Let us love each other (Romans 13:8-10)

          Let us love each other.

 

 

 

 

[Romans 13:8-10]

 

 

 

     Are you good at interpersonal relationships?  There is an eternal classic of human management that has provided useful clues to solutions for people struggling with human relationships.  The name of that classic book is “How to Win Friends and Influence People.’  The author of this book is Dale Carnegie, considered the master of human relationships.  I want to share with you today some of his 30 relationship quotes (Internet): (1) Take a sincere interest in others, (2) Be a good listener.  Create a comfortable atmosphere so that the other person can speak freely about themselves, (3) Try talking about the other person's interests as a topic, (4) Give generous praise for small progress, (5) Don't criticize, belittle, or complain about the other person's opinion.  What do you think?  We already know these words, but aren't they difficult lessons to apply to human relationships in real life?

 

  During the morning prayer meeting last week, I meditated on Judges 8 and 9 for two days in a row and thought about human relationships.  The lesson given in meditating on those words is that the important thing in human relationships is meekness or humility.  In particular, I learned the importance of considering others better than myself (Phil. 2:4).  I have learned that since I consider others better than myself, I need to value and acknowledge others' work more highly than my own.  Another thing is that I remember the grace that God bestows, so I learned to treat people who have shown me kindness in a good way.  I learned to treat others the way I would like to be treated.  The challenge is to obey these lessons learned in life.  By obeying, we must live the life of a disciple who loves his neighbor as himself, which is the commandment of Jesus.

 

In today's text, Romans 13:8-10, Paul exhorts the saints in Rome to love one another.  In other words, he was telling the Roman saints about the love of neighbor, the second of the twofold commandment given by Jesus: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt. 22:37-39).  Who really is our “neighbor”?  This question also appears in Luke 10:25-37.  When Jesus asked a lawyer asking questions to test Jesus, “What is written in the Law and how do you read it” (v. 26), the lawyer named Jesus’ twofold commandment (v. 27).  At that time, Jesus said, “You have answered correctly.  …  Do this, and you will live” (v. 28).  But this lawyer wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus: “And who is my neighbor?” (v. 29)  The words of Jesus at that time are the story of the good Samaritan (vv. 30-35).  To summarize, there was a man who met robbers, and the priest and the Levite saw him and passed by (vv. 31-32).  But it is a story that only the Samaritan showed love to the man whom the robber met.  Jesus' question was, "Which of these three, in your opinion, was a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" (v. 36).  At that time, the lawyer's answer was, “He is the one who showed mercy” (v. 37).  To this lawyer who answered right away, Jesus said, “Go and do likewise” (v. 37).

 

We must go and give love.  We must show love to our neighbors.  We must show love not only to our family members but also to our church members and to those who do not know each other well.  Furthermore, we must show love to those who persecute us.  This applies not only to the neighbors Paul is talking about in today's text, but also to the Jewish and Gentile believers in the Roman church.  In other words, the word to love one another is to love one another as brothers and sisters in the church.  However, if we think more broadly, Paul is now writing a letter to the Roman church saints, admonishing them to love even the Roman government people who persecute them.  In other words, the neighbor love he is talking about also includes the enemy love.

 

Then, how does Paul exhort the saints in Rome to love one another?  Two lessons to be learned:

 

First, we must owe nothing to anyone except to love one another.

 

Look at Romans 13:8a – “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another ….”  We have already seen in Romans 13:1-7 that Paul wrote a letter to the saints in Rome and exhorted them to submit to the authority established by God, the Roman government that persecuted them.  We meditated on what Paul exhorted the Roman saints to pay a tax, that is, to pay taxes to the nation, exhorting them to obey because of their conscience.  Then, in the first half of Romans 13:8, Paul exhorts the Roman saints to owe nothing to anyone except to love one another.  What does it mean?  Is the Bible saying don't go into debt at all?  So, when we go to school, we shouldn't borrow money from a bank to get into debt?  When we do business, we shouldn't borrow money from a bank and get into debt?  When we do business, we shouldn't borrow money from the bank or people around us?  Is that what it means?  Not at all!  What we are talking about in today's text is not saying that we should not be in debt at all.  Neither the Old nor the New Testament forbids taking on debt (Exod. 22:25; Lev. 25:35–37; Ps. 37:26; Mt. 5:42; Lk. 6:35) (Cottrell).  What Paul is saying in today's text is that even if we are in debt, pay back everything in our conscience as promised.  For example, if we owe the country, we have to pay it back.  In other words, if we haven't paid our taxes, we have to pay the tax to our country.  In addition, if brothers and sisters owe each other within the church, they must repay the debt.  It seems that it is very difficult to live without debt in our lives.  Especially when we are experiencing financial difficulties like these days, we may be in a situation where we need to borrow money here and there.  In particular, students may have no choice but to borrow money from a bank for their student loans.  And those who do business may have no choice but to borrow money from banks, friends, or even church members.  I don't think the Bible forbids that.  Rather, if we look at Exodus 22:25, the Scripture says this: “If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest.”  What does it mean?  If we apply it to the church in the New Testament era, if we lend money to a brother who is struggling financially in the church, I think it means that we should not collect interest on the debt like a creditor.  Of course, this is what we say to the money lender.  So, what does the Bible say to those who borrow money?  As it says in Romans 13:8, it means to pay our debts.  In other words, if we are in debt, put it into practice according to the contract.  For example, if we borrowed money from a bank and owed money, it means that we should repay the debt according to the contract with the bank.  When there is a certain amount to be paid every month, every month, we have to pay back the money to the bank according to the contract at that time.  In particular, if we believers in Jesus borrowed money from our brothers and sisters in the church and made a contract or promise to repay a certain amount each month with the lender when we could not repay it all at once, Paul urges us to put it into practice according to our conscience.  But what's the problem?  The people who believe in Jesus lend money to each other in the church, but the person who borrows the money does not keep his promise.  Looking at this reality, my personal opinion is that it is best not to have any debt at all, as in verse 8 of today's text.  In this way, the relationship between the members of the church will not be broken due to money, and the unity of the church will be maintained.  That's why the apostle Paul says in Romans 13:7, “Render to all what is due them.”  If we are in debt, we must pay the debt of our conscience as true worshipers who fear God.

 

            However, this is not the core content of today's text Romans 13:8.  It is just a word that guides us to its core content.  What's that core content?  That is what the word says, 'To be loved is to be in debt, and the debt of this love is to be paid to each other'.  What do you think?  Do you think love is a debt?  Didn't all of us receive the love from our parents?  Aren't we in debt of love to our parents who gave us that love?  Have we paid off our parents' debt of love?  Is there no way to pay it back?  You and I owe a debt of love to God.  Although we owe the debt of love, we will never be able to repay the debt of God's great love.  Now, in Romans 13:8-10, Paul begins admonishing the saints in Rome from Romans 1 to 11 to worship God spiritually if they have been saved through faith in Jesus through God's love and total grace.  And in Romans 13:8-10, all of them are debtors of God's love, and internally, both Jewish and Gentile believers within the church are told to pay each other's debt of love as brothers and sisters in the Lord.  What do you think?  The more we get to know God's great love in our vertical relationship with God, the more we can't repay that love.  Wouldn't there be joy and pleasure in giving love to each other?  Wouldn't we enjoy the joy when the Lord's love shines?  But, like the words of Jesus' prophecy of signs about the end of the world, love is growing cold.  Rather than the joy of giving love, we are becoming more and more selfish.  Of course, this is also the word of the prophecy of the end of the world.  What should we do?

 

             Last week, during the closing worship service of the presbytery to which our church belongs, the pastor in charge of a church prophesied the word of God to all the presbyteries in attendance, focusing on the words of Revelation 2:1-7.  The key point of that statement was this: We must remember, repent and rekindled our first love.  Remember the moment you first felt God's love.  Remember the moment you confessed your love to God because you were grateful and moved by God's great love.  Wouldn't you like to recover our first love for God like those moments at that time?  Don't you want to ignite love, devotion, passion, etc. toward the Lord?  We must repent.  We must repent of our sins.  Like the church in Ephesus, we must remember where we fell, repent, and do the first deeds (Rev.2:5).  Therefore, we must be filled with the love of God again and love our neighbors.  I hope and pray that you and I will bear this debt of love.

 

             Second, we must keep the commandments of God.

 

            What are the commandments of God?  Look at Romans 13:9 – “The commandments, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not covet,’ and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”  Our church has been here for about 3 months with the slogan “Year of obeying the Word” this year.  The reason why the motto “Year of obeying the Word” is set is because, as John 14:21, the motto verse of this year, says, those who love God keep God's commandments.  If you and I truly love God, we must keep God's commandments.  So, with the hope that we all love God with all our hearts this New Year, we set the motto, “Year of obeying the Word.”  In today's text, Romans 13:9, the Bible teaches us that just as those who love God keep God's commandments, we must keep God's commandments in order to love one another as brothers and sisters in the Lord.  There are four commandments of God that Paul is talking about here.  The four commandments are ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet.’  All of these four commandments are commandments from man to man, and are commandments that only those who love God can truly keep (Park).  And because we love God, we show our love for one another by diligently keeping these four commandments of God.  What must we do to show our love for one another as brothers and sisters in community?

 

(1)    We must not commit adultery.

 

When I say this, I don't know if I can say, 'How could we commit such a sin'.  How can we actually commit adultery in the church?  However, as Jesus said in Matthew 5:28, the sin of adultery can be committed even in the church.  When a man lusts after a woman (and a woman looks at a man), he has already committed adultery in his heart.  In other words, we must not commit adultery with our hearts.

 

(2)    We must not murder in loving each other as brothers and sisters in the Lord.

 

It seems that this commandment also does not apply to us.  How could anyone commit the sin of murdering another person in the church?  However, if we look at 1 John 3:15, we can commit murder to each other.  That murder is that we hate each other.  The Bible says, “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.”  How is it?  Do you still think that the commandment in today's text, “Thou shalt not kill,” does not apply to you and me?

 

(3)    We must not steal.

 

Malachi 3:8 says: “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.  But you ask, 'How do we rob you?’  In tithes and offerings.”  The Bible says that not giving God tithe that belongs to God is stealing.  My personal opinion is that if not giving God tithes, which belongs to God, is stealing, then church members borrowing money from each other and not paying it back is also stealing.  But the problem is that we say, ‘How did we rob the Lord,’ when we do not pay tithes to God, we think that even after stealing, we move on to the question of when we stole.  So, we must refrain from borrowing and lending money within the church.  And if we borrowed money from a brother or sister in the church in a situation where we cannot repay it, we must pay it back.  If we do not repay, I think it is a violation of God's commandment, “You shall not steal,” which is mentioned in Romans 13:9.

 

(4)    We must not covet.

 

This commandment, as we know, is the tenth of the Ten Commandments: “You shall not covet your neighbor's house.  You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor” (Exod. 20:17).  Brothers and sisters in the church should not covet each other's things.  We should not covet what others possess because we envy them.  We should not covet the other person's money just because the other person has a lot of money.  And we should not covet the other person's wife or husband just because they are pretty and handsome.  In the end, covetousness leads to adultery, murder, and theft.  Therefore, we must be very wary of covetousness.  We must always examine our hearts with the holy Word of God while praying with vigilance so that our hearts do not become greedy.

 

                Paul tells the saints in Rome, and also to you and me, that we must keep these four commandments in loving one another.  As stated in today's text Romans 13:10, this is the love of not doing wrong to one's neighbor.  So, although there are other commandments we must keep in loving one another besides these four commandments, the most important one is the second commandment given by Jesus, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (v. 9).  The reason is because this commandment of Jesus, to love your neighbor as yourself, includes all these commandments: do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, and do not covet.  I hope and pray that we, brothers and sisters, will devote ourselves more and more to love each other with that motive because we love God.  Let us strive to show our love for one another as we obey God's commandments.  Therefore, I hope and pray that not only to keep the unity of the church, but also to be used as a community of witnesses by becoming an example to the world as a community of love.

 

                I hope and pray that our Victory community members will devote themselves to loving each other with God's love.  I hope that we owe nothing but the light of love.  I pray that we will do our best to keep God's commandments.  Therefore, I hope and pray that through the Victory community that the Lord establishes, we will be able to reveal the scent of love to the world where this love is growing cold.