LIVING IN HARMONY

Romans 13:8 - 15:13

INTRODUCTION:   

How would you react if I were to suggest that we remove a couple of the Ten Commandments?  At the mere suggestion, have you already begun to make a list of which you’d like to delete?  

Maybe you would nominate the fourth commandment: remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.  After all, we don’t take that one very seriously anyway, do we?  Maybe we could get rid of that one.

Perhaps you would suggest that we get rid of the seventh commandment: the one about adultery.  That might remove some convicting guilt. 

What about the eighth: thou shalt not steal.  We might want to deep-six that one before we file our income tax returns…that and the one about lying.  Wouldn’t that open up some possibilities for us?

We could print a ballot with all Ten Commandments on it, you can vote on two to omit and the two that get the most votes will be eliminated.  How does that sound?

It sounds stupid, doesn’t it?  And it sounds ungodly, doesn’t it?  God’s Kingdom is not a democracy and the Ten Commandments were not voted on at the base of Mt. Sinai.  God’s rules for living are not based on majority opinion. 

And there are more than ten commandments.  In Romans 12, Paul, on God’s behalf, commanded:

·     Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.

·     Honor one another above yourselves.  And,

·     Live in harmony with one another.

These commandments, like the big ten, are not optional.  They are not, as one television evangelist called them: Ten Positive Principles for Powerful Living.  These are commands of God to His people.

My father died two and a half years ago.  Shortly after his death, my siblings and I received a letter he had written prior to his death with instructions that it was to be sent out after his passing.  My father’s dying wish was for his family to be “happy and harmonious”.  He wanted his children to get along. 

That was Jesus’ dying prayer for his followers.  In the Garden of Gethsemane, just prior to his betrayal, his arrest, his trial in a kangaroo court and his beating at the hands of the Roman soldiers, Jesus was praying.  Praying earnestly and intently.  But he was not praying to be delivered from the suffering that was ahead of him.  He was praying that his followers would be one, united, harmonious.

Harmony among his followers was Jesus’ dying prayer and it is God’s living command for His children.  For a child of God to contribute to division, dissension and discord is to commit sin.  Harmony is a command.  For a child of God to fail to build harmony within God’s family is to be guilty of a sin of omission.

In Romans 13, Paul writes that one attitude that leads to harmony is respect for authority.  I preached about that last week.  This week, we will see some other perspectives that will lead to harmony in the family of God.

I.          THE UNPAID DEBT (13:8-10)

^8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. ^9 The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ^10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

We are to understand love as an unpaid debt.

A debt is that which is owed to another.  Debt is a national problem in our country.

The website “MoneyCentral” reports that the average credit card debt in this country is $8000 per household.  The same site says that 43% of American households spend more money than they earn each year.

Personal debt contributes to marital conflict, emotional distress and time pressure as more and more families are two, three and even four-income households.  All of those extra hours worked have to come from somewhere and typically, they come from time that could have been spent with one another.

As our calendars get crowded, our nerves get frayed and our patience wears thin, we become sharp with each other.  Impatient.  Irritable.  And harmony suffers.

Paul says to let no debt remain unpaid except this one: our debt of love for one another.  Paul says we should regard ourselves always owing more love to each other than we can ever hope to repay.

For those of us who have frequently been on the receiving end of acts of kindness and generosity, it is not hard to imagine that we owe a debt of love that we can never repay.

It is probably more difficult for any of you who feel as if you have given more than you have received and loved more than you have been loved.  You may have to look at your responsibility to love in light of the love God has shown to you by giving His son to die for you.  When you look at His love, you will realize that you, too, owe a debt you cannot repay.

We are to understand love as an unbroken law.

Do you remember that at the beginning of this sermon, I spoke about the Ten Commandments and I asked which you’d vote to get rid of if you had a vote?  Well Paul says that of all of those commandments that speak to our relationship with one another, all of them “are summed up in this one rule: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 

Paul’s implication seems to be that if we truly love our neighbors as ourselves, we will fulfill all those other commandments about relationships.

Let me add a word of caution here, though.  It would be a mistake to interpret Paul’s teaching that loving one another fulfills ALL of God’s laws.  You can love your neighbor and still not love the Lord your God.  You can love your neighbor as yourself and still take the Lord’s name in vain.  You can love your neighbor fully and still violate many of the other commands of Scripture.

Some people never seem to catch on to that truth.  They think that if they are kind, loving, generous and good-old-boys, that will get them into heaven.  That is a distortion of Paul’s teaching.  What Paul is saying here comes in the context of the command to live in harmony with one another.  Living in harmony with one another requires that we love our neighbors as ourselves.

We are to understand love as an uninjured neighbor.

“Love does no harm to its neighbor.”  There is a positive command to be loving toward one another.  And there is a negative command to avoiding doing harm to our fellow man. 

Many people believe that the familiar phrase, “First of all, do no harm” comes from the Hippocratic Oath.  It does not.  In fact, it comes from Hippocrates in his Epidemics, book 1, section xi. 

Although this dictum is not a part of the Hippocratic Oath, the sentiment is a part of Scripture…and it is not limited in its application to medical professionals.  Each of us is under orders to do no harm to our fellow man.

II.         THE UNSTOPPABLE CLOCK (13:11-14)

Paul writes about love as an unpaid debt.  He also writes about time as an unstoppable clock. 

^11 And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. ^12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. ^13 Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. ^14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

We are to understand that the hour is now.  We are to awake from our lethargy, our sluggishness and our stupor.  Paul says we are to understand the present time and if we do, we will realize that we have no time to waste.  Don’t you know that this perspective will affect the way we live?

We are to understand that the end is close.  We have no time to waste because the end of time is at hand.  In Paul’s memorable phrase, our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 

I am almost 58 years old.  I became a Christian when I was 10.  Do the math: I am 47 years closer to the judgment than I was when I first became a Christian.  You run the numbers on your life.  Even if you just came to faith in Christ yesterday, you are 24 hours closer to eternity than you were when you first believed.  Understanding that we are closer to eternity now than when we first believed will also affect the way we live.

We are to understand that the day is near.  All of Paul’s teaching on this subject builds up to this thought: the Day of the Lord is near.  “The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.”  So, in light of that, Paul tells us to live as children of the light and not as children of the night.  He wants us to put off the unbecoming deeds of the darkness: orgies, drunkenness, sexual immorality, debauchery, dissension and jealousy.  That is the way the children of the devil act.  We are to behave as children of the light.

What are the deeds of darkness?  They are those things we would not do in broad daylight.  The principle is: if we are ashamed to be seen doing what we are doing, we ought to stop doing it. 

III.        THE UNWISE JUDGMENT (14:1-15:13)

Love is an unpaid debt.  Time is an unstoppable clock.  And condemnation is an unwise judgment. 

Remember that Paul is writing about how to live in harmony with one another.  There is nothing that disrupts harmony like judging one another.  It comes so easy for us to pass judgment on others.  We see their actions and disapprove of them then we assign a motive and finally a penalty for what they’ve done.  Paul says not to act like this.  He gives us three aspects of such a critical attitude.

Paul says, don’t reject others because God didn’t.  Specifically, Paul is referring to vegetarians who felt guilty eating meat – especially because of the risk that the meat might have been offered as a sacrifice to an idol before it made its way into the discount meat market near the pagan temple.  Paul says if you feel guilty about eating meat in a circumstance like that, you shouldn’t eat the meat.  But he also says you are not to reject the man whose conscience allows him to eat the meat.  It is not your place to reject the one whom God has not rejected.

Don’t judge others because God will.  Paul goes a step further when he says we are not to pass judgment on one another because ultimately, that is God’s job and not ours.  Paul uses the descriptive phrase, “Who are you to judge someone else’s servant?” 

Wouldn’t it be wrong of me to go to some place of business and tell an employer that he should dock the pay of one of his employees?  Or that he should suspend him?  Or that he should fire him?  That’s not my place.  And it is not my place to tell God how to treat His servants.

Don’t hinder others because God doesn’t.  “^13 Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way.”  Here’s a news flash for all of us: when we pass judgment on one another, we are not helping that person to get closer to the Lord; we are actually hindering him in his walk with God.

Listen, if God wants to help people get closer to Him, we ought to help and never hinder.

The anonymous poem: A Builder or a Wrecker, should give us pause for thought:

“A Builder or a Wrecker.”
As I watched them tear a building down
A gang of men in a busy town
With a ho-heave-ho, and a lusty yell
They swung a beam and the side wall fell.

I asked the foreman, “Are these men skilled,
And the men you’d hire if you wanted to build?”
He gave a laugh and said, “No, indeed,
Just common labor is all I need.”

“I can easily wreck in a day or two,
What builders have taken years to do.”
And I thought to myself, as I went my way
Which of these roles have I tried to play?

Am I a builder who works with care,
Measuring life by rule and square?
Am I shaping my work to a well-made plan
Patiently doing the best I can?

Or am I a wrecker who walks to town
Content with the labor of tearing down?
“O Lord let my life and labors be
That which will build for eternity?”

-Author unknown 

INVITATION:            #54 – “The Solid Rock”

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