Love that Keeps Yourself in Control
Responsible Love with Others – Part 1
Romans 13:8-14
We want to look at how God teaches us as Christians to love. I want to call this love “responsible love.” You can love someone responsibly or irresponsibly. The Bible teaches us to be responsible in our love to one another.
How do I know this?
The reason that I know that the Bible teaches us to be responsible in our love to another is this. The Bible teaches Christians that the primary goal in life is to love God and love one another. Paul says that love is the only debt that we should owe others. He also goes to show in Romans 13:9 that the Old Testament can be summed up in our goal to love.
Paul narrows some of the Ten Commandments – the commandments dealing with others around you to a summary statement. This statement: “Love your neighbor as yourself” comes from Leviticus 19:18.
If our primary goal in life is to love God and love one another, then there must be a proper way to love God and a proper way to love one another. These verses in Romans 13 sow us the proper way to love others.
The verse may say “love your neighbor.” Your neighbor is not just the person next door. Your neighbor is defined as everyone else but yourself.
The Bible teaches us that we should be responsible in our love toward others. The Bible also describes how we should be responsible in our love to other people. The way we love others should be responsible. The way to be responsible in our love to everyone else is defined in Romans 13:10. The Bible says that love should be a love that does no harm to others. This means that there is a wrong way to love and a right way to love others. When how I act hurts others, then I am not loving responsibly. In essence, the Bible says that I am not really loving someone. But when I am responsible with my love, when I do no harm to others in how I love others, then it is the right way to love.
Now, the right way to love, is to love responsibly. When I love in a responsible way, I am saying that I will love without doing harm.
Just as a doctor heals you by not doing harm, you love others best when you love by doing now harm to others. Now just as a doctor has ways and methods that he uses to heal you and not to harm you, you and I can love other without doing them harm. How can I love someone responsibly? How can I love someone without doing them harm? The way you do that best is by restraining your own behavior.
When I express my love to someone else, and I do it responsibly, and I do it without causing them harm, then my love stays in control. My love stays in control and it works best in others when I restrain my own behavior. I love others responsibly best when I keep my behavior from getting out of control.
ILLUSTRATION: REINS ON A HORSE
Christians are called by the Bible to walk properly. The emphasis in our walk is to be in the day as opposed in the night. The use of the word day is used in the New Testament to describe good character. We walk in public in a way that others can see. We walk in public in a way that others will want to follow.
How should a Christian walk? A Christian should follow Jesus like a horse follows its rider. If you have ever rode a horse, you know that you ride on top of the horse on a saddle. You control the horse through the use of reins and a bridle.
The bridle is the tool that keeps the horse under the rider’s control. When the rider lets the bridle loose, the horse can run faster and the horse has more freedom to move. When the rider tightens the bridle, the rider controls the movements of the horse. The horse learns to follow the instructions of the rider by learning to control his movements.
The bridle restrains the movements of the horse. The bridle prevents the horse from getting out of control. The bridle is controlled by the rider through a pair of bridle reins. The rider holds the set of reins, which are straps of leather tied to the bridle. When the rider has control of the reins, the horse learns to control his own movements. The bridle along with the reins teach the horse how to keep itself in control.
Self control, a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22), is a restraint that we place on ourselves to stop ourselves from getting out of control. We stop ourselves from getting out of control by restraining ourselves. We are the rider, and how we act is the horse.
The rider is me when I am under the control of the Holy Spirit. The horse is the way I act. When I want to follow Jesus, who teaches me how to live, I have to follow His instructions. He has appetites He wants us to learn to control. There is the mental, physical, and verbal appetites. Now my behavior loves these appetites and wants to indulge in these appetites to the point where it gets me out of control,. Each appetite requires a pair of restraints. Just as a rider holds two reins that are wrapped around the bridle of the horse, God shows us places where He wants us to place restraint on ourselves (in particular, the way we act). He shows us three pairs of reins that He wants us to learn how to have self-control.
Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy.
Romans 13:13 (NKJV)
There are two fundamental reasons why I should restrain my own behavior.
Reason to restrain #1 – I restrain my own behavior because “the time” is coming when Jesus will return. You the signs of Jesus’ return in the news. You see it in the increasing number of evil events happening in today’s world. You see it in the persecution that Christians receive in today’s world.
Because the people in this world are acting more and more in a irresponsible way, because they do other harm more often, we as Christians need to be responsible in our love with others. We don’t have to act like the world. We can be responsible with our love by not harming others around us. We don’t have to let our lives get out of control when we learn to restrain some of our behavior.
We see so much unrestrained evil in the world (what I would call irresponsibility and foolishness). This should cause as Christians to restrain our own behavior.
Reason to restrain #2 – The very fact that this world is full of unrestrained evil shows me reason enough that I should restrain my own behavior. You may ask yourself: So what? Why should I restrain myself when everyone else seems to have such a great time?
The night is coming to an end. The day is coming. This unrestrained evil will get worse and then the end of the world will come with judgment. For those who act irresponsibly, there will be a judgment.
Have you ever noticed that more foolishness and irresponsibility happens at night? More car wrecks, more accidents, more parties that lead to unrestrained behavior, more riots. All of these things happen, and they happen more often at night. Living in the night represents living in an unrestrained lifestyle.
The world may live in the night, but we as Christians should not. We have to learn to be daylight for those who live in the night. As Christians, we have to stop acting irresponsible, and in a way that harms others. We should not be creatures of the night. We should be live in a way that others can see what we do. We should live and love so that others will want to see Jesus and follow Him.
There is a proper way to behave as Christians. There is a right way and a responsible way to love others as Christians. We see examples of this in Romans 13:13.
We should NOT act irresponsibly. We should NOT do these things. We have basically three pairs of reins that we should use against ourselves. We have three pairs of reins that prevent us from harming others – others we are called to love.
Pair #1 – in social settings
Pair #2 – in sexual conduct
Pair #3 – in selfish desires
We have to cast off the irresponsible attitudes that we have toward others. In the next six weeks, we are going to take a look at each of these “reins.” We are going to learn how to restrain ourselves so that we can love others in a responsible way.
Ask yourself:
How do I act around other people I love in social settings?
How do I act with other people I love when we are in private?
How do I react to others I love?
If your answer to any of these questions implies that you could harm someone else, then you are loving others irresponsibly. Because we sometimes don’t even realize that we love others this way, I want to challenge you to memorize a verse:
Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy.
Romans 13:13 (NKJV)
As we go through this series, I want you to memorize a verse that can help you love others in a responsible way.
What is the benefit to you and I when we love others with a responsible love? You will experience peace and freedom. You have the capacity for peace and freedom in your life because of what Jesus Christ did for you on the cross.
You will actually live a life full of freedom and peace when you start to love others with a responsible love.
