Living Out Faith Through Sincere Brotherly Love

1. "And I think that Peter is building on the concept of how good God is. Peter is addressing... The church, he's addressing believers. And he's saying, as we've seen throughout this book so far, he's saying, because God has been so good to you, because God is so good, you've seen this in your life, now let's live it out in a particularly powerful way. This has been a challenging week and also a week of praise in our church." [28:00] (34 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "We've been talking a lot about holy living over these last couple of passages. And one thing that God has prompted my heart with in looking at this text is that sometimes, and I've been guilty of this. And maybe that's why it resonates so much with me. Is that you get so focused on the holy living and getting everything lined up. Getting that quiet time lined up. Checking the boxes on the things that you need to be doing. Attending worship and Bible study and all those kind of things. That sometimes we get so weary in well doing that we forget that we're supposed to bring people along with us." [32:20] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "Love is a command not an option. It's not a choice it's a command if we're going to follow Christ then we must love we must exhibit this brotherly love love is an act of the will not just an emotion if you can recall back to when you first fell in love with your sweetie and you didn't even have to think about it You were thinking about them all the time and it was just, oh, it was just wonderful. And I'm not saying it's not wonderful now. I'm just saying when you're in that emotional state, it's just like, oh man, it's just, it's all ooey gooey and all that. It's great, right?" [44:15] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "Love flows from spiritual rebirth. Our ability to love others comes from our new life in Christ. We love because we have first been loved by God. John 13, 35 says, by this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. I've heard that testimony before. Those people at that church can't even get along. Why in the world would I want to have anything to do with that? The way that we love one another communicates quicker than anything else." [47:56] (34 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "Love must be earnest and pure. This is a statement I wrote, half-hearted or sincere love is not enough. We are called to love intentionally and from pure motives. The illustration I use here is that of the Pharisees. It's the contrast. As Jesus spoke to them in Luke chapter 11, but woe to you Pharisees, you tithe mint and rue and every herb and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others." [49:23] (31 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "Sometimes loving people is hard. So how do I show brotherly love when someone has hurt me? How do I show brotherly love when there's been those hurtful words, maybe even abuse that's happened in my life? How do I show brotherly love when I've been betrayed, when others are gossiping about me, when there's been a compromise in a relationship? How do I show brotherly love when I disagree with someone's position on a political issue or some sort of ideology or maybe a difference of opinion or maybe some doctrinal difference that we have?" [51:43] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "Ask God to reveal any ways contrary to his. That's my first step, is go to God and say, God, reveal me any way in my life, any thought pattern, any behavior that's in my life that is contrary to your plan for my life, contrary to your word. Reveal that to me, and God, I want to submit that to you. Psalm 51 is a great passage that comes from David as he had a moral failure and he repented. And Psalm 51 is basically his repentance coming to God. In chapter 51, verse 10, he says, create in me a clean heart, O God." [53:36] (48 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "Forgive, forgive, forgive. You've been hurt and you're just waiting for them to call them crawling back to you. Or on the other side, you say, I hope I never see that person ever again. I get it. I've been on both of those. It's not a good place to be. It's also not a good place to be. It's not biblical. The Bible tells me to forgive, even if they haven't asked me. So that's what I need to work on, is forgiving that person." [59:20] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)