Hello, I'm Tony Carter, Lead Passive East Point Church. For the past eight years, we've called the City of East Point our home as we've sought to point people to Christ through the preaching of the gospel. And during our time here, we've shared church space and met in civic centers and in schools, but now God has given us a gracious opportunity to have a place that we can call our own. Currently, we are under contract for a church building and our raising funds for the down payment. And normally, we don't ask for donations in this matter, but this is a unique and a wonderful opportunity for us. And so, if you are so inclined, we ask that you would partner with us in the pursuit of our vision for permanent home for East Point Church. If you would like to give, we invite you to visit our website at epointchurch.org and there you will find a tab directing you and how you might be able to give and support of us raising the funds to obtain this church building. Thank you for this opportunity and thank you for partnering with us in advance. Good morning. It is good to be here. I've been given permission to take a few liberties this morning for. We begin and I do this mainly because I want to deal with whatever sort of lingering thought the questions you may have before we get into the word. My family and I moved to Zambia last August. My wife Bridget and I and our seven youngest children have moved there and we came back here for a short visit in December where you were planning to head back in January. My wife is from Dallas. I was invited to do a lecture series at Dallas Seminary that ended the day before her 50th birthday. And so, she could be back home with her folks and all my in-laws and we could just do it up for a birthday and then go back. And that was the plan. And while we were here, we got a phone call from our doctorate to see that we've worked with here in Georgia before. And we just had absolutely no expectation whatsoever that we would get another call for another baby. Just none. First of all, we've got, you know, nine kids who's going to call us, you know, for another baby. Secondly, we've got our age, you know, who's going to call us for another baby. But through a series of events and because of the adoption world, people like to try to keep siblings together and a young woman who we worked with before, who had made some moves to put our life in a certain track, including having her two-time. So, a whole lot of stuff had to happen for us again of a phone call. And they called us and it was interesting because they called us thinking, you know, we understand these people's age. We understand they have nine children. We understand they live in Zambia. We understand there's like, you know, probably no way that this is ever going to work out for them, but it's protocol, so they called us. And they called and when they called, again, we're kind of on vacation, we're kind of resting and relaxing and we've got a phone call from them. And I didn't get the call and I told Bridget, I said, I shouldn't need to see college. It really? Yeah. So, we were hoping that it was birth mother wanting to get together with us while we were in the States. We want to have contact with her. We want to have input and influence our life. We hope that it was that. We thought maybe it was, you know, they wanted us to do, you know, something to help them. Maybe you speak at something or promote something or whatever. Never crossed our mind that they're calling us about a baby. And so, then I got on the phone with them and case worker said, you remember how you said, you always want to tend kids?
But, you know, again, we don't expect you guys to step up and do this. We're going to show you circumstances. You don't even live in the country anymore. You don't have your house, so you probably might even residence. Well, actually, we've been begging God to sell our house and our house hadn't sold. House is selling around our house. Our house hadn't sold. Well, your house hadn't sold. So, you all still take this residence. Yep. Oh, check that. And about 10 other things that had to check off and they all checked off. And then there was the last thing, of course, which was Abraham and Sarah deciding that they weren't too old for numbers. And so, I got off the phone and it wasn't even really a discussion. I had to phone. I looked at Bridget and Bridget looked at me and we just kind of shrugged
and it was here we go again. So, we've extended our stay. We'll be here until at least the end of March. Babies got to be born here, actually in Atlanta. The adoption agency is in Macon. And I'm coming back to preaching two weeks at another church here in the Atlanta area, bringing my wife with me on that trip because the babies do on the 27th. And so, that weekend that I'm coming to preach, we're hoping that the babies born, we'll go, we'll see the baby, we'll go back to Texas and then come back the next week, looking to take the baby back with us. But, of course, we've got to get a passport to take the baby back to Africa. The judge that we have finalized with six times out of our seven previous adoptions has already agreed to waive the six month requirement. So, our finalization is going to happen immediately. So, be praying for us, be praying for us because we weren't expecting that. And here it is, another baby. So, to that end, you have your Bibles with you. Open with me the Romans chapter 13. When I talked to pastor Tony about today and asked what was happening in life in the church in terms of preaching, he told me what was going on and he said that he would like for me to preach on love. I can do that. And so, I decided to preach on love, but from a source that may be a little unexpected. Sometimes, you know, somebody says, once you preach on love, we think, well, I'll preach from, you know, first thing, in 13, or, you know, your love had no man in this, or, usually not Romans 13. But, I want to deal with Romans 13 for some very specific reasons. Not the least of which is, I think we are woefully ignorant on the issue of love. Dangerously ignorant. On the issue of love, recklessly ignorant on the issue of love. And I believe we are harming ourselves because of our ignorance on the issue of love. We have no idea what it is, no idea what it means. Our definition of love is not only unbiblical, but it is internally self-contradictory. And it's harmful. And so, we come at love from one of two perspectives. And it's interesting. As an adoptive family, the one perspective that I didn't think of before we started adopting children was this evolutionary biological perspective. And it is evolutionary. It is Darwinian. And most people don't realize it is Darwinian, but it is a Darwinian evolutionary idea. The idea that love is a byproduct of biology. And that's why we ask questions like, is it difficult to love an adopted child? That question is born out of an evolutionary worldview. A worldview that says, love is the byproduct of biology. And if a child is not connected to you biologically, then there must be a hindrance in your love for that child. This is not Bible, folks. That's Darwinian evolutionary theory. This is not Bible. And if you want to know how foolish that is, here's how foolish that is. I don't even answer the question anymore. When people ask me about loving biological children and loving children who came to our family by adoption, I don't even answer it anymore. I answer the question with a question. Are you married? Yes, I'm married. Okay. Then let me ask you this question. Who's your next of kin? Well, my spouse. How can you possibly love someone like that who's not related to you biologically? Well, the answer to that lies in our second definition of love. The one is the evolutionary biological definition of love. The other is the mystical definition of love. It's defined by the myth of Cupid, little cherub flies around and strikes us with his arrow so that we fall in love. Even the phrase fall in love. I just walked along, my mouth fell in love. We use phrases like this thing is bigger than both of us. The heart wants what it wants and my favorite. We don't choose who we fall in love with. So that's the answer that we have to that other aspect of love. Again, that one. Nowhere in Bible country. Okay. So one of them is Darwinian evolution. The other one is a myth that comes to us through this sort of Greco-Roman mythology. Neither of these ideas of love come to us from the Bible. Here's why that's problematic. It's problematic because we are commanded in the scriptures to love. And there are people in this room right now who are having difficulties in their relationship with one another and or in their relationship with God because of a flawed and faulty definition and understanding of love. You think God doesn't love you because you don't feel like it anymore. You think you don't love your spouse because you don't feel like it anymore. You think you've come to love another because you feel something for another person that you used to feel for the person that you're married to and the culture because of these myths has basically sent to you, hey, the heart wants what it wants, and people walking away from each other because they've fallen out of love. As we say down in Texas, that dog won't hunt, especially when we look at the text. Romans chapter 13, beginning at verse 8, we want to look at the obligation to love. We're like with that sounds, do we? The obligation to love. It just sounds so unromantic. It can't be an obligation. It's supposed to be something that you just pulled on. Verse 8, oh, no one. Oh, oh, oh, that's an obligation to pay, right? By owe you some money, I obligated to give you an obligation. Oh, no one, anything, except to love each other. For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. And if owing was unromantic, how much is fulfilling the law? Unromantic. 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. Besides this, and here's something that other thing is not related to this statement that's gone before. But I assure you it is. 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 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. Isn't it interesting? Oftentimes when people talk about love and when we sing movies about love, songs about love, there it is right there. Right? orgies, drunkenness, sexual immorality, sensuality, quarreling and jealousy. We just fight like this because we love and it's passionate. We're just passionate. That's why we fight. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. Amen. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. To have here of this obligation to love, the law side and the gospel side, it's interesting. It's divided into those who have law and gospel. First, when we look on this law side, this is very important. It's crucial because it flies in the face of these wrong-headed definitions of what love is. Oh, no one wants anything except to love each other. Why? Well, because of how you feel, because of how you commit, no, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. Well, what law have you fulfilled? Next phrase for the commandments. Well, which commandments? I said 630 some commandments in the health and which commandments are you talking about? You shall not commit adultery. Well, that's the seventh in the deck of law. You shall not murder. That's the sixth. You shall not steal. That's the eighth. You shall not covet. That's the tenth.
And in the other commandments, like, you know, number nine, when listed. So, you know, in case you shouldn't have thinking, well, you mentioned all those other commandments. You didn't mention that. Yeah, any other commandment. There's some up in this word. You should love your neighbor as yourself. This is the summary of the second table of the law. You see, the deck of law is divided into two halves. The first half is the vertical commandments. Commandments one through four. This is our duty to God. No other God before me. Amen? No graven images. Do not take my name in vain. On to the Sabbath day. These are our vertical commandments. They have to do with our duty to God. See, when Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, the question was actually a trap. There are a number of schools of thought. Some would have said that the greatest commandment was the first commandment. Right? It's the umbrella for all the rest of the commandments. Some would have said that it was the tenth because coveting is the source for all of our violations of any of the commandments. Others would have argued that it was the fifth because the fifth was a bridge between the first table and the second table. Jesus said, the first commandment is, love the Lord your God, love your heart, mind, soul, treat, right? That's one through four. The second is like it, loving neighbor as yourself. We see here, that's five through ten. Jesus was the greatest commandment. I'm going to have to say one through four. Follow closely by five through ten. This is a summary of the second table of the law. Why is this important? First ten, love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. Well, now wait a minute. I thought we were done with the law. We're not under the law, but we're not done with the law. We can't be done with the law because the law is a perfect reflection of the holiness and righteousness of God. Can't be done with it. This is not the only place where you have an inclination toward this. If you turn with me to the right and look for example at first Timothy, look at first Timothy chapter one. First Timothy chapter one.
Now we know that beginning of verse eight, now we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully. Understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane. Now interestingly enough, there are those who made the argument of Richard Barcellus, for example. I think quite convincingly, that in that list you have a reference to the first four commandments. But regardless of whether or not you agree with his argument there, watch what happens next. For those who strike their fathers and mothers, that's the fifth commandment. For murderers, that's the sixth commandment. For the sexually immoral and men who practice homosexuality, that's the seventh commandment. For in slavers, that's the eighth commandment against stealing, man stealing. For liars and perjurers, that's the ninth commandment. And whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. He lists off the decalogue and he says whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. Are we under the law? No, we're not. Praise God, we're not under the law. We're not saved by our law keeping. However, we are saved by the law keeping of another Christ in his active obedience kept the whole law on our behalf so that he might impute his righteousness to us. The imputed righteousness of Christ that sees us as righteous before the Father is the righteousness that kept the whole law where we could not. Then in his passive obedience, he lays down his life on behalf of sinners who have violated God's law so that our law breaking has been dealt with by a holy and righteous God. And it is this double imputation, this imputation of my sinfulness on Christ that is nailed to the cross and this imputation of his righteousness to me that makes me righteous before a holy God that justifies me before God and allows God to be both just in that he punished my sin on the cross and the justifier of the one who places faith in Jesus because Christ has kept the obligation of the law. Do we think for a moment that Christ has taken on our sin and laid down his life so that we could then go and live contrary to the righteousness of God?
Why is this so important? This is so important because those definitions of love that we have lingering in our minds often cause us to justify lawlessness. Well, how so? Let's look at it again. Oh, no one anything except to love each other for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, no more, you shall not commit adultery. We say we committed adultery because we fell in love with somebody else. The Bible says to do that is not love. It's really common. It's an amazing thing. You watch movies back from the 30s, 40s and 50s and movies back in the 30s, 40s and 50s. These romantic comedies of the 30s, 40s and 50s. They usually end. There's always the same sort of arc. There's the same character arc. These people meet. They can't stand each other. They go through the entire movie at odds with each other. But you can see the tension between the two of them. Something happens during this character arc that thrust them together. They realize, you know, they're feelings for each other. And then at the end of the movie, they get married. That's the 30s, 40s and 50s. Today, you're more likely to see a film where there's two people who've been in a sexual relationship with one another for months. And then all of a sudden, one of them slips us and says, I love you. And then the other one's got to go get the phone and call girlfriend or mama or somebody and go, this is meaningless. Say the word to say that you've finally been struck by keeping. Ah, there it is. That's the real deal. All the while, you've been in violation of the law of the God who is love. God defines love. You don't define love. I don't define love. God defines love. Your feelings don't define love. God defines love. Tell me you love me while you're sitting against me. Look at the last verse in the sixth and again, verse 10. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. It's interesting. Paul is not here trying to give us a full or definition of what love is. He's telling us how love acts. And what the constraints are around love. We owe love to one another. And I don't just mean parent a child, husband to wife, but I mean brother to brother to the church. Oh, love to each other.
One of my favorite books is Book of First John. He's one of the hardest books to preach, but it's wonderful because you almost got preached the whole thing every time. Just to preach a sermon from First John. You got to bring like the whole book in order to explain what you're doing in one part of First John. There are these tests. John gives these tests, and it's about testing yourself to see if you're in the faith. And one of the tests that he gives is do you love the brothers? If you are converted, if you're born again, if you're redeemed, if you belong to Jesus Christ, one of the marks is you love who he loves. Do you love the church? Do you love the church? If you don't, John says, you're a driver. It's like someone coming to me saying, oh yeah, just you know, I just, I love you. I just think you and me, we ought to be friends, we ought to be boys, we ought to be aces. I can't stand your wife though, man. It's the next thing that comes out of my mouth supposed to be, okay? Jesus, Jesus, I love you. Words can barely express Jesus how much I love you.
Your bride, whom you love so much that you laid down your life for her, I can't stand her. She is your body. So I don't love your body, but I love you. You see the problem there? You, we all love to one another. It's an obligation. Well, it just seems like to me that if you really do love that you wouldn't see it as an obligation, that if it was really love, that it should be something that you want to do all the time, that you feel like doing all the time, that you're glad to do all the time. Really? Father, if there is any other way, let this bitter cup pass from me. Translation, I do not want to die, and he went back multiple times praying the same thing. If there's another way we can do this,
nevertheless, because of my overwhelming infatuation with,
nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. The greatest act of love anyone has ever done for another was done, not because of an overwhelming emotional desire to do it, but in spite of an overwhelming emotional desire not to. And in fact, in this, Jesus answers the question of the second half. How do you do this? How do we fulfill this obligation? That last line, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. There's the answer right there. The gospel does this. It's the gospel that does this. It's the gospel that gives us a picture of this, and then it's the gospel that does this in us. The gospel picture of this is this. Jesus dies. He lays down his life on behalf of his bride. He did not feel like doing that for his bride. However, remember, nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. It was his commitment to his father that gave him what he needed in order to love his bride the way she needed to be loved. See, love is always vertical before it's horizontal, if it's really love. So it is our overwhelming love for God because he first loved us that gives us both the desire and the ability to take that love horizontal. Jesus looks at his bride and says, I don't want to do this. However, because God is God, he does it in spite of the fact that he doesn't want to do it. So don't tell me you don't feel like loving your spouse. Run to the cross and ask Jesus what you're supposed to do when you don't feel like loving your spouse. And then after you've asked him what you're supposed to do, watch him do it. Read what he does at the cross. He lays down his life and he dies in order to redeem his bride. Bride doesn't become all that he desires her to become and then he lays down his life. He lays down his life in order that she might become all that he desires for her to become.
You can have cupid and Darwin. Give me that. This is love. It was an obligation. It's the reason he was sent. The father sent him to redeem his bride. He loved us out of obedience and obligation to his father. But you're really going to argue that romanticism trumps that? The romanticism that has given us a culture filled with. I love you. I love you. I love you. And six months later, I'll see you tomorrow. I love somebody else. Romanticism will not give you what you need in order to love the way we are called to love as followers of Jesus Christ. But this picture of love that is found in Christ gives us more than enough. Amen? More than enough. Because again, here's the danger. It was dangerous. Ask anybody who's been in pastor or ministry for a while. You see it happen. People who come in and they just they're done. They're finished. They're through. And they don't say it out loud. But everything in them and about them says, pastor, I am here and I'm going to stay here until I hear something that comes out of your mouth that justifies what I'm already committed to doing. And that's leaving. But my profile is too high and Christianity for me to just do it. So what I need is for a pastor to understand how messed up she is so that after I do it, and I'm ridden with guilt, I can look into the faces of other Christians and say, I took that to my pastor. Even my pastor said, you need to leave her. And if you don't say that, I'll go talk to somebody else and then somebody else and then somebody else until somebody does say it. You can't say amen. You ought to say out. And we sit there and say, I just though, you just don't understand. You do not understand how miserable I am. And I do not believe that God would want me to stay here and be miserable. What are you doing, pastor? No, I'm just taking in what you just said. You just, I'm just taking it in. What do you mean, pastor? You okay? I might not be because I'm just, I'm trying to take in what you said. You're going to leave your spouse because you're miserable and you don't think that God would want you to stay and be miserable. Now I'm just, let me, let me, I'm trying here. The spotless, sinless Lamb of God, the father crushed and killed for his glory, but you he wouldn't want miserable. And I'm making like, no, I'm not making like, I'm making much, I'm making much of Christ and how he loved us because here's what I know. My wife on her worst day as my wife is better to me than I am to the one who died for me. And even if she's not, I must believe that the one who died for me and for her can and will give me what I need in order to endure until she is.
This is the picture of love. I still know how you can love an adopted child. It's a child. It's a child who needs a whole, who needs a mother, who needs a father. We give that to that child because it's what that child needs. Yeah, well, what if that child never responds to you in a way that you desire? It's a child. You give the child what the child needs. God doesn't give us children so that we can use them for ourselves, but so that we can raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and give them what they need. What if your biological child doesn't give you what it is you feel like you need from your biological child? That's still your child because of the picture that we find in both the law and the gospel. One who fulfilled the law on our behalf and died and rose again on our behalf. This is the one who gives us what we need to turn from this inward view of love that says, love is all about me being satisfied and getting from another individual what I desire to get from them and move toward a picture of love that says, love is about me giving to this individual what I have received from Christ and what they so desperately need from me regardless of what I get in return picture of love that's the testimony of the cross is the beauty this is the beauty of it beauty of it is that in the midst of all of that when that is your attitude towards love towards your spouse towards your child towards your brother sister in Christ they're very few Christians in the history of the world who've ever lived their life given away that kind of love and never had a moment where it came back amen somebody hey man if our attitude is this is an obligation it's an obligation that Christ fulfilled first and foremost on my behalf and it's an obligation that I turn around and fulfill by his grace but when we do that by his grace and for his glory and it's enough for us and it's turned around and we receive it amen it's just gravy I worry sometimes I worry sometimes that we just will not have the right perspective that we need because as I've grown older I've come to see that if all you're about is the story I teenaged romanticism you're in trouble what do you do when you look into the eyes of your spouse one day and they don't remember you how do you love them then with the Darwinian mystical kind of love what do you do then how do you make it through those difficult days that you have to go through if all we have is this sort of cultural phenomenon that we see all around us the answer is you can't you don't what happens when they don't look like they used to look what do you do where do you go you see this definition of love this idea of love that we find here in the obligation of love it is not just superior in that we find it coming from God who is love but it's also superior in that when you understand life for real the way life is this is the only love that can endure real life and we know it will because it already endured the cross and for some of you that's what you need to know today for some of you you need to just stay right there today for some of you it just needs to be that because you're trying to find your way spiritually and you're trying to find a list of things that you can do and you're trying to live on this lost side you don't understand this gospel side you can't get there from here your marriage is in a tough place and you think maybe if we go to church we can get out of that place and maybe we can you can't get there from here the place that you need to rest and abide is that place of double imputation you need to understand that you need to understand that you stand guilty and condemned before a holy and righteous God and you've got to have an answer and right now your answer is woefully insufficient you need to understand that God is just and He is righteous and right now you've got nothing that will allow you to stand up against this justice and His righteousness and when you understand that you need to understand that there is one who has kept the law where you could not and there is one who has died the death that you owe when you understand that and that your only hope is that double imputation pray that God will give you grace that you might cry out to Him and find forgiveness in Christ that you might turn from your sin that you might turn to Christ that you might embrace who He is and what He has done and that in doing so you might be saved that's your greatest need that's your greatest need you can't bypass that and get to the application of it in that be sound in that last not only your greatest need but your greatest hope