Romans 13:1-10
September 6, 2026
According to several different internet searches, the average American has over $63,000 in debt. This includes credit cards, the mortgage on our homes, car payments, student loans, medical expenses, and a variety of other things. Being in debt is never fun and it is not easy. These debts can take months, years, and even decades to repay, and they can be overwhelming. But we have to pay back these debts, because if we don’t there will be consequences. We can lose our property or our possessions. We might not be able to get credit or we will have to pay a higher rate or fees. In some cases, we might even face legal action. Therefore, we set up payment plans, and maybe even work extra hours, get another job or sell some things we no longer need in order to pay our debts.
But there is one debt we owe, Paul says in our second lesson for today from Romans, that we must never think we have paid in full – and that is the debt of love. In verse 8 Paul says, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” We know what it’s like to owe others, so usually we come up with a way to settle a debt by making payments or offering services. And when we pay things off it is a great feeling, almost like this burden has been lifted from us. “No more car payments;” or “my medical expenses have been paid, what a relief;” or “the house is now mine!” As a result, we don’t have to interact with those companies or individuals anymore, because we no longer owe them anything. But Paul tells us that we should never wake up one day and think, “You know what? I have been kind to the people down the street long enough and they haven’t been kind in return. Well, from now on, it’s no more Mr. Nice Guy.” That is the way our world deals with neighbors and others, but that is not God’s way.
If we owe something to an individual, we usually want to serve them, help them, or be nice to them. We want to get on their good side, because we feel indebted to them, and that’s the way God wants us to view each other, as those we owe a debt of love to, but it is a debt that we don’t ever try to get rid of or pay off. Paul’s point involves continuous action towards others that comes from the love that Jesus first and always shows to us.
This is not a complex issue, it is not hard to explain. Everything in life revolves around one simple command, “You shall love.” That’s it, but love is a difficult thing for sinful human beings to understand. We use love in many ways to mean many things. So Paul goes on in verse 9 by listing several of the commandments to help explain what this love is that we owe to people. He says if you love your neighbor, you will honor him, you won’t murder him, you will be faithful to your spouse, you will not steal from him, you won’t gossip about him or her, you won’t take his/her spouse, or any of their property. This is such a simple command: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” but we struggle to follow it, because as sinners we have this tendency to seek revenge, to hold grudges, and to hurt people, even those closest to us.
In the book, “Miracle on the River Kwai,” author Ernest Gordon, who was a British Army officer captured by the Japanese during World War II, explained how he and many others were forced to work on a jungle railroad under some horrible conditions. The captured soldiers were often subject to 120-degree heat, their bare feet were cut and bruised by sharp rocks, and they were not given much to eat. If a prisoner fell behind, the Japanese guards would beat him to death. As a result, the prison camp became a place of survival of the fittest, every man for himself. At the end of each day the prisoners would turn in their shovels to be inventoried, but one day a shovel appeared to be missing. The Japanese officer in charge was furious and demanded that the missing shovel be turned in or they all would die. When no one moved, the officer pulled out his gun and threatened to kill all of them on the spot. Finally, one prisoner stepped forward and said, “I did it.” The Japanese soldiers then beat the prisoner to death. A group of prisoners carried his dead body back to camp where a second inventory was taken of the shovels. However, this time there was no shovel missing, meaning there had been a miscount during the first inventory. The word spread quickly throughout the camp – an innocent man had been willing to die to save the others. This incident had a profound effect on all of them as the prisoners then started to treat each other like brothers. Later, when the victorious Allies swept in, the prison camp survivors stood in front of their captors and instead of attacking them, they protected them and said, “No more hatred. No more killing. What we need now is forgiveness.”
The sacrifice of this one man changed the hearts of those around him. He knew he was innocent, but he chose to take the blame and the punishment so the others could live. I’m sure we will never have to face a situation as awful as that one, but we can still impact people by our actions. As an old church song tells us, “They will know we are Christians by our love.”
So ask yourself today, have you truly loved your neighbor as you love yourself? Have you been a good spouse? A good parent? A good friend? A good classmate or co-worker? When you look over at the person driving next to you on the road, especially if they cut you off or are going too fast or too slow in your opinion, what do you think or say about those neighbors? Is it a beautiful expression of love or something else? Maybe now you can see why we struggle with the simple concept of love. This struggle comes from you and me trying to justify our words and actions by our selfish nature.
While we have not always loved our Lord and our neighbors as ourselves, God still loves us and His love for us will never change. In fact, being on the receiving end of His love is the key to our loving others, as the book of 1 John tells us near the end of the New Testament, “We love, because He first loved us.” All love starts with God, it flows into us by faith, and then out from us back to God and to others.
Many people have been asking me recently, “As Holy Cross prepares to celebrate its 25th anniversary, what advice would you give to people starting churches today?” The first thing I always say is, “The church has to be filled with God’s love and that love has be to expressed.” So in our church name and above our altar is the ultimate symbol of love – the cross, where Jesus willingly gave His life out of love for us, to forgive us all of our sins or debts, so that we could live with Him today and forever. In fact, one of the many ways that the Bible describes sin is a debt. In the Lord’s Prayer, some denominations will say, “Forgive us our debts” instead of “trespasses,” as we forgive our debtors. Sin is a moral debt we owe to God and like any debt it has consequences. Paul said in Romans 6, that the “Wages of sin is death.” Our sin creates a separation between us, God, and others. And like any debt it needs to be paid.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard we try, we cannot pay this debt, because we are sinners and God demands perfection. But there is another way in our lives today to get rid of debt, that I did not mention earlier, and that is to have someone pay it for you. And that’s what Jesus did for us. Through His perfect life and His death on the cross in our place, He paid our debt. He bore the wrath of God the Father and the punishment we all deserved out of His tremendous love for us. Jesus’ perfect life was applied to us, while our debt of sin was applied to Him.
Therefore, when people join a church, should they expect to find a place or a community where everyone gets along and loves each other perfectly? No. We’re not an organization that’s here for perfect people. Just as family members often have differences, church families have differences. So the purpose of the church is to welcome and love sinners, and God sends us out of our homes every day to love sinners unconditionally. In other words, knowing the debt that Jesus has paid for us should move us then to live a life of debt, a life that owes one another love in the way that Jesus loves us.
