done to you, that we might grow into what we've been called to be.

But others of us might find this really hard and we think, I don't know how to do this. How do we actually grow in love for one another?

The message is not go home and make a big list of things that you can beat yourself up to. Try harder next time. It's not going to work. It's not going to work. You have to remember who we are in Christ.

Remember what Christ has done for us. You see, because Christ has loved us deeply, hasnt he done more than cover over our sins? Hes actually dealt with them. Thats who we are, were forgiven sinners. And so its only when we realise that were forgiven sinners.

That we can overlook other sins isnt it tends to be when we think a bit much of ourselves we think we are quite delightful, that we then struggle with others. We need to pray to God for this. I once knew a very godly lady who came to her car one day and some teenagers had smashed open the window of one of her car.

She got a bit annoyed of course, straight away, but then her response, she said to me, I just prayed to the Lord, I don't love these teenagers. Lord, would you help me to love them? A few months later she's down, down in the youth group, like hanging out with teenagers. The Lord had given her a heart for them. You know, it can only come from God knowing that we've been forgiven.

I want to tell you a story about a fictitious lady called sue. This lady as a flower arranger, and she'd done flower arranging at this point in the story for 20 years in church. When she began flower arranging she was, you know, answering, I need, can you please do the flowers? And she had a gift in it, so she started to do it at the end of the first year she had done the flowers, made them look lovely and the church meeting came to give thanks for everybody and, you know, everybody was thanked and then it finished and no one had said, no one had said anything about her flowers. Okay.

She thought, well, won't worry about that. The next year came, so maybe this year I'll be remembered. This year, no, overlooked again. Third year, same story. 4th, 5th year.

It's quite hard now, isn't it, not to be hurt? It's hurtful, isn't it, to be overlooked in doing things for that length of time. Well, now 20 years have passed and of course after 20 years of not being acknowledged, that's quite, quite a bit of grief, isn't it, to hold on to where people have not noticed this service. While this lady sue was carrying out the. I don't know what you carry out, I don't know, I don't know much about flowers, I'm sorry, the flour rubbish that you put in the bin.

She walked to the bin and put it in this, this bin and she saw a lady there, Maureen, who she didn't know that well, but she sort of knew by sight and she said, oh, Maureen, what are you doing by the bin? Maureen said, oh, I take out the, I take out all the rubbish and the flowers and them. And the gardeners said, oh, I didn't know you did that. I thought the bin men picked up the bin. How long have you been doing this for.

Maurie said, oh, I've been doing this for 40 years. So if I didn't do this, you would have to go all the way to the tip with your rubbish. Of course, sue was thinking, I'm upset about 20 years and I didn't even know that she'd been doing this for 40 years. How on earth, Maureen, do you do this? How do you not get upset and frustrated that people overlook this act of service?

She said, well, I did used to get frustrated by it. It's hurtful. But she said, I remember that I was reading Philippians and I. And Christ was humble. He humiliated himself to come down from heaven.

He's the one that deserved all the glory, not just praise for the service that we as people do, but he deserved all the glory of heaven. And he gave that up for my sake. He was willing to become a servant, to wash people's feet, to live in a backwater galilean village, even to give up his life, give up himself in the prime of his life for me, he did that. All of that glory he's given up for me. Do you know when I remember that, says, Maureen, I can forgive people for overlooking my service.

It is hurtful, it is a wrong to be overlooked. But when I remember Christ, I can draw the strength to forgive. Brothers and sisters, this is how we are to love one another. We are to remember what Christ has done for us, that we are forgiven people. And as we do that, we get that love that he has for us and we share it with others and it covers a multitude sins.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for sending your son Jesus.

We're sorry that he had to come for us, but we thank you that he was willing to be humble, that he was willing to forego the glory of heaven for our sake. Pray that as we seek to follow his example, you would empower us by your spirit to love one another deeply, deep and wide. Love one another from the bottom of our hearts at full stretch that we might be able to forgive one another and be the united community you would have us be. In Jesus name. And for his glory, we pray.

Amen.