Kennystix's podcast
Love is a Fulfilling of the Law, Part 1
The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God is available at www.desiringgod.org. Our sermon text this evening comes from the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 13, verses 8 through 14. It can be found in the Pew Bible on page 948, that's Romans 13, 8 through 14. Oh, no one, anything except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 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 near 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 or sensuality, not in quarrelling and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. Let us pray together. Father, as we gather both Lord's day eve and Lord's day morning, make us one in the spirit. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be not only acceptable in your sight, but because they're acceptable, really helpful in saving sinners, strengthening saints, emboldening the timid, reconciling the alienated, comforting the grieving and the distressed, providing fellowship and warmth to the lonely, providing direction to the confused who have big decisions in front of them and are not sure where to go, providing a preparation in soul for hard news that may arrive this week and a hundred other things that in your goodness to us you mean to do through these services. So come help me now in my part to humble myself under your mighty hand and to be faithful to your holy word in Jesus name. So let's remind ourselves now where we are in Romans and where we are in the Christian life because they are the same. After 11 chapters of mainly focusing on God's work for us in the death of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of Jesus, a shift happened at the beginning of chapter 12 in Romans and now the focus has been on God's saving work in us, work for us outside of us in history, now work in us by the Holy Spirit to enable us to do the will of God. That's the big divide in the book of Romans at chapter 12 and that's where we are if you're a Christian, if you're a Christian you are looking back on the work of God for you in Christ on the cross bearing your sin, removing his wrath all outside of you before you had anything to do with it done it is finished then God met you began to work in you brought you to faith and is now indwelling you and sanctifying you and preparing you for everlasting glory that's his work in us and the point here is that the work in us now is based on the work for us. You could have absolutely no hope that the Holy Spirit would dirty his hands with you and me had not Jesus died for us. You had no hope that there would be any answer to any of your prayers had not Jesus Christ bought them by his blood once for all in history. There's no hope that all the promises of God would come true for you and he would bless you day in and day out had Jesus not died for you and risen again in other words everything you want to happen now in life that's good for you is based on what Christ did for you and both what he did for you in history what he's doing in you now both are absolutely essential to get you to heaven and in that order we rest on the finished work of Christ and we glory in his merciful work within us little by little to triumph over our sinfulness which has been forgiven through the cross. So that's where we are in Romans we're into that new divide talking about the work of God in us so that we may do the will of God and we're resting everything on the first 11 chapters where Paul so magisterially laid out the foundation in God's work for us in history. Paul begins in chapter 12 by the mercies of God present yourselves your bodies as a living sacrifice so there it is by the mercies of God that I've taken 11 chapters to unpack now offer up your body for God's use the way we describe it here in chapters 12 through 16 and it's mainly a message of love isn't it become loving people now I'm in chapter 12 verse 9 let love be genuine verse 10 love one another with brotherly affection out do one another in showing honor verse 13 contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality verse 14 bless those who persecute you bless and don't curse them verse 17 repay no one evil for evil verse 19 beloved never avenge yourselves verse 20 if your enemy's hungry feed him if he's thirsty give him something to drink verse 21 don't be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good so that's really clear this is all about becoming merciful people loving people I beseech you by the mercies of God be like God so the the work for us in pouring out his mercy on us before we were ever born in Jesus Christ is now unleashing itself by his spirit in chapters 12 to 16 by shaping us into Christ like loving people I pray then chapter 13 he talks about our duty to the civil authority which we spent four weeks on and then he returns in verse 8 of chapter 13 to love oh no one anything except to love each other for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law or I wonder if I said it right I don't think I did say it right I said he turned from the theme of love to our duty to the civil authority and then he returned to the theme of love in verse 8 that's what I said and I don't think that's right in fact my whole message in this service will be to argue that's not what happened namely that verses 1 to 7 are not a detour from the theme of love but are intended to be an expression of love themselves so the main point I'm going to argue in this message and in all of 12 to 13 is love is enormously important in the Christian life and I am calling you to become more loving in your disposition and in your behavior because everything is to be done in love now I came to this conclusion namely that verses 1 to 7 where we spent four weeks is not a detour in the theme of love but rather an expression of it by trying to answer one of the most troubling practical questions about verse 8 verse 8 says oh no one anything except to love each other and one of the most practical questions is does that mean Christians should never be in debt should never borrow anything never borrow a rake from your neighbor never borrow a dollar or a coke or two cokes never borrow 150,000 dollars to buy a house because as soon as you borrow you owe and the text says oh no one anything well that's a real practical nitty gritty question and and you you may have walked in here never ever even read this chapter and say that's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard this society won't even work if you take that that way well don't blow it off too quick because great saints have taken it that way George Mueller who founded all those orphanages 150 years ago in England quoted this text over and over and over for why he wouldn't ever go into debt to build those orphanages and wouldn't borrow for anything else either so don't blow this off so quickly the elders of this church did not move quickly or lightly into debt to buy that north campus which we are in debt as a church eight million dollars in debt to buy that north campus we did not go there in a hurry long months of study and wrestling trying to understand the word of God because we care about being biblical more than we care about moving in any particular direction pragmatically we really want to obey God that's why we're the blessing will flow and we we came to the conclusion that this text did not forbid all borrowing and I will put in this week's fresh words at the Desiring God website a summary of our thinking because I'm not going to go all over the Bible like we did to Deuteronomy and Proverbs and Matthew and Romans I'm not going to go there here but I will put the summary of it if you want to go there and read it in a couple of days what I want to do here is stick with the immediate context and give you one of the main arguments and why it led me to the conclusion that verses one to seven is not a detour in the path of love or from the path of love okay so this is a roundabout way of saying how I got here oh no one anything clearly is related to verse seven because in verse seven which holds the key owing is viewed in a positive way it says pay to all what is owed to them so you owe them you're in debt pay to all what is owed them taxes to whom taxes are owed revenue to whom revenue is owed respect to whom respect is owed honor to whom honor is owed now that's the context for verse eight which then follows oh no one anything except to love each other so it doesn't say you will never incur debts it says if you have them pay them that's what it says you owe tax april 15 pay it you owe pay it you're in debt to the government pay it got the little piece of paper it said you didn't pay two thousand dollars enough pay it that's pretty clear meaning here do you owe revenue pay it your taxes pay it so it seems to us that the point of verse eight is not making comments here about the rightness or wrongness of having a mortgage on your home or borrowing a rake from your neighbor or a dollar to buy a coke now let me just stop here and say a word about that because that's not what this text is about I don't think I don't want to breeze over that like that's not important in the Christian life whether you're in debt for a washing machine and have strangled yourself with plastic indebtedness so I'll just say a few things whether or not it's wise to have a house mortgage or borrow for car or appliances should be based on a lot of scriptures that point out the danger of indebtedness and the wisdom of freedom so my own pastoral council would be that you'd be real real real slow young people to go into debt especially for depreciating things like appliances and cars whether you do that or not ought to be judged on considerations that are in here and much wider than this text text about the wonderful freedom of not owing anybody anything being able to go and do what God calls you to go and do at the drop of a hat text that would point out the misery of people who through careless spending with Visa and MasterCard have put themselves in an almost paralyzed position of service for Jesus I hope that all of us at Bethan will be very sober-minded and disciplined and avoid debt that is rooted in materialistic lifestyle desires to want to have and have and have there's the root problem there's the root problem for using cards in a way that is killing and I would add closing this brentsus if you're in trouble we've got financial counselors here standing ready to help you get your house in order and become more free for Christ so I'm saying verse eight is is not primarily about telling us whether to borrow a rake or a dollar or a hundred and fifty thousand dollars it's about saying if you got anything you owe to anybody pay it and only leave one debt outstanding now I ran into a snag here and this snag caused me to see so many things you know when you run into snags reading the Bible and something doesn't work on your first time through don't throw that away like problems are not a gift from God most of the the deeper things we see are because we've been stopped cold because something's not fitting and we're stopping we're thinking and as you go deeper you see oh it does fit and now you've seen a lot more as you have patiently wrestled with it so let me try to show you the snag that I ran into almost everybody I read lots of commentaries on this I've read them in the past I read them again almost everybody who comments on this passage agrees with what I've said so far and they say it like this pay off every debt that can be paid off and leave one outstanding you got a debt pay it you got a debt pay it rest there's one debt over here the debt of love as you pay it you owe it again you can't ever pay it down let me read you one of those sample commentaries a lot of others quote goes like this leave no debt outstanding to anyone except the debt of love to one another and the point this is I'm still reading this commentator and the point of the latter part of the sentence will be that the debt of love unlike those debts we pay up fully and be done with is unlimited debt which we can never be done with discharging namely love and for a long time I thought that's it that's the meaning of this text that's that's the way to understand this text and now I hit a snag that I've never seen before that that threw a glitch into that understanding and opened up vistas of insight for me here's a snag what those commentators are saying is true about love in distinction from what was just said in verse 7 is also true about one of the things in verse 7 honor I'm reading verse 7 pay to all what is owed them taxes to whom taxes are owed now jump to the end of the verse honor to whom honor is owed so in that list taxes revenue respect honor it won't work to say that group can be paid up and be done with and love cannot be paid up and be done with and so what the text is saying is oh nobody any of those pay them up finish them and now only keep owing love that won't work because honor is in the same category with love you owe honor at 11 o'clock to somebody you owe it at 11.05 and again at 11.10 and again at 11.15 and 12 o'clock and 4 in the afternoon if you owe honor to somebody you owe it to them all the time this is not like taxes pay it up done for a year don't have to pay that anymore love isn't like that honor isn't like that I honored you on April I won't honor you till next April thank you that's not the way honor works and it's not the way love works so I've got a snag I haven't read a single commentary who's helped me with this not one have have spotted this problem they all just gloss right over the top of at least all the ones I've seen and here I am stuck all by myself trying to figure out well now wait a minute if you're saying you got taxes and revenue and respect and honor don't owe any of those get those paid up let love be the outstanding debt it won't work because honor has to be an ongoing debt as well so I think Paul is saying something else I don't think what these commentators instead is wrong or what I believed about this text for all these years is wrong I believe it is absolutely right do whatever you can every time the bill comes in your mortgage pay it don't dilly dally around and get a late thing pay it and every time the uncle sam thing comes around pay it get those things paid down so you can get them out of your head forget about them love never get that out of your head never think I'll pay that one down shoot all afternoon I won't have to love anybody because it is so well in the morning don't ever think like that about love I think that's a true thing to believe that's not a false statement about love and indebtedness it's just not all that's being said here so what what is being said here what is what does Paul mean when looking back at verse seven he says oh no one anything including honor except to love consider this possibility which I think is the case you are hearing this letter read in Rome and just before you heard verse eight of chapter 13 about a minute and a half or two minutes before you heard chapter 12 verse 10 read which goes like this love one another with brotherly affection out do one another in showing honor you heard that love one another with brotherly affection out do one another in showing honor and as that was read you properly inferred well then Paul's mind the inspired writer honoring somebody would be a way of loving them I think you'd be on the right track and then a minute and a half or two minutes later whoever's standing in front of the congregation reading this letter reads this oh no one anything and if you're a really sharp listener oh no one any honor except to love each other oh no one taxes except to love each other oh no one tribute except to love each other oh no one respect except to love each other oh no one honor except to love what would you conclude that that meant I would conclude this any time you have a debt of honor pay it in love every payment of honor let it be a payment of love every act of honoring should be an act of loving don't pay debts of honor except as love payments don't pay debts of honor except as love payments oh no honor except as a form of love that comes as close as I can get to the the wording oh no one honor except in a certain way lovingly oh no one honor except as a form of love and if that's true of honor it's two of taxes don't pay any taxes accept as an act of love don't pay any tribute except as an act of love don't pay any respect except as an act of love every debt that you owe anybody taxes revenue respect honor rate coke let every payment of a debt be an expression of love that's what I think he means which is why you can now see so verses 1 to 7 wasn't a detour from love because now he's saying in verse 8 everything I just told you to do in verses 1 to 7 you're now saying don't do it except as an act of love here's the implication Christians don't make love a special category of behavior alongside other behaviors let all your behavior be done in love that's a quote you know where that's from 1 Corinthians 16 14 let all that you do be done in love let all debt paying be love paying do you owe the IRS a payment don't just write the check in gloomy resentful anxious irritated spirit write the check in love do you have a mortgage payment do don't just write the check with a sense of weighty indebtedness bible says so i'll get in trouble if i don't rather write the check in the liberty and the joy and the freedom of love have you borrowed a book from someone so long ago they and you have forgotten about it and you just found it and you're so embarrassed you don't want to take it back lest you get egg on your face love has something to say about that debt because love is not arrogant tumble gets down servant like and says I blew it I got your book here's your book back pay the debt in love so you ask like my son Benjamin did when i told him what i was going to say how do you write a check in love like to the IRS or to the bank what does that look like i don't even know anybody at IRS doesn't sound like a loving transaction here this is just business that's me talking not Benjamin he just posed a question so i would say i didn't say this to Benjamin because he's thoughtful but i would say it to everybody be careful be careful that you don't understand love in a way that is far short of the apostle paul's conception of love and my hope in the next several weeks says we're going to work this text over is that love would would just shine in our heads and in our hearts and their lives here at Bethlehem paul has a conception of love that makes it relevant for every check you write no matter to whom because he said love is patient and kind it does not envy the 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 love never ends have you ever worked that through one piece at a time put it on your bathroom mirror and work one piece through every tooth brushing and your life might be changed how do you show love in writing a check to pay a bill or a debt or return something you've borrowed you do it for example this is the tip of the iceberg for how you might do it you do it without envy for all those people who don't have to pay as much as you do without envy you do it without arrogance that these are stupid tax laws without arrogance like that you do it with a glad willingness to endure and bear and hope any hardship that comes for doing what's right that's love according to Paul you don't have to know anybody at IRS is it it amazing that love in this text that was a quote for first graders 13 in case you didn't know it first graders 13 the love chapter isn't it amazing that for Paul love is mainly a mindset and a disposition and an attitude before it produces any behaviors at all now guarantee it will produce behaviors that are sacrificial loving humble servant like but those behaviors can happen without love don't equate check writing or soup making or hugging with love those are behaviors that may or may not be love depending on what's in here and almost all the things in that list are in here it's amazing I'll just give you the examples again the essence of love in the list that I just quoted from Paul patience not envy not arrogant not irritable not resentful not rejoicing at wrong rejoicing at truth bearing believing hoping enduring that's here that's a new creation that's the work of the Holy Spirit let's not be a church that is bent on looking good let's be a church bent on being loving being loving we must be this way and then actions oh they will be beautiful so what I'm arguing in verse one to eight of Romans 13 is that all these acts of the soul called love this mindset this disposition these attitudes ought to be there in and through the way you submit to policemen or write a check for uncle sam in the irs or keep the speed limit that's the point of verse eight I believe the main point of verse eight is oh no one anything and of course you owe everybody everything honor respect taxes tribute we all like crazy and the point is don't owe it except in a certain way love let every debt you pay be paid in love you got a debt to the speed limit sign 55 55 55 that's real easy to read you got a debt there now how about what's going on in here as you pay up this really this really got me I mean I was I don't want to be the kind of pastor who has a love segment and another kind of stuff whatever it is maybe church discipline or finances or exercise or whatever it's got the love thing phone call letter note blah blah blah and then the other stuff wrong the whole life of every person in this church should be thought through and felt through from cross of Christ out until everything we do we do in love oh nobody any behavior at all except one way love that's that's what I see in verse eight there is one other objection I thought of that somebody would I think legitimately raise namely the word each other verse eight oh no one anything except to love each other if each other refers only to christians what I'm saying has got to be changed because I'm arguing love is love to everybody indiscriminately any debt you have to pay there's a love framework here that's going that way it's going that way whether it's enemy or friend or christian or not but each other is often used in the New Testament for believers that's us kind of each other and if that's what it means here then I could go back and rewrite the sermon and you've got to scrap the last 20 minutes I don't think each other is limited to christians for a bunch of reasons one would be that when you when you take the phrase no one at the front of the verse oh no one you got to ask who's who's in view there and then each other and then do they work if you if you put unbelievers into the no one which you should because it's referring to people you pay taxes to Caesar and so then it would have to read something like this oh no unbelievers anything except to love believers which I don't think works I don't think that makes any sense oh no unbelievers anything except to love fellow christians this falls apart in my hands when I try to try to take it that way and not only that but in chapter 12 love for unbelievers is all over the place this is what the text is about in large measure verse 17 repay no one evil for evil but give thought to what is honorable in the sight of all then if your enemy is hungry feed him that's that's what happens just before this text and then another argument at the end of verse 8 where it says for the one who loves another and that's just a big broad general word I think for anybody has fulfilled the whole law and then the last thing I would say is you don't fulfill the law by loving Christians and hating your enemies and therefore I don't think in this context each other is meant to be limited to Christians I think it's a broad general statement of fellow human beings so here I come to my double conclusion number one verse eight is teaching us not simply that love is a perpetual debt that's true all the commentators are right to draw attention to that and I think we should keep on believing that love is a perpetual debt you owe somebody love it 12 you owe them love again at one o'clock you pay down love a little bit there's nothing subtracted from the debt it is total love demanded all the time and love payments do not take the principal or the interest down at all it's always there I think that's an accurate and right interpretation I just think since that's also true of honor in verse seven that you've got to say more is going on here don't owe anyone anything including honor which is also a debt you can never pay down except to love which makes me say okay what he's saying is love in honoring love in paying taxes love in showing tribute love in keeping the speed limit love in writing the mortgage check love in returning the book let love govern everything including verses one to seven which means second conclusion it's not a detour that's where I began that's where I end verses one to seven in the flow of thought chapter 12 13 he didn't take a detour away from the love theme of chapter 12 into duty to government and then back to love theme rather he's showing us in verse eight yes there are all these civic duties that we have and I'm telling you love in those civic duties don't just put them in a special category so best of him pursue love it is an enormous all-encompassing reality it's not part of life it's all of life let everything be done in love let the mindset let's go back to our first Corinthians 13 let the mindset of patience kindness contentment humility meekness politeness deference forgiveness joy truthfulness hope endurance I'm getting all those from the definition of love in first Corinthians 13 four to seven all of them are considered definitions of love let your heart and your mind overflow with these traits in everything you do everything you do so test yourself Bethlehem how are you doing you drive a car in love you keep the laws in love do you write the checks that you owe in love does every practical nitty gritty behavior in your life flow from patience kindness meekness non irritation bearing all things believing all things hoping all things and doing all things not rejoicing in any wrongdoing rejoicing in the truth of being irritable not being resentful does it flow from that heart oh do you see what the battle of the Christian life is it is to become this way on the inside and how could it be otherwise for a people who have built our whole life on Romans five eight god shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us how could it be anything other than that glorious central marvelous event in history for us producing a very broken humble servant like loving taxpayer book returner lawkeeper father in heaven i pray now that you would do Galatians 5 22 in this church the fruit of the holy spirit is love the fruit of the holy spirit is love so holy spirit would you come glorify Jesus Christ by causing us to see him and savor him and embrace him and trust him until his mind becomes our mind but this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus who didn't count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself taking the form of a servant and being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient submissive even to the cross therefore you have highly exalted him and we want to have his mind by the holy spirit on the basis of his cross for the glory of his name so as we spend time in love in these days would you do it would you do this text in our church in our pastoral staff our elders our people in Jesus name I pray amen thank you for listening to this message by john piper pastor for preaching at bethlehem Baptist church in many apless minnesota feel free to make copies of this message to give to others but please do not charge for those copies or alter the content in any way without permission we invite you to visit desiring god online at www.desiringgod.org there you'll find hundreds of sermons articles radio broadcasts and much more all available to you at no charge our online store carries all of pastor john's books audio and video resources you can also stay up to date on what's new at desiring god again our website is www.desiringgod.org or call us toll-free at 1-888-346-4700 our mailing address is desiring god 20601 east franklin avenue minneapolis minnesota 55406 desiring god exists to help you make god your treasure because god is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him
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