Alba 5-22-2022
LOVE FULFILLS THE LAW
Romans 13:8-10
A woman and her husband came to their minister and said, “We're going to get a divorce, but we wanted to come to make sure that you approve of it.”
There are those who they feel that if they have lost their love for each other they hope the minister will say, “Well, if there's no feeling left, then, the only thing you can do is split.”
Instead, this minister says to the husband, “The Bible says you're to love your wife as Jesus Christ loved the church.” He says, “Oh, I can't do that.”
The minister says, “If you can't begin at that level, then begin on a lower level. You're supposed to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Can you at least love her as you would love a neighbor?”
The husband says, “No. That's still too high a level.” Then the minister says, “Well, the Bible says, ‘Love your enemies.' Why don’t you start there.”
The minister kept referring to biblical commands to try to help the couple deal with their issues. But each one seemed difficult to do. That is why Scripture gives one command that covers them all.
There are the Ten Commandments, and the rabbis counted 613 other commandments in the Old Testament. But Romans 13:8-10 tells how doing just one thing makes it possible to obey them all.
Let's find out what it is. Turn to Roman 13:8-10.
8 Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 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, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
You know, there are a couple of ways you can go through life. You can go through life trying to keep all of God’s commandments. You could make you a list of all 623 commandments, write them down, check them off every day.
Try that and you would have to say, “Let’s see. I didn’t do this today, I didn’t do that. Uh-oh, I did do that one. Too bad.” It is hard to keep the list. Or the other way, the better way, is to throw your list away and say, “Hey, all the commandments are fulfilled if I love.”
Love is a theme found throughout Scripture. It is the theme of countless hymns and secular poetry; literature and music are permeated with its message.
They say, "Love makes the world go round," and these verses Romans 13 tell us that it does even more. All the commandments that keep us in a right relationship with God and others are fulfilled in one word: “Love”. Love satisfies all of God’s commandments.
Of the Ten Commandments, the first four deal with our personal relationship with God. And Jesus basically said, “You want to keep the first four Commandments? Love God with all your heart, your soul, your mind and your being.”
And if you do that, then you don’t have to worry about taking His name in vain. You don’t have to worry about worshiping graven images or having other Gods before Him. Not if you love Him.
Someone has said that if we love God with all our heart, and other people with all our heart, we can do as we please, because we will only do that which pleases God and benefits others.
The last six of the Ten Commandments have to do with our human relationships. In these verses in Romans 13, Paul is saying, “Listen, forget the list. Just love people. Because when you love them, you won’t hurt them.”
To illustrate this fact, several commandments are listed in our text. When love is active, each one is fulfilled, the obvious ones, and even some of the more difficult ones.
Just five of the commandments are listed here, and not in the order found in the Old Testament. The first is “You shall not commit adultery,” the seventh commandment.
There are people guilty of committing adultery who will say, “You know, we just couldn’t help it. We loved each other too much.” They didn’t love each other too much; they loved God too little, or they loved their mate too little. Don’t blame love for that.
You can't call adultery “love” even if someone says, "I fell in love with someone else." So there's a man who has a faithful wife and kids he brought into this world with her. And then someone at work gets his attention, and he is willing to throw it all away, destroying many lives. And then he wants to call it love? Love does not destroy lives.
The Bible says love doesn’t do that kind of stuff. Love always thinks about how is it going to affect the other person. It is so very practical.
Love drives us to honor our marriages by what we say and by what we do. And it drives us to honor the marriages of others. It leads us to purity in how we live our lives.
I Corinthians 6:18 warns us to, “Flee sexual immorality.” And then it says, “Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.” You see sexual immorality is a sin against the human body.
Adultery isn’t love, its disgraceful and defiling of your neighbor. It jeopardizes the happiness and reputation and the family. The very sanctity of the home is defiled. It’s a sin against love.
“You shall not murder,” is the sixth commandment. Murder also is a sin against love. It is the destruction of another person, one who is made in the image of God.
We are called to not murder. But we hear and read of constant loss of life, as one person takes the life of another. In Chicago the report each weekend includes multiple murders. And that is not the only place it happens.
What gets into the mind of some people that they are willing to snuff out another persons life? Anger, jealousy, wounded pride? Sometimes it is from those who do it out of their twisted religion.
There are jihadist organizations that are active in Nigeria who are competing over who machine guns Christian churches most. A recent report this last week (May 17, 2022) by American Family News states that in Nigeria, a Christian is killed for their faith every two hours on average. Which adds up to nearly 13 Christians a day and 372 Christians a month. It is tragic.
But things are not that much better here in the U.S. We currently have a culture of death that devalues life.
The abortion clinic says, “Honey, you’re not ready for this child, it deserves a better life. If you really love this child, abort it!”
Planned Parenthood says, “If you really love this baby, you’ll spare her from being born into your difficult situation. Show her you love her... kill her!”
As someone has said, “Please, don’t ever love me that much!” Love won’t let us hurt or harm others in their body. Rather, it leads us to helping and supporting them in every physical need.
And Jesus shows us that the commandment to not murder goes far beyond the physical act of killing. He gave an application that teaches us how to love, forgive and seek the good of others.
In Matthew 5:21-22 Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.”
Like all commandments, this one is founded upon the love of God, and is established in the word of God. To hate someone is murder in our hearts. We are called instead to love and build others up, to show concern, care for, and edify others in every way we can.
“You shall not steal,” is the eighth commandment. To steal is a sin against love. Stealing is simply taking anything that does not belong to us. It is taking something that we have no permission to have.
It does not matter what the item is or how valuable, to take anything that does not belong to us is stealing, and stealing according to God is wrong!
Yet today on the news we are shown flagrant stealing. One person, or more, runs out of a business with bags full of things for which they didn't pay. We see others smash store windows in the name of protest and then ransack the place, leaving it in shambles.
Stealing shows no love for anyone but oneself. Self-centered selfishness is on display when a person takes what is not theirs and robs another of their things.
I have read that at least at one time all traffic tickets issued in Rockville, Md. were imprinted with these words: “Drive Towards Others As You Would Have Them Drive Toward You.” In Luke 6:31 Jesus said, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
I doubt that anyone of us want to have our money or possessions stolen from us. To take money or anything else that belongs to another is an act of hate rather than love.
If love is your guiding force, you would never steal from anyone because true love does no harm to others. When you love, you will treat others the same way that you would have them treat you.
“You shall not bear false witness”. That is the ninth commandment.
While this one is not included in some translations in Romans chapter 13, it is in others. And it is in the New King James Version which I am using.
There are those who would only apply this to a courtroom where you have to swear to tell the truth and not lie about someone in court. But not bearing false witness means far more than not lying against someone in court.
Bearing false witness means any kind of lying. You can’t love somebody while you’re lying or gossiping about them!
1 Timothy 5:13 warns about those who, “learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle but also gossips and busybodies, saying things which they ought not.”
There is a story about a man who spread rumors and lies about his minister. It killed the minister's reputation. The man came under conviction and asked the minister for forgiveness. “I wanna make it right” he said.
The minister said to him, just do one thing. Open a feather pillow, place a feather on each doorstep in our town. The man said, “I don’t understand it, but I’ll do it.” It took three days, but he did it. When he reported in he asked the minister, “Am I right with you now?”
The minister answered, “Just do one more thing. Go back and retrieve all those feathers.” The man said, “I can’t, that’s impossible, the wind has scattered them who knows where!”
The minister said, “That’s right…I forgive you, but the damage you’ve done is irreversible!”
You can’t love your neighbor and say hurtful things about them! Love does not rob others of their life, their property, or their reputation.
Then the tenth commandment, “You shall not covet”. This is a hard one for Americans. We are always coveting; we just have to have everything, don’t we.
We are bombarded with commercials and advertisements wherever we go, because companies know we are suckers for just about anything, always wanting something more, and wanting what everybody else has.
Coveting is an envious desire to possess what belongs to another. Because it is not always seen outwardly, when we covet, the Lord may be the only one, besides ourselves, who is aware of that sin.
But love will not lead us to scheme to get our neighbor’s possessions, whatever they are. If we love our neighbors we will not desire to have their things.
Because, if we are loving, we will not covet. Instead we will be grateful for the gifts, abilities, talents, and blessings others possess, and be thanking God for what we do have.
Notice that these verses only state five of the Ten Commandments here. But then says, “and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'”
It is not that other commandments were forgotten, but that they are not the focus. Instead, it is that because of our love for others we simply will not sin against them if our love is pure.
When Jesus said “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17), we can now see the full implication of what He meant.
Just look at the life of Jesus and see His love. He cared for others, He healed others, He fed others, He raised others from the dead, He preformed miracles so that others would believe that He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.
In addition to that He gave up His life so the world could be saved through His perfect sacrifice on the cross. And in doing all those things, because of His love, He fulfilled all the Law and Prophets.
Verse eight tells us to, “Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.”
We have a debt to pay. The only debt we owe is love. Why? Because of the cross. Jesus first loved us and gave Himself for us.
If we are going to pay our continuing debt of love, we have to love God, and love each other. Only as we walk as Jesus walked, and love as Jesus loved, will we begin to fulfill the law.
CONCLUSION:
Here is an analogy from the field of music that helps us to understand the greatness and completeness of love. The musical scale has only seven basic notes, which many children can learn in an hour or less.
Yet great composers, such as Handel and Beethoven, could not exhaust those notes, and their variations, in an entire lifetime.
Godly love is like that. It uses the basic and sometimes seemingly insignificant things of daily life to produce the greatest.
There are two things about love that will never exhaust its possibilities. First, when we possess and practice real love, it fulfills all that God requires.
And also, God's love never ends. It continues to reach down to every person, to call each one to Himself. And that inexhaustible love transforms redeemed men and women to be formed more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ.
