We're turning to the first chapter of Paul's epistle to the Romans. Romans chapter 1. I want to read from the beginning of the chapter. We welcome you. Thank you for joining with us. And if you're watching in online, we welcome you also in the Savior's name. Romans chapter 1, beginning at the verse number 1. Let's hear God's word as we have it here before us this evening. Romans 1, verse number 1. a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which he hath promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. By whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name, among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ. To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit, in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers. Making request, if by any means, now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift to the end that ye may be established. That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me. Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oft times I purpose to come unto you but was let hitherto, that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles. I am a debtor both to the Greeks, to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. So as much as in me is, I am 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. We'll end our reading at that most familiar verse, the verse number 16 of Romans chapter 1. National debt began when King William III engaged a syndicate of city merchants to market an issue of government debt. That syndicate would later be formed into what is known now as the Bank of England. And His Majesty's government debt had begun a century-long climb, financing the Marlborough Wars, wars against the French, wars against the North American colonial rebels, and peaking in 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars at over 200% of the gross domestic product, or the GDP, the United Kingdom. Today the national debt for the United Kingdom is estimated to stand at 2.79 trillion pounds. Personal debt in our nation does not make for better reading. The latest statistics that I could get my hands on for the year 2023 shows that the grand total of personal debt owed by the British population as of June 2023 stands at £1.84 trillion. The average household in the United Kingdom owes 65,529 pounds of personal debt, and the average personal debt of British adults is 34,597 pounds. All of us know what it is to be in debt to another, and it is certainly something that weighs heavily upon our minds and our hearts at times. Remember the widow there in the days of Elisha who came seeking help from God's servant in 2 Kings 4. As a widow of one of the sons of the prophet, she came and told Elisha that a creditor was coming to take her two sons away and make them bondmen because she couldn't pay the debt that had accrued within the family. The distraught woman was told by the prophet to borrow as many pots as she could find, and from her little pot of oil that she was to fill the empty vessels with oil. And that she did, and she returned to Elisha, who in turn told her, go and sell the oil, and pay the debt, and live thy and thy children off the rest. The debt was paid, her sons were spared servitude. I'm sure that woman, before she ever met Elijah, I'm sure that woman would have fretted herself about the debt to the point that her health was affected. She probably went to bed thinking about her debt. And then whenever she woke in the morning, it was probably the first thing that she thought about. And throughout the day, her debt was never far from her thoughts. That's what a debt does to you. It consumes you. It takes up your entire thinking. But I wonder, do we ever show the same concern when it comes to the spiritual debts we owe? Now I'm not referring to the debt of sin. No, that debt was settled by our Savior when He died for sin upon the cross of Calvary. And He cried, it is finished, or canceled, or settled, or done. The debt of sin is a debt that no longer, thank God, hangs over the child of God. And we can praise God for that. And yet we are debtors in other ways. The apostle Paul spoke of himself being a debtor. Here in Romans chapter 1 in the verse number 14, he says, I am a debtor. I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. Hymn writers have taken this truth of being a debtor and they've woven it into the lyrics of their various compositions. We sung one tonight. Augustus top lady he wrote a debtor to mercy alone of covenant mercy i sing no fear with thy righteousness on my personal offering to bring samuel or sorry robert robinson he wrote oh to grace how great a debtor daily i'm constrained to be let that that thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee." Or Isaac Watts, the great English hymn writer, he wrote, "...but drops of grief can ne'er repay the debt of love I owe. Here, Lord, I give myself away. It is all that I can do." You see, brethren and sisters, all who know and love the Lord, we are debtors, not just to one creditor, But to many. And we want to think of them tonight, in tonight's message, as we consider the Christian as a debtor. As we continue this little series on who I am as a Christian. Because as a Christian, you and I, we are debtors. We are debtors. Now, to whom are we in debt to? Well, in the first place, we are in debt, obviously, and primarily to God. We are in debt to God. As I said, we're no longer debtors to God in a legal sense. We're no longer debtors to God's justice, as we once were. We're no longer debtors in the sense that we owe God vast amounts of punishment, as it were, for our sins, by the way, which we could never repay by whatever punishment we would have to endure. Why are we no longer debtors in that sense well the simple reason is that on the cross jesus christ he paid the debt that his people owe one ham writer said jesus paid it all all to him i owe senate left the crimson stee and he washed it white as snow he paid a debt he did not owe i owed a debt i could not pay Thank God Christ Jesus paid the debt that I could never pay. There was another hymn writer, he wrote the words, The debt I owed I could not pay, for I was helpless from the fall. Yet still I heard the Spirit say that Jesus paid it all. He paid my debt upon the cross. He died to set me free. When nothing else could pay the loss, he gave himself for me. God the Son. the satisfied divine justice to its fullest extent. One preacher said, the debt is paid, the handwriting is kneeled to the cross, the receipt is given, and we are debtors to God's justice no longer. Since the debt of sin then has been fully paid by the Son of God on our behalf, then you might be wondering, well, how am I then in debt to God? How am I in debt to God? Well, as a redeemed child of God, you're a debtor to God's love. You're a debtor to God's love. And you're a debtor to God's grace. And you're a debtor to God's power. And you're a debtor to God's mercy. And I go further and remind you this evening that you are a debtor and I am a debtor to God the Father. We are debtors to God the Father. who in the words of Ephesians 1 in the verse number 4, chose you and I in Christ before the foundation of the world. You're in debt to God the Father who preserves you on a daily basis and provides for you day after day. You're in debt to a Father who pities you and who comes to your aid when you find yourself in trouble. We're in debt to God the Father. And not only that, but we are in debt to God the Son. God the Son who condescended to come into this world. And whilst he was here, he was willing to live for you and I the life that we could never live ourselves, and to die the death that we could never die ourselves. And so we are in debt to God the Son. We're in debt to the Son who suffered and bled and died for our sins upon the cross. And we're in debt to the One who triumphed over sin and over death and over hell and over the devil on our behalf and the One who rose again from the dead. And we're in debt to the One who now appears in the presence of God for us in order that He might pray for us and in order that He might represent us before His Father. we're in debt to God the Holy Spirit, who quickened you when you were dead in your trespasses and sins. You are in debt to the Spirit who regenerated your heart and who enlightened your mind and who convinced you of your sin, or convicted you of your sin and convinced you that Christ was the only one who could save you from your sin and conveyed you to Jesus Christ and enabled you to believe on Christ as He applied and brought to you the gifts the evangelical gifts of faith and repentance, and we continue to be in debt to the Spirit of God, who gives us understanding in the things of God, and is continually sanctifying our lives by His Word. And so, Christian, we are to stop and to think. And as we stop and think for a moment, we think of what a debt we owe to our God. Think of what a debtor you are to divine sovereignty. Think of what a debtor you are to forgiving grace. Think of what a debtor you are to God's patience and God's suffering. Think of what a debtor you are to God's love. And surely if we thought of the debt that we owe to our triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and we consider the debt that we owe to Him, then surely then whatever He asks us to do, we would surely do it gladly. We would surely do it willingly. We would surely do it cheerfully, not because we are repaying the debt that we owe to Him, because we can never do that, but because we have come to appreciate all that He has done for us. I'm convinced, as godly Robert Murray McSheehan was, that it'll not be until we find ourselves before God's throne that we'll realize the debt that we owe to God. And that is why Maxine wrote in his much loved hymn, when I stand before the throne, dressed in beauty not my own, when I see thee as thou art, love thee with unsinning heart, then, Lord, shall I fully know, not till then, how much I owe. The great debt that's on us, we are in debt to God. You and I are in debt to God. And so, in the first instance, this is how we are debtors. We're debtors to God, but that's not the only creditor. There's other creditors to whom we are in debt to. Can I say in the second place that we are in debt to our forefathers? We are in debt to our forefathers. We are in debt to those who came before us. We're in debt to those who kept the faith. We're in debt to those who passed on the baton of biblical truth. We're in debt to those who refused to be turned from following after the Lord, even when doing so cost them their very lives. Is this truth not brought to our minds? In the book of Hebrews chapter 12 and the verse number 1 where we read, wherefore seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Look around you, the writer to the Hebrews is saying, he's just come out of the great gallery of faith, from the heroes of faith in Hebrews chapter 11, this great cloud of witnesses that stands around you, and in understanding what they did in their generation, and how they, how they, kept the faith, then we are to run the race. We are to run the race. Are we not, brethren and sisters, indebted to the disciples, our Savior's disciples, those within the early New Testament church who endured ten waves of persecution under the various Roman emperors until the emperor Constantine alleged, until his alleged conversion to Christianity in 324 AD. Many were martyred for their faith. John the Baptist, Stephen, James, Ignatius, Polycarp. What about that little slave girl, Belindia? from southern France. She refused to swear allegiance to the false heathen gods. And so what did they do to that little slave girl? They put her into a net. And then underneath that net, they put a ferocious bull that tossed that little girl up in and down in the air in that net. And she survived that. And then what did they do? They took that little girl out of the net and they cut her throat. because she would not bow and worship the heathen gods. Are we not in debt to her? Are we not in debt to those in the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages who kept the lamp of biblical truth burning? Groups like the Waldensians and individuals like John Whitcliffe and Jan Hus or John Hus, People who preceded the Reformation, are we not in debt to the Reformers? Men of steely courage who took on the Church of Rome with her heresies, with regard to her indulgences, and I tell you, Rome hasn't changed. This is a year of jubilee. They talk for Rome. Bit strange. Every 25 years, I think, Rome has her jubilee. She can't even read the Bible. Jubilees were every 50 years. And what are they selling today in 2025? Indulgences. That's what they're selling. Are we not in debt to the reformers who paid the price for standing against Romanism? Men like Luther, Martin Luther, and John Calvin, and Eric Zwingle, and Philip Melanchthon, and Bullinger, and Thomas Crandor, and Hugh Latimer, and Richard Hooker. What about the Covenanters? Are we not in debt to them? Men who refused to recognize Charles I as the head of the national church, believing that there was only one rightful head to the church, namely the Lord Jesus Christ. That would put the Covenanters at loggerheads with the crime which resulted in many of those godly saints being hunted down and imprisoned. and put to death in some of the most unimaginable ways. Names like Richard Cameron and James Guthrie and Alexander Pedam and James Jenrick, the two Margarets, are forever memorialized in the records of church history as those who loved not their lives even on to the death. Are we not in debt to the French Huguenots? many of whom were slaughtered during the massacre of St. Bartholomew's on the night of the 24th of August, 1572. The body of the Huguenot leader during the massacre was, we're told, treated shamefully. History records that his head was cut off and carried to the Catholic King and Queen of France, Catherine and Charles. Afterwards, that head was then embalmed and sent to Rome and presented to Pope Gregory XIII. His hands were cut off and for three days, the body of that man, the trunk of his body, now handless and now headless, was dragged around the streets of Paris by a band of brutal youths. Are we not in debt to the Puritans? the rich legacy of theological and yet practical literature that they penned and they left for the benefit and the blessing of generations to come. Men like Richard Baxter, Thomas Watson, John Bunyan, John Owen, Richard Sibbes, Matthew Henry, William Gurno, Are we not in debt to the revivalists of past generations, individuals like George Whitefield and John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards and W.P. Nicholson who saw multitudes brought in to the Redeemer's kingdom? Are we not in debt to the founding fathers of this denomination? Are we not in debt to our grandparents? Are we not in debt to our parents? who made sure that we were exposed to the purest fountainhead of biblical truth from our earliest days. I tell you, I'm in debt to my parents. I'm in debt to them. Oh, seeing the debt that we owe to those in the past, should we not in some degree repay the immense debt of our obligations to them by seeking to make those who come after us debtors to us? Well then, will some preacher someday stand up and say with regard to our generation, they were a generation, they were a generation that stood for God. Those were a generation that saw God move again in answer to prayer. And we are forever indebted to the generation of 2025. We are in debt, and we must pay that debt by seeking to make those who come after us debtors to us. As I say, I wonder, will our descendants look back and acknowledge that they are indebted to us for preserving the scriptures, for maintaining the gospel witness of this local church, for the glorifying of God in our lives? Oh, yes, we're debtors. We're debtors to those who came before us, and we're debtors to those who'll come after us. In the third instance, we are debtors to our neighbors. We're in debt to our neighbors. You see, Paul, he really refers to this in this text. He says, I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. He's really speaking about the debt that he owed to his fellow man. And this is something that his savior spoke about when he himself ministered on this earth. The Lord Jesus Christ, he placed the following obligation on us with respect to our neighbors. He said, Mark chapter 12 and the verse number 31, that having first loved the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength, that then we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. There's the debt we owe to our neighbors. We are to love them as we love ourselves. Four lepers one day realized the debt that they owe to their neighbors. And they found themselves filling their hungry stomachs with the food that had been left behind by the army of the Syrians, which had fled away in fear. Aware that there were others within now the besieged city of Samaria with hungry stomachs, these lepers, they said one to another, we do not well. This day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace. If we tarry to the morning light, some mischief will come upon us. Now therefore come, that we may go and tell the king's household. You see, these men felt that they were obliged to let others know what they had come to know themselves. They were duty-bound, now listen, they were duty-bound to pass on the good news to their neighbors. And as Christians, we are duty-bound to communicate to others what we have come to know. in the gospel ourselves. To withhold that truth from our neighbors is a dereliction of duty, and it is a failure to obey the command of God to love our neighbors as ourselves. Writing to the believers in Rome, Paul in Romans chapter 13 in the verses eight through to nine, he said these words. He says, O no man anything but 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. And so we have a duty to our neighbors to love them. And when we come to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, we'll not gossip about them. And we'll not seek their hurt. And we'll not defame their name. And we'll not steal their property. And we'll not spread lies about them. But rather we will show forth Christ to them in all that we say and in all that we do. by scrupulously abstaining from doing any evil to our neighbor and doing all the positive good to them that we can in love, we come to pay a little of the debt that we owe to our fellow man. We are debtors to our fellow man. Finally, as debtors, we are in debt to our brothers and sisters in Christ. We are in debt, I believe, to those outside our family circles who brought to us and first told us the gospel. Sunday school teachers, ministers, evangelists, children's workers, youth workers, Christian friends, work colleagues. Surely, are we not in debt to them? You think of The many nights that Sunday school teachers spend preparing Sunday school lessons, are we not in debt to those individuals? Are we not in debt to youth workers who give up their Friday nights and spend it with our young people to teach them the things of God? And those workers that go out on a Friday night on the bus and they leave their home at six o'clock and they don't get home to nine o'clock at night, are we not in debt to them? Is the church not in debt to them? Are we not in debt to ministers and pastors? give of their time and their energy to the work of God. We're in debt to them. And so, brethren and sisters, we should never speak disparagingly about such people, but we should honor them. We should thank God for them. We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to those who faithfully served the Lord and brought the gospel to us. But you know, as believers and in the family of God, there are certain things that God commands us to do when it comes to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. These are not suggestions. These are not recommendations. These aren't ideas from God. These are clear commands that are placed upon us by God. And so we must remember them. We must obey them. because we are in debt to our brothers and sisters. And so we are to love those within the family of God. John 13, 34, a new commandment, I give you that ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. That's a debt we owe to our brethren and sisters that we love them. We are to bear the burdens of those within the family of God. Galatians 6 verse 2, bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. We are to support those who are spiritually weak within the family of God. Romans 15 verse 1, we then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves. We are to endeavor to keep the unity with those within the family of God. Ephesians 4 verse 3, Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We are to do good to those within the family of God. Galatians 6 verse 10, As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good to all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. We are to forbear, and we are to forgive those who have wronged us in the family of God. Colossians 3 verse 13, Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." And so, brethren and sisters, we are to live in such a way that we understand the debt that we owe to one another. These commandments are impressed upon us, and we must fulfill them. Without fulfilling them, we find ourselves then in debt, because this is what God demands of us with regard to our fellow brethren and sisters in Christ. And there are many, many other examples. Whenever we come to understand that we are debtors to all those that I've mentioned above, I believe that such will keep us from being slothful. Keep us from being lazy, selfish, apathetic in our Christian lives and in our service. It'll put to bed any thoughts of self-aggrandizement or any thoughts of self-advancement that we might be prone to have about ourselves. This realization that I am a debtor is something that humbles us. and inspires us to cast off our slothfulness and to be up and about the master's work. How we ought to seek by living on to God to acknowledge daily the debt that we owe to God and to our fellow man. You know, folks, this is how you get a church serving. And this is how you convince a young person To forget about their selfish ambitions and to serve Christ in a full-time capacity. This is how you fill vacancies in church ministries. This is how you furnish the Bible college with prospective ministers and missionaries. It is by reminding God's people. of the debt that we owe to God, of the debt that we owe to our forefathers, of the debt that we owe to our unsaved neighbors, of the debt that we owe to our brothers and sisters in Christ. There is a debt that is put on us. We are debtors. To these creditors, we are debtors. I wondered, are these things of concern to us? Do you understand the debt we owe? Do you understand how much we owe to our God? The one who purchased us and redeemed us, brought us into his family, reconciled us to God. Do you understand the debt we owe to our unsafe neighbors and loved ones and friends? Do we understand the debt that we owe to those who came before us and to those who'll come after us? Do we understand the debt that we owe to our brothers and sisters in Christ? Oh, may God come afresh to these hearts of ours and impress upon them once again the debt that we owe. And in response to that, may we say in the words of Watson's hymn, Dear Lord, I give myself away. It's all that I can do. In light of the debt I owe, this is all that I can do. I can but only but give myself to thee to do your will. May God impress upon our hearts the great debt that is upon us even tonight for Christ's sake. Let's bow our heads in prayer together, please. Our loving Father, we come into thy presence. And all the debt, Lord, that we owe to thee, a debt that can never be repaid, Oh, we do not serve Thee, Lord, because we believe that part of the sin debt is cleared through such service. We believe that the sin debt was cleared completely, entirely, canceled by the Savior when He died for sin upon the cross. And yet, Lord, do we not continue to be in debt to Thee? Do we not understand, O God, the tremendous, the great price that You paid for our redemption, Lord, here we are, Lord. And Lord, really, what are we, Lord? And what are we really doing? In light of the great debt we owe, we think of our neighbors and loved ones that know not Christ. Oh, the debt, oh God, that is upon us there. This tremendous need, Lord, to love our neighbor as ourselves and to show forth Christ and to tell our neighbors of the Savior. Oh, help us, Lord, we pray. Help us to, Lord, come, Lord, and appreciate again, oh, Father, all that thou has done for us. And then in light of that, Lord, we gladly, we gladly give ourselves to thy service. We've come to understand a little of, Lord, what thou didst do for us. And therefore, Lord, let us, the little that I can, again, as the hymn writer said, the little that I can, let me do. Lord, let me do it, Lord, I pray. Out of a heart, not out of a heart of fear, but out of a heart of love, out of a heart of gratitude, here I am, I give myself to the work because I remember what Christ has done for me. O, melt our hearts again as we stand at Calvary's tree, as we consider all that Jesus Christ has done for us. O, come and melt us again, Lord, and grant, dear God, a willingness to serve Thee and to live for Thee and to glorify Thee in our lives. O, God, we pray these, our prayers, in and through the Savior's lovely, precious, and worthy name.