Sermon Tone Analysis

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.

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

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.

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:

“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.

Take that negative experience and flip it upside down.

One commentator writes,

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.

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.

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.”

t Cited from ; See

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

(2016).

().

Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

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 :

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:

Jesus is the way of escape.

Jesus bears our heavy load and calls us to bear his light weight.

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:

Do you believe that?

You were called out of darkness.

Meaning you once were, but not no more.

Listen:

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!!!