8/17/08 Brotherly Kindness

II Peter 1:5-8

Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge; and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness; and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Have you ever been to Philadelphia?

I haven’t.

In fact, I know almost nothing about the city itself.

But I think I would have enjoyed meeting

the founding fathers of what was then just a tiny community

in the earliest days of our Nation’s history.

I would have enjoyed knowing what it was

that prompted them to turn to the Bible

to find a very special name for their town.

You see, the name they chose

was the same word

that Peter selected for the sixth

of his seven progressive steps of growth in II Peter 1.

It’s the word PHILADELPHIA -

...Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge; and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness; and in your godliness, Philadelphia, and in your Philadelphia, love.

The word is found a total of six times

in the New Testament.

All six uses are in the Epistles -

three times in Peter’s letters,

twice in Paul’s letters,

and once in Hebrews.

The word means literally ‟the love of brothers” or ‟brotherly love”.

It is a word that has been carefully selected

by the writers of the New Testament

to describe a kind of relationship

that is unique is all of human experience,

a kind of relationship

that can only exist between two Christians,

a kind of relationship

that is rooted in the realization

that the person you’re with KNOWS!

Knows what?

Well, just KNOWS.

Their spirit has seen

what your spirit has seen.

They, too, are one of the few,

one of the chosen who KNOW.

They know about the other world.

They know HIM.

They know what it’s like

to live each day of their life

with an amazing secret -

to see

and hear

and feel

and taste and smell this world around us,

and yet to have their spirit living

in another world altogether.

C.S. Lewis’ series of children’s books

provide some of the best images of the true nature of the Christian life

I think I have ever found.

The first in that series was The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

If you’ve read the book or seen the movie you know that it tells the story of four children

who visit their uncle’s house in the English countryside

during the bombing raids of World War II.

While at their Uncle’s house they discover

a way into a whole other world

through the back of an old wardrobe

in an unused bedroom.

The adventures they have in that other world

provide a powerful picture of the Christian life -

our entrance into a whole other world,

a world we never even knew existed

prior to our union with Him.

But at the end of that first book

the children sit down with their uncle

and tell him about their adventures in Narnia,

and I’d like to read you the last paragraph of the book,

because in it Lewis expresses well

a concept that is related to this whole business of brotherly kindness.

‟And that would have been the very end of the story if it hadn’t been that the children felt they really must explain to the Professor why four of the coats out of his wardrobe were missing. And the Professor, who was a very remarkable man, didn’t tell them not to be silly or not to tell lies, but believed the whole story. ‟No,” he said, ‟I don’t think it will be any good trying to go back through the wardrobe door to get the coats. You won’t get into Narnia again by that route. Nor would the coats be much use by now if you did! Eh? What’s that? Yes, of course you’ll get back to Narnia again some day. Once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia. But don’t go trying to use the same route twice. Indeed, don’t try to get there at all. It’ll happen when you’re not looking for it. And don’t talk too much about it even among yourselves. And don’t mention it to anyone else unless you find that they’ve had adventures of the same sort themselves. What’s that? How will you know? Oh, you’ll know all right. Odd things they say - even their looks - will let the secret out. Keep your eyes open. Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?”

...What’s that? How will you know? Oh, you’ll know all right. Odd things they say - even their looks - will let the secret out...

I can remember the time early in my Christian life

when I first began to understand

what Lewis was saying

through that old professor.

Just after I got out of school

I was waiting tables at The Old Spaghetti Factory in Seattle.

And I remember one evening

I was waiting on a table

where several men were having dinner,

and I suddenly became convinced

that one of the men at that table

was a Christian.

It wasn’t anything he had said,

he didn’t have big crosses

or pins hanging on him.

I just knew he KNEW.

This sudden realization amazed me so much

that I just had to find out if it was true.

So, just as they were getting ready to leave

I went back to the table and said, ‟You’re a Christian, aren’t you.”

He was.

We talked for a few minutes,

then set up a lunch together the following week.

There is so much religion in the world.

Everybody is peddling something.

The right system,

the right church,

the right doctrine,

the right message.

And there is a familiarity,

a kind of unity that exists

when we run into someone

who comes out of the same little branch of Christendom as we come from.

They know our words,

our system,

our religious orientation,

our truth.

But that’s not what I’m talking about here.

I’m talking about the recognition

of Christ in another person.

I’m talking about

the way in which one person’s spirit

who is indwelt by Christ

can recognize

and respond to another person’s spirit

who is indwelt by Christ.

It is a recognition

and unity of spirit

that rests solely and exclusively

upon the inner knowledge

that this person, too,

is united with Christ - a child of the King.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with

doctrinal systems

or church membership,

or cultural background,

or learned concepts or ideas

or anything like that.

And I don’t want you to misunderstand me here.

I’m not talking

about some kind of ecumenical,

‟We’re all brothers and sisters, children of God, united in love” garbage.

I am not talking about trying to create

some pseudo sense of unity

by trying to convince everybody

we’re all God’s children

so lets all join hands

and save the world through love.

I’m not talking about

trying to create anything.

I’m simply talking about

our spirit recognizing Christ

in the spirit of another true believer.

And I will be the first to admit

that this is difficult ground at times within the family of God.

I read a book earlier this year titled “Crazy For God”.

It was written by Frank Schaefer,

son of the late Dr. Francis Schaefer.

The book was his account of his childhood,

and especially of his perspective on his parents -

both their public ministries and the private lives.

I read it because I studied with Francis Schaeffer in my early 20's

and because I was at L’Abri when Frank Schaeffer was there,

and because I knew the world he was writing about.

After finishing the book

I came away convinced that Frank had three major goals in writing -

first, he wanted to make lots and lots of money off of his father’s name,

second, he wanted to do all he could to discredit and belittle his parents and as many other Christians as possible,

and third, he wanted an effective way of venting an anger he’s been harboring against his parents

for more than 50 years.

I believe he’s been very effective at all three.

He claims for himself great insight into the murky world of conservative Christianity,

and at one point in the book

he tells his readers confidently

that there are only three kinds of evangelical leaders in the world - “The dumb or idealistic ones who really believed. The out-and-out charlatans. And the smart ones who still believed - sort of - but knew that the evangelical world was all garbage, but who couldn’t figure out any way to earn as good a living anywhere else.”

Now, after 40 years in the Kingdom

I’m way past being dumb or idealistic - I’ve seen way too much and I know way too much,

I know I’m not a charlatan,

and I know I could have made a whole lot more money somewhere else.

But if that really is all Schaeffer ever saw in his world,

it helps me to understand why he’s ended up

such an angry, bitter, pathetic little man.

But I mention him this morning

because, although he was a prominent and highly successful public Christian figure during his 20's and 30's,

today he claims he’s not even sure God exists.

And I read the book in part

just to see how he went about getting rid of his Christian identity.

And what I found in those pages

was a man who, during his early adult life,

whole-heartedly committed himself to his parents’ belief system,

intellectually accepting their doctrines, their God, their world view.

But nowhere in his writings

did I ever find a soul awareness of God Himself.

And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to get myself in trouble with this

because I don’t know how to put it into words.

But we in the Christian community want so much to believe

that union with God comes from our intellectual acceptance

of the Christian belief system.

And the truth is it doesn’t.

The intellectual understanding can certainly help,

but by itself it cannot bring about the union of our spirit with the Spirit of God.

That happens only when our spirit

lets Him into our life as God at the spirit level.

And without that there is no true union with God.

Schaeffer reached a point in his life

where he began to question and doubt his parents’ intellectual system of beliefs.

And because that’s all he had,

it was not overly difficult for him to exchange it for a system more to his liking.

Do you know why I’m a Christian?

It is not because I have this highly refined intellectual belief system

that I write books about and preach on every week.

I’m a Christian because I can’t get rid of Jesus Christ -

because He’s just simply there - the huge real inescapable fact of my life,

and He’s been there since the day He barged into my life in the fall of 1966.

And there is a part of my spirit

that is forever looking for Him in the lives of others,

and when I see Him there

it creates a sense of unity that has nothing whatsoever to do with any intellectual system.

OK,

that’s where brotherly kindness begins.

That’s the foundation of true Biblical philadelphia.

What Peter is talking about here in II Peter 1:7

concerns only true believers.

His comments at this point are aimed

specifically and exclusively

at what is happening within the Body of Christ.

But look at this!

Look at how high up on the list

this call to brotherly kindness is found.

If this unity we share in Christ

truly is a given,

an inescapable reality of our shared relationship with Christ,

then why does Peter present it

as such a relatively mature quality?

Why does it first require growth in

moral excellence

and knowledge

and self-control

and perseverance

and godliness

before it can be an active,

consistent part of our walk with the King?

Because there is something else involved here

besides just that inner spirit recognition.

Let me see if I can illustrate what I mean

and then we’ll look at some passages in Scripture

that will help put it into perspective.

You remember that incident I shared

when years ago I was waiting tables

and met that fellow Christian.

OK, when we parted that evening in the restaurant following or brief conversation

both of us felt a strong unity of spirit

based upon our recognition of Christ

in the other person.

Now, several days latter we met again

for lunch.

During that lunch we started talking about

where we went to church

and what our doctrinal backgrounds were.

And about half way through our lunch

I suddenly realized that this brother in Christ

held some doctrinal beliefs

that I felt were absolutely wrong.

In fact, I not only thought they were wrong,

I violently objected to them.

They were directly opposed to certain

doctrinal beliefs that I held.

And that discovery had an instant affect

on that strong sense of unity

I had felt when we first met.

I didn’t feel anywhere near as close to this fellow at the end of lunch

as I did when lunch first began.

What happened?

Were we no longer brothers?

Had something destroyed our true unity of spirit?

No.

But our personalities,

our beliefs,

our ideas,

our backgrounds,

our flesh began to intrude into that

unity of spirit

in a way that began to blind us

to the true underlying unity of Spirit in Christ Jesus.

Now I’m not telling you anything

you haven’t already experienced.

If you are a Christian

most if not all of you

have had similar experiences.

You have met someone

and seen Christ in them

and experienced that amazing sense of unity that comes

through a shared union with Christ.

But then, as you begin to spend time with them,

you begin to find out things about them

that really bug you -

things that, from your perspective,

are anything but Christ-like.

They may even begin to drive you up the wall.

And you discover that maintaining the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace

is far harder than establishing it in the first place.

Some of you have no doubt experienced this same type of thing with me as your Bible teacher.

When you first met me

your spirit may have responded to that recognition of Christ’s Spirit within me.

But then as you began to listen to me

and watch me

you’ve discovered some things that drive you crazy -

areas where I fail to live what I preach,

areas where you feel

what I preach is wrong,

areas where I fall short of what you would expect from a ‟Man of the Cloth”,

and it’s caused you to sense some barriers

between us that were not there initially.

In I Thess. 4:9-10 Paul makes the following comment to his fellow Christians at Thessolanica:

Now as to philadelphia, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more,

Do you see what he does here?

He begins by affirming what we have all experienced -

there is a kind of brotherly love

that comes to us as a gift of God,

God Himself just gives it to us.

But then Paul goes on to challenge them

to take that foundation of spirit-unity

and excel still more - to build upon it.

This concept comes across even more clearly

in the way Peter uses this same word, philadelphia, in I Peter 1:22.

1 Pet. 1:22 Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere PHILADELPHIA, fervently love one another from the heart...

Do you see the two-phase process?

Our union with Christ,

our submission to Him purifies our souls,

and makes that unity of spirit possible

between us and other believers.

But Peter recognizes that this purifying process

is only the beginning,

the opportunity for practical love

to become a living reality

in our daily relationships with one another.

And so he goes on to say, ‟fervently love one another from the heart”.

Now, for the first time in your life,

you have the ability to love,

so lets make it a living reality.

Let me offer you a definition of Brotherly Kindness that may help simplify

what I’m trying to say here.

Brotherly Kindness is the ability to seek to meet the needs of your fellow Christians even when it conflicts with your personal rights, your possessions, or your ideas and beliefs.

Philadelphia, the love of the brethren,

is not a feeling,

it is rooted in our choices,

choosing to make our relationship

with our fellow Christian

a higher priority

than our doctrinal systems,

our personal rights,

or our possessions.

Of course Satan has a nifty counterfeit he offers Christians.

He will take some intense spiritual experience we’ve had,

or some doctrinal system,

or some urgent need our cause we’ve seen,

and he will substitute it in our minds for the Person of Christ.

Then he will brings others into our lives

who have had the same experience,

or seen the same truth,

or given themselves to the same cause or belief system.

And that will become the basis for our sense of philadelphia -

those are the only ones with whom we feel a deep sense of unity,

even to the point where we view our little group

as the being called by God to bring the “truth” to all the other Christians

who have not seen the same light that we have seen.

Unity based upon a shared commitment

to a specific doctrinal structure or belief system

with another believer is fine.

It’s nice to bump up against another believer who has seen the same truths we have seen.

But such unity is an extremely immature

level of Christian living.

Loving someone who thinks like us

and talks like us,

and uses the same catch phrases we use,

and knows the same special passages,

and the same key interpretations that we know is fine.

But it has nothing to do

with true Biblical brotherly kindness

or unity in the spirit.

True philadelphia, love of the brethren,

is the second most mature quality

of true Christian living.

And it calls us to be able to see the brother

or sister before us

whose doctrine is all messed up,

and whose personality is abrasive,

and whose approach to life is full of holes

and be able to reach out in very real,

practical ways

and say with our actions, and with our life,

‟I praise God that you and I are in this thing together.”