Sermon Archives

The Sweetness of Gospel Love

1 Peter 2:1-3
Living as Chosen Exiles
Bob Bolander
July 29, 2018

 
 
 
Description:
“Crave pure spiritual milk.” This seems like an odd command Peter gives to the churches, doesn’t it? What is the “spiritual milk” that we are called to crave? The pure spiritual milk Peter references here is the Gospel love that he describes at the end of chapter one. We are to pursue brotherly love within the church because it is through those relationships with other believers that we grow spiritually.

In order to crave something, you must first know what it tastes like. Unfortunately, there are many believers who have walked away from the church with a bitter taste in their mouths because what they experienced there was not Gospel love in its purity. The church is full of broken and imperfect people that sometimes fail to extend pure Gospel love to other Christians. We cannot allow experiences like this to cause us to resist relationships within the church. Instead, we must recognize that we need the Gospel love of our Gospel family to grow spiritually. We must renew our craving for Gospel love in the church and pursue it by engaging relationally with other believers.

We must not only crave the spiritual milk of Gospel love but we must also extend love to others by ridding our lives of malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. These sinful attitudes and actions defile the purity of our love to one another and thus hinder the body’s overall spiritual growth.

What’s the key implication of this text? Pursue Gospel love within Christian relationships. Cultivate your relationships with other believers. Live a life in community with other believers in the church. Without the love of other Christians, your spiritual progress will be hindered. To use the language of our Discipleship Pathway: A life in community is the context of discipleship. Christian relationships provide the environment where spiritual growth occurs.

Are you craving the spiritual milk of Gospel love within the church? Are you demonstrating pure love to other believers? Love is an essential ingredient for spiritual growth.

Keywords:
Love
 

 
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