Transcription
If you've been with us, then you know we're actually in mini series four through the book of Romans. And so we've kind of broken it up into four smaller series. And this series is called "In View of God's Mercy" as we're walking through what happened as a result, what happens as a result in our lives as a result of what God has done for us in Christ.
And so if you're with us last week, you know that we talked about, and I'm sorry, sore subject, hate to bring it up again. We talked about taxes. And we talked about honoring authority and respecting authority and what that looks like in the life of a Christian.
And today we move from there to something that is uh perhaps one of the most important things. It's certainly one of the only things that will change everything about your relationships. It's not just that it can change your relationships, but when this is manifest in your life, when this quality, as scripture describes it, is present in the life of any Christian, it can affect the eternal destiny of the people around you. And what I'm talking and what we're talking about from Romans 13 this morning is love. Living a life of love.
We live in a culture that loves love. In fact, yesterday walked through the store looking at the Mother's Day cards. The card section of the store is a testament to how much we love the idea of loving each other. We love it. But our culture, what happens is as much as we love love, our misunderstanding of love is pervasive. And if you misunderstand love, then you miss the power of love and the powerful things God would do through your love in the lives of other people.
And so in order that we don't miss that and in order that we are prepared to live the life of love that God has called us to live, the Apostle Paul takes us through the end of chapter 13 and walks us through truths about what it means to live a life of love. And the first truth he talks about is the debt of love and we see this in verse 8. Chapter chapter 13 verse 8. "Owe no one anything except to love each other. For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law."
Now, the first phrase that we need to talk about is the beginning phrase of verse 8 because there has been teaching and perhaps maybe you know somebody, maybe you know a Christian because some Christians do believe that based on Romans chapter 13 and verse 8 that you're not supposed to go into debt. Period. So, you cannot borrow. I mean, I think the question is, can you borrow a rake? Can you borrow a dollar for a Coke? Can you borrow $150,000 to buy a house and get a mortgage? Because once you've borrowed, you're in debt and if this means you can't go into debt, then you can't borrow anything because the moment you borrow, you're in debt and you have to repay that. So, this is the first question before we get into the rest of this passage, it we need to deal with what Paul is establishing here because if that does mean that you can't borrow anything, then that changes the way that we have to approach the whole passage.
So, does Paul mean when he says, "Owe no one anything except to love each other" that that means you can't go into debt? And my short answer to that is, no, that's not what Paul means. But now let me explain to you why I would say that. And the reason I would say that is the context that we find verse 8 in. The context is, well, the immediate verse seven. Verse seven says this, "Pay all Pay to all what is owed to them. Taxes to whom taxes are owed." Sorry, painful subject. "Revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed." In other words, Paul doesn't put owing these things in a negative light. He puts them in a positive light. Namely, there are things that you owe in life or that you owe uh through certain seasons of life, and you should pay what you owe. Owing somebody something is not a bad thing.
And so, the point of what Paul is saying here is not that debt is bad holistically. There can be a positive way to have debt and pay it off. Not that owing something to somebody is wrong, but that if you owe something to somebody, then you need to pay them what you owe. Essentially, Paul's point in summary is pay your bills. So, pay your bills, pay your debts. If you've got a debt, pay it. If you owe taxes, pay them. If you owe revenue, pay them. That's Paul's point. So, when he says, "Owe no one anything," he means if you've got a debt, pay it. But then he says this, "Owe no one anything except to what?" Love one another. Owe no person anything except to love one another.
Now, the passage that we're looking at, though we needed to answer that question about borrowing, is not really about borrowing. The question The issue is really about what do we owe? And you see this, go back to chapter 13 and verse eight. "Owe no one anything except to love each other."
Now, when you look at most New Testament commentaries and what scholars say about this verse, they are almost uniform in saying that here's what Paul means. Paul means that there are all kinds of debts you could owe. And on all those debts, there's a finality to them. So, you know what? You've got a mortgage and someday, by God's grace, you will pay the last payment on that house. In Jesus' name, amen. Or you got a car payment and you are trying to pay off that car. Someday, that jalopy will be paid off and you will be praising God for that. You're like, you're going to pay off that car. Like, whatever that debt is, at some point, there's a finality to what you owed. You're going to finish it. But there's no finality to love. That the payment of love, all those payments, it's not like someday you're going to say, "Well, I've paid my last love payment. I don't have to do that. I don't have to love anybody anymore." I've loved I've given like that was the last check I wrote for love.
And so, is that is that really what's being said here? I think that's true in a sense, but I don't think that goes far enough. Because the problem is that seems to indicate that love is in some sort separate category. That all all of the other things you could owe, there's a there's a stop date on that. But love, there's no stop date. And so, love kind of operates in its own zone. And the question is, is that true? Is it true that love is the only thing that you have an ongoing debt to pay to people around you?
The reason I bring that up is because we just talked in the last verse about honor. And honor, we here's some things we know about honor. 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 17 says this about honor. Honor everyone. Honor everyone. So, honor is this thing that's supposed to also be true of the way that we handle our relationships and we relate to people. Not only that, but Paul says in Romans chapter 12 and verse 10, "Love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor." In other words, honor and love are linked. So, you could say this in essence about what Paul is saying. He's saying that not only are they linked, but in the way that you show honor, make that a payment of love. In the way that you honor people, let it be done in love.
Now, here's why that kind of throws a wrench into the system for just saying love operates in its own separate category because now we know that honor doesn't have a stop date. In the same way, if I show you love at 11:00, do I still have to love you at 12:00? Yeah, I should. I should Some of you are like, I like that. Like, you know, at Hey, it's noon. Done loving people. I'm good with that. Uh that's not the way it works. Sorry. Uh especially on Mother's Day. Honor is the same. It's also true. If I honor, so if I honor Chuck at 11:00, do I still have to honor Chuck at 12:00? Yes. If I love Chuck at 11:00, do I still have to pay the love payment at 12:00? Yeah, I have to keep loving him. So, the same that we can say for love is true of honor. And honor, now when you think about verses 7 and 8 together, if that's true of honor, then that probably means it's true of all the other things that Paul puts in the list with honor. Go to Go to verse 7. He says, "Pay to all what is owed them. Taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed." So, there's a finality on taxes, praise God, right? Like, you write the tax check, it's done. There's a finality to revenue. You pay the revenue payment, it's done. But, there's no finality to honor, and there's no finality to respect.
So, what does it work to say that love sort of operates in its own category, and it's the only thing that you have to keep paying on? Is that what Paul's saying? No, here's what Paul's saying. Paul's saying, in the same way that when you honor people, you make it a love payment. When you respect people, make it a love payment. And when you owe a bill, make it a love payment. And when you write your check to the IRS, make it a love dear IRS. God loves you, and here's a token of my affection. So, um But, we're supposed to do all do everything in love. Actually, 1 Corinthians chapter 16 verse 14, let all that you do the IRS check, the revenue, honoring people, respecting people, all of it is to be pervaded our life, the way that we treat people and interact with people, all of it is to be painted with a paintbrush of love. Why? Because love is a debt that we owe to every single person we come in contact with.
So, I just wonder if you've ever been in this situation. Have you ever owed somebody money? Maybe you borrowed 20 bucks from them. And then you saw them. What was the first thing you thought? I'll tell you the first thing I think. I owe them 20 bucks, and I don't have 20 bucks on me. Like, I don't have any cash. So, then you see them in the grocery store or whatever, and they're like, "Hey, how are you?" You're like, "Great." And while they're talking, here's what I'm thinking. I owe them 20 bucks. I owe them 20 bucks. I owe them And they're saying, you know, "How's the kids? How's the weather?" And you're thinking, "It's great. It's awesome." And I'm thinking, are they thinking what I'm thinking? Like, do they remember that I owe them 20 bucks? It's I'm not thinking that because I don't want to pay them back. I'm thinking because I feel awkward, you know, like, I I'm like, "Can I buy you a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk and we'll just kind of square this? I got a credit card. So, um you're wondering, but I'm thinking at the forefront of my mind it's even hard to focus on the conversation, to be honest, because I feel like I awkwardly feel like I should say, "Hey, I know you 20 bucks I know I owe you 20 bucks. I'll get you next time." You know, like just it'll be totally I'll have it next time. Um that's the way you feel. You feel like you need to do that. It's because it's right here on the forefront of your mind.
Paul says that's the way it should be with love. That when you come in contact with any person at the forefront of your mind love should be right there. So, like even I see you out in public the whole conversation should be dominated my overarching sense should be man, I've got to show them love. I I owe a I love debt to them.
So, yesterday, here's how this plays out in real life. Yesterday, I'm going you know, I'm studying for today and in the middle of that I'm thinking I need a Mother's Day card for Becky and I need another Mother's Day card, which babe I'm going to fill that out later. Um I need another Mother's Day card for the kids. Um she already knew that, by the way. So, I love you so much. Um I need another Mother's Day card so they can the kids can fill it out. And so, I run I run over to Target and the Target is a zoo because everybody is thinking they're going to do the same thing that I'm doing. And so, I'm trying to find a parking spot. Now, you're waiting for other people to park and I run I'm literally running through the parking lot. And as I'm getting to the door, there's all this mass of humanity trying to cram through one sliding glass door opening and I'm just thinking I got to you got you got to get out of my way because I'm in a hurry. I got to write a sermon about loving people and um and so this is terrible, but it's a true story. And in the middle of in mid-sprint the Holy Spirit was like you are a hypocrite. And so, um I literally I thought as I was walking, "Okay, and you go first and Oh, yeah, go ahead. Nope. Everybody. Everybody. Then I get to the card aisle, and you know, you you never pick a card fast. If you've got that gift, I want to meet you. I've got a job for you. Cards are hard to pick. And so, that's a common human problem. And so, I'm get to the card aisle, and everybody's in front of the Mother's Day cards. I'm like, "No, no, after By all means, yes. Go. Get the Get the perfect one. Get the perfect one. Because I OWE THEM A DEBT OF LOVE. THAT'S HOW I'M AND ALL THIS BUT THAT'S not an easy thing to do.
Paul says, "It's got to be at the forefront of your mind. It's got to be right up there because we owe people a debt of love. And not only do we owe them a debt of love, but here's the importance of this debt. When you go into the rest of the passage, you look at verse nine. What does he say? "For the commandment say, 'You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and any other commandments are summed up in this word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does not does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. Love is the fulfillment of the law."
In other words, when you think about the law, here's what happens. And this is why Paul, I believe, is bringing this up. Because we tend to process law and love this way. Law is negative, love is positive. Law is bad because all it's it's negative, and love is good. But that's not at all the way that Paul processes this. When you think about the law, he's We know that he's probably referencing the law in terms of the Ten Commandments, specifically because he lists these commandments. And the law. If you understand the 10 Commandments, maybe you've seen depiction of the two two stone tablets which Moses wrote down the laws of God, the 10 Commandments on them. The first stone tablet contained laws that speak to our vertical relationship, namely our relationship with God. Paul's assuming, given all that he's written in Romans, that we understand how that relationship works. Now, what he's doing is he's pointing to our horizontal relationships, our relationships with one another. Says, "So, your vertical relationship is taken care of, but now we've got to work on those horizontal relationships, and what you need to understand is those are part of God's law, and love fulfills that law. How so?"
Look at what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 22. And he said to them, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and this is the great This is the great and first commandment." So, that's the vertical relationship. He's summing up how your vertical relationship works in terms of God's law leading you into right relationship with God. The law doesn't make you righteous, but the law does speak to how that relationship works. And the second is like it, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two Commandments depend all the law and the prophets." In other words, the law shows us what love looks like. The law and the love are intertwined, and so when we love one another, we are fulfilling God's law, because God's law was to teach us how to love, how to love God and how to love each other. This is This is the debt that we owe, the debt we owe every person, not just people we like, not just people we get along with, not just other Christians. It's the debt we owe to the every person around us.
But Paul not only says it's a debt that we owe, but now he moves from the debt that we owe to the motive for love. Not only does he talk about the debt of love, but now to the motive for love. You see this in chapter 13 verse 11. Look at this. Besides, you know the time that the hour has come for for you to wake from sleep. That's like a word from the Lord for some of you in here right now. Time to wake up. Okay? Great. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone. The day is at hand.
I want to make the connection to this just a little bit clearer because I think the phrasing in the English Standard Version, which is the version of the Bible we're reading from here, is a little bit more obscure than maybe like the New International Version. Look at what it says. "And do this." In other words, make every payment a love payment. Make every action, you know, something that is covered with love for one another. Do this understanding the present time. What's the What's the present time? What is Paul talking about when he points to time? There are two words for time that commonly show up in the Greek New Testament. There There are two primary words. The first one is chronos. The Greek word chronos refers to chronological time. So, calendar time, hours, days, minutes, seconds. That's chronos time. That's not this word. This word is kairos, which is epochal time. So, you can think in terms of ages. So, maybe you've read passages of scripture the New Testament talk about the end of the age or the end of time. That's kairos time. That's what Paul's talking about. Understand the age that we live in. Understand the time that we're in. Understand where we find ourselves in the scale and the scope of redemptive history because Paul doesn't want us to forget the time that we live in.
I think it's helpful every once in a while as he's talking about not not losing sight of the time that we live in to be reminded of what time we do live in. Because if this is time, this is the history of humanity. This is eternity past. This is eternity future. This is you. Paul says, you need to understand and I need to understand when it when it comes to love that part of the motive, what moves us to love, what compels us to love, what should give us an urgency to love is that we understand we're right here. And that someday soon Jesus will return. And your opportunity, your window to love, your window to shine the light of God's love into the lives of other people, that window will close. That someday soon when Jesus comes back, every every conversation in which you could have displayed God's love, every interac- interaction where you could have showed God's love, that window will close.
And that's why Paul writes what he does in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Because he doesn't want us to take this to take us by surprise. For you know quite well that the day of the Lord, the day of the Lord's return will come unexpectedly, like a thief in the night. In other words, what he's pointing them to is that it will come like a surprise to a lot of people. Jesus said, you don't know the day or the hour. Only the Father in heaven knows that. But as Christians, we don't live going, "Okay, well, I know I'm going to be taken off guard by that." What he's saying is, you know that the day of the Lord is coming, and you know that it's going to take a lot of people off guard, but it's not going to take you off guard. Look at this in verse 4. "But you aren't in the dark about these things, dear brothers and sisters, and you won't be surprised when the day of the Lord comes like a thief. For you are all children of the light and the day. We don't belong to the darkness of the night, so be on your guard, not asleep like others. Stay alert."
It's the same thing Paul's saying in Romans chapter 13, that I stay alert. And part of the way that you and I stay alert, part of the way that we love people, part of the way that that stays at the forefront of our mind is we recognize the time is short, eternity is long. And that it's through your love and it's through my love that we have the opportunity to lead people into an eternal relationship with the living God. But we have the motive for love in recognizing that the day that we live in is right up against the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that this life on the earth does not last forever. In fact, James says, "It's but a breath, and then it's gone." The Paul says, "This is the motive for love. This is the urgency of love, that there is a limited moment for it."
In fact, look at Colossians chapter 4 and verse 5, because this is powerful. Live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity. Guess what? You have opportunities, but they're limited. You have opportunities to show people kindness, compassion. You have opportunities to show people love. I have opportunities to show people love, but they won't last forever. They're limited, so I've got to make the most of every opportunity. That's the motive for love.
Now, Paul moves from the motive for love to what he knows that we need in order to do all that he's talked about. And that's the power for love. It's the power for love because loving people through every interaction, loving people through every payment of every debt, loving people who are unkind, loving people who are difficult, loving people who are hostile, loving people from another political party, loving people who don't see the world or life the way you do, loving people with different values, all of that is difficult. In fact, if you look at the world around you, what you'll recognize is that's not natural. Loving people the way that we've just described it and the way that Paul's describing it is not natural. Which means it has to be what? Supernatural. Which is exactly where Paul is taking us.
And so he says this in chapter 13 and verse 12, "The night is gone, the day is at hand. So then, let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light." He starts by talking about the supernatural power for love by putting it in terms of wartime mentality. By putting it in terms of battle language. In other words, what Paul understands is that you loving people is not going to come easy. There's going to be a battle. There's going to be a battle. Because and here's why there's going to be a battle. There's going to be a battle because Satan knows the power of loving other people. He He that what does John 3:16 say? For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever would believe in him would not perish but have eternal life. What did love do? Love is the impetus for the salvation of humanity. That's the power of love. Jesus said, "By this all people will know you're my disciples if you love one another." That love has the capacity when demonstrated through the through the grid of what God has called us to do, through the through the definition that God gives love in scripture, it has the capacity to call people out of darkness and into light. It has the capacity to wake people up to the eternal realities of this life and the next life. That's what love can do.
Here, I'll just ask you this. Have you ever known somebody and you thought and I don't know that they will ever come to Christ. I just don't know. I don't know if I mean they they seem so uninterested in the things of God. They seem so distant. They seem so far away. One of my closest friends was exactly in that spot. That we've known each other for now probably 15 years. But in those early years of our friendship he didn't want anything to do with God and he honestly was continually hostile toward the things of God. He was so disinterested, so unconcerned that it was very hard to love him. If he's here, I love you so much. Um but loving him in that in those times was not an easy thing to do. Because you were you felt like you're constantly interacting with somebody who was saying, "No, thanks. not interested, you know what, don't care, not I don't I don't value what you value, I don't care about what you care about. In fact, I think what you care about is dumb. Like I'm not I am so not where you're at on this. But to keep coming back and to love and to love and to love and to love and to love until one day we he was living in a different part of the country than I was at that time. I was living down in Texas with Becky. I got this random phone call from him. We hadn't talked in at least a number of months. And he said, "Hey, guess what?" What? I became a Christian. What? I thought it was a joke, like prank call. Just joking. I hate you. Goodbye. You know, like uh Because that honestly that wouldn't have been out of character. So he's like, "Wow, you're really diving deep this morning." Um He said, "No. Yeah, I I became a Christian. I believe." And to watch what God has done in his life. And it was, you know what what God used? It wasn't just my love. But it was my love coupled with the love of a lot of other people who just kept making love payments into his life and kept saying, "You know what, we're not going to stop just cuz you're mean, we're not going to stop just cuz you're hostile, just cuz you don't care, just cuz you're you're uninterested. We're not going to stop. We're just going to keep loving you."
Here's the thing, there are some of you and you're it's in your family, it's in your friendships, it's in your home, it's in your workplace and there's somebody who you say they're so disinterested, they don't care, they don't want to listen, they're whenever I bring it up they're hostile. You just keep loving them. You just keep making deposits. You don't know what God is doing. You can't see what God sees. You don't know the effect of your love, but you do know this that God uses love to effect to effect eternal transformation in the lives of people, but it's through consistently just paying payments, love payments. Say, "I'm going to love you. I'm going to love you. I'm going to love you. I'm going to love you. Oh, no, no, I'm not going to stop. I know you don't like this. I'm going to love you. I'm going to love you." That's what Paul is calling us to. It's that sort of love, but that takes the armor of light because Satan knows how powerful that sort of love really is.
Paul goes on to say this though, "Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies or drunkenness or sexual immorality or sensuality or quarreling or jealousy." And you could say, "Wow, that's kind of a that's kind of a sharp turn right there. Uh where did we get how do we get into here?" "Let us walk properly as in the daytime." Let's Let's stop right here. What Paul is saying is when What's What's properly in the daytime? He's not just saying, "Hey, be moral." The daytime is the light of The light of Christ has shined on you. The light of Christ has dawned. Jesus came and Jesus lived and Jesus died and Jesus rose. The The love of God has been manifest in Jesus coming. All of a sudden we we have this brilliant blazing PICTURE OF JUST HOW MUCH GOD loves us. Paul's saying, "If you don't walk in that reality, if you don't walk in the love of God, IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW much God loves you, if you don't understand how much God cares about you, if you don't know how God sees you, well, I What will happen is that we end up looking for love in all the wrong places. And we are prone to get pulled down by the gravitational pull of a fallen broken sin cursed world to gratify ourselves, to take care of number one, to look out for ourselves. And so Paul isn't so much as giving us specific words as he's giving us categories of how that works out in our life when we don't see life the way that we should.
I want to show you what he's doing here. When he says orgies and drunkenness, he's talking about immediate gratification. We start living for the now. We start living as if life is all about personal pleasure. Life is all about doing what I want, when I want, how I want. Then he says, "It sexual immorality and sensuality." Or life becomes about physical gratification. I'm into what feels good. I mean, that's that's where I find my acceptance. That's where I find my love. That's find where I find myself satisfaction. Life becomes all about my physical desires and love turns into lust. Then finally, he says, "Or quarreling or jealousy." That life can become about personal gratification. Life becomes all about me. It's all about my needs. It's all about my wants. It's all about accumulating for myself. Paul says all of that is a product of not walking in the light. All of that is a product of not understanding how much God loves you and how God sees you. And if you don't understand those things and you don't regularly remind yourself of those things, what happens is you end up falling into these things, which is where the world lives.
So, how do we keep that from happening? How do we get intentional about living differently? Where does the power for love come from? Look at verse 14. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. When he says put on, it's the language of clothing yourself. When I get up in the morning, when you get up in the morning, we put clothes on. The idea is we're clothing ourselves cuz we want to look presentable. Especially on Mother's Day, you want to look nice. You want to want to make sure you you know you intend for these clothes to carry you through the day. But the Bible tells us that when a person comes to faith in Christ, they are clothed in they have put on the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, we're not talking about salvation here as much as Paul is talking about the daily practice of getting empowered to love like you've been called to love because you cannot love the way you've been called to love without putting on the Lord Jesus Christ.
How do you put on the Lord Jesus Christ? When you get up early in the morning and you say, "You know what? Before I go to work, before my day starts, I'm going to talk to God. I'm going to spend some time in His word." You're putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. Right here, this morning. This is putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. When you gather to worship and be in God's presence, that's putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. We've got Dream Teamers all across the room in gray shirts. Jesus came Jesus came and when Jesus came, He said, "I did not come to be served, but to serve." When you serve, when you jump on a Dream Team and you give away your time and your energy and your effort to blessing other people, guess what? You're putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. When I remind myself that God has called me to be a godly husband to Becky and to be a godly and hus- a godly father to Owen, to Elliot, to Henley, when I remind myself that He's equipped me for every good work, I'm putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. It's through those practices. It's through being in the presence of God. It's through grounding yourself in God's word. It's through serving. It's through hospitality. All of those are ways we put on the Lord Jesus Christ. It's when we see our lives not in light of this life but in light of eternity that we put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because here's the thing. As we talk about life and we talk about love we can spend all of our effort and all of our energy living for what matters here. When what actually matters is here. I don't I I don't want to process my relationships in terms of what frustrates me here. I want to process the way I love people and the way I serve people and the way I invest in people in terms of what's going to matter here. I want to invest in my children not on the basis of here. I want to invest in my children on the basis of here. I want to live a life not that echoes here. I want to live a life that echoes here. Because God has given you the capacity through Christ and by the power of the spirit to live a life that makes a difference in all of eternity. So that all of eternity there will be evidence of the life that you led and the investments that you made and the love that you poured in and the payments of love that you made in the lives of other PEOPLE FOR ALL OF ETERNITY BECAUSE YOU CHOSE NOT TO LIVE FOR HERE BUT TO LIVE FOR HERE. AND GOD USED THAT.
Paul says, "That's the kind of love that you want to evidence. That's the life of love. A life of love is a life that recognizes eternal life. We don't live for this life. We live for the life to come. We love for the life to come. We serve for the life to come. We invest for the life to come. God wants to do that in your life and through your life as you live a life of love. Let's pray together."