The Law of Love
Righteousness Revealed: An Exposition of Romans

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Good morning, church. I bring you greetings from the men’s retreat. I got back a little after midnight last night; we still have 50+ of our men still there. They’re having a worship service right now, too, at camp Caswell in Asheboro. We’ve been having a great time this weekend, so I bring you greetings from them. I’m thankful to be here today. When you stay up really late like that and you’ve had a great weekend, you’re just so full that even though your body might be weak, you still have so much spiritual encouragement. I hope I can share that with you now as we hear from God’s word.

Before I begin the message, I have a couple of thoughts that I’d like to offer to you. One, is I want to thank the Lord for your generosity. I said back in the summer that I had met with some local pastors. We gathered together and said, “What if we paid the mortgage off for the Choices Women’s Center?” The Choices Women’s Center exists in Wilson in order to help women and families who have a crisis pregnancy, to help them choose life and to support them and help them. Our church has been part of that ministry for the last thirty years. We wanted to pay off their mortgage, so that all the donations that come to them actually could go into the ministry itself and so, a group of about eight pastors got together and we said, “We think we can do it. We think we can come together and pay off their $82,000 that they still owed on the mortgage. By faith, knowing you and knowing your generosity at that gathering, I said, “I think we can cover at least 5,000 of that.” I was thinking that our church would probably double it whenever I told them about the opportunity. Actually, the Lord has, because of His generosity, to cause you to do more than that. Here’s what we’ve raised today – $13,262. We give the Lord praise for that today. We give Him praise for His blessing on us that enables us to be generous in this way. We’re closing that out today; we’ll be writing that check and, and collaborating with these other churches. The first week of November, we’re going to make the presentation and officially pay off their mortgage. Isn’t that wonderful? I’m so excited about that. I was talking to the other pastors; all of us still own mortgages on our buildings, but we’re just excited that we can pay that off because that’s the way God works. We put others first and we’re thankful for that.

Speaking of putting others first, I want to give you an opportunity to give to the hurricane victims in Florida. There are over 117 dead, which apparently from what I’m reading is more deaths due to Hurricane Ian in Florida than any other hurricane since 1935. It’s been quite devastating. There was actually a family at our first service this morning that were here visiting from Florida and they had a lot of personal stories they could tell us. What I want to do is give you an opportunity to join with North Carolina baptists who have several trucks down there and several servants down there. We have a food truck down there right now. We have a laundry truck that’s just full of washers and dryers where people can come in and do their laundry because they don’t have electricity. We actually have a shower truck where people can get a hot shower. So, they can get a hot meal, a hot shower and get their laundry done. We actually sent a tanker down there full of drinking water. It looks like an oil tanker; it’s down there full of drinking water. We have servants down there working. So, I want to challenge you, church, because you’re so generous. That’s the kind of church that we are to consider how you might pray, give or go or all three. You can follow the link; you can see the QR code that we put up on the screen a moment ago. We’ll be putting it on facebook, too, in case you missed it. Be praying about how God might cause you to be generous in that way.

Speaking of prayer, let me pray and then we’ll begin. Lord, first of all, we give you thanks for your generosity that enabled us to give to Choices Women’s Center. We pray for that ministry today and we’re thankful to you for that. Lord, we pray for the many people that are struggling in Florida right now that have lost homes; they’re homeless and some have lost loved ones. We pray for their encouragement. We pray that Your name will be glorified there and we pray for our ministry there, that you would lead us to know how to respond personally to those needs. We lift all of this up to you now. Be with us now as we hear from Your word. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

We’re in chapter 13 of Romans. We began a few years ago; every year, we’ve taken on four chapters of Romans. Now, we’re in the final four chapters. We started last week with the first part of chapter 13 and we’ll conclude chapter 13 today with verses 8 to 14.

You’ll recall that we’ve entitled this series, “Righteousness Revealed.” We get our title from Romans 1:16-17 (ESV), where Paul says, 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed …” We have entitled this message series, “Righteousness Revealed.”

In the first eleven chapters, Paul is teaching us about the doctrine of the Gospel. He teaches us that the Gospel is for those who have sinned against God, rebelled against God and chose to go their own way. Because Jesus died on the cross for our sins, He offers us His righteousness, so that when we receive Jesus by faith, we can be born again and we can be made right with God. So, in Christ, God’s righteousness is revealed. Paul spends eleven chapters teaching us the doctrine.

In chapter 12, verse one, Paul shifts from doctrine to direction and from proposition to prescription. Starting in chapter 12, Paul tells us that now that we have received the Gospel and we understand the Gospel, here’s what it looks like to live it out; this is what Gospel living looks like. He describes how your mind has been transformed.

Romans 12:1-2 (ESV) 1 “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Now, we have new minds that are being transformed, so that we have the mind of Christ and we have a new way of thinking that wants to do God’s will.

Now, because we live in the computer age, we are familiar with what we call an “OS” You know that you have an OS on your phone and you have an OS on your computer. OS stands for “operating system.” You’re not really aware of that unless you’re a computer programmer, but it runs behind the scenes and all of your applications, all of your apps are empowered by the operating system . We see the apps; we see what they do, but we don’t see the operating system.

Here’s what Paul is saying in the latter part of Chapter 13– he’s saying that the operating system of the transformed mind is “love.” It’s a law now at work in the believer; it’s “love.” The name of the new OS is not Microsoft, you know, 2.0, but it’s “love.” That’s the new operating system.

As we reflect back on chapter 12, we can see it “through that lens” now. So, here’s how love is working. In verse three of chapter 12, he tells us how the law of love is at work. This transformed mind causes you to look at yourself differently, so you’re able to give yourself a sober appraisal, not thinking too highly of yourself nor thinking too little of yourself, but right thinking towards yourself because you’re looking with this transformed mind.

Verses four through eight says that this is how you should look for fellow believers and how should you should use your spiritual gifts to to love fellow believers. Then in chapter 12, verses 9 through 16, he tells us that here’s how you should treat unbelievers, even enemies. You’re to love your enemies.

Now we get to chapter 13. We covered verses one through seven last week. Paul tells us how the transformed mind of love works as it regards the government. We are to obey the governing authorities and pray for our president, our governor, our mayor and our police officers. We’re to be people who do good in the world. We’re to love our neighbor. Now, it brings us to verses eight and following.

If you look up the words, “operating system,” in the dictionary, it says, “an operating system (OS) is the program that, after being initially loaded into the computer by a boot program, manages all of the other application programs in a computer.” When I talk about the law of love being like an operating system, I don’t mean law, like the speed limit is 55. I don’t mean like that, like a list of “dos” and “don’ts”; do this, don’t do that. I don’t mean law like that. I mean, when I talk about the law of love, I’m really talking about more like the law of gravity. It’s not written down somewhere, like you need to really be careful and obey the law of gravity. All I have to do is just step off this stage and the law of gravity will take effect. It’s working behind the scenes, you can’t see it, but trust me, what goes up must come down.

That’s what this law of love is. It works behind the scenes, motivating your attitudes and your actions in a new way that’s transformed by Jesus in you. This is why the apostle James refers to it as the “royal law.” He says this in James 2:8 (ESV) If you reallyfulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.” So this love, this new transformed operating system, this new law for the believer is the royal law. This is to be the way we think about it.

If everyone lived according to this royal law of love, there would be no more war, no murder, no adultery, no fighting, no gossip, no racism, no divorce, no hunger, no homelessness, no crime, no prisons, no need for locking our doors. Even our police are not solving crimes anymore. I guess they could direct traffic and make sure that if somebody has an accident they could be on scene to help them. They would still need their ticket books and their whistles, but maybe not their guns anymore. If we all lived by the law of love, we would be getting a foretaste of heaven because what we’re called to as believers now is to begin to live as eternal beings and light in the darkness of this world. So, we are to live by the law of love now, so that the world catches a glimpse of the kingdom of Heaven in us.

What’s your mental OS today? Is it love? What gravity tugs and pulls are you thinking about today? Is it love, is it hatred, is it unforgiveness, is it a lack of reconciliation or is it judgment? Is it being critical of someone else? Or is it some addiction that’s that you’re grappling with? Or is it depression or discouragement? A low self esteem? What’s your operating system? What law does your mind function on according to what’s working behind the scenes? Is it love? Would you like for it to be?

This is what the Apostle Paul is talking about. He instructed the believers in Rome that they were to let God’s law of love govern their attitudes and actions. I believe today, as believers, that Jesus Christ will empower us to let the law of love govern our ways of thinking, our actions and our attitudes. As we look at the text today, I believe we’ll see four reasons why this is so. Let’s look at the text; let’s dig in. Romans 13:8-14 (ESV) 8 “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 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: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. 11 Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. 12 The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off >the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” This is God’s word. Amen.

We are looking for four reasons why God’s law of love is to govern our attitudes and actions. Here’s the first reason:

1. Because love is a continuing debt we owe.

Love is a debt. It’s a perpetual debt that we can never repay. Notice the word, “ owe,” in verse eight. Circle the word, “owe;” some might look at this and think, Well, I just read verse seven last week and Paul said that you are to give people what you owe. That you’re supposed to. If you owe taxes, pay taxes. If you owe revenue, pay revenue. If you owe honor, if you owe respect, pay it.Now, in verse eight, he says, “Owe no one anything…” Now, which is it? Is Paul contradicting himself, in one verse apart? No, he’s not. He means this in a different way. He says to not let the debt continue. Don’t keep owing someone if you owe him. Pay him. In verse eight, he’s saying to not let the debt remain.

Let me offer you another translation to help you with this. Romans 13:8 (NIV) “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.” Let’s think about it like this – He says, now look, if you owe taxes, if you borrowed money and you signed the paperwork, you pay what you owe, except when it comes to love. When it comes to love, you’ll never zero that one out. That’s a debt you’ll never be able to repay.

Just imagine a husband saying to his wife, “You know,, honey, I’ve loved you all these years and I feel like I’ve loved you enough. You know, I’ve put enough love in the “love bank;” the deposit is great enough. I feel like we could just cruise on out the rest of our lives on the love investment I’ve given you.” Can you imagine what that wife would say to him?

Love’s a debt that you’ll never repay because you always will owe it. I’ll tell you why. It’s because of the love demonstrated in Jesus Christ that’s been poured out for you. You’ll never be able to repay it, nor should you want to. That’s a debt that you should joyfully and always be ready to pay. That’s the debt to love God and to love one another. You’ll never be able to say, “You know what? I think I’ve loved enough now.” No, you haven’t. You just got started.

The word, “love” here , you will l see it five times in our reading today. All five times, it’s the Greek word, “agape.” We’ve noted in the past that the Greek language is a very precise language. It’s the language of the New Testament. There are four Greek words for love. One of them means “friendship love.” One of them means “sexual love.” Another one means more like “conditional love,” but this one means “unconditional love.” God’s kind of love; sacrificial love. All five times in our reading today, it is “agape love.” That’s the kind of love he’s talking about.

Notice in verse eight, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other…” “No one” has a Greek word underneath it; it means “another person of the same kind.” As you remember, I told you how Greek is so precise here. Paul says to love other believers; those like you.

Before he gets out of the same verse, he says, “for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. “ for the one who loves another. Now this is a different Greek word. “Another” is different from “each other;” “another” means someone of a different kind. So, you are to love those like you and love those not like you; believers and unbelievers. He puts both of these “another” type words in the same verse, where the real test of love is that you love people with different beliefs and different theology, different personality and different politics, different in mannerisms, different in taste, race,values and history. In other words, with love, difference makes no difference. The law of love continues to work behind the scenes. How do we feel this motivation as believers? How does this work in the new operating system? It’s the love of Christ that compels us.

Look what Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 (NKJV) 14 “For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; 15 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.”. So this love of Christ that compels us is the kind of love that causes us to no longer live for ourselves, but to live for others. This is “agape love.” It’s God’s kind of love. It’s the kind of love that lays down one’s life for another. This is the new operating system. This is the new law of the transformed mind of the believer that you’re to love God and to love one another and the more. They’re not like you; “the more.” The real test is in place of whether or not you’re operating according to this new, transformed mind.

I don’t know if you’ve been around long enough. I remember, in the early 1990’s, my kids were small and I was trying to find music that they would like that was Christian. There was this Christian group, called DC Talk. . I don’t know if you remember hearing about them. They wrote a song in 1992 called, “Love is a verb.” The lyrics went something like this: Hey, tell me, haven’t you heard? Love is a serious word . Hey, I think it’s time you learned. I don’t care what they say. I don’t care what you heard. The word love, love is a verb.” I had to look the song up because I didn’t remember the lyrics, but I remember the song and I remember buying a little cassette for my kids to listen to that song. I found that there was another song with the same title, written by John Mayer. Maybe, you know that song. I’m not sure he’s talking about DC Talk’s kind of love. He might be talking about another kind of love, but the lyrics are still very similar. Here’s how his lyrics go: Love is a verb. It ain’t a thing and it’s not something you hold and it’s not something you scream. When you show me love, I don’t need your words. Yeah, Love ain’t a thing. Love is a verb. So you’ve got to show me. Show me. Show me. Yeah, love ain’t a thing, love is a verb .

That’s what I would say to you. It’s a debt you’ll never repay and it’s more than a noun. It’s a verb. It’s an action. It’s important to say to people, “I love you,” but it’s even more important to be willing to lay down your life and to put others ahead of yourself. It’s a debt you’ll never repay. You’ll never “zero” it out. It’s evidence of the new mind, the new way of thinking.

Here’s the second reason:

2. Because love fulfills the whole of God’s law.

Love fulfills the whole book. In fact, this whole book could be called “God’s love letter.” If you have this new way of thinking about love, the love of Christ in you, it’s important to look at the details because it’s God’s love letter to you. You don’t have to worry about keeping the law. You’ll automatically keep it because the law of love is working in you to love God and love others. That’s what Paul says. Don’t look at me, thinking, Gary, I’m not sure about that. That’s what Paul says, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

He says it a couple of times. He says in verse eight, “…for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” In case you missed it the first time, he repeats it in verse 10, “…therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” When he says “the law,” he means all of that back there –the 10 Commandments, plus the over 600 interpretations of the 10 commandments, found in the book of Leviticus. I think there’s over 600 sub laws that came out of those 10 Commandments. He says, “…for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law,” and he gives you some of them. In verse nine, he says, 9 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: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The word “love,” fulfills them all . In fact, he goes on, he says, “…and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The word, “summed,” means “gathered together, complete,” so that this whole thing is summed up in one word. What’s the word? “Love.” If you love God and you love your neighbor as yourself, you’ll do the commandments because the commandments were only to point us back to the motivating operating system, which is the law of love. This is what we’re called to, believer. We don’t have to be rule keepers or legalists. We’re to live by the law of love, which operates in such a way that we automatically do no harm to our neighbor and we do no harm to God because we love them. It’s the new operating system. It’s the new way of thinking, being and and doing.

Remember what Jesus said was the great commandment in Matthew 22:37-40 (NLT) 37 “Jesus replied, “‘You must love theLord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

Paul said it. Jesus said it. James said it. I’m just repeating what they taught us. If you let love be the law of your thinking and activity, you’ll do what God’s word says; you’ll fulfill the law. Love your neighbor.

Now don’t be like the Pharisee that came to Jesus and said, ‘Okay, so I know the great commandment is love God, and the second is like it, love your neighbor, but who’s my neighbor?’ He thought he could test Jesus with that, ‘Who’s my neighbor?’ Do you remember that Jesus, instead of just answering that question, told him a parable . It’s the parable of The Good Samaritan. Luke 10:25-37 A lawyer tried to test Jesus… 29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.” I’m sure this irritated the Pharisee the way Jesus told the story. A Samaritan was what the Jews called, “a half breed dog.” They hated the Samaritans because the Samaritans had been Jewish but they had intermarried with the Assyrians and the Canaanites and they had come up with their own religion which was kind of a syncretic thing between Judaism and and these foreign religions. The Jews and the Samaritans hated each other. But, Jesus tells this parable. Jesus asked him, “Who was the neighbor” and he says, “The one who showed mercy.” He didn’t have any more questions for Jesus after that.

The commandments that Paul chose to use come from the second tablet of the Dekalog. If you just think about the two tablets, the first five commandments are all oriented vertically. “No gods before me. Don’t use my name in vain. No idols. Keep the sabbath.” Even “honor your father and mother” is a vertical one because there are designated shepherds over you. Those five commandments are fulfilled if you love God with all your heart, strength, soul and mind. You’ll keep the first five commandments. The second five commandments are more horizontal – “Don’t murder, Don’t commit adultery. Don’t steal. Don’t bear false witness. Don’t covet.” If you love your neighbor, you won’t break them. That’s how Paul seems to organize it here because God’s kind of love fulfills the law.

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the great awakening of 1904. Many call it the “Fourth Great Awakening” that followed the first great awakening that happened with Jonathan Edwards in the 1700’s. It originated there. This one originated with a coal miner named Evan Roberts. He was a coal miner in Wales. He became convicted of his sins by the Holy Spirit. He repented, began to preach and start prayer meetings among the youth in his church. Before long, these prayer meetings broke out throughout Wales and they started having prayer groups all over the place.It began to affect social conditions. Tavern owners went bankrupt because people stopped going and spending all their money on drinks. Police officers began to form gospel quartets because they had no one to arrest. Coal mines were shut down for a time because the coal miners no longer used profanity and the mules didn’t understand what they were saying.

I told this story in the first service and people laughed just like you just did. May I say to you that when I was a young man, I spent summers with my grandfather, “my papa.” He still worked the farm with mules. The names of the two mules were Kate and Beck. We would work out in the fields with them. I was 11 or 12 years old when one time I was pulling the reins and I told my Papa, “Kate and Beck are not listening to me.” He said to me, “Your uncle George has ruined him, Gary. He cusses them so much that they don’t understand ordinary English. I’m going to say some things to them. Now, don’t you tell your granny what I’m saying.” I was an eyewitness to the reality that mules learn the way you talk to them.

The revival from Wales spread to America, where it landed in Atlantic City, New Jersey, believe it or not, when the population was about 50,000 at the time. According to the ministers there, they could only find about 50 people of the 50,000 that had yet to come to Christ. So many people had turned to Christ in Portland, Oregon, that stores began to close from 11 to 2 every day so people could go to prayer meetings at lunchtime.

This is what happens when love sweeps across the ocean and lands in our hearts. We begin to do right and do good. Commandments limit sin, but love doesn’t even move towards sin. It only works towards doing right and doing good. Being salt and light for others.

Here’s the third:

3. Because love knows the urgency of the hour.

Love is a debt that we can never repay. L ove fulfills the whole law. Love knows the urgency of the hour.

We’re in verse 11, “Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.” Now, what is Paul talking about? He’s saying that here’s another reason why you need to live by the law of love; it is because of the late hour.

The word, “time,” here in the Greek is “kairos.” There’s two groups. There’s two Greek words for time – “kairos” and “chronos.” You may recognize the word, “chronos;” it’s where we get words like “chronology.” It has to do with minutes, seconds and hours; it has to do with a precise time. Whereas, “kairos” has more to do with a season.

When a doctor tells a pregnant lady the due date, he’s not giving the “chronos” time. He’s giving her the “kairos” time. He’s saying that it’ll be somewhere around nine months . It’s “kairos” time.

What Paul is saying here, is that you know the time; the hour has come to wake up and to stop living for temporal things, but to live for eternal things, because the day of Christ’s return is nigh. Start loving people and start living in this new light. Verse 11, “…For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.”

Paul wrote this 2000 years ago. He wasn’t saying that necessarily Jesus was coming any day, but he was ready for it. What he knew was what Jesus had done by, by His death and His resurrection, that the only thing now that we’re waiting on is for Him to come again and He could come at any time. Here’s what else Paul said; he said that when you got saved, every day after that is one day closer.

I came to Christ when I was eight years old. I am 64 now and I’m one day closer. He’s either going to come and get all of us and we’ll all go or he’ll come and just get one of us. He might come get me, but I’m a day closer right now and tomorrow will be another day closer. Every day that goes by, we should sense a greater sense of urgency to tell people about the love of God. Not only His love, but that God has poured out love on me so that I love them; so that I tell people, “I love you.” With all of my heart, even if I’ve never met you, but as soon as I meet you, I know I’m going to love you because I have a new operating system. I have a new law at work in the way that I think. Christ’s love is in me. Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This is the new way that we think.

My little brother died a couple of weeks ago; he graduated to heaven a couple of weeks ago. I’m eleven years older than him. He was supposed to go after me, not before me, at least in my way of thinking, but that’s the mystery of how God works. I don’t understand it, but that’s what happened. I’m still grieving a little bit. Pray for me. But, I have the love of Jesus in me. As soon as he passed, I started thinking, What was the last thing I said to him and what was the last thing he said to me? I remember, just a few weeks before he passed, we were at a family reunion and I put my arm around him. We had attended a church service that morning and I said, “I love you, Donnie.” He said, “I love you too.” I’m really thankful for that.

I will say to you , make sure you have a sense of urgency about telling the people you love that you love them. Then, more than that, make sure you have a sense of urgency about telling the people that maybe you’re not sure you love, that you love them by faith and that you’ll grow into loving them as you depend more on the love of Jesus.

Don’t forget the hour; the hour is late. Jesus is coming soon. We’re to be marked by this new operating system; this law of love. Here’s what it says in Hebrews 10:24-25 (ESV) 24 “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” The day, capital D day, of drawing near His return.

Here I am. I’m stirring you up and I’m stirring myself up to love. Let it be the mark of your life. Wake up, sleeper; the hour is near. Begin to love one another. Here’s number four:

4. Because love is putting on the Lord Jesus Christ.

What is love? Love has a name; His name is Jesus. Put on Jesus. When you put on Jesus, you put on love.

Look at verse 14, “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” He’s using a metaphor for clothing here; “put on.” You must put some stuff off, too. We see that back in verse 12, “…So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” You need to put off the deeds of darkness and live like people who live in the light. “Put on the armor of light.” Put on Jesus. He’s using a clothing metaphor here. You have to cast off the works of darkness and put on this armor of light. This armor of light, I would name it “love” in the context. Here, the name of this armor is love. Put it on. If you have the Lord Jesus Christ living in you, you already have the love of Christ living in you, so put it on so other people can see it and experience it. Put on love, which is Jesus, and put off the works of darkness.

Now he lists them in pairs of two, there’s three pairs.13 “Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness;” that’s the first pair. The word “orgy,” today has more of a sexual connotation, but in ancient times it came from the festival of Bacchus, which was the god of wine. People, during the festival of Bacchus, would stay out all night frolicking, nonsense partying and getting drunk. Maybe, sexuality had something to do with it, but it had more of the idea of just wild parties and just like letting the hour go by. That’s something you do in the darkness, by the way. Sin loves darkness and loves secrets. The first pair has to do with partying and drunkenness; just like “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die ,” kind of thinking, with no sense of the eternal. Paul says to put that off.

The second pair is found, also, in verse 13, “…not in sexual immorality and sensuality…” The second pair has to do with not wasting all of your time wrapping yourself around sexual things. It goes all the way back to the book of Genesis 2:24, “For this reason, a man will leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife and they shall become one flesh.” That speaks of the rightness of the man and the woman getting married and having a covenant of marriage for life and that’s where sexuality belongs. Sex is like dynamite; It’ll blow you up and kill you if you don’t use it in the right connotation. You need to follow the instructions. It’s one man, one woman for life; that’s what God’s intent for sex . Paul is referring here to those who want to use it outside of that. Paul says that you need to take that off; that’s not your identity. Don’t put on those clothes and say, ‘That’s who I am, based on my sexuality.’ Put that kind of clothing off.

The third pair is in verse 13, “… not in quarreling and jealousy.” Don’t get caught up in quarreling and jealousy. Don’t waste your time on things that belong to the night– quarreling, being judgemental and divisions. Put on the Lord Jesus. Put on His love.

Dr. Bob Deffinbaugh says, “There is no human means for Christ-like living. God has provided for us that which we lack. We must simply walk in the Spirit of Christ, by faith.” If we walk in the spirit of Christ, we walk by faith; we walk in love. We can’t do it on our own; we must have His love within us. If we “put” Him on, we can love because He loves in us and through us.

Make no provision for the flesh. The idea of provision here is “forethought, to plan ahead and leave room for sin.” It’s like the man who’s an alcoholic. He tells his preacher, “I want you to pray for me, I fell off the wagon again.” The pastor asks him, “Well, what happened?” The man replies, “Well, on the way home, I drove by the bar and those lights and everything just pulled me in. I fell off the wagon.” The pastor tells him, “Well, brother, the bar is not on your way home. You had to drive out of your way.” The man says, “Oh yeah. I guess I did.” He made a provision for it. He went out of his way.

Another way that Paul might be talking to us would be make sin inconvenient . Put on Christ and follow the law of love. If you’ve got a temptation area, don’t run up to the guardrail and peep over the cliff. Stay on the “highway” of love. Don’t get over there; don’t make a provision for it. Don’t test yourself, because the old nature is still present. Put on Christ.

Colossians 3:12-14 (ESV) 12 “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” What is this name of love?

1 John 4:16-17 (NLT) 16 “…God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17 And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we willnot be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.”

If you put on Jesus, you put on love. It’s the chief mark of the way you think and act. Who do you need to tell that? You forgive them and you love them today. Put on Jesus.

My brother was a police officer and I remember how proud he was when he would put on his uniform. My son, Jonathan, was a chaplain in the army for ten years. He would put on that uniform. I remember when he got promoted from second lieutenant to first lieutenant and then, he got promoted from first lieutenant to captain. When he became captain, they converted the captain’s bars to a cross. He was an official chaplain; he worked for that. When he wore that uniform, he said to me, “When you put that uniform on there’s something “magical” that happens. “messageTimecode” title=”Play the video starting here” data-timecode=”2601.47″>You already know that you’re that you’re in the army and you already know that you’re serving the United States of America and you already know as a chaplain, you’re serving the Lord. But, when you put that uniform on, everybody else knows now. You walk into a place and they salute you. They would say, “Good morning, “chappie;” good morning, chaplain.” Even if you’re having a bad day, even if you don’t feel quite right, you start living into the uniform because it reminds you of who you are.” Here’s what I’m saying to you, the metaphor might fall short, but you get the idea: put on Jesus. If you put on Jesus, He lives inside of you and you’ll begin to show people the love of Chris. You’ll begin to live out what’s living in you, namely, this law of love. Do you know Jesus today?

Let’s pray; let’s talk to Him now. Lord Jesus, we come to you . I pray for that person, first of all, that might be with us today and they came in without a relationship to You. I want to pray for you right now, my dear friend. If that’s you, you need to know this love of God that you can only have through a relationship with Jesus. You can pray with me right where you are, pray like this: “Dear Lord Jesus, I’m a sinner, but I believe You died on the cross for my sin and I believe you were raised from the grave and live today. I believe that. Come and live in me. I want You as my Lord and Savior and I desire to be a child of God. Would You, right now, forgive me of my sins and accept me; make me right with the Father.” If you are praying that prayer right now, believing, what matters is not exactly the words of your mouth, but the attitude of faith in your heart, confessing Jesus. He will save you and make you a child of God and He will pour His love out inside of you. Others are here today and you’re a believer, you know Jesus. But, as you were hearing the word of God, you were thinking, I’m not right with a coworker. I’m not right with a brother or a sister. I’m not right with my spouse. I’m not right with one of my children or grandchildren. I’m not right. The Holy Spirit is telling you that you’re supposed to love them because you have the Lord Jesus inside of you. So would you do this? Would you just say, “Lord, I confess. I’m not just confessing, but I’m asking, Lord. I put off hatred. I put off unforgiveness. I put off unreconciliation. Lord, I put on love. I put on Jesus. Help me now to love like You love me. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.