So we're picking it back up in Romans 13, and we're going to look at Romans 13:8 to 10 this morning. I'd like to begin by taking you back to Romans 12:1 and 2 at the beginning of this practical application section of the Book of Romans that we've been studying. After the tremendous doctrinal teaching of chapters 1 to 11, in which Paul expounded the great truths of the gospel and our salvation, he then implores us to apply these truths in our lives. We are to live out who we are because of what God has done in us in regeneration, in the new birth, the salvation he has accomplished and provided in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

So Paul beseeches us to live in consistency outwardly with who we are inwardly, presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice to God. And then he goes on with very practical applications concerning the various relationships that we have in this world. We are to present ourselves to God, and we are also to give ourselves to one another in love and self-sacrificial service. And we see this in relation to the body, the church, and even to those who are outside in the rest of chapter 12.

We see in the beginning of chapter 13 that we are to live in submission to the government, for it consists of God's ordained ministers to keep order and to minister to you for good. And we are to render what is due, including taxes and customs and honor and fear. Because we are new men in Christ, because of what God has done in us and the fact that he now lives in us and empowers us to live this new life, we must now live a new life in a new way toward God, toward the brethren, toward the outside, and toward every institution of our society.

In our text this morning, Paul brings a summary command of all these things, and he captures the essence of the Christian life in this new covenant time in one word, love, love one another. This is our greatest debt. This is the command of the new covenant. Believe Jesus and love one another. We love him because he first loved us. Paul says that God demonstrated his own love toward us in this, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And Jesus told us that we are to love just as he has loved. We are to lay down our lives for one another to present our bodies a living sacrifice, as Paul said in Romans 12:1 and 2.

Love is the fulfillment. Love is the manifestation of who we are in Christ, and love is the focus of our lives as believers in Jesus. Law puts the focus on us and our effort and our power, but love puts the focus on God and others. Love puts the focus on Jesus and our dependence on him and his life in us to see his love worked out through our lives. And love is the hallmark of the Christian in this world. This is what we can now do that we could not do in Adam. Jesus said, by this, they will know that you are my disciples, that you have love for one another. And this is his commandment that we should believe on the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another.

Let's look at our text together in Romans 13. We'll start in verse 7. 

"Render, therefore, to all their due, taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. Owe 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, they 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."

I've given you three points on your outline this morning. First, pay your debts. Second, our greatest debt. And third, the fulfillment of the law. 

Well, Paul makes a clear command in our text to pay our debts. We are to pay our taxes, give custom and honor and fear to whom it is due, and we are to be in submission to those in authority over us, and this includes paying the debts owed to them in order that they might minister to us in the service of God. 

It's interesting that Paul uses a different word for minister in verse six than he does in verse four. In verse six, he uses the word from which we get the word liturgy. In verse four, it's diakonos, a servant, but in verse six, it's the religious service that is in view, such as a priest. Those in authority are servants of God, ministering his will in the affairs of men. And Thayer explains that the word dues or customs bring a moral obligation on our part to fund these endeavors through taxes and indirect taxes on goods. 

It's interesting language, but the clear point is that we are to pay our taxes. We are to render what is due to those who are in authority over us. Now, in verse eight, Paul makes a transition. He says, owe no one anything. This is a bridge from what he's just instructed concerning our relationship to the government, and he's going to move on to our greatest debt as believers in Jesus Christ to all men, and that is to love one another. 

I just want to make a comment here before we move on. The question often arises with Paul's statement, owe no one anything, concerning debt and borrowing or lending. Is it wrong for a Christian to borrow money to be in debt? And this is a different question than is it wise for a Christian to be in debt? We'll address both briefly because the scripture has a lot to say about this. Paul's not forbidding borrowing or lending in this context, but what he's saying is, pay your debts. And this applies to borrowed money as well as taxes and honor and love.

In Deuteronomy 15, we read, if there's among you a poor man of your brethren within any of the gates of your land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart nor shut up your hand from your poor brother, but you shall open your hand wide to him and willingly lend him sufficient for his need, whatever he needs. You shall not lend him your money for usury, nor lend him your food at a profit. And the word usury speaks of a high interest rate. It's not wrong to lend money to a man in need, but it's wrong to extort high interest from him in his desperate state.

In Matthew 25, our Lord commends the servant who deposited his money to be lent out so that it might gain interest. We see instruction throughout the scriptures to lend to the one who has need. And the word of God recognizes that there are times when we will have to borrow money to live. I think about the story of the widow and Elisha and how the debtors came to collect. Her husband had died, and she couldn't pay her debts and they were gonna take her children as slaves. 

Here's a woman in need because her husband's died, and he was a faithful man, it says, who loved the Lord. So God provides for her as Elisha makes provision through the oil that she had, multiplying it. We are to help those in real need. But at the same time, we read that the borrower is a slave to the lender. And when you read about lending and borrowing, it's always in the context of great need, need for sustenance and life because of poverty, usually brought on by some unfortunate circumstance: a crop fails, there's a death; a real need is present. 

Or perhaps you have a business that requires debt. I think about the many loggers that live up in our area. They have massive costs and equipment, which often requires the use of debt to operate their business. But the mindset in our culture of debt and borrowing for luxury, of living under the weight of massive debt as a way of life, is not what the Bible's talking about when it condones or even commands the lending of money to him who has a need. 

And it is the wise man who lends rather than borrowing because debt is a cruel master when it gets out of control. Proverbs 22:7 says, "the rich rules over the poor and the borrower is slave of the lender." It's a great stress to our lives, to our families to live in debt. And the man who is over his head in debt is unable to focus on others, to give to others in their need and to serve one another in love in this way.

So Paul's not forbidding borrowing here. His message is that we should pay our debts, that which we owe, but we should not adopt the mentality of our society. I remember I was riding with my oldest daughter, and her and her husband were in some debt, and she said, well, dad, you have to borrow money to buy a car. I said, I never borrowed money to buy a car my whole life. You know, you don't have to buy; I drove some nice cars, let me tell you what. But you don't have to borrow money to buy a car. 

So oftentimes we think we must have it now, and that's what's taught in the way people think in our culture. But we need to be careful about going into debt. Well, the transition here is interesting because our greatest debt is love. Romans 13:8, owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. 

Jesus taught his disciples from the beginning that love is the hallmark of the Christian life. In John 13:34, he says, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this, all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another." In John 15:12, "This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this than to lay down one's life for his friends. These things I command you, that you love one another."

When we get to the end of John's life, he reminds us of what Jesus taught us from the beginning. He says, "For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death." By this, we know love because he laid down his life for us and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 

1 John 3:23 summarizes that commandment of the new covenant to believe Jesus and love one another. In 1 John 4:7, he says, "Let us love one another, for love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this, the love of God was manifested toward us that God has sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins." 

There's a lot in the scriptures about love. We love him because he first loved us. We have a debt of love. It's the greatest debt that we owe. In 2 Corinthians 5:14, Paul wrote, "For the love of Christ compels us because we judge thus that if one died for all, then all died and he died for all that those who live should live no longer for themselves but for him who died for them and rose again." 

God loved us so much that he sent his only son to die in our place for our sins. He demonstrates his love for us and that while we were still sinners against him, his enemies, Christ died for us. By this we know love, John says, because he laid down his life for us, and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Freely we have received, freely we must give. 

And, my brothers and sisters, God has poured his love out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. We love because he first loved us. It's interesting what John says in his second epistle. In 2 John 1:5, he says, "And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you but that which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another." 

But Jesus taught in John 13:34 a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you. In 1 John 2:7, John says, "Brethren, I write no new commandment to you but an old commandment." And then in 2:8, he says, "Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in him and in you." 

The commandment to love is not a new commandment. Jesus said in Luke 10:27 that the greatest commandment of the old covenant law is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength, and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself. The commandment of love is not new, but Jesus also said, "I give you a new commandment, love." And John calls it a new commandment. So what does this mean in the context of the new covenant? 

Well, the commandment of love is not new, but it is new in this new covenant time in two ways. Jesus gave us an example that we've never had before. He showed us true agape love, laying down his life. He said, "Love as I have loved you." So first, it's new because we have a new example. Second, it's new in this new covenant time because as believers in Jesus Christ, we have a new capacity to love. 

Romans 5:18 says, "Therefore, as through one man's offense, judgment came to all men resulting in condemnation, even so through one man's righteous act, the free gift came to all men resulting in justification unto life. For as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, so also by one man's obedience, many will be made righteous." Every man born in Adam is born a sinner by nature. He is controlled and dominated by the sin that dwells in him. 

But when a man believes Jesus, he is born again in Christ, united to Jesus in his death, burial, and resurrection. He is crucified with Christ, and that old man, that physical body controlled by indwelling sin, is rendered powerless so that we are no longer slaves to sin. So the carnal mind cannot please God. It's not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. But the man in Christ is born again, recreated, regenerated, and has a new heart and a new spirit, alive in his spirit, and the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit living in him, and Romans 5:5 tells us that the love of God has been poured out into our hearts. 

We as new men have been given a new desire to love and a new capacity to exercise that love toward others. So the Christian life is not one of law-keeping, but of faith working through love. Our focus is not on our performance or a list-checking in the law. It's a focus on Jesus and others to love and to serve. 

Love is the fulfillment of the law. Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. And then Paul gives us a series of commandments, and he says all of these are fulfilled and summed up, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. If you're loving your neighbor, then I don't have to tell you not to steal from him. If you love him, you're not stealing his things.

We've been studying recently as we work through the book of Galatians that the believer in Jesus Christ is not under the law. He does not live by the law, but he's now free in Christ, free from the law and sin and death, so that he might now live by the Spirit, bearing the fruit of righteousness, bringing glory to God. Paul tells us that the law was given to show us our sin. In Galatians 3, he says it was given to lead us to faith in Jesus. It consisted of pictures, shadows, of the fulfillment that would come in Christ. 

The law was our schoolmaster to lead us to faith in Jesus, but after faith has come, we are no longer under the tutor. The point is, God has made a better way to produce holiness in our lives in the new covenant time. He has fulfilled the promises of regeneration and a new heart and a new spirit in the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 

We've been crucified, buried, raised to newness of life, and our life in Christ is now one of abiding in Him, of looking to Him, believing, knowing, reckoning His truth, and depending on Him and His life and power in us as we walk by faith. God is working in us to produce His goodwill and purpose as we yield to Him. No longer do we look to the law as a rule of life, but we set our eyes on Jesus as we run this race.

And in this Christ's life, Jesus living His life through us by faith, we see the fruit of the Spirit, which is love. Love is manifest in and through us by the power and life of God in us. And what Paul's saying here in our text is that when we walk in the Spirit, when love is the rule of our life based in truth, then our life is consistent with the character and nature of God. We are conformed to the likeness of Christ, and therefore the law is fulfilled in us.

Paul explains this so well in Romans 7 and 8. Turn over to Romans 7 at verse 4 with me, please. 

Romans 7:4: "Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter."

Now go right down to Romans 8:1. "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. On account of sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."

These words are all about how we walk. These words are all about how we live. And Paul tells us that because of our death with Jesus and our resurrection to new life, a life not by the law but by the Spirit, that now the righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh by the law, but according to the Spirit. 

And our text before us this morning tells us that the fulfillment of the law is love. We can now love, and this is the manifestation of the Spirit and the life of Christ in us as we walk by faith, as we see the power of Christ's life worked out through our lives. Love is others focused. Law is focused on me and my works and my performance and my strength. 

If I'm looking at myself, if I'm placing myself under any law and evaluating my progress by my performance, then I'm in trouble. But if I'm focused on Jesus, if I'm walking by the Spirit and seeking to love God and love others, all based in the tremendous truths of my salvation, the mercies of God, then I see the fruit of the Spirit, love, the fulfillment of the law worked out in my life by His grace and His power.

Remember in Galatians 5 where Paul taught us that circumcision, that religious ritual, is representative of the law? Paul encouraged us to stand fast in the liberty that we have in Christ and not to place the yoke of the law on our necks again. Listen to those words in Galatians 5. He says, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he's a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law, you've fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything but faith working through love."

Righteousness by faith, Paul says. Faith working through love. This is the way for love to be manifest in our lives. This is the essence of the Christian life. This is the new covenant commandment. Believe Jesus, faith, and love one another. 

And this is we are continually filled by the Holy Spirit as we are controlled by Him. Paul also says it this way, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Reckon yourselves dead indeed to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord and yield to his life and his power in you." This is no passive thing, my friends. This is agonizing. This is a discipline to focus on the Word, the truths of God, to renew our minds, to choose to believe Him and depend on Him and need Him every moment of every day and to obey Him. 

But we must understand the nature of the battle. It's not one of law and works and self-effort. It's one of abiding. It's one of knowing, believing, and submitting ourselves to the truth and to the life and power of Christ in us. Truth versus error, this is the battle. 

In 2nd Corinthians 10, Paul says, "Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." 

Our weapons are mighty in God. Our weapon is truth, God's Word, to pull down the strongholds of man-wisdom, to cast down the arguments and take every single thought captive to the obedience of Christ. The battle is won in the mind, as James makes clear in chapter 1. We must win the battle in the mind by believing the truth, choosing to trust God, and yielding to Him. 

Paul explains this in Ephesians 3 at verse 14. Let's turn to that passage as we close here this morning, Ephesians 3:14 to 21, and we see Paul's prayer for the believers, for us. I think it's a pretty important question to ask, how does God intend to produce the fruit of righteousness in our lives, the fruit of love? How does God intend to work that out?

Well, Paul summarizes that here in his prayer. He says, "For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and height and depth, to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church, by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen."

Did you notice that there's no law here? There's no focus on self, there's no pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and determining to do better. The Christian life is accomplished by His power. It says He is able. It says He is sufficient. Love produced through me must come by dependence on Him. It's the Holy Spirit who imparts strength to my inner man as I walk by faith. It's Jesus' life in me that is working, living as I abide in Him by faith. It's the Father who's able to do abundantly, exceedingly above all that I could ever ask or think. He is able, not me. 

I cannot, but He can. And now in this new covenant Christian life, my focus is on Him, knowing His Word, choosing to believe and trust Him and His life and power, and seeking to yield to His Spirit, to Jesus in me, as He produces the fruit of love out through my life. Love based in truth, faith working through love. 

This is the essence of the Christian life, and this is the desire that God has poured out into my heart and yours to love God, to love the brethren, to love the lost, and lead them to salvation through the great saving message of Jesus Christ. This is my privilege, this is my passion as a believer in Christ, and this was accomplished at the cross. Jesus accomplished our salvation. And that's why we gather here this morning, to remember what He did for us.