Debt, Desire, and Obedient Love

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

A life transformed by the mercy of God and a Spirit renewed mind and...

A life transformed by the mercy of God and a Spirit renewed mind and

A holy, acceptable, spiritual sacrifice of worship to God looks like...

A life of Gospel-motivated, self-sacrificing love for others.

He lists the traits of that kind of love in 12, now we see some realities of that kind of love.

Love is COSTLY.

Romans 13:8 ESV

8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

Some have taken this passage to mean that we must not ever have debt, and there is a principle to learn even here to be honest and honorable in your financial dealings. Pay your debts.

But his main point is represented in a transition back to the concept of love.

He has just spoken about honoring and respecting authority, not he goes back to talking about how we relate with one another, under the authority of Christ.

Now he makes the point that the only form of acceptable debt is the debt of Love.

It seems he is intending to stress the costliness of love as we choose to love others.

Love is a debt we owe, not just to our families, friends, or church members, but to our “fellowman”, meaning everyone.

We owe EVERYONE love, even the ones we don’t really think deserve it.

That is why love is costly, because when we truly love others well we will give up some part of us.

Love costs us time- as we infest our time in others it is time we do not get to spend on ourselves.

Love costs us resources, as we give to the needs of others, or express our love through generosity.

Love costs us revenge and retribution, as we feed our hungry enemies and give them drink when they are thirsty.

As much desire to see someone pay for the injustice done against us, love tells us to let God be the justifier.

Love costs us comfort, as we love imperfect people who are bound to hurt us or frustrate us.

Love costs us emotion, as we deal with the good and the bad of relationships.

Love costs us independence and freedom as we put the needs of others before ourselves.

Obviously the greatest picture of the costly nature of love is shown to us in Christ.

Ephesians 5:2 ESV

2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

To LOVE is to OBEY, to OBEY is to LOVE.

Romans 13:9–10 ESV

9 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.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Paul wraps love and law together here in a very important way.

rom 13 9-

But we have the tendency to assume he is saying something he is not. We do this in 2 ways.

There is a temptation here to assume Paul is saying that love overshadows the commandments.

That we shouldn’t focus so much on doing the “right thing” as much as we should focus on what is the most loving thing we could do.

Dr. Tom Schreiner points out the flaw in this:

Why is it so important to have commandments in order to love one another? Because love without commandments so easily descends into vagueness or sentimentality. We can so easily deceive ourselves into thinking that we are loving because we have warm feelings towards other people.

If I gave you a 1000 piece puzzle with no picture of what it would look like at the end you would be forced to guess and it could get pretty frustrating.

When we let love be defined by vague, subjective ideas and feeling rather than the concrete and inerrant Word of God, we are not going to truly love people well.

The principle here is easy to see: we cannot let the world shape our definition of love. We must let God’s word in the scriptures define for us what is loving. Otherwise, we will fall prey to the deception of the world. Dr. Tom Schreiner

Schreiner goes on to say:

How we love should be guided by God’s true and ultimate definition, not our sentimental definitions.

The other tendency we have is to consider following the commandments as how we love.

This would be equal to me doing all that Pam would expect me to do as a husband in order to show her how great a husband I am.

My service to Pam was not motivate by love for her, it was motivated by love for myself.

A better way, and the way Paul is teaching us to be, is to let love be the motive of my obedience and my service to God and others.

I am not obeying God out of obligation, but out of a deep affection and love I have for Him because of who He is and what He has done.

Love AWAKENS TRANSFORMATIONAL FAITH.

Romans 13:11–14 ESV

11 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. 12 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. 13 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

rom 13:11-1

Anyone have the tendency to dose off when you are watching a really good TV show or game?

The other people watching may yell at you “WAKE UP, your missing a good part!!”

That is what Paul is doing here.

He is yelling at us to WAKE UP, because we are missing out on the beauty of God revealing Himself to us.

“Salvation is nearer to us now...” Paul is not writing to people who have not been saved, he is speaking in the future tense of salvation.

When someone trusts in Christ salvation is immediate in the since that their guilt is removed as their sins are taken on by Christ.

But they are also beginning the process of salvation, where the realities of being saved begin to transform their character.

But Paul’s statement is pointing to future salvation, where what was started in them will be brought to completion when Jesus comes again.

Paul is saying “Wake up, so you don’t miss the fulfillment of that which was started in you.”

It seems the Roman believers were much like us, losing sight of the promise of God for complete salvation/freedom from our sinful flesh and this sin-stained world.

He then shifts to the imagery of day and night, light and darkness.

Darkness most always signifies sin and evil, while light points to truth, hope, goodness, and, ultimately, Christ.

Paul is saying the night (time of dark) is “far gone”, it is passing away and will be no more.

While the day is “at hand”, it is approaching moment by moment.

He is building anticipation for a better day and a better hope.

It is like watching the sunrise early in the morning. It starts off very dark, but even before the sun breaks over the horizon, light begins to push out the darkness.

Paul is saying “Wake up and see this beautiful sunrise of God’s amazing grace shining light into dark places of our lives and our world.

So his words at the end of vs 12 and into vs 13 are the application of our hope and faith in Christ.

He is calling us out of the darkness into the marvelous light.

rom 13

He is calling us to leave behind the “works of darkness” and “walk properly as in the daytime.”

1 Thessalonians 5:2 ESV

2 For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

1 Thessalonians 5:4–5 ESV

4 But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. 5 For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.

1 Thessalonians 5:2–5 ESV

2 For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 4 But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. 5 For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.

Paul points to the distinctiveness of someone walking in the light.

There life is not made up of sexual immorality, drunkenness, quarrelling and jealousy.

We are not focused on the gratification of our selfish desires, but are propelled by the Love we have experienced in Christ because of the saving faith we have in Him.

Love requires that we shed our self-serving desires that define worldly love and that we cloth ourselves with the self-sacrificing, love-soaked character of Christ.

Money, relationships, success, comfort, security,

Paul is calling us to WAKE UP to real joy, real hope, and real gratification.

Darkness is our

We are lured to sleep by the instant pleasure we get from the things around us (sex, money, acceptance, success, power, and attention.)

All the while we are missing out on the joy, peace, and hope of knowing, loving, and following our wonderful counselor and mighty God, King Jesus.

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” C.S. Lewis “The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses”

John 13:34–35 ESV

34 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. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

John 13:33–34 ESV

33 Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ 34 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.

We are not focused on the gratification of our selfish desires, but are motivated by caring for one another.

Love requires that we shed our self-serving desires that define worldly love and that we cloth ourselves with the self-sacrificing, love-soaked character of Christ.

DO you need to wake up?

God has shown His love for you in a very costly way, through the death of Jesus for you sins.

If you are here today and your eyes are opening to the love Christ has for you and the hope He is offering you in His grace, then you are waking up (PTL!!)

Don’t leave here today without talking to someone.

For those who are believe, it is time to wake up.

The command to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” is not a one time command, it is a daily responsibility for us to cloth ourselves with Christ.