Getting Ready For Christmas

Intro

1. General –

2. Specific – Are we prepared for the coming of our Savior?

3. Text –Romans 13: 11 Besides this you know what hour it is, how it is full time now for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed; 12 the night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; 13 let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

3. Proposition – We can be prepared for the Coming of Christ.

4. Transitional – Romans 13:11-14 gives us three ways to prepare for Jesus Coming

Body

1. “Wake up!”

Whatever sleep means, including its benefits, there is a negative side to consider. St. Paul in his letters uses sleep as a metaphor for escape, being unprepared, even for being dead, as in this lesson from the letter to the Romans, where sleep can mean that we are "out of it,"

How does this happen?

Illustration: As grown up as we try to act we are still children in this ancient world and in the presence of our timeless God. Let me create a picture for you of how we can be lulled to sleep. If God the father desires us to be awake and alert, the person who would benefit from our sleep would be Satan. Satan is evil and sometime we are dull to his craftiness. He rarely comes with a frontal or obvious attack. For many of you who have children the most evil thing in this world is a PEDITOR. They come into your child’s life, and they seek to win their friendship. They give them whatever they want. They buy them presents and give them candy. They take them where ever they want to go, and your child becomes comfortable around this evil person. Then as your child lets down their guard they crawl into the predators lap and fall fast asleep. And the Predator is stroking your child’s hair right before they violate it.

We are God’s children, and it is Satan who wishes for use to fall asleep. He gives us whatever we want to make us comfortable: money, power, sex. And we fall into a sleep in the arms of the evil one.

When Christ came into our lives he woke us up. He grabbed us out the hands of the Devil. He threw what on our faces. He showed us the difference between Good and evil. But some of us have been seduced by the same old tricks. It seems like we are getting what we want, but we have been lulled to sleep.

We live in reality where Christ has already come to wake us up and bring us into the life that can be had in him. But just like my mother would comes in and give me the first gentle and loving wake up call. It can be ignored just because it is so kind and gentle.

We also live with the promise that Christ will come again, and this second coming is with authority and power. Like when my mother would come in. Throw on the light, ripe of the covers, and throw water in my face. For when Christ comes again every knee will bow and ever tongue will confess that he is Lord.

Paul is letting us know that we need to wake up now and be ready for the second coming of our Lord.

Paul also tells his audience that "the night is far gone" (v. 12). He means the darkness is over! Its reign has given way to the dawn of a new day when our Lord Jesus Christ in his first advent defeated the powers of evil. Christ came to turn on the light in our dark rooms. The night now is behind us.

After we wake up we need to clean up

2. “Clean up!” We do not want to be found dressed in dirty garments when the Lord returns

When Paul talks about keeping our actions clean he calls us to put on the armor of light. I am only going to put on armor if I think I am going to have a battle. Part of what we need to wake up to; is that we are in a battle. Darkness and light are at war in the world. Christ has brought the light into the world in his first coming, and anywhere Christ is present is filled with Light. But darkness still exists, and it can invade our lives if we let it.