Maxing Out Your Love Limit, Part 1

Beginning in chapter 12, verse 1, Paul has slipped into the practical portion of this letter. In verses 3 through 8, we've been challenged with how to act in church. In verses 9 to 21, we've been challenged with how to live with each other in the community of believers, even beyond the assembly. In chapter 13, we've been challenged with how to live in submission to our civil authority and governmental authority. And now, in this final section of chapter 13, we're going to be told how to live in our neighborhood. Not in the company of believers, but how to live in your neighborhood. What's the quota for how much you're supposed to love?

Is there a point when you can stop being loving? Welcome to Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Stephen is the president of Wisdom International.

Learn more at wisdomonline.org. Today, Stephen begins a message called Maxing Out Your Love Limit. Today, Stephen gives you the answer from Romans chapter 13.

He begins a series called Livin' Like You're Leavin'. You'll learn what it means to live with eternity in mind. In Romans 13, he writes, in fact, let's skip ahead a few verses to verse 11.

And this is sort of the incentive of, really, verses going back to 12.1 and on through the remainder of this epistle. But he says, in this dew, knowing the time that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep, that is, from inactivity or passivity, for now salvation is near to us than when we believed. You have past salvation, present salvation, this future. We call this eschatological salvation.

These are future events yet. The night, he says, is almost gone and the day is at hand. Let us, therefore, in light of the fact that the night is almost gone and the day is at hand, lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

You ought to be livin' like you're leavin'. That's basically, Paul, if he were a gospel singer, I'm sure he would have said it just like that. He's referring to the return of Christ. He speaks, he hints at these eschatological events. I believe we're talking about the rapture and the resurrection and the reunion and the royal throne and this resplendent kingdom, all of that. In light of heaven, here's how to act on earth.

And I agree with others that Paul is exhorting the believer to put into practice what he began to teach in what we call chapter 12, verse 1, and up to this point and beyond. Don't delay. Don't be passive. Don't be inactive. Don't be careless.

Glorify God. It won't be long before you're gone. The time is coming for us.

Time is almost up. Yesterday, I was in the grocery store picking up a few items, milk and bananas for my wife, donuts for me. That's the way it usually works for me.

It makes the trip worth it. I had decided to pick up a few magazines off the rack and a couple of newspapers to just sort of read through again contrasting the way of the world who thinks time will never be up to the Christian who knows time is almost up. And so I'm there where all those magazines are by the checkout counter there and surveying all of the titles. And of course, I looked around first to see if anybody from Colonial was there.

I don't want to confuse the flock. I picked up magazines like Teen Vogue was one of them, Star Magazine. This magazine caught my eye.

Looking Good was the name of it. I was especially drawn to the magazine because of its headline that read, overeating is not your fault. I liked that. That resonated with me.

After Christmas and New Year's, I want somebody to blame besides me. I picked that one up. I picked up a newspaper. But man, reading through that stuff all over again made me so sad and so sorry for the world. Headline after headline on who was fornicating with whom.

That's what it is. What emptiness, what tragic pursuit. The Civil Union of a homosexual couple in England that made headlines in several of the magazines. The annulment of a Hollywood marriage that lasted less than 12 weeks. Article after article on how to be in fashion, basically how to attract the opposite sex.

One lengthy article in one magazine on the glory days and the accomplishments of a transvestite. Stories of family fights over money, over property, all sorts of sinful behavior trumpeted as sophisticated and stylish and you're nobody if you're not in this. I couldn't help but think the time is almost up for our world too. In fact, one of the marks of the unbelieving end days, according to the Apostle Peter, is the mockery and the disbelief that judgment will ever come. Where is the promise of his coming? They cry, 2 Peter 3. For ever since the fathers fell asleep, ever since those people died that told us about judgment coming, it hasn't happened.

It hasn't come. In other words, God's judgment can't reach us. That's just a myth by you Bible believers who just want to frighten us and scare us into the kingdom. Peter goes on to say it seems to have escaped their notice that the world was already judged by water and now the present heavens and earth are being reserved for destruction by fire, chapter 3 verse 7. And Peter adds the day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat and the earth and its works will be burned up, chapter 3 verse 10.

Time is almost up, so to speak. What about the Christian? Peter writes, but according to his promise, we are looking for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by him in peace, spotless and blameless. That is, you are in the process of pursuing passionately purity and holy living. In other words, we're leaving. The time is almost here, so we should be living with this perspective while living.

We're in the process really of leaving. And it could happen at any moment. I believe last Lord's Day, Dr. McKinnon introduced you to some of the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards, one of his that I love to consider and think about and I already did this past week in this coming new year. One of his resolutions was to never do anything that he wouldn't want to do, would it were at the last hour of his life.

What a great resolution. That kind of perspective does two things, if I can just expand on that. One, it reminds the believer and second of all it releases the believer.

It reminds the believer, if I could be this crass, it reminds the believer of the stupidity of sin. Are you satisfied now? Will you die contented? Listen to a man who had everything the world is racing after in our generation, a multi-billionaire, more mistresses than you could count, surrounded by power.

His signature was legendary. Solomon came to the end of his life and he said, in effect, I have never been satisfied by anything. My life is vanity. It is like a breath of air that passes away. At the end of his writings as he approached his final days, he writes how he failed to glorify God and then he warns all of us that God is going to bring every deed into his judgment. Ecclesiastes 12, 13 and 14, Solomon says, in other words, I forgot while I was living that I was in the process of leaving. That perspective reminds us of the foolishness of sin but it also secondly releases the believer to surrender to God with joy.

With joy. No matter how difficult life is, no matter what difficulty you're facing, it's temporary. It's temporary.

You're in the process of leaving. That fiery ordeal cannot be compared to the glory which God has reserved for those who belong to him. One day with the Lord will make the sorrows of a thousand years on earth evaporate into the first breath of celestial air in the new heavens and new earth.

No matter what it is you're going through, it's temporary. So just how do we live our faith out in light of the fact that we are on our way up? Well, beginning in chapter 12, verse 1, Paul has slipped into the practical portion of this letter and in chapters 12 and 13 he's been answering that question. We've been challenged in verses 1 and 2 of chapter 12 to personally and totally surrender our bodies, our minds, our lives to God. In verses 3 through 8, we've been challenged with how to act in church and treat other believers. In verses 9 to 21, we've been challenged with how to live with each other in the community of believers, even beyond the assembly. In chapter 13, we've been challenged with how to live in submission to our civil authority and governmental authority. And now, in this final section of chapter 13, we're going to be told how to live in our neighborhood.

He's going to get very, very practical as if he hasn't already. How to live, not in the company of believers, not in the assembly of the church, but how to live in your neighborhood, how to live at work, how to live in the face and in the presence of unbelieving relatives. What is the reputation of the believer to be in the community in a way that honors Jesus Christ? Well, in chapter 13, Paul has just finished and we've studied talking about the subject of paying taxes and paying tolls, right? Now in verse 8, he continues to address the believer's financial obligations with an often misunderstood phrase.

Look there, we'll launch back our study with that phrase. Oh, nothing to anyone except to love one another, for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. Oh, nothing to anyone. Often misunderstood by well-meaning Christians who say it's wrong to be in debt of any kind. You say it is wrong to borrow money. It's wrong to lend money. It's wrong to ever use a credit card for that matter. I personally never heard that view until many years ago while I was in seminary. In fact, I had not entered the ministry full time and I was preaching at a church on a Sunday and after preaching was in the home of the chairman of the elder board waiting dinner and some of the others were there as well from the leadership of the church and the wife of this elder who spoke her mind came into the living room without any introduction, just blurted out, I think it's a sin for anybody to use a credit card. And I didn't know any better in my youth.

I said, boy, I hope not. I just used my JC penny credit card last week, which sort of ruined the conversation, but it got me to thinking while a good steward could argue the wisdom or lack thereof of using money belonging to somebody else and paying interest on it, which I would agree with the use of someone else's money, even borrowing money is never forbidden in scripture. In fact, let me give you just a very quick overview. In Exodus 22, Moses instructed the people of you lend money to a fellow Jew. Don't charge him interest, especially if he's poor Exodus 22, 25, not you can't lend money, but to a poor brother, don't charge exorbitant interest.

In fact, don't charge interest at all. Don't take advantage of the position your brother has gotten into as now being in need. Again, in Leviticus, instead of forbidding the lending of money, Moses instructed now in case a country man of yours becomes poor and his means with regard to you falter, then you are to sustain him. Do not charge him exorbitant interest on what he has borrowed.

In other words, he's borrowed money from you, but now he's fallen on hard times. Don't rack up the interest and take advantage of this. In the book of Deuteronomy, we're given this principle where every seven years the people of Israel were to wipe off their books any debt owed to them. If somebody borrowed money from you, if you were a Jew living in that economy in the Old Testament and they borrowed it from you during the six year period, on the seventh year, you were to act as if they'd never borrowed it.

You were to wipe it off your books. They didn't owe you money. They didn't have to return whatever they borrowed from you. If they borrowed from you your brand new John Deere ride and lawnmower, your pride and you got it for Christmas. Anybody get one of those for Christmas?

I didn't, but I wish I had them. So if you'd like to make it up, just see me afterward. They want to borrow that from you. What would you say if they came to you on the sixth year and 11th month? Can I borrow your John Deere ride and lawnmower? You'd say, I don't think your grass is quite high enough yet.

Why don't you come back in about 30 days and we'll talk about that. You don't think the Israelite had problems with this too? Listen to what Moses instructed them in Deuteronomy 15. If there's a man, poor man with you, one of your brothers in any of your towns in your land, you shall not harden your heart nor close your hand from your brother. You shall freely open your hand to him and shall generously lend him sufficient for his need. Beware, lest there is an evil thought in your heart saying the seventh year is near. They had the same problem.

I would have had the same thought. Who would loan anybody anything on the sixth year? My point is that the Old Testament does not forbid lending and borrowing. In fact, it gives principles on how to manage it, especially to the poor who are in need of help from time to time. You ever been poor?

How many of you think I'm poor right now? You've been in need and someone has come along perhaps to help you with generosity and you don't know how to act, do you? I remember in the early years of this ministry, my wife and I didn't own a reliable vehicle to take trips on vacation time to Georgia.

We would risk taking a trip to see her family. And I'll never forget one couple in our young church coming to us and saying, listen, we want you to borrow our vehicle when you make out of town trips. We have a brand new van and we want you to use it. I said, are you serious?

You got to be kidding me. I've never heard of that before. Borrow your vehicle, put miles on it? Put wear and tear. Do you know how I drive? Wear and tear like you've never seen. Your brakes in good condition. If something happens to it, I won't be able to fix it.

I can't afford to fix it. I'll never forget his response. He said to me, listen, we wouldn't loan it to you if we weren't willing to never get it back.

And I thought, wow, bring on the seventh year, man. What generosity. That's the principle in the spirit. What about the New Testament?

What does that have to say? Jesus Christ said this, give to him who asks of you and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. Don't give him a lecture that says, oh, you need to borrow. Don't you know the Bible is against that?

No, let him borrow from you again. How to manage a Matthew five, verse forty two. We all know that great passage where the Lord says, give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, right?

Running over. What's interesting is that earlier in that same passage in Luke, the Lord recorded by Luke has said, love your enemies. Chapter six, do good and lend. In other words, the quality and characteristic of being good is lending to those who are in need. Lend, expecting nothing in return and your reward will be great. In other words, don't just lend to your Jewish brother.

That's what the Old Testament law said. Don't just lend to your Jewish brother who's poor. Now lend to your Gentile neighbor. Be generous to the guy who lives next door who doesn't know your faith in Jesus Christ. And if you never get it back, the Lord implies, don't let that destroy your relationship with that unbeliever.

Just know I will repay you handsomely one day. So neither the law nor the Lord forbade borrowing and lending. In fact, as I thought about this, it occurred to me, have you ever thought about the fact that God has lent his world to us? That we borrowed from him everything we have?

Do we believe in the principle of stewardship? That is, we own nothing. He owns everything, but he's loaned it to us to manage our money, our possessions, our homes, our everything, even our bodies. Have we forgotten our bodies don't even belong to us.

They belong to God who inhabits us through his Holy Spirit. So if we're not supposed to lend anything to anybody, God would become the chief offender. So Romans 13.8 cannot be condemning the loaning or borrowing of finances, which would include debt or possessions. But before we go much further, let me make sure that I balance this freedom with responsibility. The ability to borrow and the fact that both Old and New Testament allow for lending and borrowing even for the exacting of interest, though not exorbitant, especially from the poor brother.

We do have a challenge, do we not? The average Christian today in our culture is literally trapped by debt. The average household credit card debt in our country today, according to the latest statistics, is between $9,000 and $10,000. I remember reading this in the newspaper a couple of years ago, the average car payment per household in this county is $800 a month.

It's a couple of cars. No wonder the financial goal of the average person today is earn what they are spending. But here's something that I read just a couple of months ago that to me is an indication of a change in attitude that is moving further and further away from the standard of God's Word, even among the believing community. Nearly 30% of Americans, in fact, it's pushing toward 40% of Americans surveyed, said that they either didn't have the ability or, note this, they did not have the desire to get out of debt before their death.

They've maxed out their credit cards and they have no plan and no intention of ever paying them off. Ron Blue is a Christian financial planner and leader. His biblically based material is used in this church, as a matter of fact, in small groups called Crown Ministries, which helps people budget and learn how to handle finances.

And I highly recommend it to everyone. We've had hundreds of individuals and couples go through it. In one of his books he talked about how the Sears company introduced its Discover card a few years ago. They used Atlanta as a test market. And the Atlanta papers reported that Sears officials actually expected credit card usage to go up to the tune of about $35 billion. And what was interesting that I read is that people were not going to so much switch their cards and begin using the Discover card. What they were anticipating is that people would use the card as an additional line of credit and they anticipated the increased borrowing of the American public to be somewhere around $35 billion.

And they were probably low. No wonder Ron Blue wrote, if willpower alone cannot stop your impulsive borrowing, try plastic surgery. According to the Apostle Paul, the Christian is to be characterized as someone who works toward the payment of his debts.

In fact, the present tense is used in this verse in Romans 13.8. It could be translated, be owing continually no man. In other words, there's the intention or the attitude of owing with never paying.

And that would be wrong. Let no debt remain outstanding. That's Paul's idea here. If you happen to be in debt, pay your debts promptly. Pay them on time.

Work toward paying them off. To put it even more simply, the Christian should be known as someone who pays his bills on time. It sullies our name. It sullies our reputation. Do you know that the greatest risk institutionally in borrowing money from the bank is the church? The greatest risk. How tragic. The church, the believer ought to be the most financially diligent.

We ought to honor our financial commitments. Our handshake ought to literally still matter. This is how we live in the company of unbelievers. They don't care if we're in church today. They don't care how often you pray. They couldn't care less if you have a Bible. They want to know, are you going to pay what you owe?

That matters. And Paul says, if you want to live practically in the light of heaven, pay your bills. Simply put. I found it really interesting as I read further, Ron Blue said that he had an interesting insight on the way banks view people who actually pay credit card bills off, avoiding high interest. The banker told him that in the banking industry, a person who pays his bills right away is known as a deadbeat. They call us deadbeats because the company is unable to make much money from those who pay their bills on time. Imagine that a decade or two ago, a deadbeat was someone who didn't pay his bills. Now a deadbeat is somebody who does. So I guess what that means is a great synonym for us as Christians is deadbeats. By the way, the struggle to master your money is not a new one. It is so critical and such a temptation to misuse debt. It's not a new challenge. In my new members class, I read every session from an early church leader named Cyprian who wrote these words just 200 years after the ascension of Jesus Christ.

Imagine, I mean, it's still fresh. We're just a couple or three generations removed from the actual presence and ministry of Jesus Christ teaching on earth physically. And yet 200 years after his ascension, Cyprian wrote this of the church and the believers. Their possessions hold them in chains, chains which shackle their courage and choke their faith and hamper their judgment and throttle their souls. They think of themselves as owners, whereas it is they who are owned. Enslaved as they are to their own things, they are not the master of their money, but it's slaves.

Wow. There isn't any doubt that one of the greatest tests of spirituality you and I will ever be measured against is our own stewardship. Do I own things or do things own me? Do I possess money or does money possess me? One of the ways you answer that correctly and biblically is look at your bills.

Look at your plan. Don't be in the constant owing of debt with no thought or intention of paying it off. That's what Paul is saying in Romans 13 eight.

Make sure you have a reputation as it were of being a deadbeat. Pay what you owe when you owe it, whatever you owe it. And then he goes on in verse eight to tell us that there is something, though, that we should never stop paying on, something we can never pay off.

Look again. Oh, nothing to anyone except here's a debt except to love one another. This is the debt you are not to repay and you never will and you never should.

This is an obligation you will never pay off. You will never arrive at a point in life where you can say I have loved people all that I'm supposed to love. I have filled my quota. And from now on, I don't have to love anymore. You will never arrive at a point where you can say I no longer have to show kindness to people. I have filled my kindness quota. I no longer have to forgive all attributes of love. I have forgiven enough.

I have filled the quota. That was Peter's idea. I love that scene where he asked the Lord in Matthew 18, Lord, how often should I forgive somebody? Seven times.

Peter stood there patting himself on the back. The rabbis and Peters, they were teaching that it was commendable and holy if you forgive someone three times. If somebody did the same thing against you, if you'd forgive them three times, you were in the way of God. And so Peter says, Lord, I'm willing to more than double it seven times.

How's that sound? Should I forgive that person seven times? And the Lord said, Well, let me rearrange your mathematical thinking.

Try this. Seventy times. Seven. Four hundred and ninety times. In Luke, he said seven times every day. The point is, you don't keep count.

You don't count on a ledger. Well, that's the third time. That's it.

Or that's the seventh time. I'm done. Aren't you glad you cannot pay off the debt of love? You are, as it were, to max your love limit out. Think about it. Where would we be if God reached his limit with us?

You coming to me without sin again? Let's see how many times has it been. Three. Seven.

Seven hundred. And yet if we confess our sin, he's faithful and just to forgive us, right? His grace and his mercy are inexhaustible. We're working our way through a series called Living Like You're Leaving, as Stephen explores what it means to live your life with eternity in mind. Today we've seen that one of the ways we're supposed to live is by treating others with the kind of love that God has shown us. On our next broadcast, we're going to bring you the conclusion to this message because we don't have time to complete it today. In the meantime, we'd love to interact with you and learn how God is using these lessons to build you up in the Christian faith. Email us at info at wisdom online dot org. And of course, join us next time here on Wisdom for the Hearts.