Someone said, I don't know who,
people can be divided into three classes. The haves, the have-nots,
and the have-not-paid-for-what-the-haves. That's a pretty good description
of the classes of men. Most of us know what it means
to be in debt. And if you're like I am, you
despise it. Oh, I hate debt. I hate debt. Debt's a constant burden to any
honest person. The greater the debt, the greater
the burden. But I'm here today to remind
you of a burden, a heavy, heavy burden. The title of my message
is The Debt We Owe. Our text will be Romans chapter
13, verses eight, nine, and 10. Debt causes pressure, and nobody
likes to be put under pressure. But here, God the Holy Ghost
puts you and me under great, great pressure. Here is a debt
we owe, but there's no hope of paying it. Pay it we must, but
pay it in full we never can. Romans 13, verse eight. O no man anything but to love
one another. For he that loveth another hath
fulfilled the law. For this thou shalt not commit
adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt
not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet, And if there
be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this
saying, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling
of the law. Financial debt, obviously, is
a burden. The wise man tells us in Proverbs
22, the borrower is servant to the lender. As long as you owe
somebody something, you work for him. You work for him. The more you owe him, the longer
you have to work for him. The borrower is servant to the
lender. Without question, all people
should be honest. And honesty means we should pay
our debts. When I was a young preacher,
I remember one of the fellows who thought himself to be intellectual
and brilliant and a real leader among reformed fellows, did a
whole year's sermons on Christian biblical economics. Somebody
got me the tapes and wanted to know if I wanted to listen to
them. I said, why? I'll give you the whole responsibility
of believers with regard to economics in just a few words. Pay your
bills. That's all it is, just pay your
bills. That's the sum essence of it. But above all other people,
God's saints ought to do so. But our text here in Romans 13,
eight, nine, and 10 is not talking about financial debt. That's
not the case. The scriptures do not prohibit
financial debt. If they did, most of us could
never own a car, let alone a house or maintain a business. Debt
is very much a way of life for most ordinary people. The debt
we owe, as it's described here, is far more weighty than any
carnal debt. It's a debt of love. lifelong
debt of love. You never pay it off. It can't
be done. You'll never pay it off. Now
the scripture emphasizes this matter of love not infrequently. In fact, it is the singular subject
of the chapter we read before the message this morning in 1st
Corinthians chapter 13. That love Properly translated charity,
the word is in First Corinthians 13. What we commonly think of
as charity is alms just given to the poor. But that's, this
is love that involves laying down your life for somebody else. It's commitment. It's devotion. It's always costly. It's always
costly. We who are gods, have this responsibility
to lay down our lives in utter commitment to the welfare of
others. Our Savior tells us plainly that
it is love that distinguishes his disciples and separates them
from other people. He said, a new commandment I
given to you. Not that this is something altogether
new or contrary to the law of Moses. No, no, no. This is a
constantly new commandment. When you wake up in the morning,
this is his commandment to Bobby Estes. When you go about your
business, this is his commandment to Mark Henson. When you go through
the day, this is his commandment to Don Fortner. It is a constantly
new commandment. Here it is. that you love one
another. And it tells us how. As I have
loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all
men know that you're my disciples, if you have love one for another. Twice in John 15, he says, this
is my commandment, that you love one another. The Apostle Paul
beat this drum repeatedly. Peter, James, and John all deal
with this in their epistles. We're commanded over and over
and over again in the book of God to love one another. Obviously, this business of love
is something upon which we should focus our minds and our lives
constantly. It's not to be taken lightly
nor to be presumed. As a man pays a debt by focusing
his resources to that end. So you and I are to pay this
debt, focusing our mind, our heart, our being on this business
of exercising love one toward another. toward our brethren
and toward all who cross our paths in God's good providence. That's our responsibility. I
told you it's a heavy burden. It's a debt that puts pressure
on you. It's a debt that will keep your
mind occupied if you think on it. I remember not long after
we were married, got out of school, started pastoring. Shelby and
I used credit cards, good bit, and got in debt over our heads.
We owed about $2,500. I thought I was gonna die. I
thought I was gonna die. And it took a while to pay them
off. Just do without this, do without that, get it paid off.
Just get it paid off. Get out from underneath this
burden. You owe somebody something and when you, see him on the
street and he says hello, he may never mention a thing but
you wanna get away from him quick because you feel guilty. You
owe him something that hadn't been paid. That's the kind of
pressure I'm talking about, only indescribably greater. Turn back
to Romans chapter one. Let me remind you of Paul's flow
of thought through this epistle. The first time he refers to debt
in this epistle is in the 14th verse of chapter one. He says,
I am a debtor. I'm under pressure all the time. This thing is something I owe
all the time. I can't get any release from
it. I'm a debtor, both to the Greeks and to the barbarians,
both to the wise and to the unwise. So as much as in me is, That
is with all my resources, with all my faculties, with all my
opportunity, with all my strength, with all my mind, with all my
heart, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome
also. Now I'll come back to this, Lord
willing, before I get done this morning. But it seems to me that
this was what was in Paul's mind, in the forefront of his mind,
all the way through the 16 chapters of Romans. He says, I'm a debtor. I'm a debtor. I'm a debtor. I'm a debtor. Being forgiven
much, he loved much because he knew he owed much. I'm a debtor. In Romans chapter 12, Paul's
instruction And here in Romans 13 flows from and is based on
what I had to say in chapter 12. Because we are constantly
receive and constantly experience the mercies of God in Christ,
we are constantly to present our bodies a living sacrifice
to God our Savior, rather than being conformed to this world,
living as Brother Lindsey was talking about the Israelites
for their lust. That's how the world lives. That's
how your neighbors live. That's how your family lives
if they don't know God. Don't live like that. To gratify
your lust. Oh, God, forgive me. We ought
never live to gratify our lust, being conformed to the world,
but rather to give ourselves, to present our bodies, a living
sacrifice to God our Savior. We are to be transformed by the
renewing of our minds. And the renewed mind, a humble
mind, is a mind that serves God as a member of the body of Christ.
It's a mind that's loving, even toward those who mistreat and
abuse us. Paul calls them at the end of
the chapter, our enemies. That's the message of chapter
12. In chapter 13, the opening verses, verses one through seven,
the inspired apostle tells us that living for and serving Christ
also includes living in subjection to the governing powers of the
world. That includes paying taxes. As
I said, living for God involves honesty. and means that we're
to pay our debts. But the debt we are to pay and
must always pay is a debt of love. Love sums up all the commandments
of God. Everything God requires is summed
up in that one word, love, everything. Love God with all your heart,
soul, mind, and being. Love your neighbor as yourself.
Love is not what most people think it is. Love is much, much
more than the absence of hatred. You get somebody who's acting
real mean and you say to him, do you love him? He says, well,
I don't hate him. That's not what love is. That's
not what love is. Love is much, much more than
not doing injury. Well, I don't do anybody any
harm. That's not loving somebody. Love is much more than the lack
of ill will. And love is much, indescribably
much more than a deep emotional feeling. I repeat, love involves
a self-denying, self-sacrificing devotion and commitment of life
to somebody else's good. To love someone, is to do them
good at cost to myself. You can't love somebody if you
don't do them good at cost to yourself willingly. Brother Don, you're making this
tough. No, God makes it tough, that's
the way it is. You can't love somebody without
cost to yourself willingly made. To love someone. may cost you
money, or time, or labor, or your preferences, or your desires,
or all of those things, but love involves self-sacrificing devotion
and commitment of life to another person's good. Love means giving up and laying
down your life for another. Read verse eight again. Oh, no
man anything but to love one another. For he that loveth hath
fulfilled the law. That's my first point. He that
loveth hath fulfilled the law. You and I can't do that. We can't
ever do that. We can never pay the debt that's
here required by God at our hands. But blessed be his name, there
is one who has. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, our substitute, has paid the debt in full. He paid the
debt of our sin by the sacrifice of himself. Our Lord Jesus Christ
has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse
for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a
tree. He paid the debt of love, sacrificing himself for us, being
made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. He laid down his life for our
sins and paid the debt so that nothing is owed in this regard.
The motive compelling him and the compelling force that brought
him into all that he did for us is his love. And the motive,
the compelling force, and the foundation for Paul's instruction
to us in our text is the love of God in Christ that we've experienced. Turn over a couple of pages to
2 Corinthians 5. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 14. I'll wait for you to get
there. 2 Corinthians 5, 14. The love of Christ constraineth
us. Constraineth us. The love of
Christ pushes us. The love of Christ pulls us. The love of Christ forces us. Because we thus judge. That is,
we understand this. If one died for all, then we're
all dead. This is what that means. If Christ
died for you, Lindsay, you died in him. All for whom Christ died
are now dead to the law, and that he died for all for this
purpose, that they which live should not henceforth live unto
themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. Believers, heaven-born men and
women, are people who no longer live for themselves, but for
God. I didn't say they ought to be.
I didn't say that. That's not what the book says.
But rather, they are a people who being constrained by the
love, mercy, and grace of God, they live for God. They live
for Christ, for his glory, for his honor. The grace, the mercy,
the love, the forgiveness we have experienced in the redeeming
work of the Lord Jesus Christ compels us to love Him and to
love our brethren. The fact is, turn back a couple
pages now to Romans 5. You and I can never pay this
debt, but our Lord Jesus did. He showed us how to do it, and
He showed us how we must do it. In him, by him, I say the debt
is paid in full. Romans 5 verse 8. When we were
yet without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. That's about as good a way as
talking about his enemies as I can imagine. For scarcely for
a righteous man will one die. Yet peradventure for a good man,
some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward
us. And that while there was nothing
for God to gain from doing so, while there was nothing in us
attractive, while there was nothing in us to appeal to him, while
we were yet sinners, this is how he loved us. Christ died
for us. Hereby perceive we the love of
God because he laid down his life for us. and we ought to
lay down our lives for the brethren. That's the first thing. Be sure
you get it. Christ has paid our debt. Now
second, back in Romans 13, eight, the spirit of God puts this debt
on us. This is our debt. That's my second
point. It's our debt, a debt we are
to pay and pay and pay and pay and can never pay off. First,
obviously, this is a debt we owe to our brothers and sisters
in Christ, the church, the family of God. Love one another. See that you love one another
with a pure heart, fervently. How often words like those are
used in the book of God to you and me. How come? Because, Mark,
we need to be reminded and urged and prodded all the time. Vengeance,
wrath, anger, get even, is just part of us naturally, a part
of the flesh. It's always evil. It's always
corrupt. It's always wrong. Retaliation
is always wrong. So we're reminded again and again
and again, see that you love one another with a pure heart
fervently. You see, we're terribly prone
to neglect that which we presume is obvious. Men and women, after
they've been married for a while, seem to just presume. The husband knows his wife loves
him, the wife knows that her husband loves him, so they don't
say much or do much for each other, kind of ignore each other
and go their own way. We were watching one of the Death Valley
Days the other day and a fellow was going on a trip They'd hit a
gold strike, he was gonna go sell the mine, collect the money,
and he leaned over to give his wife a little peck on the cheek,
and the post office says he's getting ready to leave and catch
the stage, and she said, why, Homer, you haven't kissed me
in years. That's the way we generally are. That's the way we generally
are. We presume things to be obvious, and we're prone to neglect
them. And we all tend to be absorbed in ourselves. All of us, all of us. Heavenly Father, give me the
grace that only you can give to pay this debt, this debt of
love to your children for Christ's sake. To love sinners like me,
loved of God, chosen of God, redeemed by Christ's blood, born
of God's Spirit, Now, what was the reason you shouldn't love
your brother? To be long-suffering, gentle,
forbearing, forgiving, tender with my brethren. Give me the
grace to help the fallen, strengthen the weak, uphold the feeble,
feed the hungry, and comfort the troubled. But in our text,
Romans 13, verses eight, nine, and 10, we're specifically told
to pay this debt of love to those who are not our brethren. There
are two words that are used here. In the first part of the sentence,
Paul says, oh, no man anything but to love one another. There
the word translated love means, or translated another, it means
another of the same kind. Another like yourselves. It means
to love someone just like you. That's a little easier than loving
somebody who's not. Love another just like you. But
the next clause uses a different word. For he that loveth another,
and the word another there, means another who's not even similar
to you. Another of another kind. For
he that loveth another unlike himself at all hath fulfilled
the law. Paul is talking about loving
people with different backgrounds, people of different races, different
social order, people in different economic standing, People with
different opinions, different values, different religious views,
different doctrinal views. He's telling us to love people
with different personalities, different political ideas, and
different lifestyles. As different from you as day
is from night. As different from you as cold
is from hot. Paul says, love one another. The Spirit of God tells us here,
to love anyone and everyone God brings into our lives. Anyone
and everyone you come in contact with. He doesn't command us to
like them. That's a different thing. And
you have to love them whether you like them or not. I remember
the first time I saw Shannon Doe, Jimmy Stewart asked this
young man, I forgot who he was playing, it doesn't matter, he
was playing the fellow who was Courtney Stewart's daughter.
And he asked for a hand in marriage and he said, do you like her? And the fellow said, I love her.
He said, I know that, but do you like her? Do you like her? Well, the Lord doesn't command
us to like one another. He does command us to love one
another. And there is a difference. There are people that I love
that I wouldn't want to live with. There are people I love
who will do anything for them. I wouldn't want to be around
them 24 hours a day. He doesn't command us to desire their company. He commands us to love them.
You can get an idea of who it was. Our Lord's quoting Leviticus
chapter 19, or Paul's quoting Leviticus 19 and verse 18, and
he tells us to love our neighbor. If you ask, as that man in Luke
chapter 10, who sought to justify himself and excuse his mean,
cruel behavior toward others, he said, and who is my neighbor? Tell me who that is, and I'll
love him. Do you remember our Lord's answer? He gave him the
parable of the good Samaritan. And when he got done with the
parable, he said to that fellow, now, go and do thou likewise,
a Samaritan, a man who's beaten and robbed and left for dead,
from whom you can get nothing, for whom you must do everything,
but you happened to cross his path, and you've got what he
needs, and you take it and do for him what he needs. That's
what it is to love one another. My neighbor, the one I'm required
to love by God, is anyone who crosses my path. Whether it crosses
my path in the church house, or crosses my path in the workhouse,
or crosses my path in the schoolhouse, no matter where it is, anyone
who crosses my path is my neighbor. My neighbor, the one I'm required
by God to love, is anyone who has a need, I have the ability
and opportunity to help. My neighbor, specifically as
indicated in our Lord's parable and in Romans 12 and 13, the
one I'm required by God to love is my enemy, someone who's got
it in for me. Someone who's determined to hurt
me. Someone who has injured me. Someone who's damaged me in name,
in reputation, or in property, or in person. Now, here's the
third thing. How? How does God the Holy Ghost
teach us to pay this debt of love? It's easy enough to answer
that question as it relates to our brethren. I didn't say it
was easy to do. I said it's easy to answer. I
love my brethren by acts of mercy and love toward them, by living
for their good, by laying down my life in committed devotion
to them. That's the kind of love Ruth
just sang about, of which the psalmist wrote. Brethren. Oh, it's easy to answer how we're
to do that. We're to love our brethren. But
how are we to love our enemy? Read verses 9 and 10 and you'll
see the answer given, telling us exactly how God would have
us love our enemies. He uses only negatives. He says something, he doesn't
tell you to do something, he tells you not to do something.
That's all he uses, just negatives. We love our brethren and love
our enemies by doing them no harm and no injury. It's just that simple. Doing
them no harm and no injury. For this cause, thou shalt not
commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou
shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet, and if
there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in
this saying, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. What
does that mean? Love worketh no ill to his neighbor. Therefore
love is the fulfilling of the law Here the Apostle was inspired
by God to cite five of the ten commandments given in Exodus
20 in doing so He's not telling us that believers live under
bondage to the law. He's told us four times in this
chapter, five times in this chapter, we're not under the law. Or in
this book of Romans, we're not under the law. We're not under
the law, we're under grace. Believers are not under the law.
They're not inspired by the law, motivated by the law, or ruled
by the law. We're ruled by grace and mercy
and love from within, guided by the word of God in its entirety,
led by the spirit of God. Rather, Paul is showing us plainly
that there is nothing licentious about our gospel liberty. The
five commandments Paul cites are all taken from the second
table of the law, having to do with love toward our neighbor.
First, he mentions the seventh commandment. Thou shalt not commit
adultery. Now I'd like to take a little
time and talk to this generation on the widest news outlet in
the world, all of them. Give me an interview and let
me tell you what this is talking about. Adultery is always shameless
selfishness. Always. Shameless selfishness. Adulterers try to convince themselves
and others that they love the one with whom they're committing
adultery. But I love him, hogwash. But I love her, that's a bunch
of bull. That just ain't so, that just
ain't so. Well, how do you know? Because God says so, that's how
I know. It doesn't matter what you say,
doesn't matter. Adultery and fornication are perhaps the most
selfish acts men and women perform in this world. You see, they
are acts that people do only when they hold the one they embrace
in utter contempt. Now you young girls, listen to
me. You mamas and daddies, listen to me. You tell your children
these things and you can bring them to me and I'll tell them.
If you don't have the gumption to tell them, I'll tell them. A boy ain't
gonna take that girl to bed except for his own selfish desires.
There's no love involved in it, just passion. You're not gonna
steal another man's wife except for your own selfish desires
You have contempt for her for her husband for her children
for everybody in your family and everybody her family and
you do it only To gratify yourself for a mess of beans just like
he saw did It's all there is to it. I don't like that come
back. I'll give you some more Then
he quotes the sixth commandment Thou shalt not kill While most of us have never actually
murdered anybody, the Lord Jesus tells us that anger toward others
without cause is violation of the commandment. And the only
cause for just anger is anger over man's sin against God, not
his sin against me. Man's sin against his fellow
man, not his sin against me. Evil committed against someone
else, not evil committed against me. Anger, wrath, and malice
involve many, many things. All of them are evil, but they
never involve love. Then he quotes the ninth commandment.
Thou shalt not bear false witness. That's called slander. That's
called lying against your neighbor. That's called accusing somebody
of something that's not true. That's called attributing someone
a character that's not true. It's always rooted in pride and
selfishness. It always comes from pride and
selfishness. Serving yourself. I'll tell you
why folks talk bad about other people. It's to make themselves
look good. There's never another excuse.
There's never another reason. And then he, quotes the Eighth
Commandment. Thou shalt not steal. Obviously,
if you steal something from somebody, you take it from them because
you despise them and you consider them unworthy of yourself and
unworthy to possess what you don't have and yourself worthy
of the thing you steal. It's selfishness. And then he
quotes the Tenth Commandment. thou shalt not covet. Coveting,
desiring what others have, or just desiring what you don't
have, is self-love at its height. Not love to God and others, but
self-love. When I desire what others have,
it's because I foolishly imagine that I am worthy of this and
it'll make me happy. Me, me, me, me. We live in a generation of men
and women. Our children have been taught and we've been taught
for the last 50 years, everything centers on me. Would to God you'd
learn nothing centers on you. The world doesn't revolve around
you. The world not gonna stop just cause you die. And the world
not gonna stop spinning cause you're upset. It ain't gonna
happen. It ain't gonna happen. Nothing depends on you and nothing
revolves around you and nothing centers in you or me or me. Rather, you and I were put here
by our God to serve him and others. our business as a society. I
couldn't believe I heard somebody actually say this on the news
the other night, talking about elections coming up and elections
passed. He said there was a time when
folks used to vote because this is good for the nation. When
was the last time you heard anyone interviewing anybody, one of
those exit polls on TV, or talking to anybody and say, well, Do
you think this is best for the rest of the world, best for our
nation? How is this going to affect you? How much did you
get in the tax cut? How much are you going to lose
if that happens? It's always you. It's always you. Our thoughts
ought not be fixed on us. They'll be fixed on others all
the time. Well, if I don't look after myself,
who's going to? God will. And he does a better job than
I can do. Love requires continual self-denial. Look how Paul continues,
verse nine. And if there be any other commandment,
it's briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor,
therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. When was the last
time you did something to make yourself hurt? I believe, let's see here. I wonder how deep I could cut
that wrist without it cutting me to the quick and making me
bleed to death. When was the last time you did?
Well, Don, only a crazy man do something like that. That's exactly
what he said. No man ever yet hated his own
body. No man ever yet did injury to himself, not as long as his
mind was, unless it needed to be locked away somewhere. Nobody but an insane man injures
himself. And Paul says, love your neighbor
just like that. Don't do anything to injure them. Because self-denial
runs contrary to my flesh, this love requires constant effort
and thought. That means you have to take your
focus off yourself, Dodd. and quit thinking about how you
feel, and what you think, and what you want, and what you need. I need to think a little bit
about what Bobby needs, and Mark needs, and Claus wants, and Ruth
wants, and you want, and you feel, and you think. I read something
this week that illustrates exactly what the Spirit of God teaches
us here in Romans 13. Back in 1990, just after God
removed the Berlin Wall, there was a pastor in East Germany
named Uwe Homer and his wife, Sigrid. Living in their home
with them was a man by the name of Erich Honecker and his wife. Erich Honecker was the boss of
the Communist Party in East Germany before the wall came down. And
he was suffering from kidney cancer. And because of all his
past atrocities, no East German hospital or institution would
take them in. Pastor Homer and his wife were
caring for Erich Honecker and his wife. Now let me tell you
about this Pastor Homer and his wife. They had 11 children. All of them had refused to join
the Communist Youth Organization. As a result, they had been barred
from attending universities, and they'd been kept from getting
decent jobs. They were deprived and disadvantaged
because of their refusal. The person responsible was Honecker's
wife, who headed East Germany's educational system. And now this
pastor and his family, who had been victimized by the Honeckers,
were caring for them in their own home. I've been working on this message
for a few weeks and I have been asking myself the question, I
wonder if I'd open my house to them if I'd been there. Wonder if you would. The very people who had victimized
them were being helped by them without the least trace of bitterness. They were loving even their enemies.
That's what God the Holy Spirit tells us to do here in Romans
13. Now I promised you I'd go back to
Romans 1, so come back there with me. This is where Paul first speaks
of the debt we owe, the debt we must pay, claiming it as his
own. There's much more we can and
must do by which to heap coals of fire on the heads of our enemies,
as he tells us in Romans 12, 20 and 21. But nothing surpasses paying
the debt by telling eternity bound sinners of Jesus Christ
and his sin atoning sacrifice, his almighty free grace, his
saving mercy. Romans 1.14, I'm a debtor. I'm
a debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the
wise and to the unwise. So as much as in me is, I'm ready
to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not
ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto
salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to
the Greek. For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the
just shall live by faith. Make it your business. to tell sinners everywhere who
God is and how God saves sinners by His Son. Make it your business
to get sinners here to hear the gospel of God's free grace and
to publish it from here everywhere. Never tire of it. And there's
no better way to do so than to go find that man, that woman
that has been the meanest and the most obnoxious and the most
abusive to you and bring them to hear the gospel and do them
good. Take them out to dinner and get
them a cup of coffee and say, I'd like you to come to church
with me tonight. I believe it'll do us both good. You can't do that. That's absurd,
preacher. No, it's called obeying God. You see, he who is your most
implacable enemy today may be your most cherished friend tomorrow.
God just might save him. And he won't use you for the
saving of his soul, except as you walk with him, doing him
good, laying down your life to him. That's what it is to love
somebody. We live in this generation of
marriage and divorce and remarriages. Man gets married, I'll throw
her away and get me another one. I just don't love her anymore.
If you ever did, you do. If you ever did, you do. Love
doesn't cease. Love doesn't cease. And love
is the kind of commitment that just can't be put off. It can't
be stopped. It can be injured, but it can't
be stopped. It can be hurt, but it can't be stopped. It can be
greatly abused, but it can't be stopped. Believers are men
and women committed, committed to the welfare of all in whom
their lives are, with whom their lives are intermingled. All with
whom they come into contact by God's providence, seeking to
do them good. Jerry, sadly we fail miserably.
with our tongues and our tempers and our behaviors. And it ought
not be. It ought not be. Let us learn
to love one another and to walk in love toward them that are
without. That's called giving up everything
for somebody else. That's what it is. Giving up
everything for somebody else. This woman married me nearly
49 years ago. And she took my name, and she
gave up her family, and she left her home. And she's followed
me everywhere I've ever gone. And she does everything she can
just for me, just to make me happy. It's called love. It's
called love. I hope I do the same. But there's
not going to be any end to this, you see. Well, you can't say
that for sure. Yes, I can. Divorce is not an
option. That door was closed the day
I said, I take her for better or for worse, till death do us
part. And she said the same. That door
was closed. I took that vow before God. But
that's not the only reason, Merle. I love her. She loves me. So
we'll work it out. We'll work it out. How about
you? Whatever it is that causes strife
and division in your home, with God's people, with your neighbor,
work it out. Work it out by giving up. That's the only way of working
anything out. You got to give up. You got to give up. You get
in an argument with somebody, the only way you're gonna stop
is somebody gives up. All right, you win. That's right. You just
give up. The only way it's gonna stop. And you and I are always
to give up ourselves to God, to one another, and to others.
So as much as life in you, love one another with a pure heart,
fervently, for Christ's sake. Amen.