The Debt You Must Pay
The Debt You Must Pay
A Sermon on Romans 13:8–14 by Pastor Phil Hunt
Click here to listen to the sermon.
I invite you to take your Bible and turn with me to the book of Romans, chapter 13. We will be looking at the text that Ben just read for us, verses 8 through 14. I want to speak to you this morning on this subject: The Debt You Must Pay.
Our economy here in Zambia relies heavily on informal credit. You can go to some of the shops and get credit to buy furniture or a TV, and you pay it off over time. It’s not uncommon for neighbors and church members to borrow money from one another.
And then there’s Chilemba. For those unfamiliar, Chilimba refers to an informal, rotating savings and credit system built on trust and mutual support. It works something like this: if there are ten people in an office and they all agree, let’s say ten people contribute 500 kwacha every month, the group collects 5,000. In month one, one member receives the 5,000. They collect again in month two, and another member receives 5,000. This continues until all ten members have had their turn — they’ve paid in month by month, and each one gets their month to take the 5,000 kwacha.
But here’s the thing about Chilemba: once you’ve had your turn, you’re not finished. The cycle keeps going. You keep contributing. There is no month where you get to stop paying in. And that is exactly what Paul is saying in our text this morning. He tells us that there is a debt in the Christian life that works exactly like that — except it never reaches a final round. It just keeps going for as long as you live.
Here’s our problem: we treat love like a debt we can actually pay off, with one act of kindness or one season of generosity. And if we’re not careful, we drift into thinking that obedience can wait because the account has been settled. We grow tired of paying, and we start keeping score. Or we drift into thinking our obedience can wait because Christ hasn’t come yet.
But this text confronts both a false sense of debt completion in regard to love, and a false sense of time. Paul is teaching us here what it means to be a living sacrifice — Romans 12:1–2 — and he’s showing us again that there is a new way of thinking that expresses itself in a new way of living. Paul has just told the Roman church to pay their civic debts: pay your taxes and revenue, give respect and honor to whom it is due. And now he turns our attention to a debt that can never be fully cleared. Do you see it in verse 8? “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”
So here is the whole sermon, the whole thing we’re going to see this morning: because love is a debt we can never finish paying, and because the day of Christ is drawing near, we must put on Christ every day in order to show Kitwe what God’s love looks like through the love that He gives us.
Notice three things in our text this morning, verses 8 through 14.
1. We Are Commanded to Love Our Neighbor as Ourself (vv. 8–10)
Do you see it there in verse 8? “Owe no one anything except to love each other.” Love is a debt we owe our neighbor. Paul reminds us of the nature of this love. He uses the word agape. It could be defined this way: agape love, as it shows up in the New Testament, is the desire for, and the delight in, the wellbeing of the one loved, that leads to self-sacrificing efforts on their behalf. That’s the love of God. That’s the love of John 3:16. That’s the love commanded of husbands toward their wives. It is not a feeling, an emotion, or a physical activity — it is a self-sacrificing, giving love. It serves and delights in the wellbeing of the one who receives it. And Paul says this is the kind of love we owe to everyone — to love one another.
Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 13 for a moment. Notice the behavior of this love, how it acts. Verse 4: love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on having its own way. Love is not irritable or resentful. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
That is the debt we owe our neighbor. But look also at the recipient of this love. “Owe no one anything except to love each other.” Who is “each other” in this passage? This is a debt that you and I, as the people of God, owe to our brothers and sisters in Christ — within the body of Christ. Peter says it this way in 1 Peter 1:22: “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.”
So we continue to make payment on this self-sacrificing, giving love to one another within the household of faith, within the family of God. There should be no lack of love between brothers and sisters in Christ at Kitwe Church. There ought to be abundant love, just splashing all over — kindness and joy and humility and selflessness splashing everywhere within this congregation.
This is a debt we owe our brothers and sisters in Christ. But it is not only a debt we owe our brothers and sisters, because that can sometimes be a bit easier — at least they’re a Christian, at least you’re somewhat aligned, on the same page. No — this love we owe to others is also owed to unbelievers, to the lost. This is a debt we owe to the world. Our neighbor is also the unbeliever around us. Jesus even extended this self-sacrificial love to our enemies. Matthew 5:44: “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
So, first, we are to love our neighbor as ourself, and the first step is understanding that love is a debt we owe our neighbor.
But notice the second thing: love is a debt you continue to pay. “For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”The tense of this command is a continuous-action tense. In other words, it is not something you ever achieve or finish. It’s not something where you say, “Okay, finally, after twenty-four months of paying this debt, I’m done — I don’t have to love Bob Walker anymore.” That’s how we tend to think, isn’t it?
But this is a debt you continue to pay. You can finish paying a bride price — there’s a time (don’t be disheartened, brother) when it will finally be paid, finished, and you’ll be relieved: finally! You can finish paying for your house or your car loan. The debt closes, they sign it off, they hand you the title deed, and it’s done.
But this debt — the debt of love — is not like those debts. No husband ever says, after twenty years, “I’ve finished loving my wife; that account is settled. Finally, after twenty years, I’ve paid it all, I’m done, she’s gotten enough, paid in full.” Of course not. Love isn’t that kind of debt. It’s the kind you’re still paying on to your very last, dying breath. You pay, and you pay, and you pay. You make willful choices to obey God regardless of how you feel in the moment, regardless of how the other person is responding to you, and you choose to humble yourself, to be kind and gracious and loving and giving and self-sacrificial. That’s the love we owe. It’s a debt we continue to pay.
Now, I don’t want anyone to mishear me this morning. Paul did not say, “Try to love perfectly, and then you’ll belong to Christ.” He is not saying you owe a debt of love in order to earn Christ’s love or forgiveness. He is writing to people who already belong to Christ, who are already believers, and he is explaining what that belonging now produces. This debt of love does not earn your place in God’s family — it flows because you are already part of His family.
So what is Paul saying? Don’t fail to pay any debt — but you can never pay this one off in full. It requires a continual down payment, a continual investment. For Chilimba to work, you must continue to contribute. Love works the same way, except the cycle never ends. It begins at our conversion and follows us for the rest of our life. Other obligations you will pay off, but this obligation you will continue to pay until you see Jesus face to face.
Look at Luke 10. There’s a story here that illustrates what Paul is getting at — a story Jesus Himself told. A religious lawyer came to Jesus trying to trick him. He asked, in verse 25, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus asked him what was written in the Law of Moses. The man, being a lawyer, knew it well, and answered in verse 27: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” Go and love God perfectly, and love your neighbor perfectly, and you can inherit eternal life.
Immediately the man knew he was in trouble. Who here has loved God perfectly? Not me. Who here has loved one another perfectly? Not me — I can’t even love my wife and children perfectly, let alone all of you. So he knew he was in trouble, and now he wanted to justify himself. We love that, don’t we? Someone confronts us, and immediately you feel your defenses go up. They haven’t even finished the rebuke and you’re already thinking about how you’re going to defend yourself. Husbands and wives, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
That’s what this lawyer was doing. He said, in effect, “Aha — well, if I’m supposed to love my neighbor as myself, who exactly is my neighbor?” He thought he had cornered Jesus. So Jesus told this story:
A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers. This band of thieves stripped him of his clothes, beat him nearly to death, took all his money, and left him on the side of the road, half dead. Shortly after, a priest — a religious Jew — was traveling the same road. He saw the man, beaten, bloody, unconscious, stripped naked. Clearly assaulted. And here was this man of God, in his nice robes, his fine sandals — and he saw the man and crossed to the other side. Not my problem.
A little while later, a Levite — someone who served in the temple, assisting the priests — came down the same road, saw the same situation, and also crossed to the other side and continued on.
Then a Samaritan came by. That word means nothing to us today, but to the Jews of that time, Samaritans were the untouchables — people considered defiled because their ancestors had intermarried with uncircumcised Gentiles. They were despised by observant Jews, so much so that a religious Jew would avoid even setting foot in Samaria, crossing the Jordan and going around rather than let the dust of Samaria touch his sandals.
And here comes a Samaritan. He sees the man bleeding and unconscious, and he goes to him. He pours in oil and wine, bandages his wounds, lifts him onto his own donkey, and takes him to an inn. There he pays the innkeeper with his own silver for the man’s care, and tells the innkeeper, “Whatever else you spend, when I come back, I will repay you.”
That is what love looks like — a Samaritan who keeps paying a debt to a stranger who could never repay him. So the point is this: don’t ask, “Have I loved them enough?” That question assumes a closed account, a debt paid in full. Instead, we should ask, “What does love require of me today?” Love pays today. Love pays tomorrow. Love pays until you die.
Paul moves on in verses 9 and 10 and reminds us that love is the law fulfilled. “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.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” Love does not replace the law — love fulfills the law in our relationships toward others.
When that same kind of lawyer asked Jesus in Matthew 22:37–39 what the great commandment was, Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
In our relationships with each other, the law is kept when love is present. Love your neighbor, and you won’t commit adultery with his wife. Love your neighbor, and you won’t kill him. Love your neighbor, and you won’t steal his possessions. Love your neighbor, and you won’t covet what he has. Love your neighbor, and you will fulfill every other command toward him.
The issue is love. That’s what Paul reminds us: we owe no one anything except to love each other. Love does not wrong the other person; therefore love fulfills the law. That is really the question Paul has been answering throughout the book of Romans: what happens to the law now that grace has come? The law is fulfilled by those who walk in the Spirit through Spirit-filled love. I don’t need to worry about 610 individual laws and prohibitions. I need to concentrate on two things: loving the Lord today with all my heart, soul, and mind, and loving my neighbor as myself. If I love God and love others in Christ’s name, I will keep all the rest of the commands.
2. Love Your Neighbor Because Jesus Is Coming Soon (vv. 11–13)
So why must we treat this command with urgency, not casualness? Look at 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.” The time of Christ’s return is getting closer. What is Paul saying? Wake up, Christian. Time is short. Time is limited. Your opportunity is brief. Awaken from spiritual sleep.
Here was the problem: these Christians in Rome felt they had plenty of time, and so they were lulled into inactivity and decreased responsiveness — almost as if they were asleep spiritually. They weren’t refusing to obey Christ; they were just casual about it. “I’ve got a lot going on right now. There’s plenty of time. I don’t need to be too excited about all this. I’ll get to it in due course.” That was their approach. And Paul is crying out, “Wake up, Christian, wake up! Jesus is coming! The time of His coming is closer now than it was when you first believed.”
So don’t approach the commands of God with a casual, lackadaisical attitude of “I’ll get to it.” Act on this. Do it now, because Jesus is coming.
Let me ask you: what time would you have arrived at church this morning if you knew you were going to meet Jesus at 17:00 this afternoon? Would you have come sauntering in thirty minutes late? Or would this place have been packed for the very first prayer, the opening hymns, the greeting of visitors, the pastoral prayer — every one of us saying, “Amen, Lord, amen”?
It’s so easy for us to relax, thinking we have a lot of time, that it will be a while before Jesus actually gets here, and that we have plenty of other things to attend to first. And Paul is saying: no, no, no. Pay your debt. Pay your debt of love.
Some of you work night shifts, or in security, or on hospital staff. The watchman doesn’t need someone to tell him dawn is coming — he can see the sky lightening at the edges, and he knows he needs to finish his rounds and prepare to hand over to the next guy. Paul is saying that the church can already see the sky lightening as the sun prepares to break across the horizon. Don’t wait for a clearer sign. Finish what God has told you to do. Do it now, not later.
Notice that Paul mentions the hour and the time before he gives the command — I think that’s intentional. He’s saying to these Christians: look at the clock, people, and realize there is urgency here. Holiness is not simply motivated by duty; holiness is urgent because Jesus is coming at any moment.
It’s also worth noting that when Paul talks about waking from sleep, the verb tense tells us someone else is doing the action — it is God who awakens us. God is the one shaking us awake. And if you know Jesus as your Savior, He has already shaken you awake. He is the acting agent of your moral transformation. It’s not you pulling yourself up by your own effort. It is God, at work in you by His Holy Spirit, making those changes. He is the acting agent in your moral transformation, not you.
Hold on to that, because as we come to the next verse, Paul is about to tell us to put on Christ, and that command rests on this same truth: God acts first. You did not wake yourself. You did not save yourself. You did not clothe yourself. God acted on your behalf. So what is our response?
Verses 12–13: “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. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy.”
So the reason we are to love our neighbor is because Jesus is coming soon — that’s the reason Paul gives. And the response, in verses 12–13, is to walk properly in the light. Because Jesus is coming, there is a way that those who have become new creations in Christ Jesus — who have become, as Romans 12:1–2 says, a living sacrifice — live. There is a transformation that takes place in how we think and how we live, and it is God who acts to bring it about.
We walk properly, Paul says, by putting off the works of darkness and putting on the armor of light. Throw off the garments of sin, and put on your battle gear. Most of us have been watching the World Cup — players don’t stroll onto the pitch in sweatpants and flip-flops. They suit up. That’s what Paul is saying: suit up. Put your armor on. Armor is made for warfare and designed to protect the warrior. In Christ we have the resource to put on the armor of light that equips us for the battle against darkness and its prince.
Notice the categories of things Paul tells us to put off — things that were part of our former self before we came to Christ. There are public vices: carousing, which is drunken celebration and debauchery, and drunkenness itself, which is intentional, habitual intoxication. Put them off, in the power of the Spirit of God.
There are also self-indulgent vices: sexual promiscuity — literally, going to bed with someone who is not your husband or wife — put it off, Christian. And sensuality: shameless excess and absence of restraint, speaking of the sexual debauchery so common in the ancient Roman world. Take it off. Put it off.
And Paul mentions two more, relationally toxic vices: strife, which is persistent bickering, petty disagreement, and enmity between people, and jealousy, which is envy and selfish ambition. Paul would later warn the church at Corinth, in 1 Corinthians 3:3, that these two — strife and jealousy — wreak havoc in a church: “For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?”
So our response is to walk properly in the light, putting off the works of darkness and putting on the armor of light.
3. Love Your Neighbor in the Power of Christ (v. 14)
That brings us to verse 14. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your neighbor because Jesus is coming soon. And third: love your neighbor in the power of Christ. “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”
This putting on Christ is the secret of the Christian life. The moment we were saved, we put on Christ — positionally. That was a once-for-all transaction: when we were justified by faith, we were placed in Christ, and Christ was placed in us. But now we are called, in this text, to put on Christ practically, every day.
Let me give you an illustration. Those of you with school-age children know how this works: you find the school of your choice, register your child, and they give you a list of requirements — including the uniform. Grey and green, or whatever it is. You go and buy the uniform, and on the first day of class, your child had better be wearing it, or they’re sent home. The student is issued the uniform, and it belongs to them from the day they are enrolled. That’s settled — they’re an enrolled student, it’s done, there’s even paperwork. But that student still has to physically put on the uniform every single morning before walking into class. Nobody says, “Well, I was issued a uniform once, so I don’t have to put it on anymore.”
This is what Paul is saying. You were made a new creation in Christ, and you put on Christ — that was your justification, your redemption. You are a child of God. Eternity is secure for you; you will be with Him in heaven. But now you get up every day and put on Christ, and you go out into the world to represent Him — by loving others and loving Christ.
If we are to walk properly, we must put on Christ (Galatians 3:27). Putting on Christ means that every day I identify with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ.” In 1 Corinthians 15:31, Paul says, “I die daily.” Putting on Christ means that Christ is free to live His life in me and through me. This is what happens when we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God (Romans 12:1–2).
When we were saved, we put on Christ positionally. Now we are called to put on Christ, in practice, every day. In other words, Paul is saying: you are already a child of God — now go out into today and live like it. Make decisions and interact with your world in a manner that reflects what you really are. I don’t live like a Christian in order to become a Christian; I live like a Christian because I am a Christian. I don’t live like a Christian so I can receive the Holy Spirit; I live like a Christian because I already have the Holy Spirit. I don’t live like a Christian so Christ will accept me; I live like a Christian because I am already accepted by Christ.
Putting on Christ is the secret of the Christian life, and it speaks of our union with Him — the same as being in Christ. We saw this in Romans 6:3–5: “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” When we were saved, we were declared righteous positionally in that moment — but now we must live out, day by day, in practice, what God has already accomplished for us and in us through Christ.
Christ’s character becomes our character. Christ’s love flows into us, and then through us, to others — even our enemies. God’s love manifests itself through the loving actions of His people. How will Kitwe truly know and understand the love of God, unless they meet a Romans-12:1–2 Christian?
Every true Christian has already been clothed with Christ and His righteousness. Every true Christian must put off darkness and put on light as a willing choice, every day. That is sanctification. What is true of me positionally in Christ must become true of me practically, today. My justification is once for all. Sanctification is an ongoing process of becoming more and more like Jesus. So put on Jesus today. Keep putting Him on. Grow into His likeness, step by step, moment by moment.
Paul tells the church at Ephesus, in Ephesians 4:22–23, “Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt… and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Notice the end of verse 14: “and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” Guard your mind before temptation arrives. Make no provision for the flesh. Sinful action rarely starts with the act itself — it starts as a thought, unchecked, or a lingering desire we allow to grow. Paul is telling us to make a plan against sin, not a plan for sin. You cannot love your neighbor, your enemy, or your fellow church member by trying harder in your own power. The command in verse 14 is not “try harder” — it is “put on Christ.”
The very Christ who has already clothed you in His righteousness is the one who now lives out that righteousness through you, as you live in submission to the one who dwells in you. This is not a debt you pay from an empty account. It’s a debt you pay out of an account that Christ Himself keeps adding to.
So what’s the point? Love is one debt you will never finish paying, and Christ provides you the resources to pay that debt every day, until the day He returns. That’s the point. Go live the love of Jesus — not drawing on your own ability and resources, but drawing on the ability and resources of the One who dwells in you. Chilimba works because everyone trusts the group to keep paying in. The gospel works because you don’t have to trust yourself for the resources to keep paying your debt of love. You’re drawing on Christ’s own account, every day, until He comes.
So What Should I Do?
No more excuses. No more delay. No more sleep. Let me give you four practical things.
1. Examine what you’re wearing. Perhaps you’re here this morning and you’ve never put on Christ — you’ve never repented of your sin or received Him as Lord and Savior. Humble yourself this morning, ask Him to forgive you, and He will make you His child. Believe in Jesus — that’s step one. And Christian, you are already clothed in Christ — but are you putting Him on each day, or are you still walking around in your old clothes of quarrels, resentments, and private indulgences? Examine what you’re wearing.
2. Pay your debt. Choose one relationship this week — maybe here in our church, maybe in your family, maybe at your workplace — where love has gone unpaid. A grudge unresolved. A neighbor unattended to. Go and make a payment on that debt today. Don’t wait — Jesus is coming.
3. Plan against sin, not for it. Ask yourself where in your life you are making provision for your flesh — maybe it’s what you watch, where you go, or what you think about in an idle moment. Deliberately provide for godliness instead. Open the Scriptures before you open your phone. Seek accountability from a friend instead of indulging sin for an evening. Plan against sin, not for it. One beer won’t hurt — but it will, if you’re a drunkard. Don’t make provision for your flesh. Run — that’s what Paul is saying.
4. Remember what time it is. The day of Christ’s return is getting near. Don’t get caught up in covetousness and strife and angry debates. Especially this month — we are one month away from an election that can stir up all kinds of strife and jealousy, and Paul warns us against that. Whatever happens on the 13th of August, the day of Christ’s return draws nearer regardless. And that fact — not who you’re voting for, not who your church mate voted for, not the outcome of the election — must govern how you and I within the family of God treat one another and interact with one another. There is no politics in the church, because Jesus is coming.
Let’s be about our Father’s business. Let’s draw upon the resources that are ours in Christ, and let us go, in the power of the Spirit, and love Christ with all our heart, soul, and mind, and love our neighbor as ourself. Put on Christ. Pay your debt. And watch for the day.
Closing Prayer
Father, as we come to You, we have heard Paul this morning loudly and clearly. Father, there are likely some here this morning who are not yet born again spiritually — who have not yet been gathered as Your children, who have not yet humbled themselves to be forgiven of sin and to receive the salvation You freely offer to any who will believe. O God, would You please draw that person to repentance and faith, that they may put on Christ today.
Lord, those of us who are in Christ have been reminded this morning that though we are in Him and secure in Him, we have a daily obligation to put on Christ, to go forth and show the love of Christ among our church family and also in our world.
We thank You that You don’t give us such an overwhelming command without giving us free access to an account that has all the resources we need to do just what You tell us to do. Thank You for Jesus. Thank You for the gospel. May the Spirit of God have full control over each one of our Christian lives this week. May we pay what we owe, and may we do it gladly, every day, drawing upon You and Your resources.
This we ask in the name of our precious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.