Loving Deeply

How can you become the kind of person who's character deepens during hardship?

“The Apostle Peter tells us it's a supernatural work of God that reshapes the heart.”

Today Tim Keller shows us how only a reborn, renewed heart can love others well and face suffering with hope, courage and joy. Tonight we celebrate the Lord's supper, so we try to concentrate our teaching time, try to make a little bit shorter, and also try to focus on just one subject, one idea. I love the Lord's supper evenings, I only do it once a month.

What I like about it, of course, is if I like the time to process the truth, I like to be able to take the truth that I'm hearing, and by the way, I hear it too, it might be surprised that that very often the sermon I wrote in the sermon that happens, they're not at all the same, and sometimes I sit down and I say, "Hmm, that is true." I wish I'd thought of it.

“And when you do that, you need time to process it, so tonight I'm going to give you”

some truth.

Out of first Peter, we've been going through the book all year, all fall, that we can take

and process in God's presence when we go to the table. Now, we've been going through the book of First Peter, and we're going to read the same passage we read last week, and it's printed in your bulletin. It's first Peter chapter 1 verses 22 to chapter 2 verse 3, "Read along with me if you can." Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth, so that you have sincere love

for your brothers, love one another deeply from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and enduring Word of God. For all men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field, the grass withers, and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.

And this is the word that was preached to you. Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind, like newborn babes, crave pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up into your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. This is God's Word.

And I would began to look at this passage last week. This is a sandwich passage, because on the one hand, it starts off by saying, having purified yourselves by obeying the truth, and an end saying, like newborn babes, grow up into your salvation, it's actually trying to say what's in the very center chapter 2 verse 1 and 2. It's an exhortation to love one another.

Peter is writing to Christians, and he's saying, "Love one another." But he starts by saying, having purified yourself by obedience to the truth, having been born again, and then he says, "Love one another." Because you've been born again, because you're growing, because you're growing in supernatural maturity, because you're having your very insides purified by connecting with the truth and

bringing it into your heart, "Love one another." In fact, as soon as he says, "Love one another," read yourselves of all malice and to see hypocrisy in the end, slander of every kind, and then he goes back and starts talking again about Christian growth. He says, "Like newborn babes, crave the pure spiritual milk and so on."

Now, what does he say? I would like to just take this one point. There's actually a tremendous amount of material that he gives us here about the dynamics for Christian growth. How do you grow on holiness? How can you grow in supernatural maturity? How can you move from where you are right now in a practical way to being more and more like Christ? How can you have your character honed by him? Well, it's all here, but tonight, I'm just going to show you one part of Christian

growth, one essential sign of Christian growth, one necessary measure of Christian growth. Love one

another deeply. I'd like to point out two basic principles and then two practical principles that are all here in the text. Two basic principles about this. Love one another deeply and two practical principles. First, the two basic principles. Number one, we learn here that loving

“other Christians as if they were family. That's what it's saying. It says, "Love one other deeply,”

love from the heart." You see, it says, "You have purified yourself by the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers." Loving other Christians as if they're members of your family

just say, "Love one another." He says, "You will not be able to do it unless you're born again

“and even so you won't be able to do it unless you're growing rapidly." Why else would he do this?”

Why doesn't he just come right out and say, "What he's really trying to say? Read yourselves of all malice and deceit." You know, "Love one another deeply." He can't say it. He says, "Because you're purifying yourself because you're obeying the truth, because you're seeing yourself grow in grace, because you've been born again of the imperishable seed because you have

the supernatural power in you and because you're growing rapidly." Love one another. The first

principle is this. It is an illusion to think that you can just hold up the Christian ethic of love to the world, you know, the sermon on the mount, the golden rule, turn the other cheek, just hold it up and the world will be a better place. My friends, the Christian ethic of love is something that you are utterly incapable of doing. When the Bible says love one another as brothers and sisters, when the Bible says love one another as Christ has loved you, it is asking you for

something that's so radical and so deep and so difficult and so far reaching that you not only have to be born again from above to do it, but even that's not enough. You've got to be growing up into that salvation or you're no way you can do it. So, you know, put it this way. Loving other people, loving Christians as brothers and sisters is such a deep and total thing in such a

“difficult thing that you have to be born again by the spirit and growing rapidly or you're not”

going to be capable of it. And it's so silly for therefore for people to think what preaching is or what the church's job is is just to sort of tell people to love one another. I've heard this many times. I've heard it directly and indirectly. The church's job is not to preach to people and tell them to believe this or that, not to tell people to get converted and so on. The church's job is just to call the world to love and to follow the teachings, follow the model and the

examples of Jesus Christ. Now, there's nothing wrong with doing that. And the more people here about Jesus, a model of relationships, the better. But don't you see what's going on here? We are absolutely incapable of loving as Jesus loved us. Not only are people who do not are not born again by imperishable seed incapable of it but even those of us who born of imperishable seed aren't capable of it unless we're in a rapid growth pattern. Let me put it this way. When people

persecute you, when people violate you, when they abuse you, what do you do? Well, let me give you three possibilities and pretty much the only three. One is, you can go get them and hate them. You know, you can seek justice, you can seek to have the wrong redress, you know, you go after them and you do it with a vengeful spirit in your heart. Wanting to see them get their come up and wanting to see them fall. That's the first possibility. The second possibility

is that you don't go after them. You just sort of, you stuff it. You clam up. You don't do it. You don't go after. You don't do anything about it. But you sit and stew when you hate them. So, one view, you know, part, option one, don't get them and hate them. Option two. Don't go get them and hate them. And then there's option three. Go get them and love them. Redress the wrong. Go after justice. Make sure the justice is done and do it without one

ounce of vengefulness in your heart. And with nothing but desire to see the person's come to repentance and understand the truth and nothing but love in your heart. Which of those three do you think is the easiest? Listen friends, if you leave anybody to tradition to common sense

or their own impulses, they will either, they will always go. Number one or number two.

You conflict lovers. Go after number one. Go get them and hate them. You conflict haters and avoiders. You stuff it down and you, you know, you don't get them and you hate them. But the Christian ethic is utterly counterintuitive. It is utterly the opposite of anything that you would ever even have thought of. It's against common sense, it's against your impulses, against tradition. People don't believe it's possible. When people come to me

to say, "What does the Bible teach?" I should do when I'm persecuted. I say it's simple. You want to not go get them and hate them. The Bible says reverse that. You've got to go get them and love them. And what do people say? Impossible. That's ridiculous, they say. Of course,

“that's what the Bible says you're supposed to do. That's what turn the other cheek means.”

You say, turn the other cheek does not mean that you let people walk all over you. Absolutely, not called it. He appealed to Caesar. Jesus didn't. He protested. When he was struck,

"Hey, this is illegal," he said. The Bible always says, "You uphold justice for the sake

of justice, but you let God be the judge. You give over the ultimate judgment of that person's

And somebody says, "How in the world can we have to be done?" It's impossible. That's my first point. It's the first principle. The first principle is, it's impossible to do this. You've not only got to be born again from above, you've got to be growing like crazy. The call to love your brothers and sisters to love one another as Christ has loved you. It's so hard. It's so silly to think all we have to do is hold up the ethic of love. Love your

“neighbor to the world and it'll become a better place. You must be born again. The life of God is”

gotta be running through you like lightning. You never do it otherwise. This is probably the reason why

in 1 John chapter 2 verse 7 and 8 people have always wondered why John says this. He says, "Children, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment, you had from the beginning." Again, a new commandment I write to you. He who's in the light and yet hates his brother is in darkness. Now, people have always wondered why it is the John says, "I'm writing a new commandment to you." And then he's an old commandment. It's not a new one. It's something you've always known. And then

the very next sentence he says, "I'm writing a new commandment to you. Love one another." People have always wondered what he was saying. And the real answer probably is that in a sense, everybody knows we're supposed to love. There's every religion, every sacred book in the world says, "Love one another." And so there's a certain sense in which it's old, but when you become a Christian, real love becomes a new possibility. There's a real possibility now, but only with supernatural

help. So the first principle is, "It's impossible to love." That's the reason why he has to

keep saying, "Unless you're purifying yourself, unless you're growing, unless you're craving, spiritual note by like newborn babes, they can't do it." The first, second principle. It almost seems like the reverse, but the second principle is, on the one hand, this loving spirit is only possible with the new birth and with supernatural growth. But on the other hand, it's absolutely necessary to prove that you really are a Christian. See, on the one hand, where I'm saying this spirit of love

is only possible with spiritual growth, but on the other hand, it's inevitable with spiritual growth. As hard as it is, it's inevitable, and, therefore, it is maybe the acid test to tell whether or not you really understand the gospel. In the book of first John, which already quoted from which I've already

“quoted, John tells us that if you want to know your a Christian, there's three tests. There's a doctrinal”

test. There's a moral test, and there's a social test. The doctrinal test is you have to believe that Jesus is the one who he said he was, that he's the son of God and he came and he have to believe in the doctrines of the message of Jesus. Then secondly, you have to show that you have committed yourself to him by leading a godly life, but then thirdly it says, as I already read to you, he that says he's in the light and yet hated his brother is in the

darkness. Now, right here it says, in verse 22, "Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers." Now, there's a cause effect chain there. Obang the truth, it says, "Now that you purified by obedience unto love, you see what the chain is, obedience and taking the gospel into your heart, purifies your soul unto the love of brothers and sisters." So, the point is, here's how you know, you've pressed the gospel. Here's how

you know, you've purified your heart with the gospel. You love other Christians without deceit,

“without hypocrisy, without envy, without slander, of any kind. That's how you know. You see,”

let me put it a couple of ways. It's possible. The reason love is the asset test of whether or not you really believe the gospel is it's very possible to have both doctrinal purity and moral scrupulousity for other motivations and out of other forces besides the gospel. It's quite possible. You see, to be a moral out of tradition, out of nostalgia, out of loyalty to your family, out of temperament, out of you know, fastedious of conscience. There's all kinds of ways in which

you could look at a person who's very moral. And a person could say, "Well, that proves that person's a Christian, that person really understands the message of Christianity." And what Peter saying here and what the Bible says is, "No, a loving spirit is a far better asset test of whether you understand the gospel than moral scrupulousity." Put it another way. If you are a demanding

person, if you are a critical person, if you are a cold person, if you are a distant person,

if you're not a very approachable person, you better look hard to see whether or not you've

You see, it's very, very possible to be in deep denial about the gospel. How do you know that you

“really believe your center-save by grace? How do you know that? If you don't believe it, if you believe”

that you're saved by your performance, if you believe that you're saved by your good deeds, if you may say theologically on the test, you may say, "I know I'm saved by grace, not by works." I understand all that. I've gone to redeem, I've listened to these sermons, I know what justification by faith is, that I'm saved and accepted, not by my works, not by my performance, but only by sheer mercy of God and by what Jesus did on the cross. You may,

tonight, you may say, "I know that." If I give you a test, you might say, "I know that," and yet

you still may be in denial. You still may actually be a person who believes you're basically

saved by your performance and your good works. Well, how can I know that? It's simple. If you are in that position, you will break down into one of two kinds of patterns. The first one is you will

“either be, you will either be smug in self-assured, demanding, cold, imperious, and a critical”

person. Wondering why it is that other people can't be as faithful as you. When you see Christians, the Christian brothers and sisters being stupid, being foolish, doing the wrong thing, hurting you or hurting other people, you absolutely reject them. You're cold to them. Or, on the other hand, if you don't believe you're sinner saved by grace instead of being sort of cold and imperious and smug and demanding, you can become defensive and nervous and insecure and easily slighted.

In either case, you're not relentlessly forgiving, relentlessly warm, relentlessly open, relentlessly approachable, relentlessly gracious, relentlessly vulnerable. And that's the only way you know you're really a sinner saved by grace. Why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? And how do we handle it in a way that won't destroy us? But could actually make a stronger, wiser and more hopeful? All month long on gospel and life, Tim Keller is teaching from the book

of First Peter and looking at how Peter encouraged early believers who were facing intense suffering

in pain. In his book Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering, Dr. Keller takes a deeper look at how with God's help, we can face life's most intense challenges and confront the hard questions on suffering. Through deep pastoral insight and real life stories, Dr. Keller explores how we can face pain and suffering in our own lives. This month, Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering is our thank you for your gift to help gospel and life share the message of Christ's love

and compassion with people all over the world. So, request your copy today at gospelandlife.com/give. That's gospelandlife.com/give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Don't you see, are you? Do you find yourself forgiving? Do you find yourself being positive to people who are criticizing you? Do you find yourself being able to affirm people even as they're harming you? Do you find yourself being able to continue to pull for the success of people who have

wronged you and harmed you? Do you find yourself being gracious, open and vulnerable in your dealings with people and in your manner and in your face and your tone of voice and in your comments of the people who want to come and tell you about their problems? Or are you pivish? Are

“you touchy? Are you sensitive to criticism? Are you always feeling that people are sliding you?”

Are you cold? Are you smugger? Are you self-right? Just my friends? This is the way you know that you believe the gospel. Having purified your soul by obedience to the truth unto love of other Christians as brothers and sisters. Loving them without malice or all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander of any kind. This is such a searching test. This is the test. All I'm not saying doctrine is an important. You can't be Christian unless you believe in the basic doctrines and I'm not saying that

morality is an important because you can't be a Christian unless as we talked about we spent three or four weeks on this last month. Holiness unless you're living life a holiness. But your doctrinal purity and your life of moral festivities and accuracy might have non-gospital roots. So what is the acid test? Do you love one another? You know here's why take a look at the gospel. The gospel's got two parts. It's got the part that says

you're a sinner and it's got the part that says you're loved and accepted. Don't just see how that changes you see do you believe you're a sinner? Then no matter how magic it with people. You know

You know that you're limited. Your perspective is limited. You remember what a fool you were five years ago and ten years ago how many mistakes you made. You know that's because you're a sinner and you know that figure you say well if I was a full ten years ago. For my vantage point now I means the ten years from now I'll think of myself as a full now. I better be careful about what I

“say. I better not be so sure about that this person is wrong. You believe you're a sinner?”

Well you're very careful not to write people off not to be sure that you can nurse grudges not to be sure that you're right and the other people are wrong. Do you believe you're a sinner? Not only that you realize you see anybody who believes the gospel knows that the difference between a very respectful person and a street drug pusher is really a small difference. We've talked about this before. We're all sinners. We all fall short of the glory of God. We're all lost.

Do you believe that? Then that changes utterly. You're a attitude toward people.

You never can look down on anybody. You never can be sure that you're always right in the other

people are wrong. Don't you see that that's the reason why there's always this forgiveness and there's this sincerity and this openness and this lack of deceit and this lack of slander and gossip and backbiting. It's gotta be there. Do you believe you're a sinner? Well you can't live that way. But then as the other half of the gospel do you believe you're loved? Do you believe you're accepted? Do you believe you've been forgiven infinitely? It's obvious. First honest is this to love your

“Christian sister or brother is a more telling test than orthodoxy. So of course you must have the truth”

to be born again and it's a more telling test than mechanical correctness though of course you've got

a little holy life. There are people like the rich and ruler who've always been moral. All these things

I have done since my youth but he has a love less person. Are you to test? See the second principle is you've got to see this kind of spirit of love growing in you. You've got to see it. Otherwise there's no real evidence that you understand the gospel. You just may be a Pharisee. This Pharisees are either very proud or they're very, very inferior. They either have superiority complexes or inferiority complex or they're either cold and imperious or they're nervous and defensive but in each case you can't

love. In each case you can't open. Examine yourselves. Now there's two practical principles we need to apply before we were done. We said number one that this kind of love is absolutely impossible without God's help and a lot of help. You've got to be in a growth pattern and secondly we said this kind of love is absolutely necessary. It's an outgrowth of believing the gospel and it's absolutely

“necessary as a test. All right then somebody says okay it's important and I do it how do I do it.”

There's actually two guidelines here by which you can judge yourself and also by which you can guide yourself and the two tests are number one, verse 22. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brethren. Love one another deeply. Just look at those two, those two words. Christian love is sincere love and Christian love is deep love. Let me just tell you what that is. To give you something to think about as you go before the Lord.

Sincere love means Christian love is always truthful. Christian love is never just tolerance.

This is a very dangerous move in our society that equates love with tolerance. So if you love me you cannot tell me I'm sinning. If you love me you cannot make any kind of negative comments about the what I'm doing. That's not tolerance but boy I'll tell you something. If that's how you define love that's that will fly absolutely in the face of not only the Bible but really common sense. If you see somebody killing him or herself through some kind of behavior through the way

he or she is working or the way he and she is eating or something like that. For you to say this is wrong you're killing yourself. You've got to stop eating like this. You've got to stop living like this. He's not a lack of love of course not. Love has got to be sincere. It's got to be sincere. And there's a tension here. Tremendous tension between truth and love. A tremendous tension. And many times you feel it. I love this person and I should tell him the truth but if I tell

her the truth it's going to hurt her. What do you do? Well just keep this in mind and then move on to deep love but for a moment. Sincere love not just sincere but sincere love not just love but sincere love means on the one hand we better not be cowards. Oh how many times have you chickened out and not said something truthful to somebody you love and you know what you always tell yourself. You know where your cowardice lies in a certain kind of deception you say I couldn't do

You have to realize that it's terribly selfish in many cases for you to not tell somebody the truth

because you're saying a little hurt her so much. What you mean is you're not going to be able to handle. You don't want to have her complaining. You don't want to have her saying that you're being judgemental. You're thinking of you. You're not thinking of her. You're thinking of you. Being a coward. We can't take the flag. We can't take the guilt that will come from the person saying why do you make me why did you say this? Very often when we unmask our cowardice

as a form of selfishness not kindness and not love it helps but on the other hand I said it's not sincere it's love it's not just love it's sincere love. On the other hand the motivation for telling

“people the truth is always their need they need the truth and therefore if you tell somebody the”

truth and you don't tell them in a way you don't tell them at a time you don't tell them in a context

you don't tell them in a form that they can hear you just tell them well I told them the truth that's not sincere love that's just sincere that's not what we're talking about you see on the one hand watch out are you a coward is that the reason why your love isn't sincere are there people who you should be loving by telling the truth and you're not doing it and you're just ifying it by saying oh well that'll hurt the person when actually what you're really saying is

it'll hurt me but on the other hand are you willing to make sure that the person hears the truth in the right way you know when you wash a kitchen floor one way you'll see all the dirt on the floor one way to deal with the dirt is just that you pick up the bucket with all the soap in it and the water and just throw it on the floor that's the way the whole bucket that'll move the dirt around and then it'll make quite a mess it'll move the dirt around but in the end it'll be even worse because

the dirt will be kind of you know washed over in the corner and so on the way to get the floor clean is to bring the water out onto the floor in stages then bring it back in and you know rinse it out and then bring it back in and eventually you might use the entire bucket and that's the way to deal

“with the with the dirt that's how you're supposed to tell people the truth in a way in a form”

in a context at a time that they can hear it because you tell them the truth out of love because they need it and you don't tell them the truth in a way that they don't even get it since ser love have you got a love that's sincere in your relationships but then secondly deep love this word deep it says now that you purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have some ser love for your brother and love one other deeply from the heart love one other deeply

this word deep is an awfully interesting Greek word the more I started I realized what it really means is to be stretched to the limit it's actually a distance running word it's used to describe Jesus in the garden you know just about at the end of his tether and the word to to love one of the deeply really means to love one another strenuously and what does that mean it's very much like running one of the weird things about physical exercise is that the more you do it in general

“the more strength you feel but in the short run you feel like you want to die I mean that's what”

exercise is all about it's so odd that the very thing that gives you overall more energy and more strength and more power in the long run in the short run drains you same thing with love you know the ironic thing is if you don't exercise you actually if you don't drain yourself through exercise the lack of exercise will drain you if you've ever been in bed recuperating from a sickness you had to be in bed for an entire week is that ever happened and you get up and you haven't even

been moving around and you can't believe how weak you are is so ironic only by draining yourself through exercise are you not drained during the rest of your life and if you don't drain yourself through exercise you are drained it very odd love is the same way love is strenuous Christian love doesn't give up on people it's very much like running a race you stick with it you want to give up one

more lab you don't give up on people Paul says love never gives up there's a difference between the

way Christians relate to each other are there Christians that you've given up on oh look oh look I know at a certain point you're telling somebody the truth and they won't hear it then you have to back off in that sense I understand that sometimes people are draining you and you've got to conserve yourself just like a forest you know you can't just cut all the trees down you got to cut enough trees down you got to plant enough trees for the forest continues to give out wood in the

same way you can't just let somebody cut your entire forest down you can't let somebody drain

have to pull back absolutely but in the long run you do not give up on you know right anybody off

“you don't say to another Christian brother or sister forget you you have to love”

strenuously have to stick with it you have to keep up on the race strenuous or another aspect of course as it says you're supposed to put away all malice and slander you know what that means you means you have to forgive there's nothing more strenuous than forgiving if somebody if I give you my radio and you break it and I say I forgive you what have I done I have

absorbed the cost I don't make you pay I pay and if somebody wrongs you and you say I forgive you

know what that means you can either exact the price out of that person you can be cold of that person you can avoid that person you know when she's coming down this aisle you go back out that aisle you can root for that person to lose to fail to get come up and you can stick little pins in the person in your own heart that's exacting the price that's making her pay for the radio or you can say I forgive you which means you absorb the cost you pull for that person you're

cordial to that person you refuse to replay the tapes of what she did to you in your heart that

strenuous you absorb the cost that's strenuous and I tell you something there's people here saying that's too hard for me while it's just like exercise if you don't exercise if you will lay in bed because you say oh it's too much effort the less you do the less you'll be able to do the less you exercise the less you'll be able to exercise the less you love the less you'll be able to love the more you go all the way the more you keep with people and you stick with people

and you love people and you forgive people and the more strenuous you are in your love the more

“power you're going to have in your life is your lesson sir is your love deep are you a kind of”

truth telling person you know there's sincerity there's no depth or are you a very feeling person but there's no truth we're going to the Lord's table Jesus says if you've got something against your brother's sister leave leave your gift at the altar and make it right but I think that's got to mean is if you know you've given up on people if you know you're not loving your Christian brother sister deeply if you know you're not loving them strenemously you're not forgiving you're giving up on them you're avoiding them

look at the gospel and you'll be able to forgive pure fire soul through taking them the truth and you'll be able to do it tonight and don't take the cup and take the bread unless you're

“willing to do that mark chapter 11 I think it says if you stand praying and you find that you have”

anything against anyone forgiving it's strenuous but the power will come the more you do it the more you can do it let's pray father we pray that it redeemer we will be characterized by both sincere and deep love and we pray that you'll help us to make strides toward that tonight as you purify us unto the love of our brothers and sisters as we take your truth in as we meet you over the table we pray this and Jesus name amen thanks for listening to today's teaching it's our prayer that you

were encouraged by it and that it helps you apply the gospel to your life and share it with others for more helpful resources from Tim Keller visit gospelandlife.com there you can subscribe to the life in the gospel quarterly journal when you do you will also receive free article sermons devotionals and other great gospel-centered resources again it's all at gospelandlife.com you can also stay connected with us on facebook instagram youtube and ex today sermon was recorded in 1993 the sermon's

in talks you hear on the gospel and life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 will Dr. Keller was seen your pastor at redeemer Presbyterian Church