SPEAKER_00: And so let's open it this morning to Romans chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: That's where we'll be this morning, Romans 13.
SPEAKER_00: The governor has said we can go back to Ephesians in phase three.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 13.
SPEAKER_00: I want to spend the next two weeks looking at this passage.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and we have missed you.
SPEAKER_00: Steve mentioned this.
SPEAKER_00: We have missed the congregation.
SPEAKER_00: I'm thankful for uh so many people in our church staff that um worked exceptionally uh with diligence in preparing for not just this Sunday, but in keeping you in touch.
SPEAKER_00: You think of all the everything that came out from our children's ministry and our men's and women's ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Tom told me that more people have been involved with the men's ministry now than before the uh before the quarantine, even that um just the amount of people watching and participating in online Bible studies and videos has been incredible.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm thankful for Tom and his leadership there and and our children's ministry or high school ministry.
SPEAKER_00: It's just been an incredible time.
SPEAKER_00: Um but it's glad to good to be back this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 13, I want to read for us eight through ten, and we'll spend the next two weeks looking at um at this little section here.
SPEAKER_00: Owe no one anything except to love each other.
SPEAKER_00: For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Love does no wrong to a neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
SPEAKER_00: As we prayed earlier in Steve's pastoral prayer, we're very aware that this week, in many ways, our whole country has fallen into chaos.
SPEAKER_00: Sixteen people so far have died in the riots.
SPEAKER_00: Untold number of buildings have been burned.
SPEAKER_00: You've seen footage of Minneapolis.
SPEAKER_00: There's whole stretches of Minneapolis that look more like Syria than a U.S.
SPEAKER_00: city as block after block has been torched.
SPEAKER_00: Some buildings are just left as empty shells.
SPEAKER_00: Los Angeles, where much of my family is, fared better, but just looters there trashed more stores than in Minneapolis, but burned fewer buildings, confining their arson mostly to police cars.
SPEAKER_00: They did loot some fancy small art studios and boutique high-end fashion stores.
SPEAKER_00: This, of course, is all the fallout and of the death in Minneapolis of George Floyd, who was killed when a police officer put his knee on his head for nine minutes when he was handcuffed, lying face down on the concrete.
SPEAKER_00: That was a spark that lit the flame that burned our nation's 16th largest metro city and led to protests that accumulated less yesterday as hundreds of thousands gathered around the world.
SPEAKER_00: But you know all that.
SPEAKER_00: What you perhaps might not know is the cause behind all of that unrest.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, I'm sure, would blame our president, but as he might say, that's wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, I'm sure, would blame police brutality.
SPEAKER_00: And that, as they say, in the counseling world, is a surface issue, but not the heart issue.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you could blame systemic racism in our nation's housing, schooling, and wealth, and certainly that's at play, policies in our country's past that have segregated suburbs and the inner city and wealth and colleges, and that's all an issue as well.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not the hard issue.
SPEAKER_00: The hard issue behind any kind of looting or violence or unrest or police brutality or murder is really singular.
SPEAKER_00: The hard issue is a lack of love.
SPEAKER_00: People riot not because they've lost their jobs and have been under house arrest for two months, although that's certainly a contributing factor.
SPEAKER_00: People riot because they lack love.
SPEAKER_00: Police brutality exists not because of poor training and a culture of mistrust and animosity within a community, although I'm sure those are contributing factors.
SPEAKER_00: But police brutality, as does all sin, exists because of a lack of love.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I wanted to draw your attention this morning specifically to verse 10 of Romans 13.
SPEAKER_00: Love, the scripture says, does no wrong to a neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: And here's where understanding of love is critical.
SPEAKER_00: We've looked at this over the last three weeks without knowing what was going to happen in our world or our society, but we looked at this over the last three weeks because it has been a burden on my heart if I got to spend a few weeks outside of one book of the Bible to talk about the nature of God's love.
SPEAKER_00: And so a few weeks ago we looked at Psalm 36, which describes God as a fountain of love, and we understand that all love comes from him.
SPEAKER_00: We looked at Jesus as the great shepherd who lays down his sheep, his life out of love for his sheep.
SPEAKER_00: We looked at last week, 1 Corinthians 13, or a few weeks ago, at the nature of God's love, how God's love never ends, how God's love seeks its own.
SPEAKER_00: God's love seeks what is best for the object love.
SPEAKER_00: Loved, and in the case of God, what is always best is Himself.
SPEAKER_00: This is why God's love is different than our love.
SPEAKER_00: Our love does not seek our own, our love seeks God and His glory.
SPEAKER_00: God's love always pursues Himself.
SPEAKER_00: And last week you looked at John 3.16.
SPEAKER_00: For God so loved the world that you see the love of God revealed ultimately in the death of Jesus Christ on the cross for sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's all past tense.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 13 is what really puts a grappling hook into God's love and pulls it down into this world.
SPEAKER_00: It takes our hearts and connects our hearts to the eternal love of God and shows us how that love should be manifest in this world here and now.
SPEAKER_00: But love is first and foremost an affection in the heart that wants what is best for the person loved.
SPEAKER_00: That is what love is.
SPEAKER_00: You have a strong passion, a strong affection for someone, and that affection desires what is best for them.
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is why God's love is always centered on God, because God understands that what is best for you is Him.
SPEAKER_00: And this is why your love is always centered on God.
SPEAKER_00: If you truly love your husband, if you truly love your wife, if you truly love your children, your desire is for your love towards them to drive them towards the Lord, because the Lord is what is best for them.
SPEAKER_00: Love has behind it the desire that you want the person you love to know the Lord and not just know the Lord, but to know and love the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So love in that sense ought to always be reciprocal.
SPEAKER_00: Always reciprocal.
SPEAKER_00: If you love someone, you want them in turn to love the Lord, who is the source of your own love.
SPEAKER_00: Your heart is not the fountain of your love.
SPEAKER_00: You're drinking from the love that God has for you.
SPEAKER_00: God pours his love on you.
SPEAKER_00: You then love someone else, your spouse, your children, your neighbors, your enemy.
SPEAKER_00: And behind your love is the desire that they in turn would love the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This is the great return of the fountain of God's love.
SPEAKER_00: It flows from him to you, from you to others, others back to God.
SPEAKER_00: It's the water cycle, except it's the love cycle.
SPEAKER_00: That's how love ought to be.
SPEAKER_00: Always focused on God.
SPEAKER_00: Always focused on the love of God seen in Jesus Christ as God so loved the world.
SPEAKER_00: He gave his son.
SPEAKER_00: Always focused on the eternal nature of love that in the future.
SPEAKER_00: Faith and hope will no longer remain, but love will remain.
SPEAKER_00: When you see God face to face, faith has run its course.
SPEAKER_00: You're no longer living in hopeful expectation, but you still abide in love.
SPEAKER_00: Because love is eternal.
SPEAKER_00: So of course, all love is rooted in the Father's love, the Father's love specifically for his son.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where you have to understand the Trinity a little bit to have a little bit of an understanding of love.
SPEAKER_00: If love is eternal, you have to ask, how can love be eternal?
SPEAKER_00: Eternal without beginning?
SPEAKER_00: How can love have no beginning?
SPEAKER_00: If love is focused on people, how can there be love before there's people?
SPEAKER_00: And so a Christian understands that love doesn't begin with people.
SPEAKER_00: People are not the primary object of love, because if love is eternal, it has to predate people.
SPEAKER_00: And so you go back into the essence, the being of God.
SPEAKER_00: The God, of course, is eternity and has eternal love, one for another.
SPEAKER_00: The father is the fountain of love and pours his love out on his son without beginning.
SPEAKER_00: In eternity past, the father sheds his love on his son.
SPEAKER_00: The father is the source of love, and the object of his love is his son.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the thing.
SPEAKER_00: The father doesn't merely love the son, but the father gives himself to the son.
SPEAKER_00: The father communicates all of his attributes, all of the divine perfections go from the father to the son.
SPEAKER_00: The father is literally giving himself to the son.
SPEAKER_00: And so as the father looks at the son, he sees himself, of course.
SPEAKER_00: The son is the image of the father.
SPEAKER_00: The son is identical to the father.
SPEAKER_00: And so remember, if love is God-centered, there is no one more worthy of love than the son because he is identical to the father.
SPEAKER_00: So the father sees the son and pours his affection and his love out on his son, loves his son more than anyone else, because the son represents him more than anyone else.
SPEAKER_00: And in so doing, he gives the son the ability to also be a fountain of love.
SPEAKER_00: This is why love is reciprocal.
SPEAKER_00: The father gives love to the son, and what does the son do with that love?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm talking in eternity past, before creation.
SPEAKER_00: The father gives love to the son, and what does the son do with that love?
SPEAKER_00: He loves the father right back.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in the most basic sense, and I know that doesn't sound basic, but once your mind gets around it, it is the most basic concept of love: that love is eternal, it is focused on God, and it is always reciprocal.
SPEAKER_00: The Son is loved and he loves the Father back.
SPEAKER_00: The Father is the fountain, and the Father communicates his love to the Son in such a way that the Son himself becomes a fountain, a source of love.
SPEAKER_00: This is why the Bible says that God is love.
SPEAKER_00: 1 John 4, 16.
SPEAKER_00: Because he is love, he reflects his own image.
SPEAKER_00: The Father gives himself to the Son.
SPEAKER_00: The Son becomes the image of the Father, reflecting the Father back to him.
SPEAKER_00: This is why the Bible describes the Holy Spirit as the spirit of love.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's the bond of fellowship and joy and eternal love between the Father and the Son.
SPEAKER_00: And so a Christian and only a Christian can truly say that love is eternal.
SPEAKER_00: A Christian and only a Christian can truly say that love is reciprocal.
SPEAKER_00: A Christian and only a Christian can have a concept of divine love that comes to us.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Trinity, you don't have eternal love.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Son who is the image of the Father in eternity past, then you cannot have eternal love.
SPEAKER_00: If you reject eternity, you have a God who loves the world, I suppose.
SPEAKER_00: Why, we don't know.
SPEAKER_00: He started loving the world when he made the world.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Again, we don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Who's the ultimate object of love in that sense?
SPEAKER_00: The world, I guess.
SPEAKER_00: This is why religions that don't have a trinity are remarkably unloving.
SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed that?
SPEAKER_00: Go around the world, look at religions that don't have a trinity, you are going to find an unloving world, an unloving country, an unloving culture, an unloving climate.
SPEAKER_00: Not to say that every religion on the surface, or every culture that on the surface has Christianity, is loving.
SPEAKER_00: But it at least has a grid in which to understand love.
SPEAKER_00: That love is eternal, it is focused on God, and it ought always be reciprocal.
SPEAKER_00: What a crime it is for a person not to return love.
SPEAKER_00: That kind of love, divine eternal love.
SPEAKER_00: For you to understand that the Father has eternally loved the Son, the Son has eternally loved the Father, that that love is seen in the cross of Jesus Christ, the cross of Jesus Christ then captures your heart, and you give your heart to Christ, and the love of God is shed abroad in your heart as the Father has loved the Son, the Son loves the church.
SPEAKER_00: And the way that story goes is the church then should love each other.
SPEAKER_00: The world will know how the father loved the son and the son loves the church by how they see the church loving each other.
SPEAKER_00: It ought always flow down.
SPEAKER_00: The fountain has water that flows down into the world, love flows into the world, and it ought to always be returned back to God.
SPEAKER_00: This is why the Bible also says, 1 John 4, verse 8, the one who does not love does not know God.
SPEAKER_00: How can someone who refuses to love his neighbor say that they have any concept of the Trinity, any concept of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, if they don't in turn love each other?
SPEAKER_00: The one who does not love does not know God.
SPEAKER_00: Or 1 John 4, 20.
SPEAKER_00: The one who says, I love God and yet hates his brother, he is a liar.
SPEAKER_00: Not just because his life doesn't match his profession, although that's also true.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point of church discipline.
SPEAKER_00: Someone confesses Christ, it walks in sin, they get put out of the church.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a deeper issue than that.
SPEAKER_00: When John's writing this, 1 John 4, he's not talking about church discipline, he's talking about the basic level here.
SPEAKER_00: Someone who says they love God but doesn't love their brother is an actual liar.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have the love of God in them if that love doesn't flow out.
SPEAKER_00: If that love doesn't flow out.
SPEAKER_00: The one who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, how can he say, John asks that he loves God whom he has not seen?
SPEAKER_00: It's 1 John 4.20.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I love that song we just sang when we all get to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: What a day of rejoicing that will be, because in there, in heaven, love will be reciprocal.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is run out, hope is run out, love remains, and love is always returned.
SPEAKER_00: It is received and returned and magnified.
SPEAKER_00: You will love each other perfectly.
SPEAKER_00: You will be loved perfectly.
SPEAKER_00: You will magnify God's love perfectly, and you will increase in that forever and ever and ever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: But now in this world, love is not always magnified.
SPEAKER_00: In this world, love is not always reciprocal.
SPEAKER_00: In this world, a parent can love his child and raise a child with love and the child still rebel.
SPEAKER_00: In this world, a husband can love his wife or a wife her husband as well as they're able, and yet the love not be reciprocal, and divorce follow.
SPEAKER_00: In this world, you can love your enemy, and your enemy doesn't love you back.
SPEAKER_00: Sin, at its very root, lacks the belief that God is good.
SPEAKER_00: Sin has corrupted the root of a person's life, and so the tree of God's love can't grow out of a heart of sin.
SPEAKER_00: And so the fruit of a person's life who is rooted in sin will not be the fruit of the spirit, which of course is love.
SPEAKER_00: What does a person's life look like that doesn't have a root in God's love, that doesn't have a tree of God's love, doesn't have the fruit of his spirit?
SPEAKER_00: The fruit of that person's life looks like jealousy, looks like envy, looks like bitterness, looks like covetousness.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is a fountain of bitterness and distrust.
SPEAKER_00: But love is a fountain of joy and delight.
SPEAKER_00: And this is why Jesus says, you can tell the root by the fruit.
SPEAKER_00: You can tell if a person is rooted in God's love.
SPEAKER_00: Because look at their life.
SPEAKER_00: Are they loving other people in a real God-centered way?
SPEAKER_00: Then they are rooted in God's love.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where Paul picks up in Romans 13.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 13 verses 1 through 7 is about owing honor to government, being subject to God's authority.
SPEAKER_00: Because, listen, Paul understands we live in a fallen world.
SPEAKER_00: People rebel against God.
SPEAKER_00: God gives government to suppress evil and to suppress wickedness.
SPEAKER_00: They bear the sword and they don't do it in vain.
SPEAKER_00: No authority, Romans 13, verse 1 says exists unless God instituted it.
SPEAKER_00: He did this all in Romans chapter 9, I mean in Genesis chapter 9 to check the evil in the world.
SPEAKER_00: The pre-fall world did not have government and it was just bloodshed.
SPEAKER_00: The post-fall world will have government.
SPEAKER_00: They will have the sword.
SPEAKER_00: They will be the avenger of the wronged.
SPEAKER_00: Even wicked governments are established by God.
SPEAKER_00: But this is why it is such a crime when a government agent abuses his authority because he was put there by God to check evil, not to propagate it.
SPEAKER_00: But we understand we live in a world where there is wickedness from law enforcement, and we live in a world where people resist law enforcement, even though they ought not to do that.
SPEAKER_00: They do that to their own harm.
SPEAKER_00: And specifically, they do that to society's harm.
SPEAKER_00: When someone resists law enforcement and law enforcement has to bear the sword, it ends up adversely affecting society.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to think hard to see examples of that.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul shifts from there in verse 8 to put you back on the focus of God's love.
SPEAKER_00: And he tells you, verse 8, owe no one anything except to love each other.
SPEAKER_00: Very interesting phrase, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Don't owe anyone anything except love.
SPEAKER_00: Now there are some that say, what this verse means is that Christians shouldn't go in debt.
SPEAKER_00: Don't mortgage your house.
SPEAKER_00: Don't take a car payment.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how easy would this verse be if that's what it said?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that would be great, right?
SPEAKER_00: Here's one of the most deep, profound verses in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: But I've paid my car off, so I'm good, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's like the rich young ruler story right there.
SPEAKER_00: Tell me what's required, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, do that?
SPEAKER_00: Done.
SPEAKER_00: What's next?
SPEAKER_00: This is not a prohibition against borrowing.
SPEAKER_00: There's no prohibition against borrowing in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: If this is a prohibition against borrowing, it would go beyond what the Old Testament requires, because the Old Testament allowed you to borrow and gave you regulations.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, put the regulations on the lender.
SPEAKER_00: That would be the trajectory of the Bible in the opposite direction.
SPEAKER_00: The New Testament had a more strict law on people than the Old Testament provided.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the trajectory of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: But what is the trajectory of the Bible is seeing the Old Covenant law fulfilled in Christ and the law of Christ come to Christians to a heart of love, eager to obey God.
SPEAKER_00: That is the trajectory of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you look at verse 8 through that lens, you notice something fascinating.
SPEAKER_00: Owe no one anything except this implies that Christians will constantly be in debt.
SPEAKER_00: You will always be in debt, not financially, but you will always be in debt because you owe everybody around you something that you cannot pay.
SPEAKER_00: That's what debt means.
SPEAKER_00: If I owed you a dollar, I would pay you the dollar and be done with it.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what this is about.
SPEAKER_00: This is saying you will always owe everyone around you this.
SPEAKER_00: And what is it that you will owe?
SPEAKER_00: Love.
SPEAKER_00: Can you pay it?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you can try.
SPEAKER_00: You ought to always try.
SPEAKER_00: And you can picture it this way in as much as your soul is a reservoir of love, love must come to your soul and disperse.
SPEAKER_00: It must flow out.
SPEAKER_00: You can't hoard it.
SPEAKER_00: You receive it, you magnify it, and you distribute it.
SPEAKER_00: So as long as you are a recipient of God's love, you ought to be giving God's love out.
SPEAKER_00: You ought to be reflecting it.
SPEAKER_00: You could say it this way let a mirror owe nothing except the reflection.
SPEAKER_00: Well, can the mirror ever pay that debt?
SPEAKER_00: Well, no.
SPEAKER_00: As long as there's something that passes in front of it, the mirror will owe its reflection.
SPEAKER_00: The Christian soul owes everyone love.
SPEAKER_00: And this is an extensive command.
SPEAKER_00: The New Testament commands you to love other Christians, of course, and that's probably what's in mind here.
SPEAKER_00: Love one another.
SPEAKER_00: There's 40 plus one another verses that all speak of the way Christians are to relate to one another, but we have a big enough view of the New Testament to understand you're not called just to love other Christians.
SPEAKER_00: You're also called to love your enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 5, verse 44.
SPEAKER_00: You're called to love those who abuse you.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 6, verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: You're called to love those who persecute you, Romans 12, verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: You're called to love simply everyone.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty exhaustive right there.
SPEAKER_00: What about the person you don't like?
SPEAKER_00: There's no verse that says you have to love the person you don't want to.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Thessalonians 5 15.
SPEAKER_00: Love everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I thought I found a loophole.
SPEAKER_00: The reason is that love fulfills the law.
SPEAKER_00: Now what this means, you have to have a kind of a biblical ethic here.
SPEAKER_00: The world is under law.
SPEAKER_00: The world is under the command of God to worship him.
SPEAKER_00: All people know the truth about God in their conscience, but they suppress the truth about God and exchange the truth about God for unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_00: And so they stand condemned before God as a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews have the old covenant law that they suppressed, they rejected, they figured out a way to replace the old covenant law with this legalistic mindset.
SPEAKER_00: They actually believe that if they kept the law, they could go to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't realize the law was supposed to drive them to grace for the most part.
SPEAKER_00: Gentiles do the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: They have the law of God written on their conscience, written on their mind.
SPEAKER_00: They reject it.
SPEAKER_00: Do not commit adultery.
SPEAKER_00: They have that law written in their conscience.
SPEAKER_00: Do not murder, do not lie.
SPEAKER_00: They know those things.
SPEAKER_00: Worship God.
SPEAKER_00: They know they ought to do that.
SPEAKER_00: The heavens declare the glories of God, Psalm 19 says.
SPEAKER_00: The sky speaks forth its handiwork.
SPEAKER_00: Day after day pours forth speech.
SPEAKER_00: Night after night declares knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: There is no place where their voice is not heard.
SPEAKER_00: The world receives the command to worship God and the world rejects God.
SPEAKER_00: So the law, worship God.
SPEAKER_00: The law don't commit adultery.
SPEAKER_00: The law don't murder.
SPEAKER_00: The law don't lie.
SPEAKER_00: The law don't steal.
SPEAKER_00: The mind knows that and the mind rejects that.
SPEAKER_00: So the world is under law and rejects it.
SPEAKER_00: When you come to faith in Jesus Christ, you are no longer under law, but under grace because you receive Christ as your Savior.
SPEAKER_00: Christ has paid the atonement for your sin, the penalty for your sin.
SPEAKER_00: So you're not judged by the law anymore because your sins are forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't lead to lawless living for this precise reason.
SPEAKER_00: By being under Christ, he has fulfilled the law for you.
SPEAKER_00: So you're now operating with a conscience that is cleansed, a law that is fulfilled by Christ, and you're living in freedom in light of the fulfilled law.
SPEAKER_00: And so a person who's living in that kind of freedom won't go back and violate that law that was fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: That wouldn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, a person who is living in light of the freedom they have in Christ would lead a life of love and holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Particularly, Paul says, because that's what, look at verse 8, has fulfilled the law.
SPEAKER_00: Now the word fulfill, it's kind of a cool word.
SPEAKER_00: We don't really have this word in English so much.
SPEAKER_00: Fulfill is kind of the closest, but the word fulfill in Greek, it's to fill up and then overflow.
SPEAKER_00: It's to shade in.
SPEAKER_00: You have the outline of something, the law is the outline.
SPEAKER_00: Then love fills up the inside of that outline and then overflows everywhere else.
SPEAKER_00: Your cup is filled with coffee, filled at the top.
SPEAKER_00: It's not quite fulfilled yet, but when it overflows, it's fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: You have a fountain of coffee.
SPEAKER_00: A drawing that is just an outline, the connect-the-dot drawings that your kids might do.
SPEAKER_00: They can, you know, follow the numbers.
SPEAKER_00: And when they're left with that, when it's done, they have the outline of the elephant.
SPEAKER_00: They then go color that in.
SPEAKER_00: That's this idea here.
SPEAKER_00: That love is what colors in the law.
SPEAKER_00: Love is what fulfills the law.
SPEAKER_00: The outline of the law is just that.
SPEAKER_00: It's an outline.
SPEAKER_00: But what is inside of it is love.
SPEAKER_00: Love animates the law, it powers the law.
SPEAKER_00: You could say that love is the force behind the principle of law.
SPEAKER_00: So, for example, the easiest way to go to understand this principle that love is the force behind the law.
SPEAKER_00: The easiest way to understand that is to look at the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: The first table of the law, as it's said, is about your relationship to God, the first four commandments, about your relationship to God, generally speaking.
SPEAKER_00: The next set of commandments is about your relationship with each other.
SPEAKER_00: Now, most of those commandments are negative commandments, except for the fifth one.
SPEAKER_00: The fifth one is honor.
SPEAKER_00: It's a positive commandment.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, honor your father and your mother.
SPEAKER_00: But six through ten are negative commandments.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, don't do, don't do, don't do, don't do.
SPEAKER_00: So it's a very good place to go.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to see what it means to see that love animates the law, and that that would work with all Ten Commandments, it would work with all of the old covenant law, honestly.
SPEAKER_00: But it's just easiest to understand with the four of the Ten Commandments that are the negative prohibitions, because they're telling you, don't do something.
SPEAKER_00: And you think, how is it loving to tell me not to do something?
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: Parents understand this.
SPEAKER_00: You tell your kid, don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you loved me, you would let me do that.
SPEAKER_00: Well, no.
SPEAKER_00: I do love you, and no, and just period.
SPEAKER_00: So let's look at four examples of this.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul gives them to you.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not commit adultery.
SPEAKER_00: The sixth commandment.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not murder the seventh commandment.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not steal the eighth commandment.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not not covet the tenth commandment.
SPEAKER_00: Now Paul lets you know that this is exhaustive here.
SPEAKER_00: This is about the whole testament law, because he says, in any other commandment.
SPEAKER_00: I just love when he says things like that.
SPEAKER_00: He's rattling off, you know, four commandments, skips one, and he's like, in anything else.
SPEAKER_00: Don't try that at Iwana.
SPEAKER_00: And anything else when Paul said it.
SPEAKER_00: So take those commandments, and any other commandment.
SPEAKER_00: And what's animating them?
SPEAKER_00: Where does their power come from?
SPEAKER_00: Their power comes from love.
SPEAKER_00: Because what's behind that commandment is the negative prohibition.
SPEAKER_00: But they don't tell you what you are supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: Do you notice that?
SPEAKER_00: They tell you what not to do, not what you have to do.
SPEAKER_00: You need positive instruction to fulfill them.
SPEAKER_00: So the commandment says don't commit adultery.
SPEAKER_00: So the person who just doesn't actually commit adultery does not fulfill that commandment.
SPEAKER_00: Although they might literally keep the written word, they certainly don't fulfill it.
SPEAKER_00: You need positive instruction to fill it up.
SPEAKER_00: An example from soccer.
SPEAKER_00: A good defense, I had a coach that always said this, a good defense might win championships, but it wins zero games.
SPEAKER_00: You need a good defense to win a championship, but if you just have a good defense, you won't win a single game because you won't score any goals.
SPEAKER_00: A good defense might keep the other team from scoring, but it doesn't actually get you any points.
SPEAKER_00: It won't be very successful.
SPEAKER_00: A person who fancies himself at good at fulfilling the law because he doesn't do things is not a good person because he does not, in fact, fulfill the law.
SPEAKER_00: The law can tell you what not to do, but it can't make you do what you ought to do.
SPEAKER_00: An old Scottish preacher equipped, a rigid matter was the law, demanding brick but denying straw.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the law does.
SPEAKER_00: It tells you what you can't do, it doesn't give you the power to do what you ought to do.
SPEAKER_00: The law cannot motivate positive action that's pleasing to God.
SPEAKER_00: It can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: And that makes sense because God is not served by human hands.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't need your prohibitions.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't need you to not do things.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't need you to do anything, really.
SPEAKER_00: God is served by hearts that love Him, though.
SPEAKER_00: But the law can't make you love God.
SPEAKER_00: You understand this, right?
SPEAKER_00: You tell your kids, your kid gets a birthday gift or a Christmas gift, and you tell them, say thank you to grandma, and they're like, thanks.
SPEAKER_00: Well, no.
SPEAKER_00: What does the parent always say then?
SPEAKER_00: No, say thank you and mean it.
SPEAKER_00: Does that work?
SPEAKER_00: We have discipline scenarios in our household.
SPEAKER_00: Go tell your sister you're sorry and ask for forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
SPEAKER_00: No, you have to go mean it.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I mean it.
SPEAKER_00: The law can't make you mean it.
SPEAKER_00: It cannot make you worship.
SPEAKER_00: It can tell you when to go to the temple, the law can.
SPEAKER_00: It can tell you when to bow your body.
SPEAKER_00: It can tell you when to provide a sacrifice, but it cannot make you worship God in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: So the law cannot be fulfilled until the heart can love.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Paul says what should be obvious here in back in Romans 13.
SPEAKER_00: That the whole law, the end of verse 9, is summed up in this word.
SPEAKER_00: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: When he says this word, he's quoting Leviticus 19.
SPEAKER_00: Let me put it on the screen for you.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: I am Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: Fascinating context in this verse here, Leviticus 19.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what it says.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot take revenge on someone.
SPEAKER_00: Someone burns your house down, don't go burn their house down.
SPEAKER_00: Someone strikes you, don't go strike them back.
SPEAKER_00: Because love doesn't do that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: You let the government bear the sword, you don't.
SPEAKER_00: And people think that's a New Testament ethic.
SPEAKER_00: That's not a New Testament ethic.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get much more Old Testament than Leviticus 19.
SPEAKER_00: Show love to your enemy.
SPEAKER_00: Don't bear a grudge against him.
SPEAKER_00: Don't get revenge on him.
SPEAKER_00: And why shouldn't you do those things?
SPEAKER_00: Why shouldn't you burn down your enemy's house?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because you're supposed to love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: This is what's fascinating that the Pharisees in Jesus' lifetime had defined their neighbor to mean anyone they got along with, really.
SPEAKER_00: But the context, the legal principle here from Leviticus 19, defines neighbor as your enemy.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you wouldn't need this verse.
SPEAKER_00: But beyond that, move past that just fascinating insight that your enemy is your neighbor, usually.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, who likes you the least?
SPEAKER_00: Those that know you the most, probably.
SPEAKER_00: But you go beyond that to say you actually love that person like you love yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Moses assumes self-love.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't tell you you have to try hard to love yourself.
SPEAKER_00: No, he grants that you're going to love yourself just fine.
SPEAKER_00: Now try loving other people like you love yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And then ends with this phrase, because I'm Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: Because God is the source of love.
SPEAKER_00: Love comes from him.
SPEAKER_00: You ought to flow that out to others as well.
SPEAKER_00: This is why the whole law is fulfilled in this.
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament would be shorter.
SPEAKER_00: You can memorize the whole Old Testament if you memorize this verse.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need all 640 plus commands.
SPEAKER_00: You can just say love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: If you do this, you don't need the commandment to not commit adultery, do you?
SPEAKER_00: The command not to commit adultery doesn't tell you how to love your wife.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't tell you remember your anniversary.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't tell you don't walk across the floor with muddy shoes on after she just walked the house.
SPEAKER_00: The law doesn't need to say that.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say pray for your wife.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say care for her and shepherd her, the Old Testament law.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to.
SPEAKER_00: If you love her like you love yourself, you'll do those things.
SPEAKER_00: The law says don't murder.
SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't tell you what you're supposed to do for your enemy.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't tell you to pray for him.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't tell you to serve him in some way, to try to introduce him to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You shouldn't have to.
SPEAKER_00: It tells you to love him.
SPEAKER_00: And all the commandments work out that way.
SPEAKER_00: The problem with adultery is not that it would be an act of hatred towards your spouse.
SPEAKER_00: The problem with adultery is not that it's a violation of the sixth commandment.
SPEAKER_00: The problem with adultery is it's a lack of love towards your spouse and towards the person you commit adultery with.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the big lie that people say in an adulterous relationship is that we're doing this because we really love each other.
SPEAKER_00: You know, keep it zero, it goes where it will, I suppose.
SPEAKER_00: And I love this person, not the person I'm married to.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna have, we're gonna commit adultery because I have love for this person.
SPEAKER_00: It's not loving by definition.
SPEAKER_00: There can be no love there.
SPEAKER_00: So it's a violation of the sixth commandment, and it is actually unloving.
SPEAKER_00: Can you murder someone whom you love?
SPEAKER_00: That's just a strange question, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Could you put your knee on someone's head for nine minutes until they die if you love that person?
SPEAKER_00: There's just no world in which that's possible.
SPEAKER_00: Can you burn down someone's house if you love that person?
SPEAKER_00: This is why the whole law can be fulfilled with this verse.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 13, verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: Love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Can you steal from someone you love?
SPEAKER_00: When they're not looking, can you break in and take their things?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the problem for the thief isn't that he's violating the eighth commandment.
SPEAKER_00: The problem for the thief is that he doesn't love the person from whom he's stealing.
SPEAKER_00: So this is why the love, the law is the outline, the law is the negative things that you can't do, but love is what colors that in and of course overflows to all the things the law doesn't cover.
SPEAKER_00: Because the law doesn't cover everything.
SPEAKER_00: No law can.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, every time there's a problem in society, the response is always we should make a law against that.
SPEAKER_00: That's great.
SPEAKER_00: Make a law against something that happened last year.
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to help what happened last year, but love helps.
SPEAKER_00: This is why Jesus comes across the person who says, I've kept the law.
SPEAKER_00: Well, great, Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: You don't actually murder your enemy.
SPEAKER_00: But if you hate him, you have murder in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And people say, Jesus is going beyond the Old Testament law.
SPEAKER_00: He's not going beyond anything.
SPEAKER_00: If you look at a woman with lust, you've already committed adultery.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Not because you literally broke the written commandment of the sixth commandment, but because you've lacked love.
SPEAKER_00: The whole inside of the law is gutted.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot love your neighbor, though, until you first love God through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first half of the Ten Commandments, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: You can't get to the second half until you go through the first half.
SPEAKER_00: You have to love God in order to love your neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: And that takes us back to Romans.
SPEAKER_00: Love does no wrong to a neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
SPEAKER_00: Love is the wind in the sails of the law.
SPEAKER_00: That's that same word that it fills up and overflows.
SPEAKER_00: The New Testament uses that way to describe wind and sails.
SPEAKER_00: As wind fills the sails of something, it pushes it forward.
SPEAKER_00: Love animates the law.
SPEAKER_00: Love animates the believer's life.
SPEAKER_00: It fills your life up.
SPEAKER_00: When you have faith in Christ, your life should be filled with love that it overflows to others.
SPEAKER_00: And as it overflows to others, it's pointing them back to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now, ideally, that would be reciprocal.
SPEAKER_00: You love others, they in turn love God as well.
SPEAKER_00: But in this fallen world, that's not always the case.
SPEAKER_00: In this world there is unrequited love.
SPEAKER_00: In heaven there is not.
SPEAKER_00: In this world, there is declined love.
SPEAKER_00: In heaven, there is not.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the gospel is so critical for understanding this.
SPEAKER_00: Greater love has no man than this, Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: And one would lay his life down for his friends.
SPEAKER_00: Even that phrase for his friends.
SPEAKER_00: John 15, 13.
SPEAKER_00: Greater love has no better example than that.
SPEAKER_00: And if you think about what that means, it's not a statement of just it's a big sacrifice to lay your life down for someone.
SPEAKER_00: You must really love them if you're gonna die for them.
SPEAKER_00: That's true, but that's not the entirety of that verse.
SPEAKER_00: Greater love is known in this.
SPEAKER_00: The greater greatest love imaginable is the Father for the Son in eternity past.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens with that love?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's magnified with the, but and it's it's returned back to the source as the Son becomes the fountain of love, the Holy Spirit, the spirit of love.
SPEAKER_00: That love breaks forward into the world as they create the world with love and they care for Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_00: Sin comes into the world and severs that.
SPEAKER_00: Adam and Eve doubt God's goodness, and so they break his word, and so their fruit is no longer fruit of love, but of bitterness and hatred and murder comes out of that.
SPEAKER_00: Adultery in Genesis chapter 4, and it's just chaos and sin.
SPEAKER_00: But the love of God is not held back.
SPEAKER_00: It still breaks forward into the world over and over and over again, culminating in the cross of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So the fountain, the eternal fountain of love, is seen in the cross of Christ as he dies for sinners who rejected his love.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus means in John 15.
SPEAKER_00: Greater love is no one than this.
SPEAKER_00: There can't even be imagined a greater love than between the eternal Father and the Eternal Son, and that love is primarily seen in this world through the cross where Jesus dies for sinners.
SPEAKER_00: And it says he laid down his life for his friends.
SPEAKER_00: Even that the language of friendship there.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, You are my friends if you do what I command.
SPEAKER_00: And what does he command?
SPEAKER_00: Us to love one another.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is how the love of God comes into this world through Jesus Christ, into the hearts of believers through faith, and then out to others.
SPEAKER_00: So when a person comes to faith in Christ, they have the capacity to love others.
SPEAKER_00: Apart from faith in Christ, they do not have that capacity.
SPEAKER_00: It should not surprise you when the nations rage and the people plot a vain thing.
SPEAKER_00: It shouldn't surprise you when dogs bark or when sinners sin.
SPEAKER_00: Because they lack the capacity to love in this way.
SPEAKER_00: And if somebody's not a Christian hears that, they so easily misunderstand it.
SPEAKER_00: They say, Well, I can love my wife, I can love my kids, even though I'm not a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: You can in some sense, that's common grace in the world, but you can't love like God loves because God's love is focused on himself.
SPEAKER_00: You can't love with love focused on God unless you get to him through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But when you come to God through Jesus Christ, then not only is the law fulfilled, but your life is fulfilled by love.
SPEAKER_00: The love of God fills your life and overflows to others.
SPEAKER_00: John Barridge, one of my hearers of the faith, 18th century preacher, is the one that wrote this.
SPEAKER_00: It gets attributed to all kinds of people, but don't steal it from John Barridge.
SPEAKER_00: Run, John, and work the law commands.
SPEAKER_00: Yet finds me neither feet or hands.
SPEAKER_00: But sweeter news the gospel brings.
SPEAKER_00: It bids me fly and lends me wings.
SPEAKER_00: How can you love your neighbor?
SPEAKER_00: Not by memorizing the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: Not by doing the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: You can't do the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: How do you love your neighbor?
SPEAKER_00: By experiencing the love of God through Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to be countercultural?
SPEAKER_00: You want to live unlike your neighbors, unlike the world and society around you, then you forgive those who sin against you because of the love that God has given you.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to honor God?
SPEAKER_00: Then love your neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: And love your enemy.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to honor Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Then love God through Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And let the love of Christ transform you and compel you to action.
SPEAKER_00: Action that actually fulfills the law.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, what kind of application could end with a sermon like this?
SPEAKER_00: And this is the nature of love.
SPEAKER_00: Any application becomes law, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: If I said, so go and do this, that's the outline.
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you to go and do this.
SPEAKER_00: What kind of application does Paul give you here?
SPEAKER_00: You got the commandments, don't do those things.
SPEAKER_00: Now go actually love people.
SPEAKER_00: Actually forgive those who sin against you.
SPEAKER_00: As the love of Christ will transform you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're thankful that the love of Christ surpasses all understanding.
SPEAKER_00: It's eternal.
SPEAKER_00: Before time began, and your love was real and experienced and given to this world.
SPEAKER_00: Sociologists will write the books on this past week.
SPEAKER_00: Political scientists will get degrees in studying what happened this past week.
SPEAKER_00: Christians, we understand the root cause.
SPEAKER_00: A world that doesn't know you.
SPEAKER_00: Hearts that don't have love.
SPEAKER_00: Hearts that refuse to love their neighbor, refuse to love their enemy, refuse to love the world.
SPEAKER_00: What a contrast with your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Loves your son.
SPEAKER_00: That loves us through your son.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, fill our hearts with love and cause us to love our neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: We ask this in Jesus' name.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining Emmanuel Bible Church today through this resource.
SPEAKER_00: It's my prayer that if you live in the D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I'll be able to meet you on some Sunday at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church, you can go to IBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: Or for information on the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to tms.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource helps you seek God through Jesus Christ, serve the Lord with joy, and share him with boldness.
SPEAKER_00: May the Lord bless you.