THE DEBT ALL CHRISTIAN'S PAY
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· 10 viewsAs Christians, we should pay our debts, including the debt of love for others, because love fulfills God’s law.
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In the second “National Treasure” movie (subtitled “Book of Secrets”) the main character, Ben Gates, is charged with the difficult task of decoding a cipher from 150 years ago. To crack the code, he has to start with a five-letter word. After some questioning, he finds out the crucial clue: the five-letter word is the answer to this riddle - “The debt that all men pay.” He determines this debt to be death.
Our text places before us a debt that all Christian’s must pay. This debt is not death but love.
Financial debt can be settled while the debt of love can never be satisfied. You will always owe love. You will always have room to grow in love.
Jesus said that love is the distinguishing mark of His followers
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.”
In case they missed it, in the same discourse He added
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Then, in case they missed it again, five verses later He repeated
These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
The apostle Paul frequently hammered on the same note. He said
Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.
Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
Again
Let all that you do be done in love.
In the same vein as our text, he wrote
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
He told the Ephesians
And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
He wrote to the Thessalonians
Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another,
And, of course, he wrote the great love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13. In addition, in Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, and 1 & 2 John there are repeated commands to love one another.
The revival preacher, Jonathan Edwards, in trying to determine the reality of the many professions of faith that were made during the First Great Awakening, put love at the top of the list for determining whether someone’s faith was genuine. He believed
“that evidences of love (or their absence) were the best test by which ‘Christians may try their experience whether it be real Christian experience’”
Would you pass the test? Or, more importantly, would your family or those you live with say, “Yes, he (or she) is a loving person”? Granted, it’s a lifelong growth process and we all often fail to love as we ought. But love should be your diligent focus and over time there should be progress. In our text, Paul tells us,
As Christians, we should pay our debts, including the debt of love for others, because love fulfills God’s law.
The flow of thought (going back to Rom. 12:1-2) is: based on the mercies of God, we should present our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice to God. Rather than being conformed to this evil age, we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we prove in practice God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will.
The renewed mind will be humble (12:3) and will serve as a gifted member of the body of Christ (12:4-8).
Love, even toward those who mistreat us, will be our aim (12:9-21).
Our obligation as believers also includes living in subjection to the governing powers, including paying our taxes (13:1-7).
Romans 13:7 tells us to pay what is owed to the government and others. Then in 13:8 he tells there is a debt that has a payment without end because its debt is beyond calculation. This debt sums up all the commandments and fulfills God’s law.”
The foundation for loving others must always be that you have experienced God’s love in Jesus Christ. If you try to love others when you have not experienced the love of God in Christ, you are just into moralism. You mistakenly think that your good deeds will commend you to God. But the Bible is clear that by nature, we all are selfish (Rom. 3:10-18).
Our attempts to love others are based on wrong motives. We may love others because we want to get something from them or because of what love does for us. It’s only after we have come to the cross as guilty sinners and received God’s gift of eternal life that we have the capacity to deny ourselves and to love others as we should. Only then will our motive be to glorify the God who loved us while we were yet sinners .
But before we look at Paul’s instruction on love, we need to consider his brief phrase regarding debt.
As Christians, we should pay our financial obligations.
Romans 13:8a: “Owe nothing to anyone ….” This verse means “Pay your bills on time.” The admonition here is not to get into overdue accounts.
There are many Scriptures that regulate, but do not prohibit, debt and borrowing (Ex. 22:25; Lev. 25:35-37; Deut. 15:7-9; Neh. 5:7; Ps. 15:5; 37:21, 26; Ezek. 22:12; Matt. 5:42; Luke 6:34).
In the parable of the talents, the lazy servant at least should have put his money into the bank and given it back with interest (Matt. 25:27). Implicit in that story is that the bank pays interest by loaning money. Jesus didn’t condemn that system, but rather condemned the slave for not using the system to earn a profit. And so all commentators agree that Paul isn’t forbidding all debt. Rather he is saying that we must pay our debts when they are due.
At the same time, the Bible warns against the dangers of debt.
The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.
There are certain principles which should guide us in this area. We should not contract debts for nonessentials. We should not go into debt when there is no hope of repaying. We should avoid buying on the installment plan, incurring exorbitant interest charges. We should avoid borrowing to buy a product that depreciates in value. In general, we should practice financial responsibility by living modestly and within our means, always remembering that the borrower is slave to the lender
Paul uses the transition from “pay your taxes and pay your debts” to say that there is one debt you will always owe:
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
WE OWE THE DEBT OF LOVE TO ALL PEOPLE.
Certainly “one another” includes those who are believers, but this command extends to all people. All men are our neighbors, and we are to love them as ourselves. We are to do this on the basis of creation, even if they are not redeemed, for all men have value because they are made in the image of God. We need to treat them as we treat ourselves.
No man can fulfill his calling as a Christian by seeking the welfare of his wife and family only, for these are only a sort of greater self. Spurgeon
Love your neighbor means to love the people you actually meet with and deal with every day. It is easy for us to love in the theoretical and the abstract, but God demands that we love real people.
Love means to love unconditionally and sacrificially as God Himself loves sinful men (John 3:16), the way He loves the Son (John 3:35, 15:9, 17:23, 24).
This verb as used in the Scripture (and here by Jesus) expresses the purest, noblest form of love, which is volitional (personal choice), is not motivated by the recipient's superficial appearance, by one's emotional attraction, or by a sentimental relationship.
This quality of love is not just a feeling but ultimately can be known only by the actions it prompts in the one who displays agape love. For example, God gives the supreme example of this love in the sending of His only Son
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
To love one another (whether they are "lovable" or not) requires self denial. In other words agape is a selfless love that thinks of others before it thinks of self. It follows that the only way one can truly love… another (with this quality of love) is by divine enablement, which Paul explains is the fruit of His Spirit
Love is the fulfillment of the law: It is easy to do all the right religious “things” but to neglect love. Our love is the true measure of our obedience to God.
Here's a good exercise to consider: Every time we meet someone we ought to say to ourselves, "I need to show him or her the love of Christ. I have a great and wonderful debt to pay.”
If you have ever had a personal debt, be it ever so small, you know that the first thing that enters your mind when you see that person is that you “owe” them. We need to truly see ourselves as spiritual debtors
WE PAY THE DEBT OF LOVE OUT OF THE SURPLUS OF GOD’S INEXHAUSTIBLE LOVE FOR US.
You may wonder, “How did we incur this debt of love to others?” They haven’t given us anything to put us in their debt. We may not even know these people!
We find a clue to this question back in
I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.
“Under obligation” is literally, “I am a debtor.” Paul’s debt was to preach the gospel to all people
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
The reason he incurred that debt is that he received God’s gracious love while he was yet a sinner
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Even so, if you have received the gracious gift of eternal life, then you owe a debt of love to all people. But you don’t have to pay it out of your own meager store of love.
Rather, you pay it out of the limitless overflow of God’s love toward you.
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,
that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
That’s why I emphasized a moment ago that you must have experienced the love of God in Christ before you can love others as you should.
You may also wonder why Paul does not mention here the first great commandment, that we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Matt. 22:37).
The answer is twofold: First, Paul’s focus here is on our relationships with others, not directly on our relationship with God.
Second, he is assuming that you’ve been reading Romans 1-11, where he spelled out in detail God’s great love for us, which is the source and motivation for our love for God and for others.
THE MEASURE OF OUR LOVE FOR OTHERS IS WHETHER WE LOVE THEM AS WE LOVE OURSELVES.
In the past 40 years, it has often been taught that your relational problems stem from your low self-esteem and because you don’t love yourself enough. So you must first learn to love yourself before you can properly love others. It does not come from the second great commandment or from anywhere else in the Bible. It came to us from worldly psychologists who do not know God.
There are only two great commandments, not three: Love God and love your neighbor. Self-love is the assumed standard by which to measure your love for others.
We all love ourselves quite well. We all take care of ourselves. We give ourselves the benefit of a doubt in every situation. I’ve noticed that the guy who drives faster than I is a complete idiot who is going to cause an accident. And the guy who drives slower than I needs to take some driving lessons or get off the road. But I drive just right!
William Hendriksen astutely remarks,
“It is a certain thing that a person will love himself, and it is also certain that he will do so in spite of the fact that the self he loves has many faults.”
So Moses (in Lev. 19:18), Jesus (Matt. 22:39), and Paul are saying,
“Extend the same grace to other faulty sinners that you extend to yourself as a faulty sinner.”
Love your neighbor as you do in fact love yourself.
SINCE WE CAN NEVER EXHAUST THE DEBT OF LOVE, WE MUST KEEP WORKING TO PAY IT OFF.
Paying off debts is hard work. It requires discipline. It’s not easy to get out of debt because it requires denying yourself in order to reach your goal.
It’s the same with the debt of love, except that you never will get it paid off. You’ll never get to the point where you can honestly say, “I love my wife as much as I should. I don’t need to work at it any longer.”
Loving others is difficult because it always requires self-sacrifice or self-denial. I’d rather watch the news or a sports program on TV than get up and help my wife with the kids or with the dishes. Besides, doesn’t she realize that I worked hard all day (as if she didn’t!)?
Or at church, you’re so focused on talking with your friends that you don’t notice a visitor who is standing there all alone. You have to take your focus off yourself and put it on others and their needs in order to work at this debt of love that you owe.
I’m countering the popular notion that love is spontaneous and effortless. The Bible commands us to love others, which implies that we can do it even though it requires some thought and effort.
THE DEBT OF LOVE INVOLVES NOT ONLY OUR FEELINGS, BUT ALSO OUR ACTIONS, BOTH POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE.
While love, especially in marriage, should involve our feelings, at its core it’s not a feeling but rather a commitment that results in action.
Love is the commitment that we make to sacrifice ourselves in order to seek the highest good of the one loved. The highest good for every person is that he or she comes to know Jesus Christ and grow to be more like Him.
So with a total stranger, love may be the commitment to sacrifice our time or our comfort level to tell him about Christ.
Love may be the thoughtfulness to recognize a need and take action to meet that need without any request from the other person.
Love may realize that a brother in Christ is drifting spiritually or is in sin and so you take the initiative to try to help restore him to the Lord.
In our text, Paul cites four of the Ten Commandments to show what love does not do.
First, he cites the seventh commandment
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.”
Although those who commit adultery convince themselves that they love the new partner, they are deceived. They love themselves and mistakenly think that the new partner will make them happy or meet their needs. But they aren’t loving the new partner, because they are not committed to helping that partner know Christ and grow in Him. They certainly aren’t loving their present spouse or their children.
Then Paul cites the sixth commandment, “You shall not murder.” While most of us have never actually murdered anyone, Jesus pointed out that our anger towards others violates this command (Matt. 5:21-22). If you are angry at your mate or at your kids, you’re not loving them.
Then Paul cites the eighth commandment, “You shall not steal.” Obviously, taking what belongs to others is not loving them. It is loving yourself above them, because you think that you have a right to what they own.
Finally, Paul cites the tenth commandment, “You shall not covet.” Coveting or desiring what others have is the attitude that lies beneath stealing. It’s based on self-love, not on the love of God and others.
When I covet, I want what others have because I mistakenly think that it will make me happy. I’m not thinking about how it will make them feel if I take it from them.
Paul is not being exhaustive and so he adds (13:9), “And if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Since he has been citing the Ten Commandments, which are negative, he summarizes negatively
Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Thus love involves concrete actions, often positive, but sometimes negative, towards others. It requires continual self-denial in order to meet the needs of others. Since self-denial runs counter to my flesh, love requires constant effort and thought. I have to take my focus off myself and think about how the other person must feel or what the other person may need.
Loving others fulfills God’s law.
Paul says this twice explicitly (13:8, “he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law”; 13:10, “love is the fulfillment of the law”) and a third time implicitly (“it is summed up,” 13:9).
Why does Paul bring up God’s law here? Earlier in
For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
We have died to the law in Christ
Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
So, why does he now bring up the law and cite from the Ten Commandments?
So my understanding here is that Paul is countering his critics who accused him of abandoning the law and promoting licentiousness (Rom. 3:8; 6:1). He is showing them that when believers in Christ love others, they are fulfilling the law of Moses.
And while we always fall short of perfectly loving others, Christ, who is our righteousness, did perfectly fulfill the law on our behalf. But as we practice true biblical love, which is to seek the highest good of those we love, we will not commit adultery or murder or theft or coveting. We will obey God’s holy commandments. Thus we fulfill the law through love.
So the question that Paul asks us here is, “Are you paying your debts?” Are you working at paying the debt that all Christian’s owe? Are you making the effort to sacrifice your comfort and convenience to meet the highest good of others?
If you’re married, begin with your mate. If you have children, practice on them. We all have difficult members of our extended families who need God’s love and we may be the only channel for it to flow to them. It may be someone at work. Love’s aim is their highest good, which is to know Christ and be conformed to Him. It will take effort. But we owe such love to them, both in good deeds and in sharing the gospel as opportunities arise.
If you ask, “How can I develop this quality?” Paul’s answer is, “Walk in the Spirit.” Love is the first fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 22). If you ask, “How can I know whether I am acting in love?” Paul gets pretty specific
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
This is the debt that all Christian’s pay. Are you working on paying it off?
He paid a debt He did not owe I owed a debt I could not pay I needed someone to wash my sins away And now I sing a brand new song “Amazing grace” Christ Jesus paid the debt I could never pay.