9/8/14

From Mark Copeland... Indebted To Love (13:8-10)

                      "THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS"

                       Indebted To Love (13:8-10)

INTRODUCTION

1. In our duty to government, Paul commanded to pay what is due (taxes
   and customs, fear and honor - cf. Ro 13:7

2. He then proceeded to discuss our duty to our fellow man (to owe no
   one anything, except to love one another) - cf. Ro 13:8

3. This does not forbid borrowing where contract obligations are met...
   a. Otherwise Jesus would not have permitted borrowing - cf. Mt 5:42
   b. Certainly debts should be paid - cf. Ps 37:21

4. This appears to be a use of the comparative "not"...
   a. Where "not" is not used as a literal prohibition
   b. But to compare one thing to another (not this..but this)
   c. For example, look at Jn 6:27
      1) Did Jesus condemn working for food?
      2) No, He was emphasizing what is most important

5. The point is this:  we owe a debt to always love one another...
   a. "Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to
      love one another" (NIV)
   b. "Leave no debt unpaid except the standing debt of mutual love"
      (Weymouth)

[Thus Christians should always feel "Indebted To Love".  As to reasons
why, consider...]

I. WHY WE OWE THE DEBT

   A. IT FULFILLS THE LAW OF MOSES...
      1. Jewish Christians were slow to give up the Law - e.g., Ac 21:
         20ff
      2. Some tried to bind elements of the Law on Gentiles - e.g., Ac 15:1,5
      3. The apostles (and Holy Spirit) withstood such efforts - cf. Ac 15:28; Ga 5:1-4; Ro 7:4-6
      4. The command to love fulfilled much of the Law - Ro 13:8-10
      -- Jewish Christians could take comfort in knowing that keeping
         the command to love one another fulfilled the Law

   B. IT FULFILLS THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST...
      1. Jesus gave His disciples a new commandment - Jn 13:34,35; 15:12
         a. To love one another
         b. As He loved us
      2. The gospel reveals that God is love, and love is of God  - 1Jn 4:7-11
         a. Those who love are born of God and know Him
         b. God loved us, and so we ought to love another
      -- As disciples of Christ, it is only natural that we emulate the
         love shown us

[For such reasons, we "ought" (indebted) to love one another.  How can
we pay this "debt"...?]

II. HOW WE PAY THE DEBT

   A. THROUGH IMITATING JESUS...
      1. Jesus sets the standard - Jn 13:34; 15:12
         a. We are to love as He loved us
         b. This raises the quality of love (compared to loving one as
            yourself)
      2. Jesus sets a high standard - Jn 15:13; 1Jn 3:16-18
         a. By laying down His life for His friends
         b. We also ought to lay down our life for the brethren
      -- In principle, the example of Jesus illustrates how we pay the
         debt we owe

   B. THROUGH ACTIVE GOOD WILL...
      1. Paul defined true love - 1Co 13:4-8
         a. Defined by what it does
            1) Suffers long and is kind, rejoices in the truth
            2) Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
               endures all things
         b. Defined by what it does not do
            1) Does not envy; does not parade itself, is not puffed up
            2) Does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not
               provoked, thinks no evil
            3) Does not rejoice in iniquity, and never fails
      2. We can pay on the debt by treating one another in this way
         a. Be patient and kind; rejoicing in what is truth
         b. Forbearing with one another, believing and hoping for the
            best in one another
         c. Free from envy, arrogance, pride, and selfish interests
         d. Thinking no evil of a brother, and grieved when seeing one
            transgress
         e. Never failing to love as Christ loved us
      -- In practice, Paul's description provides guidance on how we pay
         the debt we owe

CONCLUSION

1. The debt we owe can never be fully paid...
   a. For we are to love one another as Christ loved us
   b. Yet His love "passes knowledge" - cf. Ep 3:19

2. Thus we should always feel an indebtedness...
   a. To increase in love - cf. 1Th 4:9-10
   b. To abound in love still more and more - cf. Php 1:9

In this way we can "approve the things that are excellent" and "be
sincere and without offense till the day of Christ." (Php 1:10).  Is this
not sufficient motivation to be "Indebted To Love"...?

Executable Outlines, Copyright © Mark A. Copeland, 2011

From Jim McGuiggan... Church Unity And the Life of God

Church Unity And the Life of God

Harry Emerson Fosdick said monogamy wasn't the view that a man or woman should have only one husband or wife at a time. He said monogamy is a man and woman so loving one another that all their lives they don't want to love anyone else in the same way so they get married. That gets to the heart of it. The formal definition is useful, maybe in some ways indispensable but it isn't the heart of the matter. So it is with church unity. Church unity isn't the proposal that a body of believers should think essentially the same things, practice essentially the same ordinances and liturgy and live a similar lifestyle. It's a body of people who congratulate one another that they have been called into the one Body of Jesus Christ and by God's Spirit set themselves together as brothers and sisters to make war in God's name against all that fragments and divides.

Church unity is a lifestyle and that lifestyle prizes virtues that make for unity and peace. Perhaps gentleness and humility, patience and forbearance all wrapped up in and being part of love are the virtues especially called on to face the long haul and the ceaseless work involved in protecting and nurturing church unity. And since the Jewish texture is everywhere seen in this epistle (see especially the "berakah" opening in 1:3) maybe we should allow the Hebrew "hesed" to shape our understanding of the Greek "agape" (love) here. If we do, wouldn't it stress even more the community nature of the commitment to love since the Hebrew term has that marked "community love" texture to it? Whatever our conclusion on that, humility is love refusing to strut and remembering that its business is to give itself for others. Meekness (gentleness) is love keeping its rights under control; it is love, pleased to show the strength to say no to itself.
Patience is love going the distance with peevish and narrow hearts and forbearance is love with the durability to put up with prolonged and needless opposition.

More to the point, these virtues are the proclamation of the life of God. Christians aren't called to mere virtue (however fine that may be). They are called to be imitators of God (5:1-2). But which "God"? Is there a vaguer word in the English language? It isn't the isolated God of Islam who appears to be stripped of everything but naked will or the god of any other eastern pantheon whose full careers are better told when children aren't present. He is not even the true God of the Old Testament who had not as yet fully revealed himself. The Christians were called to imitate the God of their Old Testament parents as he had now revealed himself. Israel's ancient Shema is reworked by Paul here in Ephesians 4:4-6 and given a "Trinitarian" slant (and more obviously in 1 Corinthians 8:4-6 where we see a Christological thrust). To live in the image of God, then, involves living in the image of the God who has shown himself to us as Father, Son and Spirit. It is to live in the image of the one true God who has existed in eternal holy communion between the Father and the Son in and through the Holy Spirit. It is that kind of life these Christians share and it is that life they are called to live out. So church unity is and images the unity of the Spirit who has eternally been the means and medium of fellowship in the "land of the Trinity". The unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace involves more than being nice people going to nice churches and being nice to other nice people.

The Christian's virtue is more than mere morality--it is "gospeling". It is proclaiming the truth about the person and passion of God, the crucified God who came to us in and as Jesus Christ. And church unity is human community that is divinely created and shaped by the divine reality that created it. All true, yet it's more than the horizontal result of work done by a benevolent God who keeps his distance, it is actual communion with that holy and benevolent God and it is that vital union with God that makes human communion possible.

©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.

Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, theabidingword.com.

From Gary... Get over it... Be HAPPY!!!





https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10151463488692592&fref=nf

I must have seen at least 75 or more Charlie Brown cartoons at church this year.  Our minister, Larry Shatzer, regularly includes them in his Bible studies.  Charlie- get over your attitude!!!  Life is too short to worry about what may happen!!!  Take a lesson from the video from  "Despicable" I saw on facebook today (Thanks to Astrid Olsen for posting it)!!! Now, once you get past the silly characters in the video and listen to the music and the lyrics, well it should improve your mood dramatically, because it did mine. And then I thought of this...

Philippians 4:4 NASB
(4)  Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!

 What more can I say- just enjoy the day (and the rest of your week for that matter)!!!!