Living and Loving
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English Standard Version Chapter 13
8 wOwe no one anything, except to love each other, for xthe one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, y“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: z“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore alove is the fulfilling of the law.
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 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.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
All believers are called to love all people.
All believers are called to love all people.
vv.8-10 challenge the believer to love one’s neighbor as oneself. (Or we can simply state that vv.8-10 tell us that the believer’s primary duty is love.)
vv.11-14 admonish the believer to put on Christ.
There is a sense of urgency in our text today. My hope and prayer is that God will use this time together to shine His light on the dead and dark thoughts that can often keep us from freely living and loving in a way that shows off the glory of Christ to a watching and waiting world.
Everything that Paul has said up until this point has been a reflection of Jesus’ teaching and of His person. For Paul, Jesus is the personification of love and the fulfillment of the law. Paul sees these 2 teachings as a theme that runs thru Christ’s teachings and so they become the theme and the foundation of the apostle’s teaching here as well.
Our section of the text begins with the command to owe no one anything. Paul believes that the believer is to leave no public debt unpaid. The only outstanding debt that a believer should have is the continuing debt of “loving one another”.
Origen, a 3rd century scholar once wrote,
“The debt of love remains with us permanently and it never leaves us; this is a debt which we both discharge everyday and forever owe.” - Origen
“The debt of love remains with us permanently and it never leaves us; this is a debt which we both discharge everyday and forever owe.” - Origen
So, if love is indeed truly the only continuing debt that is simultaneously paid and owed, how are you and I then called to love? Well, first, there are some things that we ought not do.
Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet. These are all negative prohibitions. Paul takes the negative and flips it into a positive. He tells us that instead of not doing these things, you should do this one thing. He restates what Jesus himself teaches.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
A slick lawyer once stood up with the intent of putting jesus to the test by asking him what he thought was a legal question. The slick lawyer decides to ask Jesus this question, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus looks at this cat and says, “Ok, so you’re a smart guy, you read the law. You tell me how you read it.” Slick hits Jesus with the shema and basically answers with this, “Love and love people.” So, Jesus simply tells him, “Right, now go do this and you will live.” Go do this… Slick didn’t like that so he thought all the money he spent on his law degree was about to pay off and he comes back at Jesus, with a, “Ok. Who is my neighbor?” This guy… We all know a version of slick don’t we? Jesus does not want to let this opportunity to go deeper go by so he hits slick with this:
And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
“You go, and do likewise.” “Do this, and you will live.”
It is as if Jesus is saying, ok slick, I hear you. I know that you know. I no longer need you to know. I need you to do. Paul restates Jesus’ teaching here as he does almost everywhere else by simply stating, love your neighbor as yourself. Then Paul brings it closer to home for us by simply and powerfully declaring, love does no harm to a neighbor.”
This is hard to hear if you’ve been harmed. You and I have to deal with this.
Love one another.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Love does no harm to a neighbor.
Take that negative experience and flip it upside down. Do not do these things. They are, after all, bad things. So do this one thing. Love one another. We are commanded to do this one thing.
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.”
Take that negative experience and flip it upside down. One commentator writes,
Evangelical Commentary on the Bible F. In Loving One’s Neighbor as Oneself (13:8–10)
Where the forbidden actions destroy relations with family and neighbor, love, personified by Christ, draws the hurt and the harmed into a wider family and is constructive, not destructive, in its power.
Love builds up, it never tears down.
Love builds up, it never tears down.
it never tears down.
it never tears down.
It is way easier to do something bad than it is to do a good thing. The believer’s primary duty is love. This is a love that builds up. And, because this requires a strength that we don’t have, we are called to put on Christ.
Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
You know the time. Wake up. This is that sense of urgency I was talking about earlier. Salvation is nearer to us now!!!
Listen to this, the present is always permanent. it will always be now, even if now will always look different.
The question we have to ask is not “Will things always look/be/stay the same?” The question we have to ask ourselves is this, “Will we be the same when things change?” We will always be in the NOW of our lives. And, salvation is nearer to us now! Speaking of salvation and the glory of the end time, let us turn to our Lord.
Jesus, when teaching his disciples about the coming of the Son of man says this,
27 And he answered, s“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and tyour neighbor as yourself.”
s ; ; Cited from
27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
t Cited from ; See
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.
Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
Paul’s wake up in the text is placed here to lead us, to turn us towards encouragement and not despair. But once again, we are called to live and to love, to love and to live. This is hard to hear if you’ve been harmed. You and I have to deal with this.
You may be saying to yourself, “I hear you pastor.” “But, I am going thru something right now, and it is hard to straighten up.” I would like to call your attention to the apostle’s words in :
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.
For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
If this isn’t enough for you and you still feel as if God has somehow laid upon your back a burden that is to heavy, that somehow your temptation is too much for you to bear, let us turn to the apostle once again:
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
Jesus is the way of escape.
Jesus bears our heavy load and calls us to bear his light weight.
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Beloved, it is our responsibility to do the work of discarding all dark deeds and walking in the light for all to see because Jesus makes it so. Personally this means that union with Christ safely and securely tucks us away in Jesus. They already tried to put Jesus in a dark place and he stood there for 3 days just to give them that “aha” moment of resurrection power! He walked out of the dark and remains forever in the light. Let me tell you just who you are:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Do you believe that? You were called out of darkness. Meaning you once were, but not no more. Listen:
for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true),
You can’t walk in the light if your mind and body are consumed with all that is bad, wrong, and false. Put on Christ!!!
When we put on Christ, we are putting on the “new man”. Again, the apostle:
Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!—
assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
We talk a lot about identity here at restoration and if your identity is in Christ, Jesus is your new self. This is sobering and it is scary. But, it is, most importantly, true of you. So, do not feed the flesh. Make no provision for it, do not plan on gratifying its desires. Fight for holiness. Walk as if in the daytime. The world is watching. In closing I leave you with this, from the prophet Isaiah:
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.
This is a corporate display of the many who are made one. The church. A righteous witness to a watching and waiting world. This is the goal of living and loving for Jesus’ sake. To God alone be the glory.