Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — Dardanelle, Arkansas
Pastor Chuck Trusty — Sunday morning service, August 16, 2026 Step Seven on the 2 Peter Staircase · A3 D13 · 2 Peter 1:5-7
► Watch this lesson on video (50:43)
The One Point
Brotherly kindness is the family warmth of God’s house — kept burning on purpose, or not burning at all.
Where We Are on the Staircase
Last Sunday morning we saw that love flows ONE direction — from God, through us, to our neighbor . . . and this morning we see what that river looks like inside God’s house.
We have been climbing Peter’s staircase step by step — faith . . . virtue . . . knowledge . . . temperance . . . patience . . . godliness . . . and now step SEVEN, brotherly kindness.
One step from the top . . . one step behind charity, which is the God-kind of love, and which we will come to in a later lesson.
But because there is a step named brotherly kindness — kindness toward those who love us BACK — I do not want anybody leaving here this morning thinking it is a formality, a little courtesy on the way to the grand finale, not as important as godly love. It is no small step at ALL.
Brotherly kindness is the step that makes everything below it VISIBLE — it is what allows anybody to see our faith, our virtue, our knowledge, our temperance, our patience and our godliness . . . and it is the step that makes charity possible.
You cannot pour the ‘God-kind’ of love into a church that has never learned the FAMILY kind of love.
The Text and the Word Behind It
“And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity” (2 Peter 1:5–7).
The word behind “brotherly kindness” is philadelphia — from phileo (warm affection, tender care) and adelphos (a brother). It is the affectionate, tender bond between family members.
Now set it beside agape, the divine, self-giving love of God. Agape says, I will give my life for a stranger. Philadelphia says, Kenneth, I am glad you are my brother.
Agape is over the top, extraordinary — who does kind things for his ENEMIES, for complete strangers? . . . philadelphia is the warm glow between family members, loving those who love us in return.
And we need BOTH of them.
Peter put philadelphia on the step just below agape, and he did it on purpose — brotherly love is what makes agape feel like something REAL, rather than an abstract idea out yonder that we will never reach.
Think about the difference between a handshake and a hug. Somebody we barely know comes through the door — a handshake, a polite smile, a pleasant word, and that is right and appropriate . . . but what if Bro. Chillie walked through these doors this morning? We would not shake his hand. We would give him a bear hug and hold on a little longer than we actually needed to, and ask about John, and ask how the cancer treatments are going.
That glad-to-see-you, glad-you-are-here family feeling — THAT is philadelphia.
The church is not supposed to feel like a handshake — the church is supposed to feel like a family REUNION.
Three Commands That Define It
One: be kindly affectioned. “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another” (Romans 12:10).
“Kindly affectioned” is philostorgos (the tender, natural love a parent has for his children) — the warmest and most instinctive love we know anything about . . . and Paul says bring THAT into the church.
“In honour preferring one another” means we push each other toward the FRONT. Not literally — it means we take the lesser seat and let our brother have the credit, we are standing in line in the fellowship hall and we let him go ahead of us, there is one slice left and we would rather HE had it.
The world climbs all over one another to get to the top. In the family of God, everybody is holding the ladder so somebody else can climb it — and they are CONTENT to hold it.
Two: let it continue. “Let brotherly love continue” (Hebrews 13:1).
One word carries the weight of that whole verse: CONTINUE.
Philadelphia is not a feeling that shows up one day and then stays all on its own. A fire does not keep burning without fuel . . . a garden does not keep producing without tending . . . love lives on daily choices — the phone call, the encouragement, the forgiveness extended, the kindness chosen over the grievance.
Think about the lamp that needs oil. When I was younger I thought MAINTENANCE-FREE was the way to go. There is no such thing as maintenance-free anything. It does not exist.
The old lamps a hundred years ago did not burn all night on their own - the way a battery lantern would today. Hollywood hides the fact that the old-timer with his lantern - had to add oil to it regularly and deliberately, or it would go OUT — a lamp that was full at sundown was not necessarily full at midnight . . . and in the parable of the ten virgins - the one who ASSUMED her lamp was still full - was the one who ran out at the worst possible moment.
Which means a church that was warm five years ago — where brotherly love went out in every direction, where every member was choosing to love his brothers and sisters and all of it was real — is not automatically warm TODAY.
I know we are talking about love here, but NOTHING about the Christian life is one-and-done. Nothing. A lamp needs a continuous supply of oil.
We need continuous exposure to the Bible . . . we need continuous exposure to prayer . . . and here is the one we tend to forget — we need continuous exposure to ONE ANOTHER. We do not come to church only to say, all right, God, I did it, now quit pestering me. We come to church to be exposed to one another.
Go very long without that fellowship and we are like a plant set up on a shelf that does not get quite enough water — fertilized, cared for, everything done — and the leaves begin to wilt anyway, because it is getting SOME of what it needs and not ALL of what it needs.
Far too often we UNDERESTIMATE fellowship with God’s people.
Three: the five marks of a family. “Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous” (1 Peter 3:8).
ONE MIND is unity in direction — not unanimity on every opinion, because some of us will like red and some will like blue, and one prefers the piano while another prefers the organ . . . it means we agree to go the same WAY, not that we make identical decisions.
COMPASSION is feeling what our brother feels and moving TOWARD the pain to ease it, instead of moving away from the pain - so we will not be bothered by it.
LOVE AS BRETHREN is the family warmth we have been describing. When I go to the bank I greet the teller at the window — fine, how are you doing — but when I see Stacy in her little office, that is something more than a greeting. She is FAMILY.
PITIFUL is an old English word for full of pity (a heart that is moved), and it refers to the strings of the heart being tugged.
COURTEOUS means considerate and humble, treating everybody with genuine care rather than a false show of it.
This is not complicated theology . . . this is simply how a healthy family behaves.
Five Faces of Brotherly Kindness
As we go through these, think of specific people and specific situations — not something generic and abstract.
The first face is ‘presence’. Philadelphia SHOWS UP in the hospital room.
When the hard news comes to one of us — the diagnosis, the surgery, whatever it happens to be — WHO shows up? Not to preach and not to fix it, but to sit in that uncomfortable chair and say, I am here. That is what family does.
The love of a brother does not need a speech prepared. I told you this would happen if you did not change your ways, if you had quit eating that. That is not brotherly love . . . brotherly love needs a PRESENCE.
It needs to be a porch light. When family is expected home after dark we leave the porch light on — we do not turn it off at bedtime and figure they will find their way in, I know it will be dark, but let them work it out. The light stays on because they BELONG here. It says the door is open, somebody is up, somebody is watching for you . . . and yes, we love you.
Philadelphia is a porch light that says you BELONG.
The second face is heard in how we speak about one another.
Brotherly love shuts down gossip before it ever starts. “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matthew 24:12) — warm is good and cool is not . . . and nothing shows the temperature of a church faster than what we say about each other when the person is not in the room.
A brother speaks WELL of his brother when that brother cannot defend himself. When negative things start being said, if we have brotherly love toward that man - then we ought to say — and mean it in our heart — I would rather not talk about him that way.
Somebody says, preacher, that is naive. This is not ‘pretending’ problems away . . . this is being PROTECTIVE, because that is what families do, they protect their own. I am not going to let anybody talk ugly about Haley or Sarah or Andy or Mark or Summer or any of the kids without giving them some pushback — and the same thing ought to hold true about us as a church.
Brotherly kindness is the family warmth of God’s house, kept burning on purpose, or it is not burning at all.
The third face rejoices and weeps together. “Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep” (Romans 12:15).
Both halves are named — because both halves are HARD.
Most of us know how to show up and share a burden . . . and if we are honest, we are grateful in our hearts that the pain did not originate with US, and that the situation is not reversed.
But rejoicing with the one who rejoices, without one trace of envy, is harder. Our brother gets the promotion WE wanted. He gets the healing we have been praying for. He gets the blessing we had been hoping for - ourselves . . . can we rejoice with him completely, without reservation?
Philadelphia says YES, we can. In a healthy family the brother who just made the team gets cheered LOUDEST by the brothers who did not — because their love for him is bigger than their disappointment for themselves.
The fourth face bears burdens without being asked. “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).
A real family does not wait for the formal ANNOUNCEMENT. They NOTICE the exhausted mother on Sunday morning before she says a word . . . they notice the man who has been sitting alone in the back for three weeks looking down . . . they notice the couple whose smiles have gotten smaller lately.
And they move toward what they see — not with a program, I have the perfect class for you, but with a casserole to ease that mother’s load, or a phone call to take the edge off discouragement, or a hand on the shoulder and, I noticed, and I am not going anywhere. We are in this together.
The fifth face remembers that correction is not rejection.
This is the hardest one of the five, and the most misunderstood — a brother who loves us is a brother who will tell us the TRUTH.
Has your wife ever asked you whether her hair looks all right — and it is about the worst thing you have ever seen? What about the new dress . . . honey, how does this look? Do you love her enough to tell her the TRUTH?
When we are headed in the wrong direction, a real brother mentions the drift. He is the one honest enough to say the part is crooked in the back . . . he is the one who will say the seams look about to give way and you might think about going up a size.
Does that hurt our feelings? It is not what we WANTED to hear. Or do we take it as, they are trying to help me?
Your enemy will not mention the crooked part. The girls at school who are jealous of you will not say a word about the tight seams. But those who LOVE you will tell you.
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful” (Proverbs 27:6). This is evidently a very old problem.
On the receiving end, if our heart is right, we will hear that correction as the GIFT it is. The most EXPENSIVE thing a friend can ever give us is the truth.
Baptism comes to mind right here. To tell a brother his baptism is fine when I KNOW it is not proper according to the Scriptures — because I know that is what he wants to hear — is exactly the same as telling Summer that a dress fits well when it does not.
When somebody comes to me and says, preacher, I was baptized when I was nine years old, at a church that did not believe like us any more than the man in the moon — if I love that man, what am I supposed to say? Oh, that part in your hair is not crooked at all? Or do I tell him the truth . . . that according to the Scriptures, that is not proper. And that there are blessings, both here and in eternity, that ‘get forfeited’ when we take that kind of correction as narrow-mindedness or judgment and get angry over it.
A church with philadelphia in it - can HAVE the hard conversations . . . because the love underneath is strong enough to hold the weight.
When somebody loves you - he is not being a busybody when he offers correction. Think of the parent who says to a grown child, if you miss church for that ball game, understand it will be easier to find a reason to miss the next one. Or, son, if you go into debt for that, and then things change at work — and they WILL change — your stress is going to go up.
One of the things we do not realize when we are young is that things will not stay the way they are now. You are not always going to feel as good as you feel right now . . . your finances and your situation at work are not going to stay put or your wages keep rising the way you hope . . . EVERYTHING is going to change. And when we make plans that do not allow for this change, that is exactly why our plans go awry. That is true physically, and it is also true spiritually.
Love says: if I saw Brother Ken’s truck parked in another church’s lot on a Sunday evening when he should be here, I would not accuse him of anything — but out of concern I would ask him what was going on, because I LOVE him.
We have all had these delicate moments with family — and the relationship SURVIVES them, because of the love that is present.
Why Peter Put It Before Charity
Charity — agape — is the love that goes out into the WORLD . . . to the stranger, to the enemy, to the one with nothing to offer back.
But a church that tries to practice agape without philadelphia is a church that is kind to strangers and COLD to its own family . . . it makes a handy slogan, but it is not healthy, and it talks about loving the world while the people inside the building barely know one another’s names.
“But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Timothy 5:8).
I have seen preachers in the course of my life who loved everybody ELSE, while their own immediate family were practically strangers to them — men who would do for Sister Jones or Sister Smith what they never once thought to do for their own children.
I do not care what truth a man preaches. He can preach all twenty-one articles of the Landmarks of our faith flawlessly — but if he fails to practice love, then he has DENIED the faith. Remember the Lord’s words, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:40). Love God, and love one another . . . and if we do not provide for our own, we do not love one another, and we certainly do not love God.
Peter knew exactly what he was doing by putting brotherly kindness one step before charity . . . family love comes FIRST. Philadelphia is the training ground for agape.
Much the same way, I think one of the reasons Satan has attacked marriage so hard is that the relationship between a husband and a wife is the perfect practice ground for learning to submit — to submit to God and to put God before self . . . if I am not willing to put Summer before me, I am certainly never going to put God before me.
Think about a little stream that feeds a river. The Arkansas River over here is powerful and wide and its water goes all the way to the Gulf — but every river begins as a small stream that nobody notices. Philadelphia is the SPRING, the love that starts in the household of faith . . . and the river it feeds is agape, the love that reaches out into the world.
If there were no little stream you could step across, there would be no river . . . and if there is no philadelphia, there will be no agape.
Four Things to Take With Us
Do we KNOW the people in our church? Not just their names — their lives, their struggles, what makes them happy, what makes them anxious. Philadelphia requires knowing, not merely recognizing.
Is there somebody in this church toward whom we feel just a little COOL? I am not talking about an enemy . . . I am talking about a distance we have allowed to grow over time. What would it take to relight that lamp so the relationship goes from cool back to warm?
When one of us is struggling, do we move TOWARD him — even the one we feel cool toward — or do we take a hands-off approach and wait for somebody else to do it? Philadelphia MOVES. It does not wait.
And is our love warm enough to hold the weight of an honest conversation? Brother Ken, did I see your truck parked over there? Or, I know you were baptized at that church across town, but they are not the same kind of church we are. I always have to weigh it — if I say that, I will make him mad . . . but if I love him the way I should, and if his heart is right, it will come back the way Summer would say it: I am glad you told me my hair was parted crooked. I would have hated to go to town and let everybody laugh at me. It hurt my feelings a little — but thank you for being honest with me.
The Invitation
Brotherly kindness is the family warmth of God’s house, kept burning on purpose, or it will not be burning at all.
“Let brotherly love continue” (Hebrews 13:1). The Bible does not say let brotherly love START. It says CONTINUE — which means it is already here, it lives in this church . . . and the question is whether we are adding the oil, or whether we are assuming the lamp will take care of itself.
It would do us good to add one measure of oil this week — one visit . . . one phone call . . . one word of honest warmth to somebody in this family whose relationship we have let go cool.
Keep the porch light ON . . . our brother is on his way home.
And tonight we will take this family love and ask it a harder question — does brotherly love ever climb past our own front door?
Scripture Used
2 Peter 1:5–7 · Romans 12:10 · Hebrews 13:1 · 1 Peter 3:8 · Romans 12:15 · Galatians 6:2 · Proverbs 27:6 · 1 Timothy 5:8 · Matthew 24:12 · Matthew 22:40 · Matthew 25:1–13 (referenced) (all KJV)
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