The Core Value of Community ~ 1 Peter 1:22-25 ~

God Gives Us His Words of Eternal Life1 Peter 1:22-25

Found on page 868 in our guest Bibles.

Today’s Scripture:

“I love mankind,” he said, “but I find to my amazement that the more I love mankind as a whole, the less I

love man in particular.”~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

FACEBOOK in a

CROWDby Hal Niedzvviecki

The New York Times( )

crowded

l o n e l i n e s s

Our DNA at NCCGospel - Community - Mission

Gospel

Community

Mission+

+

Three Gifts

Gospel

Community

Mission

Three Conversions

When we join with Jesus, we join his community and his mission.

The Core Value of Community ~ 1 Peter 1:22-25 ~

Having purified your souls by your

1 Peter 1:22

obedience to the truth for a sincerebrotherly love, love one anotherearnestly from a pure heart…,

Like salvation, sin is a word that belongs to the traditional Christian

vocabulary. ‘I am not a sinner,’ people often say, because they seem to be

associating sin with specific and rather sensational misdeeds like

murder, adultery, and theft.

“

But ‘sin’ has a much wider connotation than that…. What the

Bible means by sin is primarily self-centeredness…. For God’s two great commandments are first that we love him with all our being and secondly that we love our neighbor as we love

ourself.

“

Sin, then, is the reversal of this order. It is to put ourselves first…our

neighbour next when it suits our convenience, and God some where

in the background.”

“”~ The late Anglican minister, John Stott

Having purified your souls by your

1 Peter 1:22

obedience to the truth for a sincerebrotherly love, love one anotherearnestly from a pure heart…,

Having purified your souls by your

1 Peter 1:22

obedience to the truth for a sincerebrotherly love, love one anotherearnestly from a pure heart…,

Imagine CALGARY…

…as the city of BROTHERLY LOVE

…since you have been born again,

1 Peter 1:23-24

not of perishable seed but of imper-ishable, through the living and abid-ing word of God, for “All flesh is likegrass and all its glory like the flowerof grass. The grass withers, and the

“…flower falls, but the word of the

1 Peter 1:23-24

Lord remains forever.” And this wordis the good news that was preachedto you.

The Gospel births Christians

AND

Christian communities of love

We value true community because the Gospel bring us into relationship with Jesus

and with Jesus’ people.

Main Idea

Realize LONE Rangers are DEAD Rangers

1

• show hospitality to one another

New Testament Christianity…

• pray for one another• stir one another to love & good works• build one another up• encourage one another • bear one another’s burdens• through love serve one another• outdo one another in showing honor

LOVE

what Jesus loves

2

“Husbands, love your wives, as

Christ loved the church and gave

himself up for her…”~ The Apostle Paul in

Ephesians 5:25

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my

disciples, if you have love for one another.”~ Jesus of Nazareth, in the Gospel of John 13:34-35

“By this we know love, that he laid

down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for

our brothers.”~ The Apostle John

1 John 3:16

Take the next step towards true community.

3

image: csedward:

“Now concerning brotherly love, you

have no need of anyone to write you for you

yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. But we urge you , brothers, to

do this more and more.”

~ The Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10

“We proclaim that God is love, and that Jesus Christ offers true community. We insist that the church is part of the gospel. God’s purpose, we say, is not merely to

save isolated individuals, and so perpetuate their loneliness, but to build a church, to

create a new society, even a new humanity, in which racial, national, social

and sexual barriers have been abolished....

“...People searching for community ought to be pouring into our churches…. For there

are Christian communities all over the world where true, sacrificial, serving, supportive

love is to be found. Where such Christian love flourishes, its magnetism is almost

IRRESISTIBLE.”

John Stott The Contemporary Christian

Rachel Melton: http://www.flickr.com/photos/agentmelton/8270417673

Simone Artibani: http://www.flickr.com/photos/asa-nisi-masa/4995679871/

mafleen: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mafleen/8472558582/

flickr images courtesy of:

csedward: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29422041@N04/4391015676/