The Fulfillment of the Law / Romans 13:8-14

The Context of the Letter

Go ahead and pick up your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 13. We are halfway through the application part of this letter. Remember, the application section spans Romans 12 through 16, serving as our response to everything we were told in chapters one through 11. If we aren’t careful as we move through this week by week, we can forget what those first eleven chapters were about.

There is a real advantage to going through one section of a letter each week. It allows us to understand and really absorb every concept so we don’t miss anything. But there is also a challenge in that: we have to remember the things we talked about three months ago. This is a letter, after all. If we only look at chapters 12 through 16, we might start viewing the Christian life as just a bunch of do’s and don’ts. We start making a list of all the things we need to do, but we forget the “why.”

If we forget the earlier chapters, it will really cost us. We have to remember chapter seven—that we can’t do this on our own. We have to remember chapter eight and the illustration of the engine in the go-kart. You might be thinking, “Oh yeah, that was before Christmas, what was that again?” See, if we just look at the instructions on what to do, we forget how we are empowered to do them.

I want to challenge you for the rest of this series. Would you sit down at some point this week and read the entire letter of Romans from chapter one all the way to where we are? Remember that Romans 12:1-2, where we are told to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, is based on everything God has done for us. We are to allow Him to renew our minds and transform us, giving us a different way to think about the church, our place in it, and how we relate to the people around us.

A Life That Isn’t About Us

I’ve noticed a trend through all of this renewed thinking, and you’ll see it even as we move into chapters 14 and 15. The first thing Paul told us to renew our minds with in chapter 12 was not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. Then he told us we’ve been gifted in the church. Were you gifted so that you could benefit yourself? No. You were gifted to benefit other people. Then he says we’ve been placed in the world not for others to benefit us, but for us to benefit them, to live at peace with them, and to do what is good for them—even an enemy.

Last week, we saw that we’ve been placed under authorities that God has put into place. As I was looking at this, I thought, “Time out, God. I’m beginning to think this whole thing about giving my life to You and following You means my life isn’t about me anymore.”

And God is saying, “Finally! It only took you fifty years. Way to go!” That’s exactly it. It’s not about us. It’s about God changing us so that we can be an influence and engage in the world around us to help others become all they need to be.

We see this in how we left off last week. Notice he doesn’t say, “See what you can get out of your government.” He says to give them what is due.

Romans 13:7 (NASB)

Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax [is due]; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.

The Ongoing Debt of Love

Paul uses this idea of taxing and custom to make a point. You pay a sales tax for something and you’re done. Even with yearly taxes, there is a certain amount you owe; you pay it, and you are finished for that year. But love is different. If you are going to owe anything and never feel like you have paid enough, it’s going to be love. It is the priority that trumps everything else. You never say, “Well, I’ve loved that person enough until next year.”

Romans 13:8 (NASB)

Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled [the] law.

We see this priority throughout Scripture. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, He said it is to love God with everything you are, but then He added a second one right up there with it: to love your neighbor as yourself. He said everything else in the law and the prophets depends on those two commands.

Remember what Jesus told His disciples the night before He went to the cross? He said the world would know they were His disciples by their love for one another. He didn’t say they would know by how many times they went to church, how they dressed, or what rituals they performed. That tells me there must be something incredibly distinct about the love Jesus was talking about. If we just loved the way the world defines love, we wouldn’t look any different. But Jesus was saying that if you love the way He talks about, people will say, “You must be a follower of Jesus because you love like that.”

Defining God’s Kind of Love

How do we define this love? We can be molded by the world’s definition, but God’s definition is vastly different. Jesus is the example of God’s kind of love. Specifically, we look at the cross.

1 John 3:16-18 (NASB)

We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.

John says that because Jesus gave up His life for us, we ought to do the same for our brothers. He gives a practical example: if you see someone with a need and you have the means to help but you don’t, how can the love of God be in you? He concludes by saying we shouldn’t just love with words, but with actions.

Here is a working definition for you: Love is the choice to help meet the needs of someone else. It is serving someone else to meet their needs—not necessarily their wants, and not even what I think they need, but what God says they need.

There are four “no matters” that show how God’s love is different from the world’s:

First, I will meet the needs of someone else no matter how I feel. The world says love when you feel like it. The world says that if you do something for someone when you don’t want to, you’re a hypocrite. If that were true, Jesus was the most unauthentic person ever. Do you think He felt like going to the cross? In the garden, He begged the Father for any other way, yet He said, “Not my will, but yours be done.” He chose to do it regardless of His feelings.

Second, I will serve you no matter what you do. This is the biggest one where the world says, “No way.” The world says you love people unless they do something to you or your family. But God says you meet the needs of people no matter what they have done, are doing, or are going to do.

Romans 5:8 (NASB)

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Third, I will love no matter what I get in return. The world says, “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” We often say, “I served that person, but they never even said thank you, so I’m done.” But God’s love doesn’t need payback. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan served a man who would never have done the same for him if the roles were reversed. Jesus, hanging on the cross, prayed for the forgiveness of people who were rejecting Him. He didn’t do it for payback.

Fourth, I will love no matter what it costs me. The world says you love until it costs too much time, money, or emotion. But Jesus’ love doesn’t have a limit. We can’t even fathom what the cross cost Him. Beyond the physical pain, He became sin for us. He experienced a moment where His eternal bond with the Father was severed. He knew the cost, and He decided to do it anyway.

If we love like that, people will notice. They will see that we aren’t like “regular” people.

Love as the Fulfillment of the Law

Look at the results of this kind of love. Paul says that if you love your neighbor, you have fulfilled the law.

Romans 13:9-10 (NASB)

For this, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT COVET,’ and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of [the] law.

If I love with that kind of definition—no matter how I feel, what they do, what I get, or what it costs—I’m not going to steal from you. I’m not going to murder you or covet your things. Some of us think Christianity is just a list of “do nots,” which can make us want to retreat from the world. You can be a hermit in the mountains and follow all the “do nots” because there is no one around to sin against. But God wants us to engage. Engaging is risky, but if we engage with the attitude of love, it takes care of those risks.

The Urgency of the Hour

Then Paul speaks to the urgency of this. He says the alarm has gone off.

Romans 13:11 (NASB)

[Do] this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed.

Salvation is closer today than when we first believed. Whether Jesus comes back or we go to meet Him, we are one day closer today than we were yesterday. We aren’t getting more time; we are getting less. Do you feel the urgency? This isn’t something to start “at some point” in your life. The alarm has gone off. Let’s get up and go.

Romans 13:12 (NASB)

The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Paul tells us to lay aside one thing and put on another. It’s like changing clothes. He tells us to take off the “deeds of darkness” and put on the “armor of light.”

Romans 13:13-14 (NASB)

Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to [its] lusts.

He defines these deeds of darkness as carousing, drunkenness, sexual promiscuity, strife, and jealousy. If you look for a common thread here, it’s all about “me.” It’s about my wants, my desires, my lusts, and fighting to get my way. Paul says to lay that aside. It’s not about you anymore. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Put on His life and His love like a garment, so that when people look at you, they don’t see you—they see Him.

We are either going to love or we are going to lust. We are either going to live intentionally to meet the needs of others, or we will intentionally live to use others to meet our own needs. It’s one or the other.

Closing Challenge

I want to leave you with three practical things this week.

First, read the letter of Romans. Read chapters 1 through 13 this week and see what happens.

Second, look at that definition of love and those four “no matters.” Which one is the hardest for you? We all have that person in our lives who is difficult to love—at work, in the family, or in the neighborhood. Ask yourself why it’s hard. Is it because of how you feel? Because of what they did? Because they don’t return the favor? Or because it costs too much?

Take that reason before God and look at Jesus on the cross. When we say, “I can’t love them because of what they did,” God might say, “That’s the same reason I had for not loving you, but I did it anyway.” I said to God once, “I would never do to You what this person has done to me,” and He told me, “Then you don’t understand what you have done to Me.” No one can offend us as much as we have offended God. Let that humble you. It is hard to receive God’s grace and then refuse to let it spill over to someone else.

Third, remember that you can’t just take off the old clothes; you have to put on the new. Some of us struggle with sin because we are only trying to stop doing things. We take off the old clothes and stand there with nothing on, so we eventually go back to the old clothes because they are comfortable.

What if you concentrated more on what you are going to do than what you are going to stop doing? What if you became so obsessed with meeting the needs of others and displaying the love of God that you simply had no room left for yourself? That is the secret. Make no provision for the flesh because you are too busy wearing the life of Jesus.

Let’s pray.

Lord, thank You for the time in Your Word. God, You are the God of love. Help us understand even a tiny bit more of the depth and expanse of Your love, especially the love Your Son showed on the cross. May we leave this place and be so different in the way we love that people cannot help but notice. May we serve as You served—no matter how we feel, what others do, what we get, or what it costs. We trust Your Spirit to do this in us. In Your name, amen.