The Greatest Commandments

Recap The Only Eternal Kingdom is God’s

It is great to be back with everyone in person this week. We had a grand old time out at the beach, but by the end of it, everyone was cranky and wanting to go home, so I guess that means we did our job and vacationed hard. It’s good to be home and getting back to normal!

Last week, we looked at our need to be submissive to the governing authorities. The people that are in charge have been put there by God. That does not mean that these people are going to be great and wonderful leaders. In fact, we see plenty of examples where bad leaders are put into leadership positions. God uses them to make His will happen. Even kings outside of the Jewish kingdom were put there by God. We see in the Old Testament that the Assyrian king and Babylonian king were used by God to send the Israelites on the exile that He had told them was coming if they didn’t straighten up.

When Paul wrote this letter to the Roman church, Nero was emperor at the time. Nero was a horrible human being. We went over some of the horrible things he did last week, like killing his mother off and burning the city to the ground, blaming the Christians on it, and then persecuting the Christians in the land. Nero was so bad, that many scholars have pointed out the mark of the beast listed in Revelation is a numeric value that equals Nero.

Whoever is in charge, we are to submit to them and follow their rules. However, we must also have discernment. We see throughout the Bible great heroes of the faith that stand up for God rather than kowtowing to the governing authorities. These people feared God before they feared anyone else, despite their authority. It makes sense because God is the ultimate authority. There is no one higher than Him. I think we have talked before about how everyone has a boss. Well, God does not have a boss. He is the boss. When people are making a vow to others or trying to demonstrate the severity and truthfulness of what they are saying, they will often swear to the Lord that they are being honest. That shows the authority understood there. When God makes a vow, He has nothing to swear it by other than Himself. Genesis 22:16 “and said, “By myself I have sworn,” this is the Lord’s declaration: “Because you have done this thing and have not withheld your only son,”

At the end of the day, everything on this earth is going to fall away. There is nothing in the world that is eternal. Kingdoms rise and they fall. While we are here on earth, we should submit to lawful orders and authorities. However, we should also not look at these governing agencies as the cure for the problems of the world. God is the only cure for the issues we have here on earth. We don’t look to governing authorities to solve these issues, we look to God. We know that He is not going to fail. He never has and He never will.

One thing we did not really talk about last week was the vantage Paul is writing this chapter from. He is writing this bit with the end of the world very much in mind. With Nero being as terrible as he was, there were many that probably believed they were in the last days. I think if we are honest, we will see that it seems like there is always some group out claiming that we are in the last days. Paul is essentially writing this to remind them that these sufferings and issues are not going to amount to anything in light of eternity. When it comes to suffering injustices here on earth for a year, what does that really matter when we view it from the lens of eternity. Though we have temporary suffering here on earth, we will live with eternal peace and joy when we depart this place.

Today we are going to turn our attention to how believers are supposed to interact with one another and the rest of the world. If you have your Bibles, please turn them to Romans 13:8-14

Romans 13:8–14 CSB

Do not owe anyone anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, Do not commit adultery; do not murder; do not steal; do not covet; and any other commandment, are summed up by this commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law. Besides this, since you know the time, it is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep, because now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is nearly over, and the day is near; so let us discard the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk with decency, as in the daytime: not in carousing and drunkenness; not in sexual impurity and promiscuity; not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.

Paul changes the subject now from owing the state to being indebted to another person. The idea here is that believers should avoid entanglements. This is tricky right here and I am going to try to make as much sense of this as I can. This is not necessarily saying that believers should not take out loans or anything like that. Instead, this is more stating that we should avoid getting behind and thus ensnaring ourselves in debt. That creates a weird balance between two people. One can hold these debts over the other. Let’s say you’ve got a guy named Sam and Sam owes Pat a fair amount of money. Well, how is Sam going to act around Pat? He’s either going to avoid Pat every time he sees him or he is going to lay it on thick and be gracious and give these kind and loving words. Well, why? Is it because Sam genuinely loves Pat or is it because he knows he owes Pat money and he is using these flowery words to assuage any anger Pat might feel toward Sam? Even if Sam genuinely shows Christian love to Pat, others observing it will jump to the conclusion it is because Sam has a debt to Pat. By neutralizing that indebtedness, onlookers will see a genuine agape love, not love given because of a debt.

However, Paul is not relegating this agape love to people within the body of believers. Instead, this agape is supposed to be extended to everyone. This is part of being a living sacrifice. Believers are submissive to the governing authorities and they are to love everyone, not just the people within the church. The church should not only look internally for people to love, instead, it must turn its attention to those outside the church and love them too.

Paul sums up the law by saying that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. Who among us would seek to make our lives difficult and problematic? Probably none of us. We should have the same mentality when it comes to our neighbor. We don’t just look at what’s best for us, but we look to take care of the neighbor as well.

The religious leaders of Jesus’s time were less focused on loving God and loving others and instead got stuck in the minutiae of how to demonstrate loving others and loving God. They approach Him and ask Jesus what the greatest commandment is. Matthew 22:37–40 “He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.””

This seems rather self explanatory and it is. Love God first and love our neighbors. Our love for God should drive us to love our neighbors. When we keep these commands in mind, following the Ten Commandments should fall right into place. A long time ago we did a series on the Ten Commandments. Hopefully we all remember that the first few commandments have to do with our relationship with God. When we truly love Him, we won’t worship anything else, make idols, or take His name in vain. Further, we will take our Sabbath to worship Him and have our rest in Him. That love for Him drives our love for people. That’s where the rest of the commandments fall into place. When we love God and love our neighbors, we honor our mother and father, we don’t murder, we don’t commit adultery, we don’t covet what our neighbor has, we don’t lie, we don’t steal. Jesus gives a nice summation. Want to keep the Ten Commandments, keep these two commandments and the rest falls into place. When we love someone, rather than get jealous when good things happen to them, we rejoice with them. That’s easier said than done, though. Sometimes it is hard to rejoice with others especially when we ourselves are struggling. I saw a lot of that in my time in the Navy. It was hard to rejoice with others when they advanced and moved on when I failed to promote. In one particular instance, my buddy Chad and I were viewed as the two guys that were definitely going to make Chief that year. He and I were great buddies, we did a lot of work together, and we were both the highest ranked Sailors at the command. The Mess were so convinced that he and I were both going to be on the promotion list that they began our initiation early. Well, a few months later the list came out and you can imagine how disappointed we were when my name was not on the list, but Chad’s was. So I had a choice, I could wallow in self pity or I could rejoice with my buddy that he hit a major milestone in his career. What example would I set if I did not rejoice with him? What example would I have set if I had coveted this position he had moved into? I think we all know. Here’s the thing, when we love our neighbors as ourselves, we can be happy for them when good things happen to them. We are happy when good things happen to us, so shouldn’t we be happy for them too? We are upset when bad things happen in our lives, so shouldn’t we be upset too? When Job gets hit with his terrible calamity, his friends see him sitting in the ruin of what was once his great and opulent life. Job 2:12–13 “When they looked from a distance, they could barely recognize him. They wept aloud, and each man tore his robe and threw dust into the air and on his head. Then they sat on the ground with him seven days and nights, but no one spoke a word to him because they saw that his suffering was very intense.”

This love goes beyond our family and friends and other church members; it goes to the rest of the world as well. At another point in Jesus’s ministry, an expert in the law thinks he can stump Jesus and asks Him point blank “Who is my neighbor?” Rather than tell this expert that the neighbor is anyone, Jesus launches into the parable of the good Samaritan. A random man is headed to Jericho from Jerusalem. On his way, he is ambushed by robbers. They beat him, rob him, and leave him for dead. As the man is lying there on the road, a priest comes along and sees the guy. We would think that the priest would go and help this guy out, but that is not what happens. Instead, the priest is concerned about himself only. He is worried that the guy might be dead and if he touches the body, then he is unclean and unable to perform his duties. So he does not get involved. He sees the problem and decides to head the other way. Then along comes a Levite. These guys were also of the priestly order. The Levites had charge of duties within the Temple. We would think that surely this guy would stop, but he too just like the priest sees the guy lying there half dead and went to the other side of the road to avoid the guy. Here’s the thing, we can’t just ignore a problem and expect it to go away. If we want a problem solved, then we should do something. In my life I have never been able to resolve a problem by ignoring it. Yet, these two holy men see the problem and they just keep walking.

Meanwhile, a Samaritan comes along. Now, as soon as the Samaritan is mentioned, at this point the expert in the law would have recognized the Samaritan as a bad guy. There would be no way that this Samaritan would help. The Samaritans were a hated group of people. They were considered half breeds by the Israelites because they had intermarried with nations outside of the 12 tribes of Israel. The Samaritans were despised, so the expert surely thought he wouldn’t do anything. I can only imagine his shock as Jesus tells the story where the Samaritan sees the man, runs over to him, bandages him up, puts the guy on his donkey, takes him to a lodging place, pays for the guy’s stay, and tells the the innkeeper to take care of the wounded man AND that he will be back to later to pay for anything extra the innkeeper spends on the man. Luke 10:36–37 ““Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” “The one who showed mercy to him,” he said. Then Jesus told him, “Go and do the same.””

Notice that the Samaritan did not use any discrimination on who he would and would not help. The Samaritan very well could have looked at the guy and decided to walk away because the beaten man probably would not have treated the Samaritan like the Samaritan had treated him if the roles were reversed.

What Paul is getting at in this part of his letter to the Romans is that the believers back then and believers today are called to do kingdom work. One way we engage in building that kingdom is by submitting to the governing authorities, the other is by loving our neighbors. The church exists to spread the gospel, not morally rehabilitate the government or its citizens. Don’t get me wrong, I look forward to the day where people are morally rehabilitated, but I know full well that the only way people are going to become moral is through knowing Jesus. We are not going to change a person. The only One that can change a person is God. Our goal as His people is to introduce the rest of the world to Him so that He can change them. If we go on our crusades of trying to make people live a Christian life, though they are not believers, we are simply shouting at the darkness. I dream of the day where we are all moral and upright people and all the nasty stuff out there is gone. Let’s face it, there is plenty of bad stuff out there. I dream of a day where the filth on the internet does not exist, not because it has been outlawed, but because everyone has come to know Christ and the web admins close the sites down because they see how morally repugnant the filth is AND they have no customers because the former customers also see how terrible it is. The only way that is going to happen is through people having a genuine encounter with Christ. That’s where we come in. We show up and we love others. We have care for our neighbors despite what they believe. The fact is that no one cares what we know until they know that we care.

Paul closes this chapter with the reminder that the end is near. Back then, Christ’s return was seen as imminent. They were thinking it was going to happen any day at any time. Paul reminds them that the day is getting nearer with the passage of time. As a result, these believers should put on the armor or light. This armor is most likely a reference to the armor of God that Paul spells out in Ephesians. Take off the clothing of darkness and put on the armor of light. Basically, what Paul is saying is that the believers should be walking in the light and not in the darkness. They should live lives that reflect kingdom values, not worldly values. When Jesus comes back, He should be able to identify His people because they should be different than the rest of the world. God has given us the armor of light to wear. Do we put it on daily or do we seek the darkness of the world. The fact is that the world calls a lot of bad things good and a lot of good things bad. Nowadays, the world does not even blink twice at the rampant sexual immorality, carousing, and other sins of the flesh. As believers, we have a choice, we can wear the armor of light or we can wear the darkness of the flesh.

What’s the point in owning the clothing if we are never going to wear it? This idea of donning clothing reminds me of the story of Joseph. Joseph is Jacob’s favorite son born from his favorite wife. Jacob gives Joseph a beautiful coat made of many colors. What does Joseph do with the coat? He puts it on! He doesn’t say, “Well, dad, I worry that my brothers are going to be jealous and upset that I got this pretty coat, so I’m just going to leave it in the closet and wear my normal clothes. Thanks, though.” No, instead he puts that coat on and goes out to see his brothers. When we get a new piece of clothing we typically break it out and show it off. Why would we be any different when it comes to the armor of light? Why would we want to hide our new identity? I would guess there are some that would hide that new identity because they don’t want to offend anyone or they don’t want to be seen as different from others. However, the fact is that as believers we are different. We are called to be different. The challenge that we have before us is to wake up every day and put on that armor of light. Show people that we belong to the One true God rather than the sinful world. We should never feel shame about our affiliation with Christ. 2 Timothy 1:8 “So don’t be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, or of me his prisoner. Instead, share in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God.”