Preached in Markham Baptist Church, April 29, 2007

THE DEBT OF LOVE

I invite you to open your Bibles to Romans 13:8-14. We are continuing our study of missions and what it means for us as a church to have a mission heart. To awake out of our slumber and see a world that is desperately in need of Christ’s love and saving grace.

Just to give you some context to this passage Paul is writing to the Christians in Rome. This book has been called Paul’s gospel. It gives us the heart of the gospel and addresses the question, how will God restore righteousness to humanity? How will He remake fallen humanity so that we once again reflect His image? Chapters 1 through 11 discusses this theologically. Chapters 12 through 16 discuss this ethically, practically.

So chapter 13 falls in this section that discusses how we can practically demonstrate God’s character in our lives. This is vital for us to us understand - the goal of the gospel is not that we believe the right things. No the goal of the gospel is that we would behave the right way. Of course, you cannot behave the right way if you do not believe - the right things the two are entwined. But don’t be satisfied with correct doctrine alone – the goal is that we would reflect the holiness of God.

We have been cleansed through the sacrifice of Christ. We have been filled with the Holy Spirit so that Christ now lives in us – the goal is allowing the personality of Christ to work in and through our lives. Doctrine always leads to duty, true belief leads to action. God did not come to us so that we would believe something but that we would have His image restored in us – to behave like Christ.

In Romans 12 Paul speaks how we are to behave Christianly toward those in the church. In the first part of Romans 13 he speaks of how to behave Christianly toward those in government. And then in our text Paul will speak of how to behave Christianly toward individuals, the world around us. So our text is a mission text. It is concerned about how we can demonstrate the reality of Christ in the world.

The more I live in this world the more I see its need for Christ. I don’t know anyone who is getting along very well without Christ. I just turned 44 this past week. And in those 44 years all I’ve seen in this world is a desperate need for Christ. Wars, bombings, hatred, abuse, anger, lifelessness.

And I think how is this world going to be changed? It will only be changed by the saving power of Jesus Christ. But how are we going to let the world know about the saving power of Christ? Paul answers that question here.

Now he’s going to move into this discussion in a clever way. At verse 6 he is speaking about paying taxes – “This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants who give their full time to governing.” Then verse 7: “Give everyone what you owe him; if you owe taxes pay taxes; if revenue then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honour, then honour.”

Don’t stop there – because verse 8 continues this thought – “Let no debt remain outstanding.”

That doesn’t mean that Christians should never take out a loan. Scripture doesn’t forbid us from borrowing money. The implication of verse 7 is that money has been borrowed. What the first part of verse 8 is saying is don’t borrow beyond your ability to pay.

That’s a Scriptural truth but it is also a way for Paul to move the discussion on – Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another.

Did you know that when you became a Christian you automatically became indebted? As long as you live on this earth as a Christian, you have a mortgage. Now that might shock some of you – we don’t like being in debt. Most people can’t stand the idea of having to owe someone money. Now of course Scripture is not speaking about money; the discussion has moved along. Scripture is talking about love here.

And we say, “Of course. I am in debt to Jesus Christ. I owe Him everything, since He died for me. Without Him I would not know the love of God, I would not have forgiveness of sin, I would not have eternal life, I would not be called a child of God. I am in debt to Jesus Christ. I have a debt of love to Jesus Christ - of course I know.”

But that’s not what Scripture says here, is it? It says we have a continuing debt to love one another (and in most cases we could understand this to mean those in the church) but Paul continues, for he who loves his fellow man, (in the NRSV who loves another) has fulfilled the law. So we owe this debt of love to the world, to those around us.

This is not a new thought. Paul has said something similar in Romans 1:14,15. There he says, “I am obligated (that is indebted) both to the Greeks and non Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That’s why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome.”

And we say, “What? How can I owe love to those around me? How can I have this continual debt to love others?”

Now I’ve given this to you before, but just to remind you and I want to expand on it this morning – there are two ways to be in debt. Does anyone have a 20-dollar bill? If I borrow this 20 dollars from Rick, I am in debt to Rick - correct? Correct. That’s one way to be in debt.

But there is another way to be in debt. Let’s say that Rick heard that Patrick was in need of 20 dollars. Rick wants to give Patrick the money. But Rick has to go away on a trip and can’t get Patrick the 20 dollars. I happen to bump into Rick and he tells me his desire to help Patrick. I say, “I’ll see Patrick on Sunday, give me the 20 dollars and I’ll give it to Patrick.”

Now, to whom do I owe the money? I owe the money to Patrick. I am in debt now to Patrick.

This is what Scripture is saying here. We are debtors. We have been given a treasure - the treasure of the love of Jesus Christ and we have been given it by Jesus Christ and He has plainly told us that we are to share it with others.

When you received Jesus Christ, you became a debtor to all who don’t know Christ. We have been entrusted not with a 20 dollar bill, but with all the glorious riches of Jesus Christ and are told, go share it with all people everywhere.

Now, some questions arise. Should the debt of love be paid to those who don’t deserve it?

What if I know that Patrick is not deserving of this 20 dollars? What should I do? Should I go back to Rick and say – Rick, Patrick really isn’t deserving of this 20 dollars. Rick might ask me – well who is?

And that is certainly the question we would be asked by God regarding His love. If we told Him that so and so isn’t deserving of His love and therefore we decided not to show His love, He would say – “Who is deserving of my love? Are you deserving of God’s love?” Are you deserving of a love that will never fail you, never run out, and never turn away? Well, no.

You see, that’s the marvellous thing about love – it has nothing to do with deserving. And that’s why it is such a powerful tool for the church for changing the world. That’s why it’s such a powerful witness to the reality of God. It has nothing to do with deserving. It is when we love undeserving people that they know that God’s love is real.

Generally, the world thinks the church is good at two things. We are good at pointing out sin. We are good at pointing out the failings of the world. We take aim at homosexuality, materialism, adultery, divorce, abortion and we let out the shotgun blasts.

And to be sure, if we are filled with the Holy Spirit we will be sensitive to these sins and will recognize them – but my friends, we have got to stop this runaway train called condemnation.

To be honest, I find it the hardest thing to do as a pastor. To recognize sin as sin and at the same time to love people. To call people to holiness and at the same time to be loving. And I find it easiest to point out the sin without loving the people. But that is not the way of Christ.

He had this way, didn’t He? He didn’t condemn people for their sin – He came to save them from their sin. He comes across person after person, the woman at the well (5 husbands and the man she is living with now is not her husband,) the cheating tax collectors – Zacchaeus, the woman caught in adultery, denying Peter – denied the Lord three times – He doesn’t condemn any of these people. No finger waving, no sermonizing – no, He rescues them out of their sin by loving them.

Does sin matter to God? Yes. Does sin make Jesus angry? Yes. But the way He rescued people from their sin was through love. His love was not based on who was deserving.

The second thing the church does well is practicing sentimental love. Have you heard of the young man who wrote to his girl friend and said, “I love you more than anything in the world. I will climb the highest mountain to see you. I will swim the widest sea to get to you. I will walk the densest jungle and scramble through the thickest rubble just to be with you. I love you more than all the world. … P.S. I will see you Saturday if it’s not raining.”

That’s a sentimental love. That’s the kind of love we sometimes practice. It is the kind of love that says “I will love you if …”. I will love you if… If you don’t smell bad. If you don’t inconvenience me. If you look like I do. I will love you if you don’t wear your hair long, your skirt short, your hat crooked, and your pants low.

I will love you if you tuned in the latest trends, aren’t over 60 years old, listen to loud music, and don’t use thee and thou in your public prayers. I will love you if you meet me on Sundays, carry a big Bible, have an evangelical theology with Calvanist leanings, and don’t like your music too loud.

Sentimental love has conditions. Sentimental love is calculated, programmed, limited and has boundaries.

But that’s not the love that Jesus Christ has given to you and to me. O, that we would know how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. There are no “ifs” when it comes to Christ’s love. And it is that kind of love that we are called to share with the world. You see, sharing this love has nothing to do with who is deserving and who is not. Christian love doesn’t even ask that question.

Now the second question that arises for me is this – What if I choose not to pay off the debt of love? What would happen?

What would happen if I choose not to pay off this debt? Let’s say that Rick gave me this money to give to Patrick, but I just pocketed the money for myself. Either I forgot to give it to him, or I simply just enjoyed having that money in my pocket.

That happens often with God’s love. We enjoy it, we claim it for ourselves, we revel in it but then we fail to give to others. So what would happen to Rick’s money?

Well, first I would upset Rick - I wouldn’t be doing what he told me to do. And so with God’s love when we hold on to it. This is what Paul is saying in verses 9 and 10. He says that when we love we are fulfilling the law. The commandments – and at verse 9 he lists a sample there – are summed up with this one rule: “Love your neighbour as yourself.”

We often think of the commandments as being negative. Paul says they are not negative - they are positive – love your neighbour. That’s a positive action. When we love our neighbour we will not commit adultery, we will not murder, we will not steal, we will not covet.

So love is obeying the law of God. When we don’t love, when we hold back God’s love from others we are disobeying the law, we are not doing what God calls us to do.

Now understand this – love is not a feeling alone. It is an action. It is a decision, an act of the will. I will love. The love we see depicted in the movies and television and most novels is all about feelings. When the feelings go, we can discard the relationship. But that’s not true love. True love is a decision where we say I will act this way toward you.

And it’s what God calls us to do.

What does this love look like? It is volitional. I think Philippians 2:1-3 is helpful for us here to understand what love is and what it looks like. It states there, “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like minded, having the SAME LOVE, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.”

So this love is considering others better than yourself. That’s what the NIV and the NRSV reads. But that isn’t a great translation, because it intimates that some kind of value judgment needs to be made. It may be that they are not better than you. A better translation is the New American Standard Version that reads, “but in humility consider others more important that yourselves.”

That’s love. Considering others more important than yourself. That’s love. How do you know when you are loved? When you are considered to be important to the other person. When do you question if you are loved by another? When you no longer feel important to them. Because love is that attitude that says this person is more important than I. When you feel that their job, their hobby, or some thing else or someone else has taken your place, you begin to question their love for you.

Because love is that attitude that says you are important. Our problem is – and the reason people don’t feel that they are loved by Christians is - that we put so many other things before people. We consider budgets more important than people We consider buildings more important than people. We consider proper worship more important than people. We consider proper doctrine more important than people. And the world has shut us out. But when we begin to demonstrate that people are more important than anything else – our time, our comfort the beauty of our building, our finances then we begin to win them over.

And you don’t need to know someone to treat them as important. The woman at the Walmart checkout – as you are checking out, you look her in the eye and you treat her with dignity and you speak with her you make her feel important. We may never know her name or see her again but she will know that she is loved.

We have a debt to love says Paul. We have to take it seriously and we have to ask ourselves how can I consider others more important than myself – because when we demonstrate that we will be demonstrating the love of Christ.

Now, the next thing that happens when I hold on to Rick’s money is that I put Patrick in danger. He really needs this 20 dollars - it will save him from financial ruin and relational ruin. It will enable him to eat - it will literally save his life. But I hold on to it.

And so with us when we hold on to God’s love and fail to give it out we put lives in danger. This is what Paul says at verse 11. We are to love our neighbour, “understanding the present time.” What’s the present time? He goes on to tell us. “The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber.” Why? What’s happening? Because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here! My friends, Christ is coming again, wake up. There’s an urgency here.

We say, Well, He hasn’t come yet. Paul says, The time is running short. The salvation he refers to here is the complete salvation of our bodies, the rapture when the dead in Christ will arise, the second coming of Christ. Christ could come at any moment, that’s what Paul is saying. He is echoing Jesus who said, “Watch, Stay alert.” We do not know the time but Christ will come again. So the time for those who don’t know Christ is coming to a close, there’s an urgency in our sharing the love of Christ.

But we persist, “Well He hasn’t come yet.” Well, even if Christ doesn’t come right away time is still running out, life is so short. Can you tell I just had a birthday? Life is so short. Billy Graham was on Larry King Life and Larry asked him what surprised him most about life and Billy immediately said, “its brevity.”

My friends the world around us doesn’t have time for us to figure out policies and strategies and programs or approaches to our evangelism. They are literally dying for lack of love and are in deep need of us to demonstrate the reality of Christ by loving them.

The time is short. Wake up! If Paul had a blow horn here, he’d blow it. Time is running out! You have received the love of Christ – now wake up and start giving it out.

Now there’s another thing that will happen if I hold on to this money – and that is Patrick will never discover how wonderful Rick really is. Patrick would go through life thinking that Rick is really a mean old codger who never really cares for him has never really done anything for him. He’s been told that Rick cares about him. He’s been told that Rick has the money to help him. He’s been told that Rick has the ability, but Patrick has never seen Rick deliver! So Patrick goes through his days disbelieving in Rick’s care and friendship.

And this is part of what Paul says at verse 12 through 14 – “So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”

So Paul says, “Wake up and get dressed.” Get dressed with what? Take off the night clothes and put on Christ. But on the deeds that speak of Christ. In fact, he says in verse 14, clothe yourselves with Jesus Christ. Demonstrate the reality of Christ to the world. Imagine if you and I never demonstrate the reality of Christ, the love of Christ to the world in our actions they will never know Christ.

In his great book entitled Disaapointment with God Philip Yancey weaves a conversation he is having with his disbelieving friend Richard throughout the book. Richard is asking all sorts of questions about God and about suffering. He has become so disappointed with God that he no longer believes. And Yancey listens carefully to Richard and tries to address some of his questions. He wants God to speak to Richard in some way. And halfway through the book Philip Yancey states that maybe if Richard could find a saint, someone like Mother Teresa, to embody the qualities of love and grace maybe then he would believe.

But then Yancey realizes, “Richard does not know Mother Teresa, but he does know me. And that is the most humbling aspect of the [whole thing]. Richard probably will never hear a voice from a whirlwind that drowns out all questions. He will likely never get a personal glimpse of God in his life. He will only see me.” (page 160).

This is the thing - we are the only representatives of God that many people will ever see. So if we choose to hold on to God’s love and share it with only those in our congregation then many will perish to an eternity of death and separation from God.

My friends we have a debt of love to those around us. It is a debt that we must endeavour to pay out – practically, urgently, unselfishly, with abandon so that the world will know that Jesus Christ is real.