Open your Bibles to Romans 13 and find verse 5. Romans 13 verse 5. I'll be reading to verse 10. Romans 13 verse 5. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter-than-honey word of God.

Therefore, you must be subject not only because of wrath but also for conscience sake, for because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. Oh no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet, and if there's any other commandment are all summed up in this saying, namely, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. Come and bless this congregation with wisdom from heaven. Teach us what is here, Lord, word by word, verse by verse.

Amen. Please be seated. I had to laugh when I read J. Vernon McGee's commentary on this section. He's very pithy.

He begins this commentary on these verses in Romans 13 with these words. Did you borrow your neighbor's lawnmower? Take it back. Housewife, did you borrow a cup of sugar from your neighbor? Return it, please.

Oh, no one, anything. So there you go. And then he goes on to talk about the message of this passage. These verses focus on debt. That's the debt that we owe to one another and you There's an outline in front of you, you'll see.

I want to speak about first the debts that we owe, there are various debts, and then the greatest debt that we owe in verse eight, and then third, the expressions of love, which are a debt to one another in verses nine through 10, and then fourth, the constraint of love, and then finally the urgency of love. And of course, all of this exists in the wider context of the book of Romans, the first 11 chapters declare man's condition, lost, but the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it's the power of God to salvation. And then when you get to chapter 12, there's a shift. The Apostle moves into a very practical section he's applying everything that is an implication of the gospel if you believe the gospel then what kind of person are you how you gonna live and first of all you you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable to God which is your reasonable service that's really the beginning of the Christian life when you bow all of who you are to God and to God alone.

This is the definition of a Christian. This is a definition of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Then the apostle in verse 3 in chapter 12 talks about the relationships of the body of Christ we talked a lot about the culture of a church and then Continuing in verses 9 through 21. He talks about how to deal with difficult people You know not just regular old difficult people but people who are actually persecuting you. What are you supposed to do?

And we're given instructions about that. We turn to chapter 13, and The apostle is continuing the discussion of what the redeemed soul acts like, first of all in the church, and then now in the civil realm. What does a Christian think about the civil government? How does the Christian relate to the civil government and what is the role of the civil government? And of course we are to submit to authorities that secondly the civil government has a duty to do laws that are good.

That's his duty. When he does bad laws then the church doesn't have to follow bad laws. He has a very limited and narrow lane of jurisdiction. He needs to stay within his lane, he wields the sword and he doesn't count provide counseling and rehab, he actually punishes evildoers so that people in in a nation would actually be safe from evildoers. So the Apostle is continuing to instruct the Roman Church how to relate to the civil government and he uses the word neighbor which means everybody.

Everybody in the civil realm, everybody in your church, everybody in your family, everybody, and how do you do that? Well, he uses really one word, love, and it's a very practical section. This is the pathway to love, and he explains it, and the pathway to love is the law of God. Now verse five, look at this with me. Therefore you must be subject not only because of wrath but also for conscience sake.

In other words, we submit not just because we might get punished but because it's the right thing to do. And in other words, be subject from the heart in your inner man, in your inner being, in your inner conscience. You know that submission is right and So it arises out of a clear conscience the con as we'll learn in the next chapter The conscience must be informed by the Word of God And when the Word of God informs your conscience, you're not a rebellious donkey. You have a submissive spirit. And this is why he says, not only because of wrath, but also because of conscience' sake.

And then he speaks in verse 6 of the various debts that we owe here's here's the fun part taxes there are fees that we are we have actually a duty to pay Paul calls them a debt We have this debt. He speaks of taxes, customs, fear, and honor. All of these are due. Verses six and seven, let me read it. For because of this you also pay taxes because of conscience, right, because of a clear conscience.

For they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing in other words the government is always seeking your taxes okay that's what they do you know we lived in a blessed country one till 1861 till we had federal taxes but that's that's you that's not true and it certainly isn't true now. The government is always looking at your pocketbook and they want something from you. At the same time, They actually build roads and put in infrastructure. They do actually a lot of things that I don't think any of us would want to give up. We don't really like much of where the government spends their money, but I don't think the Roman Christians like very much the way that Nero spent their tax money either.

So it doesn't matter if you have a good ruler or bad ruler, you have a debt to owe and it's called taxes. And But then, but then he speaks of the greatest debt that we owe, and the greatest debt that we owe is love. Verse eight, oh no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law." So the Apostle he moves from, well I'm just gonna call it financial integrity. Financial integrity means you pay your taxes and you and you pay your customs, you pay what is due, and then he turns from financial integrity to the matter of love. So the question that's probably in so many minds right now after reading this verse is is this an argument that prohibits debt that's the big and many people have used this as sort of the watershed of all arguments about debt Let me tell you how Lloyd-Jones speaks of this.

Well the answer is this passage really doesn't have anything to do with debt except as he explains. Lloyd-Jones, now there is no need to waste any time over this. Okay? It cannot mean that because we are instructed elsewhere in scripture to give loans, that's Martin Lloyd-Jones. Now, it's clear that borrowing is not a sin in the Bible.

The Bible regulates borrowing, the Bible regulates lending through various principles of, by the way, the merciful man lends. But, and there are provisions and rules and warnings about debt, many warnings about debt in the Bible, really ones that should be not be taken lightly at all. But this is not what Paul is talking about. He's not talking about loans. He's talking about a particular debt.

He's using these illustrations of taxes and customs as an illustration of the greatest debt that we owe. He says, oh no one anything except to love one another. The point he's making is never be negligent in paying back. Pay back your debts. But, owe no one anything except to love one another.

And what this is telling us is that we actually are under obligation. We actually owe a debt to one another and it's not just us in the church, it's not just your family. We owe this debt to everyone, everyone in the civil realm and and he's addressing the failure to pay your debt and you know The NIV I think translates this really well. Let no debt remain on standing. That's probably the most faithful rendering of this verse.

So the debt that we owe is the debt of love. So picture alone with no due date. There's no final payment. You just keep making daily installments until the day you die. That's this, it's the debt of love.

You never pay it off. You're never finished. Love is the only debt that stays the same with every payment. And you know, you don't owe taxes to everyone continually, but you do owe everyone love all the time. He's saying make daily installments.

He's saying discharge your debts to everybody and what is due taxes and other debts need to be paid off but love is never paid off. Let me say it another way we can never say, I'm done loving you. You might be offended with someone and you've said in your heart I'm done I'm just I'm just done I don't need this well that's actually not the Christian way in the world you think about a novel you write a novel and you get to the end of it, and you're so glad you got to the end of it, and then you write the end. Love doesn't work that way at all. You don't ever get to the end and the story of your life with those that God put you with does not have the end in it at all.

It has to be continued. That's the Apostles Message here Trent sent me this quote by Alexander McLaren He says every man is our creditor for that debt. He does not get his due from us unless he gets love. The debt of love is never fully discharged. After all payments it still remains owing.

There is no paying in full of all demands. It is an undying debt." So that's the basic message and we don't owe everybody customs or tax but we do owe them love. So the Christian, the Christian should never declare bankruptcy on love. There's still more to pay. And he says why?

At the end of verse 8, why? For he who loves another has fulfilled the law. So the law of God gives us multiple ways to love. That's the whole idea. And it's interesting, you know, people have different thoughts about the law of God, but The law of God actually describes the most perfect life because it is all summed up in love.

And all of the Ten Commandments, all of the case laws of the Old Testament, all of the relational commands of the New Testament, particularly in Romans 12 and in every actual letter of Paul, all of them, all of those laws, all of those rules are good rules, and they're all summed up in the word love. All of them are collapsed down into this one category of love. And maybe here's a way to illustrate it maybe. The spectrum of light, all the colors of the rainbow actually exist in white light. This white light above us, All the colors of the rainbow actually exist in white light.

This white light above us, all the colors of the rainbow exist. The light from the Sun, all the colors of the rainbow exist there. You don't see them all the time because they're not refracted through moisture. But within that light are all the colors of the rainbow. There's red, there's orange, there's green, there's blue.

All of them are in that white light because light is a wave and each wave carries a spectrum of light together. So it is white light but All of the colors are loaded up into that spectrum. In the same way, all the commandments exist. They are all jammed together in this one word, love. And this, it's a never-ending debt.

You can't you can't patch up a relationship with one act of love. They need to continue. You can't you can't heal your marriage with one act of love. You can't heal the broken relationship you have with your children or your children with you with one act of love. And you can't, you can't heal the wounds of a church with one act of love either.

Because love is something that was meant to be continually paid. It's a constant refresher. It's like a river that flows and cleanses itself and purifies itself as it keeps on running. Love is like that. It really is like a river that cleanses and it needs a steady flow, a steady flow of mercy and kindness and forgiveness and it needs to be continually paid.

Paul talks about this a lot. Of course he talked about it in the Corinthian church. In that church in 1st Corinthians 13 he says it like this, love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, and then he ends it like this, love never fails. That's another way of saying it just keeps on giving. So then we come to these very specific expressions of love out straight out of the law of God, straight out of the Ten Commandments, verses 9 and 10. Let's read it. For the commandments, so he's now going to illustrate the point with the specific commandments.

For the commandments you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet, and if there is any other Commandment in other words all the other commandments in the Bible if there is any other commandment are all summed up in this saying namely you shall love your neighbor as yourself so Paul defines love by the law by the law and and of course the all the laws of God are summed up in the Ten Commandments. And the Ten Commandments are summed up, and you shall love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself." And all of the Ten Commandments further are summed up in the word love. So again you have this conflation, this summary statement. He says, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I think we should not miss the word neighbor.

Who is my neighbor? Well it's really actually everybody. Everybody. Everybody you live around And I think because this whole context is the civil government, your civil leaders are your neighbor as well. And believers have a duty to express love to their civil leaders.

Even Nero in Rome, it was their duty. It's very interesting. We're going to get to the end of Romans and you're going to find out that there are lots of believers in Caesar's household. What was going on? These were little implants of the love of God in his household and I expect that those people who lived in in his household, they were, Paul preached this to them and they went into his household and they were trying to love Nero and all his his court.

Did you notice he only lists four of the commandments and all of them are from the second table of the law in the ten commandments. Now remember the ten commandments are divided into two sections. The first section or it's called the first table of the law are the first four commandments and these are commandments toward God, our obligations toward God, and then the rest of the commandments called the second table of the law are our commandments toward one another. And so he's listing laws from the second table of the law in this section and but then he says and if there is any other commandment meaning that these four are just representative he's just he's going summary statement on us here, and he's just giving us an illustration. Now, one interesting fact here, I don't know if you noticed, but these are out of order in terms of our Bibles, but they are in the same order of the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint.

This is the order in the Septuagint. So the Apostle Paul is quoting that order. And of course, this is the message of both the Old and the New Testaments. You know, I remember, I think I was 26 years old. I was preaching at my church in California And I said something so stupid.

I Said the Old Testament is about law and the New Testament is about love. That's what I said. Well that was kind of like what everybody was saying at that time. It wasn't true. But here the Apostle Paul makes it very very clear what this is all about.

I'll just quote Leviticus 19 verse 18. You shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. That's the Old Testament. Let's go to the New Testament.

Matthew 22 39. Jesus says, you shall love the Lord with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind This is the first and great commandment and the second is like it You shall love your neighbor as yourself On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." So there's no contradiction between the law and love And it's not true that the Old Testament is about law and the New Testament is about love. The whole Bible is about love. Now also, as is true for all of the negative commands of God, for every negative command, and these are all negative commands, do not commit adultery, do not steal, okay, did you notice that? They're all negative.

But for every negative command, there's a positive implication. And that positive command is about love. Every prohibition leads to a positive act of love. Whenever you whenever you read thou shalt not there's the flip side there's a thou shalt okay and the negative always has a positive command and he mentions four examples here that these negative commands and they all have a positive implication. Like he mentions adultery.

So instead of committing adultery, rather than betraying your spouse, you're loyal. Thou shalt not commit adultery means thou shalt be loyal. Be devoted. And if you're committing adultery, It's not an act of love. You might say, oh well, I'm I did it out of love No, you did not do it out of love and Then he mentions murder.

This is another way of saying be at peace with all men so far as it depends on You in other words enter enter into enjoyment with your with your brother instead of loathing, instead of hating your brother, have mercy. We know from what Jesus says in Matthew 5, there are more ways to pull the trigger than with a gun. Being angry with your brother is the seed of murder. And you're starting to pull the trigger when you're angry with your brother and Jesus makes that very clear. In other words be at peace with your brother and then stealing he speaks of stealing in other words be unselfish Instead of taking good things from others, on the other hand, provide what is good for the people that you know rather than taking from them.

Then he mentions covetousness. Instead of envying others and holding a grudge, the positive is be content with what you have. Actually be glad for what your brother has. Be glad that he was successful. Rejoice with him.

You know, don't avoid him because something really good happened to him, but not to you. No. That's covetousness. It's the whole idea of instead of wanting what others have and being envious of them, but you want good things for them. You actually desire their success and their prosperity.

That's the flip side of coveting. But the whole idea here is that we have a debt to pay that we always owe under every circumstance. And so that's why the Apostle Paul commanded the churches to exist in love. Here's what he said to the Thessalonian church. But the Thessalonian church was actually an example of a church that excelled in love.

He says, but concerning brotherly love, you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. In other words, these people read their read their Bibles and God taught them what love looked like and they did it they did it out of the kind intention of their hearts both toward God and toward one another. It's funny, you know, he says, in that same context, he says, you know, he says, you're loving one another. He said, make sure that you aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and work with your own hands. In other words, all you need is love in this life.

And to the Philippian church, he actually seems to correct the Philippian Church because there was maybe a lack of love there. We don't know the whole story. Philippians 1 10, and this I pray that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and discernment. There was something lacking in their love. He wanted it to abound more and He says that you may approve the things that are excellent and That you may be sincere without any offense till the day of Jesus Christ being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ to the glory of God.

So the apostle is praying for the Philippian church that they would excel still more in love. You know, I don't know anybody that couldn't excel more in love. Anybody arrived at the pinnacle of love, you know, you're just constant, you're just so full of love at every turn. I'm sure that's true of all of us, but unfortunately it isn't true of any of us because all of us are selfish and we're always looking out for ourselves. But what the apostle is saying is that you owe a debt of love.

And don't ever forget, don't ever forget that what's really, what really critical here is he's talking about the civil realm. He's actually talking about your politicians. You know, we've had many opportunities to stand up in front of some of the politicians in our local Wake Forest government. And you know what? I think that the words that were spoken were words of love.

I was really grateful, really grateful for so many of you who shared with our civil magistrates. You spoke truthfully, you spoke kindly. Nobody got hot-headed, that's really a mistake. And that was not made. I was just really super thankful for that.

So then, fourthly, the constraint of love. So he's giving us another way to think about love. Verse 10, love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." Now of course that means that we do benefit our neighbor not do harm to our neighbor. There's so many different ways we can do harm to our neighbors And I have a pastor friend in another state where two men in the church are in a lawsuit and one man is attacking the other. He's seeking to do harm to his neighbor is what he's doing.

And it's so tragic to see that. But there are different ways that we do that. We do it with the way that we talk about one another. That's probably the main way we do harm to one another is the way that we talk about one another. Or we talk to one another in a way that does harm to them but love does no harm to a neighbor and this this this whole idea you know always brings me back to what Francis Schaeffer used to say.

He wrote it in a book back when I was in my teens and 20s. He wrote a book called The Mark of a Christian. And he said that love is the final argument for Christianity. He called it the final apologetic. Here's what he said, we must never forget that the final apologetic which Jesus gives is the observable love of true Christians for true Christians.

And then he goes on, he says, without true Christians loving one another, the world cannot be expected to listen even when we give proper answers. In other words, you can be so orthodox and so clear but without love, like the Apostle Paul said, you ain't nothing, you're nothing. Without love we are nothing. He said, and he continues, he says, but after we have done our best to communicate to a lost world, which we should, still we must never forget that the final apologetic which Jesus gives is the observable love of true Christians for true Christians. So do we love one another?

Do you love your brother? Is there anybody in this church that you do not love or are not expressing love to in some way? Then he turns to the urgency of love, verse 11, verse 11, and do this knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep. Jay Vernon McGee says it like this, he's so funny. He says, in this closing section, an alarm clock goes off to awaken believers who have gone to sleep.

Okay, Paul is actually awakening a sleepy church, sleepy on love. The church in Rome got sleepy on love and the Apostle Paul wants to wake them up and say, hey you have a debt to owe, get back on your payment schedule. And the whole book of Romans is the Apostle Paul trying to awaken the church. He first awakens the church to the gospel in the first 11 chapters, and then in 12 through 16, he's awakening the church to what love looks like in the body of Christ and in the civil realm. And it begins by presenting your body as a living sacrifice.

And then we'll get to this then in the next section but then he says but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. So the Apostle Paul is saying, and I am saying to all of us, don't be a sleepy Christian. Don't sleep through the times. Wake up. There's an alarm clock.

Here it is. It's ringing. Right now. Right now this morning, the alarm clock is ringing, wake up, love your brothers. So okay, I'm gonna just move to some applications here.

Again, I've said this before but I want to repeat it. Love includes love to those in the civil sphere. Yeah, the bad guys. Loving the bad guys. That's really important.

I think it includes love in your marriage. There's nothing more helpful to children when parents love one another. You know, parents can make a lot of dumb mistakes raising their kids. The biggest mistake they can make is by not loving one another and being tender toward one another and actually delighting in one another. Love for your children.

You know, sometimes, some children can be hard to deal with but If you've stopped loving any of your children who are hard to deal with Just recognize what's happened to you It happens. I've had people come to me and say I don't like this child. That's really a tragic thing but it can be, it's recoverable. It's absolutely recoverable. And are there any of your children that you do not love as much as the another child?

This is called favoritism. Do you have love for unbelievers? Do you love your neighbors? You know as as folks go out to evangelize this afternoon, this is really important. I'm really amazed that this text fell on this day when people are gonna go out to evangelize.

So here's the most important question. When you're looking in those people's eyes, do you love them? Or are you just out here to try to be some kind of a hot Christian? Are you out here trying to prove something? Oh, maybe to your elders or the people who are organizing all this.

Maybe you're just trying to do that. Or do you really love these people, you know, when you walk up and look at them in the eye? You know, it's so important that in all of our evangelism we're not we're not looking for a badge of honor we're not looking for some great story to tell when we get back that's the most ridiculous profane thing we can do. We're there you know you walk up to somebody's door, we should all be asking, how might I love this person? Not just nail them, you know, with the gospel.

That's your main objective. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And that should be happening at every door we visit today. And, You know, the most loving thing that you can do is to speak the truth. To speak the truth about God.

You want to talk about God and His attributes. And you want to talk about the wrath of God towards sin. And you want to talk about the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ who came to save us from our sins. He came to save us. You know, Almost everybody in our culture has been deceived about the gospel.

They don't even understand the gospel. So we should have a lot of patience. Like, you can talk to people, they've either been baptized by a false gospel, or they've never really heard anything true about Jesus Christ. They haven't, so there you are. Now, you have time to explain it to them and ask them questions and let them ask you questions And do what you can to try to answer them the way that the Lord would You know, you remember the story of the rich young ruler in the Gospel of Mark?

Well he walked away. He walked away. And it says that Jesus looked at him and he loved him. He rejected the gospel. And while he was walking away, Jesus looked at him and loved him.

That should be our disposition. Next Saturday this pride event going on. Do not come unless you have a heart of love, just don't come. Check yourself before you show up. They don't need a hateful Christian And you know, you just have to recognize that so many of those people, Some of them have heard various manifestations of Christianity, but most of them probably have never seen true Christianity.

And so they have all kinds of assumptions and You're there to help to dispel them, not to confirm them. When we go out today, focus on God, the Holy God, focus on sin, that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. One of the questions that I ask people is what will you do with your sin? I find that stops them short so often. What will you do with your sin?

Focus on Jesus Christ. He's the Messiah. He's the Savior of the world. And focus on the cross and redemption. And of course, in our culture, everybody who goes out to talk to anybody who doesn't know the Lord, they have to end up explaining the simplest thing of the Christian life, that you're not reconciled by God by your own virtue.

Nobody was reconciled to God because they did good things. Nobody ever got good enough, nobody ever repented enough, nobody ever by their virtue earned their salvation. Salvation is by grace alone and that's one of the most misunderstood things of what grace is. So we come with a gospel of love that while we were yet enemies Christ died for us. That we love God because he first loved us.

That we do good to those who hate us, like it says in Romans, we forgive because he forgave us first. And you know what? We believe that these people can change how messed up they are, it doesn't matter. You know what? Do you have the childlike faith enough to believe that somebody can change?

Well guess what? You changed! But you changed. So we have a debt to owe, a debt to pay and we'll never stop paying it and With every payment we still owe the same So, oh no man anything except to love. Would you pray with me?

Lord, we thank you for the wisdom of your word. It's so remarkable, Lord. The words are so beautiful, they're so helpful, they're so true, and they are all acts of love toward us. Thank you for your love toward us in giving us the word of your Son that we might have life. Amen.