Love, the key to Obedience
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2017 · 9 April 2017
Romans 13:8-10, “Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he 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 bear false witness, you shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
This focuses on the key to obedience. When Jesus commissioned His disciples, He said that an essential part was to teach them to obey everything He commanded. Inherent in marriage is the necessity of obedience to the Word of God and the law of God. When Jesus originally called the disciples to obey Him, He called them to "Follow Me." He was establishing by that a relationship that He would be Lord and Master, in which He would give the commands and they would obey.
When Jesus responded to the rich young ruler who came to Him and wanted to know how to obtain eternal life, He established another issue. He said to the young man, "Sell all your possessions, take your money give to the poor and follow Me." And the young man went away rejecting that offer. It wasn't that he didn't want eternal life, he did, it was that he didn't want to obey Jesus. In other words, if you aren't willing to follow Me, you cannot have eternal life.
When Jesus had to rebuke Peter, the disciple, because he wanted to know what was going to happen to John in the future, Jesus said to Peter, "It's none of your business what happens to John, but you follow Me." And took him all the way back to the beginning as if to say, "Have you forgotten? I give the orders and you obey them." Those illustrations are true, nothing is more important of the gospel than the call to obey Jesus Christ.
When a person comes to Christ for salvation, it is a call to obedience. In fact, the apostle Paul even called salvation the obedience of faith, a faith that obeys, a faith that submits and a faith that follows. Such obedience is an essential component in our Christian living. It is foundational to our power, our joy, our usefulness and our blessing. Coming to Jesus Christ for salvation was an affirmation that I will obey Him.
1 Peter 1:2 says, “to the pilgrims elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience.” We were set apart from sin by the Spirit in order that we obey Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches that, however we find such obedience difficult. We can feel that we should be obedient and still not obey. In Romans 7:15 Paul says, “For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.”
In other words, in my inner man I love the law of God and with my inner man I desire to do it because it is holy, just and good. I want to obey, but I have a struggle in doing it. Sometimes we are like children who love their mother and father, love them deeply, and know they have their best interest at heart, but yet even in spite of their love, we sometimes disobey when we are given a command.
It's that way with the Lord. We know that we want to obey Him. We know obedience brings blessing, we know that. We know what our deepest desire is, that is fixed, we desire that which is holy, just and good. But there are those moments in which the commands of God somehow interrupt our activities and they frustrate us because they make us stop the pleasurable things that our flesh enjoys.
This is very different for people who don't know God, who aren't His children. The Law of God is not any authority in their life. He is not their Father and it doesn't matter to them what He says, they're not about to stop their pleasure. They are only interested in themselves and what they think is right, not what God says is right. They are focused on obtaining worldly satisfaction even if that is fleeting.
To the true child of God, obedience is a sweet and desirable thing. Obedience is the path of blessing. Obedience is the expression of the deepest desire of the redeemed soul. Listen to David in Psalm 119:47, “And I will delight myself in Your commandments, which I love.” And verse 97, "Oh how I love Your law. This marks the desire of the born-again child of God. He has a willing heart and spirit that longs to obey.
So how can I find the path to obedience? How can I get over the frustration of disobedience in my own life which goes against the grain of my new nature? Paul answers in Romans 13: 8-10 that the key to obedience is love. Like the obedience of a child, what ultimately compels him to obey willingly is love. The same is true in the spiritual dimension. If I am going to keep the law of God which I love, it is going to be because I love not only the law, but I love God and I love others.
Paul says in verse 8, "Owe nothing to anyone." He has been talking about paying your taxes. The government is ordained of God and they have a right to tax you so pay it. He is not saying that you should never borrow money. Jesus gave a parable at the close of Lukas 19:23 in which He said to the unfaithful servant, “Why then did you not put my money in the bank, that at my coming I might have collected it with interest?” So Jesus approved the whole transaction of interest, whether given or taken.
But from there he says, "Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another.” And he says you have a debt that you must pay and that is to love one another. I want you to owe people love. The debt of love is a permanent debt. It never leaves us. It's a debt that we pay all the time but never reduce. This should mark us as real Christians.
John 13:35 says, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” In John 15:13 Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” 1 John 2:10 says, “He who loves his brother abides in the light.” In 1 John 3 he says if you don't love your brother, how can we say the love of God dwells in you? In Matthew 5:44 Jesus even said, "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.”
And in Galatians 6:10 Paul said, “do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Paul said in Colossians 3:14, “But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.” 1 Corinthians 14:1 says, “Pursue love.” Philippians 1:9, “that your love may abound still more.” 1 Timothy 2:15, to continue in love. 1 Peter 1:22, to love one another fervently with a pure heart.” Scripture tells us continuously that we have to love.
How are we to show this love? Well, the Scripture says we are to show love by teaching others, by ministering to the needs of others, by serving one another's spiritual growth through exemplary behavior that sets a godly pattern for them, by coming alongside them to bear their burdens and so fulfill the law of love, by covering their faults, because love does cover a multitude of sins, by forgiving them as God for Christ's sake as forgiven you. We are to love by sacrificing even our own lives.
Remember Romans 5:5 where Paul says “the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.” Every command to love says that we have the capacity to love. God doesn't ask us to do what we have no capacity to do. So we should comprehend the resource of love that is in us by the indwelling Spirit whose fruit is love. Paul says that you have a reservoir of love that is unlimited, which means that you have an incomprehensible capacity to love.
And your responsibility is to give that to people all your life long. That's your Christian life being lived out. If you understand the resource, if you comprehend the love of Christ in Ephesians 3:13-21, if you submit to the Holy Spirit whose fruit is love in Galatians 5:22, if you purify your heart and soul in a sincere love as in 1 Peter 1:22, and if you realize the cry of people who desire to be loved, you will be fervent in your love.
One of the reasons you come to church, Hebrews 10:24, is to stimulate one another to love and good works. So if we understand the source, submit to the Holy Spirit, purify our hearts, realize the urgency, make a conscious choice, and mingle among people who need that love, then we're going to love them according to the Lord’s command. I have an unlimited resource of love, I can love anyone as much as possible and that love reservoir will never diminish.
You don't love someone and think, “I've been wanting to love that person for a long time, I'm glad I loved him and now it's over.” No, that's not how love works. In fact, I have found that the more I love, the more it grows my loving condition and the more I love to love. Love then is this deep desire rising from within my regenerate soul to seek the well-being of all people around me.
We live in a culture that doesn't know about this love. This is the most selfish society in human history. The continual decline of man's moral condition since the Fall makes man more and more wicked because the Bible says evil men grow worse and worse, so they are worse now than before. And at the core of all sin is pride which kills love. So the longer man lives on this earth the more morality declines, the less interest he has in another person. So people want only what satisfies them now.
Paul says, let me take you to the Ten Commandments, and consider the second half of the commandments. The first four commandments have to do with a man's relation to God and the last six have to do with a man's relation to his fellow man. So he goes in to the ones related to our fellow man, picks out four of the six, and says, "These and the rest sum up in this statement, you shall love your neighbor as yourself." There's the key to obeying the entire law. Love does not replace law, it makes obedience possible.
So the first four commands are pretty simple. What they tell us is that we should love God, be faithful to Him, reverent and holy toward Him. In Matthew 22: 37-40, this man asked Jesus, "Which is the great commandment?” 38 Jesus said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. 39 And the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
So I submit to you that the key to obedience is love. It's not some effort to try to catalog every single issue in life and figure out how to follow them all. It is to have a heart and soul committed to expressing the reservoir of the love of Christ inside of us toward others. So then by loving with the love of Christ, you automatically fulfill all the ten commandments of the Law, which is what Paul says in Romans 13.
First Corinthians 13:4-7 says, “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Love doesn't get angry, love doesn't remember offenses against it, love does not rejoice in somebody else's unrighteousness. Love will endure everything. Love tends to believe everything. Love maintains enduring hope. Love can suffer through anything and it will never fail and therefore it will fulfill the whole law of God.
How do I do that? Well simply put, the fruit of the Spirit is love and if you walk in the Spirit you will not fulfill the desire of the flesh but you will fulfill the desire of the Spirit which produces fruit that will produce love. So you need to walk in the Spirit. By letting the Word of Christ dwell in you richly to control your mind and your behavior, the Spirit of God then will direct your life so that He yields the fruit, which is love.
Practically speaking do the following: mend a quarrel; take the blame for it. Search out a forgotten friend and rekindle a relationship. Let old bitterness die and forgive that person. Text a loving message to someone who loves you. Encourage someone you know who is discouraged. Keep all your promises. Forget a wrong that was done to you, do not take offense. Say thanks all the time to people. Tell somebody you love them. Pray for your enemy. And ask God to help you love the way Jesus loved by doing what love calls you to do. Let us pray.