Faith, Love, and the Watching World

In II Peter chapter 1, the apostle highlights some of the qualities of the fruitful life with the bookends of faith and love.  We wrote about faith last time.  Today, we want to concentrate on love.  Some writers see the list of II Peter 1:5-7 as a progression, starting with faith and continuing step-by-step through virtue, knowledge, self control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love.  In this view, love is the ultimate goal.  Whether this list represents increasing maturity in the Christian life or not, we do know from the rest of the New Testament that love indeed is our highest goal.

Jesus taught it in the two great commandments.  Paul taught it throughout his letters.  In the book of I Corinthians, Paul elevates love as the final answer to division in the church.  He drove home the point in I Corinthians chapter 13 with his eloquent defense of love trumps knowledge, love trumps giftedness, love trumps good works.  John taught it in the great book on love, I John, as the natural outflow of our becoming the literal children of God.

Francis Schaeffer, in his book The Mark of the Christian, calls love, not only the tie that binds but the final apologetic for the church before the watching world.  He built the book around two verses and their context.  “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (Jn 13:35) and, “…that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that you sent Me.” (Jn 17:21).  Dr. Schaeffer goes on to conclude, “Love – and the unity it attests to – is the mark Christ gave Christians to wear before the world.  Only with this mark may the world know that Christians are indeed Christians and that Jesus was sent by the Father.”

Finally, coming back to faith and love together, Pastor Dwight Edwards writes, “This combination [of faith and love] is what puts God on display most noticeably before the world – our radical dependency in an unseen God plus our extraordinary concern for other people (especially fellow believers).  Paul calls it ‘faith working through love.’ ” (Revolution Within).

Lacking Nothing

The apostle Peter introduces his second letter in the New Testament with these words of encouragement, “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.  For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature.” (II Pet 1:2-4).

What does life look like for a “partaker (i.e. sharer) of the divine nature?”  Peter goes on in verses 5 through 7 to list the evident qualities of our spiritual life – faith, virtue, knowledge, self control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love – in a pattern similar to the fruits of the Spirit of Galatians 5:22-23.  Peter’s catalog begins with faith.  Faith is the foundation of our fruitful life.

Faith is believing that “God’s divine power has granted us everything pertaining to life and godliness.”  Faith is believing we are “sharers of the divine nature.”  Faith is believing the “precious and magnificent promises of God.”  Faith is believing that everything God promised to make new at our salvation did in fact happen.  The promise of a new nature, a new identity, a new heart, a new disposition, a new relationship with sin, a new power, a new Spirit inside, a new freedom, and much more has been the theme of this blog for several months.

By faith, we believe that one outcome of the new birth is a fruitful life.  Fruit is the natural result of a healthy tree.  It is not the result of a tree working hard to produce something that does not come naturally.  It is the same in the Christian life.  Spiritual fruit should come naturally to us because we are infused with divine, resurrection power.  We often picture spiritual growth working in opposition to our deepest desires – characterized as dark and evil, but this is not the case.  Our deepest desires now have a God-bent and the “working out” of our Christian life – the “practice” of our Christian life – is watering our God-bent desires, feeding these desires, and allowing them to come to full bloom.

It all starts with faith.  Growth in the Christian life is the result of believing “the precious and magnificent promises of God” (vs 4), not the result of working harder to keep this list or any other.  Do you see the difference?  We will continue to explore the difference as we move forward.

The Kingdom Treasure

Jesus spoke many other parables, the study of which leads to a rich understanding of His secret kingdom.  We will close with a short one.  “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid; and from the joy over it he goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field.” (Mt 13:44).  Jesus presents the kingdom of heaven as something of great value and our positive response to His offer brings tremendous joy to both us and the king.  In fact, the treasure of citizenship in His kingdom is so valuable that we “sell all that we have” to join in. 

What does it mean to “sell all that we have?”  It means to consider the cost of joining the kingdom of God.  But I thought the entrance was free?  Not exactly.  There are actually two costs required to join God’s kingdom.  Cost number one was the debt of our sin.  On more than one occasion, Jesus referred to our sin as a debt too large to repay.  But Christ paid the debt for us with His death, burial, and resurrection.  That cost is paid and is completely free to you and I.  It is pure gift.

The second cost, however, does land on our shoulders.  It is the cost of decision.  The cost is an “all in” decision to join the kingdom through our trust in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for our deliverance, our salvation.  It is the decision to accept God’s gift and to proclaim, “I’m in.”

The treasure of the kingdom is of immense value.  It is hidden in the sense of Jesus kingdom being a secret kingdom.  And though it comes with a cost, an “all in” decision, its value far outstrips the cost.  “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ.” (Phil 3:7-8).

The Kingdom of Love

As you recall from our last post, Peter begins the dialogue in Matthew 18:21-35 with a question regarding how many times he is required to forgive his brother in the new kingdom, suggesting seven times would be quite generous.  Jesus answers that seventy times seven would be more appropriate basically saying there is no limit.  Jesus then launches into another, “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to…” parable and describes the scene.

A certain servant owed the king the equivalent of 150,000 years of wages.  The servant in question requested patience from the king and more time to repay.  The servant was essentially asking for some way to refinance the debt.  But the king, moved with compassion, set any idea of refinancing aside and, at what we can assume was a great expense to the king, completely forgave the tremendous debt.  Then servant #1 seeks out a fellow servant who owes him a small amount of money.  He physically attacks his fellow servant demanding immediate repayment of the paltry debt.  The total lack of compassion shown by servant #1 turns the king’s heart from compassion to anger and servant #1 is turned over to the bad guys.  Jesus summarizes the point of the story in verse 35, “So shall My heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.”

This parable is a window into how God expects citizens of His kingdom to treat each other.  We are servant #1 and we have a debt that is so large we have no hope of paying it back.  It is the debt of our sin.  At great expense to the king – in our case the invaluable death of His Son on a cross – we have been forgiven our enormous debt.  In response to God’s immense and undeserved forgiveness, we are to forgive our brothers.  Jesus answers Peter’s question with a dramatic story to make the point that we are to follow God’s example of unending love and forgiveness in how treat each other.  We are to go beyond just treating our neighbor as we would like to be treated, we are to love our neighbor in the way God loves us.

The kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven is now the kingdom of love.  Love is the aura of the kingdom of God.  It flows from God Himself, from God’s love for His children.  And it flows like a rushing stream through us to our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (Jn 13:34-35).

We often fail to notice the significance of the new in this commandment.  The commandment to love is a new aspect of the new kingdom.  It was not the aura of the old covenant (see our last post).  Love is the everything of the new covenant.  Jesus taught it in the gospels and the rest of the New Testament unwraps what love looks like in practice.  Paul, Peter, John, James, and the other New Testament writers elevate the supremacy of love over knowledge, giftedness, and even good works.

The kingdom of God has become the kingdom of love.  And we imitate God Himself when we are “…kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you.” (Eph 4:32).

Seventy Times Seven

Another kingdom parable involving debtors (Mt 18:21-35) begins with an interesting exchange between Peter and Jesus.  Peter and the disciples have been observing Jesus’ interaction with the Pharisees regarding His “acceptance” of sinners.  They have been listening to His teaching about what life is like among the citizens of His kingdom.  They are also learning about a new commandment, “Love one another.” (Jn 13:34).  This is all very foreign to their Old Testament trained ears.

The Old Testament they grew up with did not carry the aura of love, acceptance, and forgiveness that Jesus taught.  They lived under the idea, clearly expounded in the Old Testament, that obedience to God’s laws brought blessing while disobedience brought a curse.  They believed God would reward the righteous and strike down sinners; not accept and forgive them.  Jesus’ first century followers understood the implied fairness of eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth.  They did not understand the “beautiful unfairness of grace” that Jesus ushered in with the new covenant.

But by the time we come to Matthew chapter 18, the message is starting to sink in to the apostle Peter.  “Then Peter came and said to Jesus, ‘Lord how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?  Up to seven times?’ ” (Mt 18:21).  It is as if Peter is saying, “Ok, I think I am starting to get the message here.  You are saying, Jesus, that in your kingdom, life together is marked by love and forgiveness, not revenge.  I have grown up under this getting even mentality my whole life, even in my religious training, and you are saying to set the eye-for-an-eye aside in favor of forgiveness?  Well then let’s take this to the limit.  Are you suggesting I be so radical as to forgive my brother more then once?  How about something totally outside my normal thinking such as up to seven times?”

Peter expects that his seven times has way overestimated the amount of forgiveness needed, but as is often the case with our Lord, Jesus turns his question upside down and says Peter’s number is, in fact, way too low.  “Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” (Mt 18:22).  Jesus then continues, “For this reason the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a certain king who…” (Mt 18:23).  Jesus then answers Peter’s question with a powerful kingdom parable; the contents, interpretation, and application of which we will cover next time.