Latest / Trinity Tinley Park Sermon Podcast / "The Never Ending Debt of Love" with Pastor Rick Schauer | September 6, 2026

Transcript

"The Never Ending Debt of Love" with Pastor Rick Schauer | September 6, 2026 · Trinity Tinley Park Sermon Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we just sang a beautiful hymn on love and uh saw a video on love and uh what a joy it is to be God's people.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Dear friends in Christ, it's a four-letter word that you see up there.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's become a problem for millions of people, and yet it's hard to live without it.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're in it, we normally try to get out of it.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: If it becomes unmanageable, it can make life miserable, destroying a person's health, crushing a marriage, and robbing people of hope.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: What am I talking about?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that word love.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: As you were listening to me, hopefully you picked up on that.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's that other four-letter word called debt that's up there.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about a debt that maybe might be a child paying back his mother or father after purchasing a bike.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or for those of us who are homeowners, uh, we all know what it means to be in debt.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And debt has three basic components.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, what the debt is, secondly, to whom the debt is owed and by whom it is owed, and third, how the debt is repaid.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you take a mortgage out for a home, you have to deal with the lending institution and those three basic types of uh concepts there come into play too, those components.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: The amount of the loan that's specified, the lender and borrower may be identified there, definitely.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And also the repayment schedule will be worked up.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Even in the case of a child asking a fellow classmate, uh, can I borrow a dollar for you so I can get a snack and I'll pay you tomorrow?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Those three things still apply.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: The debts identified as are the borrower and the lender, and the repayments specified.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because the scriptures so often connect concepts of this world to spiritual things, we know that it probably comes to us as no surprise that debt can teach us a number of spiritual lessons.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, he used the basic principles of borrowing and indebtedness in those parables about forgiveness.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Through the prophets and the writers of the Psalms, the Lord spoke about the honor that his people owed him.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And in the prayer that Jesus teaches us, well, we know that we have that debt of sin which God has forgiven us, and it's that debt which we owe others to forgive them who sin against us.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: In the Word of God, on which we're going to focus here on Romans 13, we're going to see a different application about that familiar idea of debt.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And here we're told that we owe a debt that we can never pay off.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: We can never pay it off.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And with these three basic principles of debt in mind, let's dig into these verses and allow the Holy Spirit to even change our Christian life and take it to a new level.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul directs us concerning the believers, debt, and love.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it comes on the heel of his command about submitting to the governing authorities.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then these verses before the text that I have, he says to consider this.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: He says, This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, and they give their full time to governing.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Give everyone what you owe him.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you owe taxes, pay taxes.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: If revenue, then revenue.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: If respect, then respect.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: If honor, then honor.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And with that idea in mind of a believer paying what he or she owes, well, the Holy Spirit leads Paul to make a transition here to the concerning debt of love that believers, you and I, really owe.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: He shows us what that debt of love is, and those to whom we owe it, and also how we pay it.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: So what is that debt of love that we owe?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Paul says, Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: For he who loves his fellow man has fulfilled that law.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever something from the everyday world of physical things is used to picture something of the eternal world of spiritual things, some explanation will be needed often.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that connection is not always seamless.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Our debt of love does not come from us borrowing from others.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, we know it comes from borrowing from another person.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Let's call him a third party.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what I mean in the saying that normally we know that a loan is from one person who must repay another person for what's borrowed.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: But in the debt of love that Paul's talking about, we borrowed love from God.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then we're directed to repay it not to God, but to others.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And this makes our debt somewhat different from any other type of debt.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: For a moment or two, we need to look at God's accounting system regarding the continuing debt of love.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: We know that any sin, it really violates God's holiness.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if he just ignored sin, well then he wouldn't be a just and a holy God at all.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible tells us that even one sin against God creates a debt that none of us can pay.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, we couldn't pay off our debt with God with even a thousand lifetimes of proper obedience to him.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So according to God's ledger, you and I are spiritually bankrupt.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: The thing is, we can't file for bankruptcy.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: We can't just walk away from it and start over again.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: It must be paid.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And unlike the financial debt, we can't come to God and offer to pay a few cents on the every dollar and do some good things to make up for it in our life.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: No, he must have each sin paid for in full.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: With God, there's no room for negotiation with us.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: But thankfully, God acted on our behalf.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And he sent his son Jesus to pay off our debt.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we borrow from him both to pay for what we owe because of our sins and also to have that holiness that we need.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a good way to describe our saving faith.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: When we know that our debt has been paid, when we believe that, well, then we naturally want to give all that we are and have to be able to love others.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Once we know that we have that, well, God accepts our response, but he says to us in a very unique way, don't pay me back.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: No, instead, pay others around you instead.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: We know a number of passages that talk about that Jesus said, A new command I give you.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Love one another.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And by this you will know that, or by this all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the Apostle John, he writes in his letter, Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone who has been born of God is also one who knows God.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So when Paul says that we have a continuing debt of love to one another, he isn't saying that we've borrowed love from each other and must pay it back.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's simply reminding us that we have borrowed from God.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he asks us to love each other out of our desire to pay God back.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's our response.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus gave his followers very specific instructions about living a Christian life and demonstrating it.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: On that night when he was betrayed, he takes a bowl, a basin of water, and a towel, and he ends up washing his disciples' feet.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that was contrary to what they would normally know, because it's a servant who does that, not their Lord and teacher.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it was so not expected that even Peter, you know, he wants to even deny allowing that to even happen.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that was because it went so against the grain of their culture.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus describes how we are to go against our cultural norms too.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And instead love others.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: But before we claim that we're ready to pay our debt of love, we need to carefully look at those who are going to collect that debt.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we acknowledge that our love does come from God's love for us, first of all.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really directed back to God, too, because of his goodness and his mercy.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: But God wants us to make our payments not to him, but to others.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And in these verses, Paul identifies the people who are to be the focus.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Let no debt remain outstanding except for the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then he goes on to say, love your neighbor as yourself.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And also, he says, love does no harm to a neighbor.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And in those verses, there's three groups that Paul is talking about, three distinct groups.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, one another.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the fellow family of Christ, the brothers and sisters that we are of Jesus.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then he talks about others.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that includes everyone, even unbelievers.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, there's the neighbor, and that's the people who are close to you.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: They can be believers and unbelievers.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: They can be family, friends, and even enemies.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And these creditors that we are to give that love to, they're not always easy to pay.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it will frequently be a challenge to pay our debt of love to them because there are those people who are so unlovable as far as treating us.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: They don't love us much.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this point is also brought out in that parable, The Good Samaritan.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it was, you know, him, and think of how he really acted in a way that people didn't expect either.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: He loved his enemy.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: He helped the helpless man.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he went above and beyond common courtesy, and he loved a fellow human.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus speaks to us today, even as he spoke to his disciples.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Love your enemies.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do good to those who hate you.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Bless those who curse you, and pray for those who even mistreat you.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: It might be easy for a man proposing to a woman to say, I love you.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: I want to spend the rest of my life with you.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, words come easily.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: But think about any of you who maybe work under a difficult boss.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe in dealing with a spouse or with children at times, you know how difficult those actions of love are to follow through on.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And yet that's what we owe them.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we must look to Jesus, who is able to supply us with the demonstration and the desire to love others.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: But when the things happen in our lives, well, it doesn't always work out, does it?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: There was a little girl who was at the home of her first great friend.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And they were going to be having dinner there.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the one girl's mother had one item, which was buttered broccoli.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so she asked the girl, Do you like broccoli?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, Oh, yes, I love broccoli.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Very sweetly, she says that.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh it comes to the time where the broccoli, that bowl is passed around the table, and she declined to take any of it.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the mother said, I thought you said you love broccoli.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And very sweetly she says, Oh, I love broccoli, but not enough to eat it.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, like that little girl, we can say, Oh, yes, I love others.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: But if we just say it and we don't show it, it's not enough, is it?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Here the Apostle Paul, he gets very specific about paying the debt of love.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: He says, the commandments do not commit adultery, murder, stealing, coveting, or whatever other commandment there may be.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: They're summed up in this one rule: love your neighbor as yourself.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Love does no harm to its neighbor, therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: As we look at that, that statement, love your neighbor as yourself, we see that it is very straightforward, right?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a precise summary of the commandments.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: But as you see that, it's helpful to look at the parts of the whole that are there.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if we love our neighbor as ourselves, well, then we honor and respect those who are in authority over us.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: We love our neighbor as we love ourselves, by not hurting them, but by protecting them so nothing can harm them.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we uphold the gift of marriage that God gives to us.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And as we do that, we love our neighbors as ourselves.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Concerning property and reputation, we love others as we love ourselves by not saying or doing or thinking anything that is going to harm the people who are around us.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: We may pay our debt of love by loving others as we've been loved by God.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And even those who are unloving, they will become lovable to us, definitely.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder how many of you know the phrase when it was first broadcast.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, the original melody and that line of hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work we go.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was back on December 21st, 1937.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: That was before a lot of us, right?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're in that obviously Snow White movie of the dwarfs singing that.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: But then replacing hi-ho with I-O, it it turned really was a cheerful anthem about labor, and it turned it into really a dark joke about working strictly to pay off continuing bills and those mounting bills and debt.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And although we can use that phrase in relation to our financial situation, you know, here also we've got something like that in Romans 13.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And to God, we can't help but say, I owe.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: I owe.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: I owe you God.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: But then with his love in mind, we can say it's off to work we go.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because we go to love others as we love ourselves and as God has loved us.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: May God enable us to be able to see our continuing debt of love.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: May we first see what it is.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Means that we love others as we have been loved by God.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And may we see to those to whom it is owed.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: May we see all the people, our family, our friends, neighbors, friends, even strangers and enemies.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: And may we see how this debt of love is paid.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: We pay it as we love our neighbor according to all the commandments that are summed up in that golden rule: love your neighbor as yourself.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: With an understanding of that unending debt of love, God will enable us to continue to pay it each and every day for his glory alone.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Dear Lord, we love you and we know what you have done for us, and you've taken care of everything that we need, most of all for eternity.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And as uh you are our living Lord, we can always call upon you, Jesus, because you're there with us each and every day.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And as we see your love for us, may we may we be reflections of that beautiful love that you have for all people.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: For in you there is no difference in clan or nation, language, whatever it is, Lord.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: We are all the same.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: So may we look at every person as you do and be those lights of Jesus for them.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's in your name we pray.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.