An Asset in A Liability Form

Introduction

How much debts do you have now? Car loan, housing loan, business financing loan, credit card installment payment? everyone wants to avoid having a liability. But what if there is a liability which at the same time an asset?

Asset and liabitliy in accounting terms. An asset can be a liability at times. latest accounting term: right of use - is an asset though it is a liability.

we owe liability to God in loving others. It is a debt which can never be discharged. It sounds very sad, but it can be a good news when we are able to turn this liability into an asset.

the way to make our liability an asset

Why Make Yourself Obliged (v8)

we are all obliged to love, like the people in the OT who obliged to fulfill the law. it is a covenantal obligation. Manifestation of love for one another is a form of fulfilling the law. It is the open, outward concern of one person for another that does not depend on what the other has done or will do in return.

Being one who has experienced the love of God, this is a debt that we ought to incur and bound to incur - the debt of mutual love. not only to fellow Christians, but to all human beings. Pay the debt, so that we dont owe to them.

love is the working out of faith, the way Christian pistis expresses itself (Gal 5:6). See 1 Cor 13:4–6. This comes about for Christians because the love of God has been poured into their hearts “through the holy Spirit given to us”.

Paul highlight the importance of loving others by assignling love for one another with a high value - equating it with fulfilling the law. If we make loving others our singular goal, we will easily avoid committing murder, stealing and coveting, since “love does not commit evil against a neighbor”. It is like the two sides of the same coin, you get one side only when we toss it.

If Christ is “the end of the Law” (10:4), the goal toward which it was aimed in the history of human salvation, then “love,” which motivated his whole existence and soteriological activity (8:35), can be said to be the fulfillment of the law itself. It thus becomes the norm for Christian conduct and, when properly applied, achieves all that the law stood for. Thus Paul shows how “the faith that works itself out through love” (Gal 5:6) actually “upholds the law” (3:31)

the illustrustion : “I dont owe you anything”. we owe to everything love, like it or not. Only when we hold to that thinking, then we would love. Don’t continue owing, pay our debts.

In the Boy Scouts, our leaders continually stressed the importance of being prepared. I addressed this at first by packing everything—including the kitchen sink—so I would be prepared for camping or backpacking. Sure, I was prepared, bringing along a zillion implements, but I was weighted down by a very heavy pack. Over time I learned to prioritize—a single piece of gear, like a Swiss army knife, would equip me for any number of circumstances. The same holds true for our Christian walk. We could memorize and attempt to follow countless commandments, but we could also focus our attention on loving one another. If this one commandment is truly as game-changing as Jesus, Paul, and James say it is, we would be foolish to do anything other than give it our full attention

How - Do No Harm To Others (v9-10)

The second part of the ten commandments towards fellow man and women are metioned here. These are all what we shall not do to human beings, and they are all summed up in one commandment - the greatest commandment is to love neightbours as ourselves. and the way to love is to do no harm to others. This may seem like a rather negative achievement of love, that it does no wrong to a neighbor. It is true, however, because a faith that works through love actually pursues all that is good in life. Real faith involves a love that pursues all that is good for the neighbor.

In the context of Leviticus “neighbor” means a fellow countryman, a fellow Jew, as “the sons of your own people”. As used by Paul, however, “neighbor” has a wider extension than the Jewish understanding of it. It would mean a fellow human being with whom one lives.

if we do not know how to express our love, at least we should bring and do no harm to others. in what way, we might be bringing or doing harm to others? Do no commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do no covet. Murder robs them of their life, adultery of their home and honour, theft of their property, and false witness of their good name, while covetousness robs society of the ideals of simplicity and contentment.

Grasp every opportunity (v11-13)

know that the time is short for us to love. the night is nearly over, the day is almost here. Jesus is coming back soon.

verse 11, “and do this, understanding the present time.” it is not a specific moment, but Gods time - kairos, the existential moment of opportunity and decision. it is our current time, the time which we are living at. we have to know what are the current situation of our fellow-men. it is gospel time, it is working time, it is a time when people sat in darkness.

Paul was not referring to time in general but to the end-time and to the imminent return of the Lord Jesus. Jesus described this time as the time with no love, no sincerity, no....... Paul considered the time of Christ’s return and the consummation of salvation for believers (v. 11) as the start of a new day. The present time, while Christ is absent (John 14:2–3; Acts 1:11) and Satan is at work (2 Cor. 4:4; Eph. 2:2), is described as the night (cf. 2 Peter 1:19). Since “the day” is almost here, Paul urged his readers to put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light

We should not follow what others are doing. we should wake up from our slumber, if the day is almost here. The period of Christian existence is kairos, a time when Christians are called upon to manifest by their actions that they are such and to conduct themselves suitably. the writer of Romans reminds his readers that they will have to reckon with “God’s just judgment” (dikaiokrisia tou theou) as he will recompense everyone “according to his deeds,”.

Christians should not be asleep, inactive and idle, and are doing nothing for the time.

Even though what Paul says about Israel in 11:25–26 might suggest that the definitive stage of salvation is still something of the future, nevertheless the kairos has begun. Now is the time for Christians to appropriate to themselves by their faith, working itself out through love, the effects of what Christ once achieved for all

before entering into a mortgage or hire-purchase arrangement, we will want to make certain that we can manage the agreed repayments punctually. But there is one debt which will always remain outstanding, because we can never pay it, and that is our duty to love. We can never stop loving somebody and say, ‘I have loved enough.

Clothe With Jesus Christ (v13-14)

Remove habit/behaviour that hinders us from loving - all conduct whihc associated witht the darkness of night, such as jealousy, hatred, gossipping, self-centredness.

Paul mentioned three behaviour in particular. His first pair is not in orgies and drunkenness, pointing to the abuse of strong drink. Next comes a pair of sexual sins, sexual immorality83 and debauchery, this last denoting licentiousness, unrestrained lust. Both these words are plural, so again it would seem that Paul has in mind many examples of these vices. Both items of his third pair, dissension and jealousy, are in the singular, and point to attitudes of the spirit of man. Both indicate a determination to have one’s own way, a self-willed readiness to quarrel. All six of these vices stem from self-will; they are all the outreach of a determined selfishness that seeks only one’s own pleasure. As Barrett puts it, “All these practices constitute a failure in love, which ‘works no harm to the neighbour’

1. We must not walk in rioting and drunkenness; we must abstain from all excess in eating and drinking. We must not give the least countenance to revelling, nor indulge our sensual appetite in any private excesses. Christians must not overcharge their hearts with surfeiting and drunkenness, Lu. 21:34. This is not walking as in the day; for those that are drunk are drunk in the night, 1 Th. 5:7. 2. Not in chambering and wantonness; not in any of those lusts of the flesh, those works of darkness, which are forbidden in the seventh commandment. Downright adultery and fornication are the chambering forbidden. Lascivious thoughts and affections, lascivious looks, words, books, sons, gestures, dances, dalliances, which lead to, and are degrees of, that uncleanness, are the wantonness here forbidden—whatsoever transgresseth the pure and sacred law of chastity and modesty. 3. Not in strife and envying. These are also works of darkness; for, though the acts and instances of strife and envy are very common, yet none are willing to own the principles, or to acknowledge themselves envious and contentious. it may be the lot of the best saints to be envied and striven with; but to strive and to envy ill becomes the disciples and followers of the peaceable and humble Jesus. Where there are riot and drunkenness, there usually are chambering and wantonness, and strife and envy. Solomon puts them all together, Prov. 23:29, etc. Those that tarry long at the wine (v. 30) have contentions and wounds without cause (v. 29) and their eyes behold strange women, v. 33.

this could only possible when we are clothed with Jesus Christ. Let Christ be our armor. Clothe yourselves translates the verb rendered “put on” in verse 12; it signifies not that which is merely external but habitual association and identification with Christ. “Putting on Christ” is a strong and vivid metaphor. It means more than “put on the character of the Lord Jesus Christ”, signifying rather “Let Christ Jesus himself be the armor that you wear” (NEB). Wesley sees this as “a strong and beautiful expression for the most intimate union with Him, and being clothed with all the graces which were in Him.” There is a sense in which this takes place in baptism (Gal. 3:27; cf. Rom. 6:3). But it is necessary to put off the old and put on the new throughout the Christian life (cf. Eph. 4:22–24; Col. 3:12), and it is this of which Paul writes here

Conclusion

We may pay our taxes and be quit. We may give respect and honor where they are due and have no further obligation. But we can never say, “I have done all the loving I need do.” Love is a permanent obligation, a debt impossible to discharge. As Origen put it long ago, “The debt of charity is permanent, and we are never quit of it; for we must pay it daily and yet always owe it”

How does the Holy Communion bring this message out?

What can we do to pay our debts of love?

Who are we owing debts to? Our family, our neighbours, every fellow brother and sister, everyone who do not know Christ. Are you willing to pay the debt?

we ought not to think that love is a legal requirement. As Bengel puts it, “To love is liberty”