Viva La Vida Christus: Living the Life of Christ (Part 5)
This is the fifth week of our fall sermon series, “Viva La Vida Christus: Living the Life of Christ” dealing with Romans 12-16. Part 5, this week, is titled “Life Under Eternal Law” and works with Romans 13:8-10 addressing financial debt, the nature of love, fulfilling the law, and being neighborly. This sermon was originally preached October 5th, 2008 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
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October 5th, 2008
Pastor Duane M. Smets
Series: Viva La Vida | Romans 12-16
“Life Under Eternal Law”
Romans 13:9-10
Introduction
Good morning everyone. It’s good to see you. If you don’t know me, my name is Duane and I get the joy of being a pastor here and preaching the gospel each week from God’s book, the Bible. Well, let’s read the text for today and get right into it. We’re continuing in our fall sermon series, “Viva La Vida Christus: Living the Life of Christ” moving through Romans, chapter 12-16.
Last week, we studied the previous section of Scripture which dealt how a Christian is supposed to relate to whatever the government is of the land he or she finds themselves living in. We learned that the Christian is really part of a theocracy called the Kingdom of God, where Jesus rules as king…that’s who and what we live for what we care about.
Whatever rulers of the land, the current politics and politicians and present law is mainly temporary, they are a temporary law until Jesus returns and sets up his physical kingdom here on earth. Until then, we are to attempt to please the current, temporal, ruling governments, by obeying them, living in peace and paying our taxes. Other than that, we don’t care too much because we don’t put a whole lot of trust or hope in any government except the one we really care about…the Kingdom of God where Christ rules as the perfect king.
Today’s text turns our attention from the current ruling governments, to the one ruling law in the Kingdom of God…love and the urgent need for love. Last week’s sermon was “Life Under Temporal Law” and this week’s sermon title is “Life Under Eternal Law” and our text is Romans 13:9-10. Let’s read the text and pray.
8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Lord bless the work of your word today. May our understanding of love and its fulfillment through the gospel’s work in us be expanded today. Love is such a simple word and yet is something we seem to fail at so much. Give us your love today…love for you and love for one another. May the urgency and need for us to live in the love of Jesus Christ be greatly impressed upon us. Teach us where we lack love and are really only living for ourselves and our flesh. Work in us today through your word. Amen.
I have three main points from the text today, “Living in Debt Forever,” “Fulfilling the Law Through Love,” and “Being Freed to Love our Neighbor.”
Living in Debt Forever
Ironically, we begin today by talking about money. Verse 8 begins by saying, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other.” The verse we ended with last week, ended by talking about money…paying money to the government, taxes. And this week starts off by talking about financial debt.
It is ironic because unless you don’t have a TV, a radio, the internet, and no people you ever talk to…then you know that this has been a rollercoaster week financially for the US. Congress just passed a $700 billion dollar financial bailout bill in order to try and save the economy. Now, to be honest, as much as I’ve read about it, I really don’t have a clue how it all works and how it’s supposed to save us and what would happen if they didn’t do that, so I don’t even really have an opinion. I’m just curious where they get the money? $700 billion…that’s a seven with nine zeroes after it. I guess they just start printing more money up or something. I’m sure one of you can tell me afterward.
It is amazing to me how practical the Bible is sometimes. 2 Peter 1:3 says the Bible has in it everything we need for life and godliness. The first words of today’s verse is about as practical you can get for living life…how you handle your money and your relationships.
Now on the outset these four initial words seem to almost say you should never go into debt for anything, no car loans, no house loans, no credit cards, no movie rentals, nothing…”Owe no one anything.” But…we know that’s not what it’s saying. Verse 7 just said there will be times when we owe money to the government and what we miss in this translation is the tense of the word. It is a present imperative, which means it has a continuous force. “Don’t continue owing” would also be a very good translation.
This is actually one place where I actually like what the NIV does. If any of you know me, you know the NIV translation of the Bible frustrates me a lot of the time, which is why we use the ESV here…the ESV is perhaps the best translation out there right now. But here’s what the NIV does, it says, “Let no debt remain outstanding.” The idea is that you pay your debts, you don’t just let them linger and go on forever and ever. You have a contract and pay off plan and you stick to it.
The Bible as a whole is not against you going into debt. There may be times when that would be a good and wise thing to do. Jesus straight up says to loan people money if they ask you and you can do it, Matthew 5:42. In the Old Testament there was a whole system for lending and borrowing. They actually did a very unique thing. Because God owns everything anyway and just calls us temporary stewards of what is his. They only leased land out to each other and then at the end of every 50 years any remaining debt was cancelled and all land was returned. It was called the year of Jubilee, you can read about it in Leviticus 25.
So the Bible is not against you going into debt for some important things at certain times in your life…like a house or a car, but it is against you just going into debt without a real feasible and doable plan to pay it off in a reasonable amount of time. A lot of people who are in trouble right now financially are people who took out these sub-prime loans. About two years ago, Amy and I tried to buy a house and the loan officer wanted to qualify us for about $100 thousand dollars more than I knew was our limit to be able to make the monthly payments. The loan officer said, the payments would be within our monthly price range for the first year and then go up after that. But I knew I probably wouldn’t be making nearly double income in a year…so we walked away from it.
Learning how to handle your money in a good and godly way is an area several of you probably need to mature in. Some of you I’m guessing have bad credit because you’ve gotten into using credit cards and you maybe missed some payments or were late on them or you only pay the minimum payment which only pays the interest. That’s not good…that’s the kind of thing the Bible is talking about here. You shouldn’t do that. Some of you need to cut up your credit cards and learn that if you don’t have the money for something you don’t buy it, plain and simple.
We live in such a materialistic and consumeristic culture that we think we should be able to buy something if we want it regardless of whether or not we can really afford it. You need to learn self-control and entrust your money to God. As we can see here, God cares about how you spend your money and even the way you treat debt. As a side-note there is a great documentary on the American debt problem and use of credit cards and other bad consumer practices called “Maxed Out.” You can check it out.
Now some of you are scared because of this whole economy thing. I hear you. I’ve heard several stories just this last week. In our community group someone shared that there are families who have lost their homes and are sleeping in cars downtown. My mother and father in-law just this week, watched their neighbor just pack up their house and move away from the home they own because they couldn’t make the payments anymore. Before they left the whole family took hammers to the garage door and cussed out the bank as they were doing it.
People are scared. But we need not be. For those who are God’s children, in his family through Jesus, God has promised in his Word never to leave us or forsake us and that we will never go hungry.
Hebrews 13:5-6 “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say,
“The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”
Matthew 6:31-33 “Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ …your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
But maybe you ask how is God going to do that? How will God make sure I’m taken care of? Here is how? When God calls you to be his own and gives you faith in his Son Jesus, you become part of a family of people…a community devoted in love to one another.
Let’s read it here in our text in Romans. “Owe no one anything, except to love each other.” If we truly love each other and band together we will be taken care of. The Bible is so genius here. It takes a practical, hit-home issue like finances and debt and flips it and turns it into being a foundational basis for what kind of love we are to have for each other.
I mean this is radical. We are not to have unending financial debt, but instead we are to be in a debt of love to one another forever. We will never have loved enough, when we can say, “Oh, okay I’m done now…bye bye…I fulfilled my debt, my obligation and now I’m done. I loved you and now that’s over…were even.” I mean this is crazy. Paul here takes something bad, like unending financial debt but then sees a parallel to gospel love in that it is a never-ending debt of love toward each other.
Here is the heart issue in it. Does anyone here have a hard time receiving a gift from someone? I do. Anytime anyone pays for me for something, like say a meal, or something bigger sometimes…my automatic response is usually to first resist. If I do give in, usually it is on the condition that I will receive the gift if I can pay for the person the next time. What I realized a number of years ago is that this was pride and I not only do it with my friends but with God. We think we are being good, or righteous in being resistant to grace, but it is our pride that wants to try and payback a gift of love. Our motivation is to want to be self-sufficient, not needy, and we want to make things right ourselves.
That is the idea here with a never-ending debt of love. You can never pay back love. The only way to receive love is to not attempt to counter balance it or you diminish the love. The way we really love is by diving deeper into debt. By loving without any goal or hope of making things even. Instead, our goal is to incur more love debt. The more love we give the more we owe and our debt grows and grows.
Fulfilling the Law Through Love
Look at something interesting here with me, we’ll come back to love in a second, but look at the word “law” here. Verse 8 ends by saying those who love one another fulfill the law. What does it mean to fulfill the law? Paul brings up some of the law, four of the ten commandments…do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet. Then, quoting both Leviticus 19 and Jesus, verse 10 says, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
Let me ask you a question. What does it mean to fulfill the law here? Does it mean complete or terminate it? Or does it mean to reach the expected or desired intent or result? You see usually when we hear the word “law” we think bad, do’s and don’ts, rules. Law is negative.
And that is true. One of the main purpose of God’s law is to show us that we are sinners in need of repentance and a savior. Romans 3:20 “Through the law comes knowledge of sin.” But there is another reason for law. Law is based on, or flows out of God’s holy righteous character. God is a perfect and loving God. He does not adulterate, he does not murder, he does not steal nor covet. God is good and Jesus said he did not come to destroy or abolish the law but to fulfill it, to complete it for us, so that we might complete it to through him (Matt 5:17).
We need Jesus for that, badly because our inclinations are toward these very things God says are evil and not to do. But we find ourselves wanting to have sex with people we’re not married to, adultery. We find ourselves angry with people and wishing physical harm or even death upon them, murder. We find ourselves, wanting to get things without having to work hard or pay for them, we like what is free, thievery. And we find ourselves always wanting something more, something different, something better, something someone else has, coveting. Our hearts are desperately wicked (Jer 17:9).
But this is the beauty of the gospel is that it transforms you. The gospel begins to change us and enable us to truly love and it isn’t something we work for or conjure up…we find ourselves naturally loving and truly caring about other people. If love for a person is our first and primary concern, we don’t have to fight and wrestle with ourselves whether it be lustful, hateful, thieving, or coveting thoughts…they will not be barriers or issues for us. Love will squeeze out those desires and we will find ourselves fulfilling the law and enjoying it immensely.
In the fifth chapter of the book of Galatians, love is listed as a fruit of the Spirit. Something Jesus spirit gives, he pours it into our hearts (Rom 5:5), and when it becomes the active driving force for our lives, Galatians 5:23 says against such a thing, there is no law. It gets fulfilled. Law does not stand in opposition to love, ever. Law is against sin, but not love.
Being Freed to Love our Neighbor
This brings me to the question of what is love and who is my neighbor? I believe that when we look into those questions, what we find is the difference between religion and the gospel.
So has anyone seen that commercial for Diet Pepsi Max that’s been on TV for the last few months? There are a bunch of different people around town who sort of look like Zombies until they drink Diet Pepsi Max and then they turn into bobble heads pumping their heads side to side along to Haddaway’s song, “What is Love?” “What is love, baby don’t hurt me no more.”
What is love? What does it mean? Definitions for love these days usually only gets processed as a emotional feeling often accompanied with the particularly erotic feelings. English, unfortunately, only has one word for love. In Greek there are three main words for love: eros, philia, and agape. Eros is erotic, sexual, physical body attraction love. Philia is friendship or family love wherein there is distinct commonality. Agape love is distinctly sacrificial and committed through and through.
Let me explain. Agape is self-less love. But it seems to me that for many today, maybe for you, we have thought of love as a sort of mythical moral compass that cannot err. The thing is love must have an objective moral standard greater than ourselves or else love lapses into just being pure fleeting sentimentality and virtually anything can be loving.
For example, let’s take the first commandment Paul mentions here, do not commit adultery. What is the reason people give for adultery, for cheating on their wife or their husband? I didn’t love them anymore. You see how deceptive that is, to think that adultery could actually be a loving act! That’s crazy. Real love looks a certain way and it only becomes that when you are looking away from yourself.
Loving ourselves is instinctual. We always act for our own interests and preservation. Only each of us as individuals has access to know when we feel hungry in our stomachs. No one else can feel that. We instinctually care about ourselves. What the Bible says here is that love happens when we instinctually love our neighbor like that…as ourselves.
And this only happens through the gospel, it’s what makes Christianity not a religion. Because love is not a set of moral codes that we are trying to force ourselves to abide by…love is what happens when we get forgiven of our sin by Jesus Christ and it changes us, it changes our natural self-centered instincts…we become increasingly loving. We get transformed through Jesus. Don’t you want that, isn’t that what we need. That’s what I want and need…more of Jesus’ love.
Two stories which will hopefully illustrate this and then we’ll close. First is the story of the rich young ruler (Mk 10:17-22). A young successful business man, probably 30 years old or so came up to Jesus and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus told him, to keep the commandments, and he quoted a few of the ones in our passage today, don’t murder, don’t adulterate, don’t steal. The business man responded and said, he had kept all those perfectly since he was a young boy. The Bible says Jesus then looked at him and it says “he loved him” and then told him he still lacked one thing, to go sell all his possessions give the money to the poor. The story ends with the business man walking away sad because he had a lot of money and was not willing to part with it and love the people around him in need.
Second story, the story of the good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37). On another occasion a lawyer came up to Jesus and asked him the same question the rich young business man had asked, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus responded by asking him what the law or the commandments said. In response the lawyer said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus, seemingly surprised, complemented and said yes, do that and you will live. But the lawyer quickly retorts and says, “Yeah, but who’s my neighbor?” In response Jesus tells a story. There’s a guy who’s broken and beat up and stuck in a place between two towns. First, there’s a pastor who drives by every day and see him but never does anything about it. Then, there’s an older man in the faith, whose been a Christian a long time, and he lives nearby and see him but doesn’t do anything for him. Lastly, there is this believer visiting from out of town who sees the guy all messed up, stops, picks him up, ministers to him, gets him some medicine, puts him up in a hotel and pays for it all. At the end of the story Jesus asked who was the neighbor and the lawyer answers rightly by saying, the one who had mercy on the guy who was broken and beat-up.
What Jesus does is he points out that we often don’t know who are neighbor is because we lack the love and compassion shown in mercy. In the story Jesus, we’re the person who’s beat up and broken…deep down, and Jesus has had mercy on us, offering his life and his death in exchange for our brokenness and sin. Because we’ve received mercy then everyone becomes our neighbor, we then understand the depth of love and freely give it to all. The lawyer asked Jesus who our neighbor is? Jesus answered by explaining what it meant to be neighborly.
Conclusion
Let’s conclude. I want to probe us all a little bit. How is your neighborly-ness? When you look at people what do you see?
When you see people and the state they are in…when you see their sin and their failure what are your thoughts or affections? Do you think and feel anger toward them for being so dumb, or self-centered, or just caught up in bad things? Do you see their hardness of heart and does it make you mad?
Or when you see people and the state they are in…when you see their sin and their failure…do you see them as broken and hurting people? Do you see them as people in need of love? Do you see them as your neighbor? Someone you’re called to have a never-ending debt of love for?
Do you focus so much on your life and your job and your money and your family that you can’t even see anyone around who is hurting and broken? Are you pursuing life with a goal of thinking that if you made just enough money or could get out of financial debt or if you could buy enough things that then you’d be happy? Or is pouring our your life in a debt of love toward others the thing which gives you the most satisfaction?
Is the gospel changing you? Are you being transformed by Jesus work in you, enabling you to fulfill the law and really becoming more loving? Or are you becoming harder, just expecting that everything and everyone around you is going to fail you?
There’s probably not a person in this room who could honestly answer all those probing questions the way we wish we could. That’s because there is only one who truly see people in the fullness of who they are, with all the corruption intertwined, as he yet has mercy and compassion and love. That’s Jesus and that’s why we need him. We need his forgiveness and his love to permeate us and turn us away from ourselves and onto him so that we might see people through his eyes with his love and his grace.
Here’s what you can be sure of today from this text. If you’ve been foolish and dumb with money…there is hope in Jesus. If you’ve tried and tried to gain favor or approval with God and failed, God loves you regardless of all your vain efforts and gives you never-ending love through his son. If you’ve been completely oblivious to your neighbor, Jesus will open up your heart with compassion for people who are desperate and ruined all around us in this world.
Let’s pray.
