As brother barn comes to give a public reading of the Word of God first Peter chapter 1 verses 22 through 25. There's a mic right there, brother You got them all over the place. All right Amen this is the Word of God Please receive it as such Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart. For you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. For all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord endures forever. This is the word which was preached to you. Father, I'm so grateful for your word. I'm grateful, God, for the miracle of inspiration, where you moved on 40 writers over a 1,500-year time frame, and they wrote 66 books. And Lord, we have those books, and we have reliable and trustworthy copies of those books. And I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for the miracles and the acts of providence that you caused that preserved the word of God for us through the ages, through famine and war and pestilence and nations being dissolved and raised up and the turmoil of refugees and all of these things, God, you preserved your word so that we would have a reliable and trustworthy copy in the English language today, and we're grateful for that. And I pray, God, that we will honor the word and the effort that you put forth to give it and to preserve it by reading it and studying it and learning what it means and learning what it says and applying that truth to our lives and our daily lives. And God, I pray, God, you give me unction and anointing this morning as I preach and herald this message. I pray that those who have gathered here and those that are watching by means of the internet, and those who will watch this at some later time, that you give them eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to believe. I pray that your grace will defeat all unbelief, all disbelief, and that you will get yourself a people who are zealous for good works. In Jesus' holy name we pray, amen. You may be seated. To the glory of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, amen. Now, I felt led, as is my habit, to begin this new year with a particular topic, and then take a small vacation from our verse-by-verse journey through Matthew. And so this was the topic that I wanted to go over in the beginning of 2025, and that's delighting in God together as a church. And there's a lot of the one another verses and passages in the Bible. But as I studied this, I began to realize that all of the one another verses in the Bible are simply different ways of understanding how we are to love one another. God basically tells you how to love God and how to love each other in the Ten Commandments. And if you love God, you'll do these things, and you won't do those things. And if you love each other, you'll do these things, and you won't do these other things. And that's where, you know, is that God is a God of love, that he is love, and that everything he does is based in love. And so we are not only to love our God, we are to love each other. And so at the back of this sermon this morning, I've got all of the verses in the Bible, the one and other verses for you to look at, which after this sermon, I pray that you understand is simply different ways of loving each other. And so loving each other is the main thing, and it will cause all the other things to come about. But then what causes our love for God? What causes our love for each other? And that's what I wanna talk about today, that we are to love one another fervently because of the new birth. And that's what Peter is talking about here in this passage that our brother read. So one of the interesting things about this life is that there is usually a cause, that creates something, and then there is the result that springs forth from the cause. In other words, things don't just spring up out of the ground on their own. They have a cause that creates them. And almost everything in this life works like that, even spiritual things. For example, I want you to look at what God spoke to the prophet about the new birth in the new covenant in Ezekiel 36, 24 through 27. where the Bible says this, for I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. Now please look again at verse 27. I will put my spirit within you, God says, and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. So being careful to observe God's ordinances is the result of God causing us, putting his spirit within us and causing us to walk in his statutes. Now this is God speaking to Ezekiel using Old Testament language about the new covenant and specifically about his own sovereignty in the miracle of the new birth. And the Lord said here that he will sovereignly cause his people to walk in his statutes. So just how does God cause us to walk in his statutes? By sovereignly and radically transforming our nature in the new birth. You see, the new birth is a sovereign act of God to undeserving sinners. And it is sovereign in that God must change us all by himself. So the new birth is when God gives spiritually dead people new spiritual life. And he opens our eyes, unstops our ears, and takes out of us a stony hard heart and replaces it with a heart that is both willing and able to believe and to love God and to obey God. But by definition, God has to do all of this sovereignly or all by himself because we are both unable and unwilling in the spiritual deadness of our souls. So if you're teaching that the new birth is the result of you walking down an aisle or praying a prayer or shaking the preacher's hand or writing on a card or raising your hand or some other act on your part, then you don't believe that man is fallen. And you believe man is perfectly capable of making these kinds of decisions, even though he's lost. The Bible does not teach that. The Bible does not say we're hindered. The Bible does not say that we're sick. The Bible says we're dead. We're spiritually dead. We have no cognizant reality of God, don't care about God, don't love God, don't want God in our lives at all, except to give us stuff and to get us out of jams. And then everybody loves God. And this is called jailhouse repentance. Everybody wants to get out of jail. Nobody wants to get cancer. Nobody wants to get divorced. Nobody wants to get their name in the paper. Nobody wants to get a ticket from those nice people in those uniforms with the blue lights on their top. We cry out to God, oh God, get me out of this jam. And as soon as God gets us out of this jam, then we go right back into our sins. That's not conversion and that's not repentance. That's not genuine. A genuine Holy Spirit-initiated repentance is you don't care whether you're in jail or not. You don't care whether you've got cancer or not. You don't care whether you ever get reunited with your wife again. You realize that you're lost, and you cannot bear the thought that you have sinned against a holy God, and it's troubling you to no end. That's when the Holy Spirit is bringing you under conviction. So at the point where God comes inside of our bodies and performs all of those miracles, we are stone-cold dead, spiritually speaking. And so we cannot ask for this new birth, we cannot initiate it in any way, we cannot cooperate in it, and we cannot even want it, because we have no spiritual life in us at all. So one of the things that I went through when I was first learning these truths is you can go to a graveyard of a friend of yours or an acquaintance of yours and you can stand at the foot of their grave and you can insult them all day long and they won't respond to your insults. You can go to a graveyard and you can sell books to the dead and nobody will buy them. And you can put them on sale, and you can even give them away. You can even pay people to come get them. And nobody will take you up on the offer because they're dead. They can't hear you. They can't respond to you. They can't do anything because they're dead, right? That's what it means to be dead. So you don't love God as a lost person. You don't care anything about God. And so God has to do something for us initially all by himself or we're doomed, right? That's the new birth. And so God sovereignly causes us to be born again. And that is exactly what the Apostle said in 1 Peter 1, verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. You see there, God caused us to be born again. That's a force, that's power, that's inserting himself into our lives. Now, in Alabama English, as far as I'm concerned, that's violating the stew out of your will. If you look at all the men in the Bible, Abraham and David and all these people, God never asked them hardly anything ever. He told them what they were going to do and told them what he was going to do with them. He didn't ask for their input. He didn't say, would you like this? When he went to Adam, right before he created Eve, he didn't ask Adam if he was lonely. He didn't ask Adam if he wanted a date. He said, it is not good that man be alone. He made a declaration, right? And then he fixed it. And he never had any input from Adam or Eve, right? Another way of looking at this, how much did you contribute to your own natural birth? Bula just had a little baby girl. The baby girl did not cooperate in her birth. She didn't assist Brother Paul and Sister Bula in creating the life that she is. She is a recipient of this life. But she didn't start it. She didn't create it. She didn't cooperate with it. She received it, right? So that's the way we do the new birth. We can't make it happen. So it is wrong to say you need to believe so you can be born again. No, you need to be born again so you can believe. That's what gives you the ability to believe. But that's not all that God has sovereignly caused. Job 37, 9 through 13 says, out of the south comes the storm, and out of the north the cold. From the breath of God ice is made, and the expanse of the waters is frozen. Also with moisture he loads the thick cloud. He disperses the cloud of his lightning. It changes direction. that it may do whatever he commands on the face of the inhabited earth. Whether for correction, or for his world, or for loving kindness, he causes this to happen. Psalm 104, 10 through 15. He sends forth springs in the valleys. They flow between the mountains. They give drink to every beast of the field. The wild donkeys quench their thirst. Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell. They lift up their voices among the branches. He waters the mountains from his upper chambers. The earth is satisfied with the fruit of his works. He causes the grass to grow for the cattle and vegetation for the labor of man so that he may bring forth food from the earth. and wine which makes man's heart glad, so that he may make his face glisten with oil, and food which sustains man's heart." About the dumbest thing I've ever heard is a person take credit for growing crops. You put a seed in the ground and amazingly that seed becomes a crop and you take credit for that? You're a moron. God did that. And you should be in awe that you can put a seed in the ground and then later on eat a corn out of that. It's amazing how this works. Psalm 135, five through seven, for I know that the Lord is great and that our Lord is above all gods. Whether the Lord pleases, he does. Whatever the Lord pleases, he does. In heaven and in earth, in the seas and all the deeps, he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain, who brings forth the wind from his treasures. Sounds like God's sovereign to me. How about Psalm 147, 11 through 18? The Lord favors those who fear him, those who wait for his love. You know why he favors you? Well, he favors me because I fear him. Why did you fear him? Why do you fear him? Because he caused that. So he favors those that he's dealing with because he's chosen them. Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Praise your God, O Zion, for he has strengthened the bars of your gates. He has blessed your sons within you. He makes peace in your borders. He satisfies you with the finest of wheat. He sends forth his command to the earth. His word runs very swiftly. He gives snow like wool. He scatters the frost like ashes. He casts forth his ice as fragments. Who can stand before his cold? He sends forth his word and melts them. He causes his wind to blow and the waters to flow. Wow, how about Isaiah 61 verse 11? For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes the things sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all nations. God desires righteousness, and he will make it happen, huh? Jeremiah 10, 13, when he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses. Lamentation 3, 29, if he causes grief, which means he does, then he will have compassion according to his abundant loving kindness. Matthew 5, 43 through 45, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven. Why Jesus? Because or for he causes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Romans 8, 28, for we know, and we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. 1 Corinthians 3 and 7, so that neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything but God who causes the growth. And in the new birth, God will sovereignly cause you to walk in my statutes. But what is the result of God causing us to walk in his statutes after we have been born again? God told the prophet, and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. Now the Hebrew word here for careful in this phrase, you will be careful to observe my ordinances, has to do with something that is made, accomplished, or completed. And it contains the idea of desire and will. So the result of God sovereignly causing us to walk in His statues to the miracle of the new birth is that we will then desire or want to observe God's ordinances. We will voluntarily choose to obey God's commands. And we will enjoy, we will delight ourselves, and we will love to obey God. But this desire, this willingness to choose, and this enjoyment in our obedience did not just pop up out of the ground. And we also did not work this up using our own willpower or discipline or human initiative. No, our desire to obey God flows out from our love for God. And this love, this love for God, is not something that was already present inside of us. It, too, was a gift from God. Please look at 1 John 4, 19, that says, we love because he first loved us. Now, if you know anything at all about grammar, the word because means the origination of. So the source, the source of our love for God is God's love for us, right? Now, this verse is very short and very simple, but it is also very deep and profound, because this verse declares that our love for God is a gift from God. And that means that we did not already have this kind of love for God present inside of us before God caused us to be born again. So part and parcel of the new birth is this gift of love that God gives for himself. So we do not initiate this love for God, we are graciously given this gift by God himself. So in order for any human to love God, let me back up, ever since the fall, it is neither normal nor natural for anybody to love God. It is unnatural, it is not normal for anybody to love God. That's part of the fall. So in order for any of us to love God, God has to be the one to initiate it. Huh? Okay. So God wants us to love him. But because we are already fallen, we can't love God. And again, I've gone through this with you a lot of times. You can't love God when you're lost because you don't want to. So you do not love God because you cannot love God and you cannot love God because you don't want to. So bottom line in Alabama English, what is wrong with us is our want to, which is just a simple way of talking about our nature. So what's wrong with all people that are lost is their nature is fallen. And in order to change that, you can't adopt new habits. You can't medicate your way out of being fallen. You can't educate your way out of being fallen. You can't use technology to not be fallen. You have to be born again, and you have to get a new nature. Huh? Amen. No lost person loves God, but why does God want us to love him? So we sing, and we sing, and we sing, and we sing, and we pray, and we preach, and we teach about God loving us, and it's wonderful that God loves us, and we should never get tired of saying that, and we probably don't say it enough, even though we talk about it all the time. But there is very little, very little talk today about us loving God. That we are saved, God saves us because he loves us, true. But God saves us because he loves us so that by saving us we will love him. And then our love will produce obedience and our obedience will produce righteousness. So bottom line, God wants righteousness to spring forth in the earth before all people. That's what the prophet prophesied about. And this is why God wants us to love him. The siloquy, the process in my brain, because I wasn't taught this stuff either. And I know if you've never heard this before, it sounds a little weird. I hope everybody in this church has heard this over and over and over and over and over. But in case somebody's watching that hasn't heard this before. I've known people that were older, and they call them the blue-haired little ladies, and they're sweet, and they're innocent. I mean, they're not a problem, and they don't bother anybody. But many of them have a mental disorder, and they go around wanting people to love them, and they don't feel loved. And so they actually say, because this particular person, I used to mow her yard, and she would come out while I'm mowing the yard and say, well, do you love me? I said, yes, ma'am, I love you. And she said, no, do you really love me? I said, yes, ma'am, I really love you. And she said, that's why I'm mowing your yard. I'm not getting it for money. I'm doing it because I love you. And she said, I didn't know if you loved me or not. And the next week when I would mow the yard, she'd come out and do the same thing. It's kind of funny, and it's kind of humorous, and it's kind of even sweet. But if that's your commanding officer in the army, it's not funny anymore. Or if that's the president of the United States, it's not funny. It's got his finger on the nuclear button. Or if it's your boss at work, that's not funny. So you don't want people, and you sure don't want somebody like that to be your pastor. And yet in the Bible, God did that all the time. Every few verses, God said, love me, love me, praise me, praise me, praise me. So when people do that, we say they got a mental problem. They're narcissistic. Is God narcissistic? Does God have a mental problem? No. When he wants us to praise him, he's right. Because he's the most praiseworthy being in the universe, right? So much so that it's wrong not to praise him. And nobody knows that better than he knows it. And nobody knows that we are not able to praise him and love him like we should more than God knows that. So if we are ever to love God, if we are ever to enjoy God, God's got to initiate it because we're the ones that's broken. That's why the Bible says these weird sounding things. Now, the reason I'm bringing this up is because there's a whole sea of people out there that have left the church, they have left Christianity because of this issue. Oprah Winfrey, who's the guy that just, the cowboy that he played in Dancing with Wolves. Kevin Costner, raised in a Baptist church, sang in the choir, does not believe in God anymore. Brad Pitt, raised in a Baptist, does not believe in God anymore. What was the issue that threw him out? What was the issue that stumbled him? The fact that God demands worship, that God expects our love, that he will damn you if you don't love him. He has promised horrific punishment if we do not love him, right? Okay, now if a person said that to me, love me or I'm gonna throw you in prison, I thought love had to be voluntary. It does between humans. And if it's oppressive love, it's not love. It's just oppression, right? But with God, God has to demand it to show us we're fallen and that we're not capable of obeying so that we call on him for help, right? It's the same principle when your little child, your daddy spanks you He's the one that just hurt you and you turn around and hug him. You don't run away. Don't you run away from people that hurt you? Not your daddy. Because where are you going? You've got to go to the one that's initiating the pain because he's the only one you got, right? That's the way God is with lost people. And until we come to that place where we realize we don't have him and we need him, and usually that's through a series of providential acts where God puts us in a position where we realize we're lost. So let me say this to you, and I know sometimes it's not pleasant, but whatever God has to do to us to bring us to a place of repentance is mercy. Because if he didn't love us, he'd just leave us alone. And hear me, there are people that God just leaves alone. He doesn't deal with them, ever. And they're free to sin, now they'll be damned at the end of time, but he doesn't deal with them. So when God interrupts your plans, like he did with me on that night, I mean, I didn't go to get saved that night, I promise you. I was doing everything I could to sin badly that night. And God just inserted himself like he owns the universe or something. didn't even ask, didn't even apologize, changed my whole way of thinking, put a division between me and my family that night. I mean, it's amazing. So it wasn't all roses and tulips and happy, happy, sparkle, sparkle. A lot of tears, a lot of crying, a lot of suffering, because I sure didn't understand it. If it's God, it's supposed to be sweet and beautiful and happy and nice and lovely and all this other stuff. No, Jesus said, I come to bring a sword. I will divide a father from his son. I will divide a mother from her daughter. And those of your own household will be those who will persecute you. I came to pass in my life in spades. And so I had to go live with rats, because it was better for me to live with rats. The rats didn't stop me from praying and reading my Bible, and they didn't mock me. My family did. And so until they were saved, they were hostile to me and my salvation. And I look back on my early conversion, not a single grownup ever came to me and put their arm around me and tried to help me. Not one, not my teachers, not my pastors, the men who were leading the churches I went to, none of them came to me and said, let me help you, let me guide you, let me teach you, none of them. And so I was really upset about that because everybody else was getting attention. And I'm sitting over there like a like a weed growing in the corner. And I'm saying, is anybody going to come help me? And evidently not. So I'm either going to die on the vine or I better do this myself. Well. That created some interesting situations, because I did everything upside down, backwards, and sideways, because I didn't know any better, right? It took me years. It took me decades to get where I am right now theologically. When I started this church, I didn't hardly believe anything that I teach right now. I had to learn this, and I learned it through the study of the Bible. And what a joy it was to find out that I was in line with a bunch of other people that came before me. I didn't know that either. God wants us to love him, but because we are already fallen, we can't love God. So no lost person loves God. But why does God want us to love him? So that we will obey him with a delight and with a joy that flows out from this love. And what is the fruit or the result of our obedience? Righteousness. And that is how the prophecy of Isaiah 61.11 will be fulfilled. As a garden causes the things sown in it to spring up, So just like you sow things in a garden and things spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations. So righteousness comes from obedience. But there are at least three different kinds of obediences. There is fearful obedience, where people obey God because they're afraid of what will happen to them if they don't obey. And then there is a dutiful or obligatory obedience, where people obey God because it is the right thing to do or because they're supposed to. And both of those two kinds of obediences are the result of humanly engineered willpower. The way you obey is you grit your teeth, close your eyes, and do what you're supposed to do even if you don't want to. And I've heard that sung, I've heard it taught, you need to obey God even if you don't want to. And I disagree with that, because if you don't want to obey God, why would I believe you're saved? That's what the new birth does. It changes your nature to where you want to obey. I realize we don't always obey, but you want to. And somebody who doesn't want to obey God and couldn't care less about God, why would I think they're saved? What fruit are they bearing? So we put forth effort to obey in those two kinds of obediences. And with both of these, we struggle to obey even if we don't want to and even if we don't enjoy it. I've heard that taught from the pulpit many, many times. Now look, fearful obedience and as well as dutiful obedience is better than disobedience and rebellion. That's true. But I would suggest that neither one of these kinds of obediences give God the glory that He deserves. The only kind of obedience that gladdens God's heart and brings Him the most glory is an obedience that flows out from love and genuine enjoyment and delight. 1,000 years before Jesus was born, God the Holy Spirit moved on King David to prophesy about the Messiah. And in that prophecy, David quotes the Messiah as telling God the Father, I delight to do your will, oh my God. Your law is within my heart. So Jesus tells the Father, I delight to do your will. In other words, nothing makes me happier than obeying you. That glorifies God. So Jesus did not merely obey his father. And Jesus also did not obey God because it was the right thing to do or because he was afraid of what might happen to him if he did not obey. No, Jesus obeyed his father gladly. He delighted in obeying God. He enjoyed obeying God. In other words, nothing made Jesus happier than obeying His Father, and that is the kind of obedience that flows out from everyone who has experienced the miracle of the new birth. Why? Because your nature's changed now, and you delight to do His will. Doing God's will is the same thing as obeying God's commandments. It's the same thing. Walking with Jesus, bearing godly fruit, being spiritual, purifying your soul, obeying God's command, all that's the same thing. It's all just different ways of saying the same thing. So in the new birth, God graces us with a special kind of love whose focus is on God and God alone being glorified. And this desire, this enjoyment, and this delight we experience from this love when God alone is glorified is what fuels and empowers our obedience. Now, people have told me through the years, well, brother, I'm just not there. I don't enjoy to obey God. Now, how should I respond to those people? Should I say, oh, well, don't worry about it. I know what you feel like. I don't love God either. No, they need to repent, right? Either you're born again or you're not. You either have a new nature or you have the old nature. And the old nature doesn't love God. The old nature couldn't care less about God. Obeying God's commandments to a lost person, it just seems like a lot of work. And they're not willing to make the sacrifice. It's not that they don't want to, you know, make the sacrifice. They just don't want to make the sacrifice. Let me just say this, any effort by a lost person to obey God's commandments is designed for no other reason than to glorify himself so that other people will think how spiritual he is and think much of him. That's not good either. And so the only kind of heart, the only kind of person, only kind of soul that delights in obeying God is a person who has been miraculously and supernaturally and eternally transformed in the new birth by what God alone has done for him. And that has either happened to you or it has not happened. And if it hasn't, then you don't care about whether you obey God or not. And that's the truth. It's easier on Sunday morning in church to obey God, but Thursday afternoon, give me a break. I couldn't care less. Tuesday morning, I'm on my own. Monday night, I'm gonna do what I wanna do. Yeah, well, you shouldn't look at those things because God said, do not let what is evil pass before your eyes. Well, I don't care, I enjoy it. So people in church have come to me and talked to me about things that's on television and things that's on the internet, and I look at them and I say, why would you think you're born again looking at stuff like that? Now, I realize that pagan cultures hundreds and thousands of years ago did some pretty terrible things. But I don't need to watch all the gory details on television in full technicolor to know that that stuff was wrong. Because sooner or later, you're going to cross the line from being a very inquisitive historian into just lusting after naked bodies. And that's really what's going on. And so don't kid yourself. I tell young men this all the time when they're dealing with lust, because everybody knows young men deal with lust, right? Okay, all right, I don't want there to be any secret. You're either a robot or you're a homosexual, or you like girls. That's three things. You don't have four, one of those three things. Are you a robot? No. Are you a homosexual? No. Okay, then you like girls. So if you want a wife, that is godly and that will love you no matter what, and that will be faithful to you no matter what, and it will raise your children to love God and keep a home for you and encourage you in your darkest days. If you want that kind of wife, then don't disrespect her while you're dating her. Because there's nothing magical gonna happen after you've disrespected her that all of a sudden now you're gonna start respecting her. So please, I'm begging you. So you say, well golly, Brother Blair, we're just human. No, look, there's a difference in being tempted to do something because you stumbled and fell into something, and the ox was in the ditch, and you tripping the ox on Friday so you don't have to come to church on Sunday. There's a difference in you planting the seed of sin, knowing that you were gonna cross over it down the road. That's premeditation and that's sin. So be careful. If you're not a robot and you're not a homosexual, you're gonna be attracted to a woman. And what you should be attracted to the woman about is how she prays. And the fact that she will take her right hand and she will apply it to your face in a forceful manner. If you cross a line. and your cerebral cortex will get a vision from God and you will be converted. And I tell all the little young ladies in my church, tell them your pastor told you that it's okay for you to knock the stew out of that guy when he does something improper. So then we'll talk about sexual harassment. And I was born in West Texas, and there is no such thing as sexual harassment in West Texas, because girls carry guns, and they don't play. So none of this stuff, no. So be a gentleman. So list on a blackboard when you get home tonight, today, list on a piece of paper all the characteristics you want in a godly wife. and then look at that list and then say, what kind of man should I be in order to attract a woman like that? Right? So in the new birth, God graces us with a special kind of love whose focus is on God and God alone being glorified. And this desire, this enjoyment, and this delight we experience from this love when God alone is glorified is what fuels and empowers our obedience. But even though we cannot create or initiate this kind of love, and even though this kind of love is not already in us and must be given to us in the miracle of the new birth, we can feed this love, and we can strengthen this love, and we should. And we do that in and by and through the word of God. So as we feed on God's word, three things will happen to us as it pertains to this gift of love that God has given to us for himself. Our respect for God or of God will grow. Now, respect is reverential respect, which is the same thing as saying the fear of the Lord. Your respect for God will grow. That you can tease and play with me, you can tease and play with Brother Chris and Brother Vern and Brother Marty. You don't play with God. He's Almighty God. He's not your homeboy. He's not your co-pilot. He's not the man upstairs. He's Almighty God. And He has your heartbeat in His hands. He has your eternity in His control. So you don't disrespect him, you don't order him around, you fear him, right? But then your admiration for God will grow. You will admire God. You will learn all of his characteristics as you study the Bible, and you will be flabbergasted at who God is. In the back, I don't know how long it's been, but a few years ago, Marvel was making all these Avenger movies. And that's all I heard anybody talking about, is all these special effects and all this stuff going on. And they've got the t-shirts and the ball caps and the bumper stickers and the watches and the apps and the software and everything else. It's amazing. And so I would ask these people, is anybody amazed at God? Is anybody yet left on earth that is flabbergasted and bewildered and mystified and silenced by God in his glory and his majesty? We should be, right? And then our awe of God will grow. We should be in awe of God. God should not be commonplace or just like, you know, I go with Rhonda and we tease and we talk and I like that verse in King James about Abraham and Sarah. It said he was sporting with Sarah. I sport with Rhonda. I think I know what that means. And it's cute and it's interesting and it's funny. You don't do that with God. He's different than we are, right? You watch three men get together in the hallway. I don't care if it's school, church, anywhere. Three men, no more than three men get together. The first thing that happens, they start pushing on each other. Have you noticed? They start hitting each other. Have you noticed that? That's in a man to do that. They can't help it. That's being manly. And they push each other, they tease each other. Am I saying something y'all don't know about? Y'all looking at me like, You've never seen that? Watch it, three minutes is all it takes. And they'll be laughing and teasing and pushing on each other, right? Now you ought to watch us in there after we get through praying on Sunday morning. Because all of us that are praying that, we burp each other afterwards. Right? Where'd we learn that? That's part of our humanity, right? And it's funny and it's interesting and it's nice in a lot of ways. Now we don't push and shove and hit on women. That's where we're crossing the line. So you're delicate with women because they're the weaker vessel. But you do it with men. That's the difference between men and women. But you don't act that way with God. God should not ever be commonplace, right? In other words, the knowledge of the Bible should never cause us to be proud and arrogant and self-righteous. The goal of Bible knowledge is that we will wonder after God, that we will be amazed at God, and that we would delight ourselves in the Lord. And those three attributes that empower and facilitate and strengthen this gift of love that God gave us for Himself so that we will never be proud and arrogant and self-righteous. This gift of love for God grows and it becomes dominant in our lives. And then nothing will make us happier than obeying God. And God will be glorified the best and the most through our happy and joyful and glad obedience. So as I have taught you, for every result or action, there is a cause. And so glad obedience does not simply happen on its own. Our ability to obey God with joy as opposed to duty, obligation, or fear is the result of two other causes. God sovereignly giving us this gift of love for himself, that's in birth, and then us feeding and strengthening this gift of love by us feeding on God's word. And by us feeding on God's word constantly and consistently, our respect for God, our admiration of God, and our awe of God grows. And those three attributes are what empowers and strengthens this gift of love for God. But there is one other result of all of this. When we engage with God like this, in addition to loving God and in addition to obeying God with joy, we also grow in our love for all the other people who are also growing in their love and enjoyment of God. In other words, by receiving all of this and by doing all of this, we will grow in our love with all of our brothers and sisters in Christ. And that is what the Apostle Peter was focused on in the passage that our brother just read to us. So with all of that in mind, let's look again at 1 Peter 1, 22 and 23. Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls, To what end? For a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart. Why? Because, for, you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. Now, the English word for, in verse 23, means because. And so verse 23 tells us that the reason behind the action, as well as the goal of that action. So with that in mind, we should see verses 22 and 23 as saying, Because you had already been born again, not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, to the living and enduring Word of God, you responded to the miracle of the new birth by purifying your souls in obedience to the truth, so you could sincerely love the brethren. And now, because your souls have been and are ongoingly being purified, you should love one another fervently from the heart. So loving one another fervently is the unmistakable proof, or the fruit, of two things. Number one, you have already experienced the miracle of the new birth. And number two, you have responded to being born again by purifying your souls so that you could love the brethren sincerely, fervently, and from the heart. And that tells us four things. Number one, receiving new spiritual life, in other words, being born again, sovereignly from God must come first. Number two, the means by which we are born again is the word of God. Number three, the response that people have to being born again is an effort to purify their souls. And number four, the fruit of purifying the soul is to be both able and willing to love one another fervently, sincerely, and from the heart. So I want to examine these. Number one. Receiving new spiritual life sovereignly from God must come first. 1 Peter 1, 23b, you have been born again, not of seed, which is perishable, but imperishable. The Bible is crystal clear about the fact that we are sinners at the very moment we are conceived in our mother's womb. At the spark of life, human beings are imputed with the very same sinful and rebellious nature that Adam had after the fall. And because we are already fallen and sinful, we don't have to do anything else to deserve God's wrath on us. So we are not sinners because we commit sin. We commit sin because we are already sinners at the moment of conception. And so spiritually speaking, we are dead in our sins and trespasses. And because that is true, three other things are also true. Number one, there is no innocence in babies. Number two, there is no age of accountability. Number three, we must be born again. Now, over the years, people have confused. You say, well, golly, Brother Blair, if my baby is corrupted at birth, what am I supposed to do? Well, the Bible tells you to teach and train them up, right? But don't baptize them because that's worthless. They don't know what they're doing. Now over the years people have confused being born again with being saved as though they are the same thing. They are not. And others have confused being justified and being adopted with being saved as though they are the same thing. They are not. Each of these wonderful truths are entirely separate events in the overall reality of salvation. which is Latin for the order of salvation, that I assume is on the church website. If it's not, we'll get it on there, that you may want to get and read. But I think you can even watch it, too. I'm not sure. But as far as we are concerned, nothing happens in salvation until each one of us personally experiences the miracle of the new birth. And the new birth is when God sovereignly, meaning all by himself, without any cooperation from us, gives us new spiritual life. And this new spiritual life opens our blind eyes to the beauty and the glory of God. It unstops our deaf ears so that we can hear the sound of amazing grace. that is able and willing to be convicted of sin, able and willing to repent, and able and willing to believe. So the first thing that must happen to us is that we must be born again. And this new birth must be a sovereign act of God, alone, because in our spiritually dead condition, we cannot initiate this event, we cannot pray for it, we cannot even want it. So God must move on us sovereignly, and we must be born again, and we must be born again. So until we are born again, nobody can be convicted, nobody can repent, nobody can trust in Jesus, and nobody can be saved. And this is why Jesus himself said in John 3 and 3, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He's not talking to a guy on the side of the road. He's talking to a leader of the Jews, probably a member of the Sanhedrin court. He's talking to a Pharisee. He's talking to a teacher of the Pharisees. who knows the law in and out, may have even memorized the entire Old Testament, and has been sacrificing animals, and has been going through the motions of the Old Covenant his entire life. And Jesus is telling Nicodemus, you are no closer to God than a prostitute. And everything you have done your entire life has been a complete waste of time, because you must be born again or you're doomed. Now, you can't insult somebody any more than Jesus insulted Nicodemus. Now, I know we use John 3 as a basis of our evangelistic efforts, but you'll notice if you read through John 3, Nicodemus, there's no record of him ever even repenting in that chapter. Jesus just left the information with him and let him stew on it. He told him in no uncertain terms he was lost and headed for hell, and that the only way he could be saved is not sacrificing more animals, but by being born again. and this was completely foreign to anything that Nicodemus understood. And then Jesus further condemned him by saying, are you a leader of the Jews and you don't know this stuff? So this is not a happy confrontation, meeting, this is a confrontation. And yet it's done in love because at the end of the Gospels, Nicodemus is there with the crucified Christ. And so by that we believe that Nicodemus was saved. And so Jesus turned his heart by telling him he was lost and that everything he had been doing to keep the law of Moses did not bring him any closer to God than any other wicked sinner. And then he said in John 3, 7, do not be amazed that I said to you, you must be born again. Now, the reason he said this, this is not the verse that we use when I'm out on the streets today in the 21st century in the United States talking to people, because most of these people I'm talking to are lost sinners who don't even know anything about church or the Bible or anything else. This was a guy that understood God, at least in the partial way that the old covenant displayed him. and he's rebuking him for not being born again already, right? Now, number two, the means by which we are born again is the word of God. Look what he said in 1 Peter 1.23, you have been born again, not of seed, which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. So the seed that is imperishable is the living and enduring word of God. And that means that the way or the means by which the new birth comes to lost sinners is by this imperishable seed being heralded, proclaimed, and preached, taught authoritatively. But the point I was trying to make earlier is that the Bible must be heralded correctly, rightly, and fully in its correct context. Our people will still get the wrong message. So yes, we must preach the Bible, but we must preach the Bible as it is written and not in the way we want it to be written or the way we want it to say or sound like. We must understand that God is very proud of the Bible. He loves His own Word. And that is so primarily because the 66 books of the Holy Bible are the product of God the Holy Spirit, and He is the author of each book. And that means that God, the Holy Spirit, is consistent in the way He deals with people. And the way we should understand that reality is that nobody is led by the Spirit to violate, ignore, change, minimize, contradict, or obfuscate the product of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. The Holy Spirit will not lead you to disobey the product of the Holy Spirit, which is the Bible, right? So unsaved people hear the Word of God heralded to them, and God the Holy Spirit takes the spoken Word of God and creates new spiritual life in otherwise spiritually dead people. And part of what happens in the miracle of the new birth is that our eyes that have been blind or veiled to the beauty and the glory and the wisdom and the importance and the value of God are opened. And we then wonder after God. We behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and we love what we see. So by being given new spiritual life, we see God in his glory, and we begin to develop respect, admiration, and awe for the God we now see. And from those three attributes flows out a deep and profound love for God, a love that is focused on God and not merely on what God does for us. So we begin to love God deeply and profoundly. And from that deep and profound love comes the desire and the power to obey the God that we love. So the sovereign giving of new spiritual life in the new birth opens our eyes to the glory of God. And beholding the glory of God in Jesus brings forth a godly and reverential respect for God, as well as a powerful admiration of God, and causes us to be in awe of God. And those three things bring forth a deep and profound love for God, and this gift of love produces joyful and humble obedience. Number three, the response that people have to being born again is an ongoing effort to purify their souls. 1 Peter 1.22a, since you have an obedience to the truth, purifies your souls. Engaging in an ongoing effort to purify our souls is nothing more nor less than the normal and natural response that all genuine believers should have after they experience the miracle of the new birth. So following Jesus, obeying the truth, loving Jesus, walking with God, bearing godly fruit, and purifying our souls is simply different ways of phrasing the same thing. Now someone asked, Brother Blair, why do I need to ongoingly purify my soul if Jesus has already washed my sins away and saved me forever? And the answer is purifying your soul on an ongoing basis is simply putting into practice the reality of what Jesus has already done for you. It is what working out your salvation with fear and trembling looks like. My friends, we must realize that obedience to God is not optional. Obedience to God is mandatory. Jesus Himself said this in John 14, 15, And so salvation is not what alleviates you from obeying the Bible. Rather, salvation is what frees you and empowers you to obey. And so one of the first things that every genuine born-again soul should do is develop some method, some way, some daily discipline of putting the truth of salvation to work in their lives toward obedience to God by purifying their souls. But why? If God already loves me, and if God has already saved me, why do I need to struggle to obey? Because the new birth has given us this gift of love for God. So while no lost person loves God, every genuinely born-again soul loves God. But the only way to prove or manifest or display or show our love for God is through our obedience to God. Talk is cheap, and anyone can say they love God. But because we love God, we desire to glorify God and make Jesus look irresistible. And the very best way to do that is by obeying God with joy. Number four, the fruit of purifying the soul is to be both able and willing to love one another fervently, sincerely, and from the heart. 1 Peter 1.22b, for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart. So the proof of this inward work of God of the Spirit in our lives is in us loving each other fervently from the heart. But now please look again what Peter said next, 1 Peter 1, 24 and 25. For all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord endures forever, and this is the word which was preached to you. Now the phrase that Peter quotes here came from the burden of the Old Testament prophet who wrote this in Isaiah 40, six through eight, about 700 years before Jesus was born. And even though we should understand that this quote is true and reliable, the question that I have is, why in the world did the apostle Peter use this quote here in a teaching about loving one another fervently because we've already experienced the miracle of the new birth? What does the prophecy of Isaiah about the distinction between the glory of man versus the glory of God through His Word have to do with the issue of New Covenant believers loving one another? This is a perfect example of what I have been teaching you about getting the correct context of a Bible verse or passage so we can arrive at the one single correct meaning of what the biblical writer meant when he was moved by God to write what he wrote. The word of God that Peter was talking about here is the gospel that had been preached to them, the good news that is about the ransom of the blood of Jesus and his resurrection and the keeping power of God as well as the incorruptible inheritance of God. All this good news was preached to them. And the point of verses 24 and 25 is that it is not like grass and flowers. It doesn't wither and fall. It abides forever. So if this word is your love, you live forever. So the focus of Peter here is unquenchable hope. And this is the pillar holding up the lamp of love in the church. Fervently love one another from the heart, because you have already been born again by a seed, a word, that is imperishable, that is living and abiding, and it is not like grass, but abides forever. But why make such a big deal out of the word's permanence? The point is that when you are born by someone else's seed, you take on the character or nature of that seed. So the seed constitutes your nature. And what Peter wants us to see is that the seed that created us, that caused us to be born again was the word of God that is imperishable, living, abiding, and lasting forever. And that is who we are now. We are forever. And what is it to believe this? It is hope. which means that the pillar which holds up the lamp of love is the word-created, born-again heart of hope, a hope that is set free from all the grass and flowers of the world. One thing that keeps us from loving is the fear that if we pay the price of love, we will lose out on all the bright and shiny things that life in this world is supposed to offer us. all of its glory like the flower of grass. But if we endure wrongs meekly, if we renounce boasting and calling attention to ourselves, if we spend time and energy supplying the needs of others without fretting over our own, if we risk making necessary reproves that are almost surely to be interpreted as something other than love, if we receive reproves without animosity and defensiveness, if we cover a multitude of sins and put away our list of grievances, if we rejoice when others prosper while we don't, if we bless those who curse us and do good to those who despise us, if we love each other earnestly from the heart, It will be costly, and the price will be that we lose some of the cherished glory of the grass and flowers that people in this world live for. The power to overcome this fear is the power of hope, that the glory of this world is passing away, and we who are born again through the Word of God and who hope in the Word of God will endure forever. Okay, God dealt with my heart to begin the new year of 2025 with this series of sermons. And so he desires that we go into this new year loving God and loving each other fervently. So if we do individually and personally experience the miracle of the new birth, and if through that new birth, God does give us the gift of love for himself. And if we do respond to that gift of love by developing a way to purify our souls on an ongoing basis, what would that look like in our lives as it relates to our relationship with our brothers and sisters. In other words, what are the signs, the fruit, the unmistakable proof that all of these amazing and wonderful things are in fact true in our lives? Well, they are all the one another verses and passages that will come to pass in our individual lives and in this church this year, and hopefully from now on. And in the next several pages, I have listed all of them. So I plead with you to read these verses and passages and then judge whether you see them come to pass in your own life. this year. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you for your word and we thank you for all of these many passages that give us road signs as to how we're doing and whether we're gaining ground and whether we're accomplishing what you called us to do. And Lord, we want to see ourselves as you see us. So we ask you, God, to help us to read these verses and meditate on these passages so that we will We will judge whether we are truly loving each other as you would have us do. And Lord, I pray you do all this to your glory and to the good of your people in Jesus' name. Amen.