CCC Livestream - It's All About The Gospel - Romans 13:8-14

Live Worship Gathering: 11/30/2025

Preaching: Jason Purdy

The Law Of Love

Jason Purdy

It’s All About The Gospel / Romans 13:8–14

I invite you to take your Bible and turn with me to Romans 13.

We will look at verses 8-14 today.

So, we will finish Romans 13 today, then pause a few weeks for some Christmas sermons, and we will pick back up in Romans 14 beginning in the new year.

I want to apologize to the Cuba team and tell them how sorry I am that they missed the sermon on paying their taxes last Sunday.

I am sure you all have already gone to the website and listened to it a few times since your return.

But, in all seriousness, I am thankful for God’s work through our Cuba team and for their return.

I pray you had a wonderful week of Thanksgiving and pray we would cultivate a heart of thanks to the Lord all year round.

One of the great challenges a new follower of Jesus faces is trying to figure out how to approach God’s word.

It’s not like opening up a new bank account where the bank teller hands you a two page pamphlet on how to set up your online account.

Instead, Jesus saves your soul through the preaching of the gospel, and then he, through the church, hands you a sixty six book library of thousands of pages of ancient texts and says, “This word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.”

Then, as you begin to read, you realize while Christians say that the Bible is like a roadmap to life, it doesn’t read like a roadmap at all!

You begin reading, and pretty soon, you realize all the families in Genesis live just like the people you would see on that old Jerry Springer show.

Then you run into a bunch of ancient law code, more history, then poetry, and prophecy, and you find out Jesus doesn’t even show up until two thirds of the way through this massive tome.

Now, I want to make clear: all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.

And Jesus promises us that the Holy Spirit of God will teach us and illuminate the truth of Scripture to us.

But, just because the Bible is a big book, does not mean that the Christian life is difficult to understand.

In fact, there are certain passages in the Scripture that help summarize and clarify things in such a way that helps us beautifully clarify the simplicity of the Christian life, and we come to one of those passages today.

In verse 7 of chapter 13 where we left off last week, we read:

Pay what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

Please follow along as I read for us today’s passage:

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.

1. Fulfilling God’s Law Means Living A Life Of Love

Verse 8 begins: owe no one anything.

This phrase connects us to where we ended last week.

If we are to obey our governing authorities whom God has appointed and pay our taxes, and if we give our respect and honor to all who are owed it, then, we owe no one anything except to love each other.

Now, owe no one anything does not mean we should never take out a mortgage on a house or take out some other kind of loan that we then have to pay back.

We see laws in the Old Testament that provide for taking out such loans.

Instead, the phrase “owe no one anything” is being contrasted with the debt of love that we owe one another.

In other words, there must only be one debt in your life that you have toward others that never gets fully paid off, you should only have one continual life long debt, and that is the debt of love you are to continually pay to others.

I say all the time that the Christian life is not first about what we can do for God, but about what God has done for us in Christ.

And what God has done for us in the gospel is completely motivated and empowered by His love.

Romans 5:8 ESV

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

1 John 4:10 ESV

10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

God is love, so if you want to know what true love is, you must learn love from God.

Love is one of the most overused and misunderstood concepts in our world.

I’ve said before that love is a sacrificial commitment for the good of another.

It is not at its foundation a feeling. Love is not something you fall in and out of.

Love is a sacrificial commitment for the good of another.

Love speaks the truth of God to one another.

Love forgives and keeps no record of wrongs.

Love bears with others in their weaknesses.

Love hopes all things, believes all things, and endures all things.

Now, make sure you understand, love does not mean you accept whoever someone wants to be or whatever they want to do.

Love means you desire their best good in line with the truth of God who created them.

And just as God’s love is so perfectly demonstrated in Christ dying for us,

When you repent of sin and believe the gospel, you are then empowered by God’s grace to live a life motivated by love.

1 Corinthians 13:1–2 ESV

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

You can do a lot of religious things, but if you are not motivated by love, it is worthless.

Offering your life as a living sacrifice in worshipful service is offering yourself to a life of love.

End of verse 8: for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

No doubt, Paul is drawing on the teaching of Jesus in:

Matthew 22:37–40 ESV

37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

How can I possibly live my life in a way that perfectly aligns with God’s word, this huge ancient text?

Here’s how: You love God with all you are and you love others even more than yourself.

And though none of us can attain this perfectly due to our sin, God sent His son Jesus who did live a life of perfectly loving God and others than he died to take the punishment of our sin and failures onto himself that we might be forgiven and freed.

How could Paul possibly say that the one who loves another had fulfilled the law? Do you realize the Old Testament law is made up of something like 613 laws?

Here’s how:

No one can rightly love others without first loving God, and no one can rightly love God without first experiencing the love of God in the gospel,

But, if you have experienced the love of God in the gospel of your salvation, you now have the Spirit of God inside you to empower you to love others as you seek to live by His word.

The early church father Augustine once said the Christian life can be summed up this way: Love God and do whatever you want.

And he doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter what you do.

What he means is: if you truly love God, it is because God has poured his love out on you, and has given you new desires to live to please and obey Him by loving others.

So, if you love God with all you are, you will obey him.

Verse 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.”

You see, even in the midst of the Old Testament law, Moses received the Ten Commandments that are like a summary in which all the other laws fall under.

And here, Paul lists four of the last six commands that pertain to how we are to relate with one another.

The first four commands in the ten commandments are how we are to relate with God and the last six are how we are to relate with one another.

And Paul states that these commands on how to relate with one another can be summed up in this command: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

For, if you are loving others the way that God loves, you are not going to treat them as objects of sexual desire and commit adultery.

You are not going to murder or hate someone from your heart.

You are not going to steal from them or wish you had something instead of someone else having it.

Many people have seen the command to love your neighbor as yourself as proof that God would have us love ourselves.

And while the ideas of self love floating around in our culture are highly selfish and individualistic, there is certainly a healthy way to relate to and love yourself.

Now of course, we are not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, but we are also not to loathe and harm ourselves.

We should see ourselves as image bearers of God and take care of ourselves as God’s temple used in the service of the King.

And as we do, we are to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

Verse 10: Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Fulfilling God’s law means living a life of love.

Warring against bitterness. Warring against jealousy. Warring against pride.

Defining love by the love of God, and loving others by obeying God’s commands and pursuing good for them.

2. Wake Up From Spiritual Sleep

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.

Let’s remember that the context is that we are to keep ourselves untangled from the world by showing proper respect and honor and paying our taxes and debts so that the focus of our lives is being free to love others.

And the first reason living a life of love is so valuable to us is that it fulfills the law of God in our lives and so pleases God.

There is yet another reason besides this and that reason has to do with the time.

The hour has come for you to wake from sleep, why?

Because salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.

You see, a lot of times we talk about how excited we were about following Jesus when we first believed.

Knowing and walking with Jesus was fresh and new, so we felt excited and on fire for Jesus.

But, over time, our zeal can dissipate.

And that happens as we get disappointed with our remaining sin and disappointed by disillusionment when the experience of following Jesus isn’t always what we thought it would be,

But this passage actually challenges us to take the opposite approach.

That approach says that final salvation is closer to you now then when you first believed.

Too oftentimes we oversell what following Jesus is going to feel like on this side of eternity and we way undersell what it is going to be like in eternity itself.

While the blessings of salvation in Christ are experienced now, the real hope and joy is in the experience of when we get to eternity!

So, the time is now to wake up from spiritual and moral sleep!

I know it’s hard! I know it’s a battle to not let the sins of the world lull you to sleep.

I know it’s a battle to not let your own temptations lull you to spiritual and moral sleep.

But, do you not realize that the salvation and eternity that you were so excited about the day you were saved is closer now to being fully realized than the first day you said yes to Jesus?

Wake up! Whatever sin you need to fight and put off, get to it!

Fight today! Stop putting it off!

Stop telling yourself that you are going to get around to centering your life on God and His word,

Centering your life on loving God and others,

Centering your life on the mission God has for you through the church,

Centering your life on service in love for others.

You remember when Jesus was in the garden with his disciples the night that he was arrested, tried, and crucified?

What did Jesus tell them?

Stay awake! Pray! Stay alert.

And every time he comes back from praying, he finds them sleeping.

When Jesus taught about his coming again, he commanded, “stay awake” for you do not know when Jesus will return.

You know what I’m bad about this time of year?

I’m bad about telling myself that I’m going to slack off, enjoy the holidays, and then I will get serious about my eating and exercise on January 1.

You know the problem with that kind of thinking? God didn’t ask me to plan to obey later, God asked me to obey today.

And another thing, God never promised me that I am going to make it to January 1.

Wake up from spiritual sleep.

3. Walk Properly As In The Daytime

Verse 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.

The metaphor of being awake or being asleep moves into the metaphor of the day and the night: the light and the darkness.

Being asleep and walking in darkness speaks to a lack of spiritual alertness, a casual acceptance of sin, a comfort level with not living a life centered on love for God and love for others.

For those of us who are in Christ, the truth of our spiritual situation is that the night is far gone, and the day is at hand.

While this world continues to walk around in darkness in the middle of the night, for us who are in Christ, the night is far gone, and the day is at hand!

Paul writes similar themes to the Thessalonians as he teaches them of the coming day of the Lord:

1 Thessalonians 5:4–8 ESV

4 But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. 5 For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. 6 So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. 8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.

One of the most powerful New Testament principles for living the life of following Jesus is living this present day in light of the coming day of the Lord.

In Christ, you have been saved and freed from the sin and entanglements of this present dark age in order to live in the light and the glory of the day that is coming when Jesus will come again and make all things new.

Wake from sleep. Understand that sin and darkness are the way of the world and are leading toward death and destruction,

But while we were still sinners, Christ was destroyed to death in our place for our sin so that we would no longer walk around in darkness but instead we would walk as our resurrected Savior walks as in the day, confident in the hope of eternity.

Verse 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.

One way our salvation is described throughout the Scripture is in terms of clothing.

In the garden of Eden, before Adam and Eve sinned, the Bible says they were naked and unashamed.

When they sinned, they hid because they knew they were naked and were ashamed.

God graciously killed an animal in order to make garments for Adam and Eve to wear.

Before sin, Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed because they were clothed in the righteousness of God.

In sin, they were separated from God’s righteousness, so God, in love and grace, killed and animal and clothed them.

When we are lost, we walk in the nakedness of our sin and shame.

In salvation, God wakes us up to the reality of our sin and shame and when we repent and believe, He clothes us with the righteousness of God.

So, when we are commanded to cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, God is calling us to live in light of what God has made you to be.

Live out who God has already made you in Christ.

Listen to how Paul says it in:

Ephesians 4:22–24 ESV

22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Cast of the works of darkness, we are going to see what some of those works of darkness are in a minute.

And put on the armor of light.

Paul describes the armor of light in more detail in Ephesians 6, and it is made up of:

Truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, the word of God, prayer, and perseverance.

Have you filled your life, your time, your schedule, your mind, with the things of God and the gospel?

Verse 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.

Walking properly in the daytime is characterized by living in an honorable way while pursuing goodness and righteousness.

Paul then warns of a small list of sins that are particularly characterized by the nighttime.

In the daytime, even most lost sinners attend to their work and the things that are necessary for life, but nighttimes are characterized by sin and selfishness.

In Rome, orgies were nighttime parties characterized by gluttonous feasting and drunkenness due to an over abundance of alcohol.

You see, godless living is miserably surviving through the daytime hours in order to over indulge and numb yourself in the nighttime.

While I’ve always abstained from drunkenness, when I am not abiding in Christ as a ought, I see in myself a tendency to survive the miserable day in order to get to night where I can escape with too much food and Netflix.

Does anyone else feel that pull?

Or maybe you are way too often simply surviving your day and can’t wait to pour yourself that first drink at night.

Or maybe you are a young person being tempted by friends to go to those parties you know you shouldn’t be at and let yourself go.

May we repent and turn to God and embrace with joy what God has for us in the day and rest at peace in him at night.

The second set of nighttime sins is sexual immorality and sensuality.

Sexual immorality is a broad term speaking to all sexual desire pursued outside of the marriage relationship.

Our world and our culture is so permeated by an uncontrolled pursuit of sexual lusts.

It’s all over the place!

Many live out their miserable day just waiting for the opportunity to get home at night and give themselves to what they find on their phones and computer screens.

Others are in relationships outside of the commitment of marriage that seems exciting but will leave them empty and in shame.

May we repent and turn to God and embrace with joy what God has for us in the day and rest at peace in him at night.

The final set is quarreling and jealousy.

Some cannot wait to get home in the evening in order to slander and gossip and argue and fight.

These things expose a heart that desires good for self at others’ expense.

Some can’t wait to get online and post rumors and gossip.

Some can’t seem to stop tearing down others in order to seek to build up themselves.

May we repent and turn to God and embrace with joy what God has for us in the day and rest at peace in him at night.

Walk properly as in the daytime.

4. Put On The Lord Jesus Christ

Verse 14: But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Paul uses the clothing metaphor once again to command us to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

This is another way of saying, “put on the armor of light.”

Remember, Christ has already clothed his saved children in the righteousness of God, and we live out his righteousness in practice by each day as we wake up putting on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Walking out in daily life what God has already made us in Christ.

As believers, we wake up each morning under the truth banner that God’s mercies are new every morning.

So, as we wake and rise, may we embrace God’s mercies anew and clothe ourselves in our Lord Jesus through prayer and communion with the Spirit and through meditating on His word.

And as we put on the Lord Jesus Christ, we make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

The camp speaker for the youth at Camp Willow Run challenged the students with this principle: in the morning: Bible before phone.

Each morning, we make the decision of who we will feed first, will we feed the Spirit or the flesh?

Make no provision for the flesh, to satisfy its desires.

How do you make no provision for the flesh? You put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now sure, it is good and right to have accountability, to not even let yourself have access to certain things you are tempted toward, all those sorts of things are good and right to make no provision for the flesh,

But make no mistake, greater than all the rules and regulations you can put in place, is putting on the Lord Jesus Christ and walking in intimate relationship with him.

We do not cease from gratifying the flesh by only making rules and regulations to starve the flesh.

We cease from gratifying the flesh by filling ourselves to overflowing with the Spirit of God through Jesus Christ.

We replace our desires to satisfy the flesh with a greater desire that leads to a greater satisfaction.

We were made with the desire to have all of our needs met and desires satisfied in the glory of God alone.

And as we are clothed with the righteousness of God, and we put on the Lord Jesus Christ daily, we find our greatest needs met and desires satisfied in God alone.

Some of us need to wake up.

We need to wake up to the life of love that God has gifted to us!

We need to wake up to the good works God has given us to walk in!

We need to start fighting against the fleshly desires that keep us trapped and keep us numb to the purposes of God for our lives.

We need to replace the provisions of the flesh with the provisions of the Spirit.

And we need to believe the truth that He who began this work of salvation in us invites us to work out our salvation as we find more and more joy and satisfaction in God alone.

Let’s pray.

(Elder at couch)