A. One of my favorite things to do as a father when our daughters were growing up, was to wake them up in the morning.
1. I loved seeing their sweet, sleepy faces as I woke them with a gentle voice, saying, “It’s time to wake up.”
2. What is your attitude when you wake up?
a. I’m a morning person and waking up is easy for me.
b. Like many of you, I jump out of bed thinking, “This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.”
c. But I am aware that there are others who are allergic to mornings.
d. They just keep hitting the snooze button and try to stay in bed as long as they can.
3. Mark Lowry is a Christian comedian, singer and songwriter.
a. He jokingly suggests that people who have a hard time getting out of bed should rename their bed “The Word.”
b. That way when someone calls them early in the morning and they are still in bed, they can say: “I can’t talk right now, I’m in the Word.”
4. Another interesting thing about sleep and waking up is sleepwalking.
a. Some people do some pretty unusual things while sleepwalking.
b. According to the National Sleep Foundation, sleepwalking occurs when your brain gets caught between two different stages of sleep.
c. This is why many sleepwalkers engage in “awake” behaviors while asleep.
d. Here are some of the strangest things people have done while sleepwalking.
1. Holding full conversations.
2. Getting ready for work – ever gotten ready for work and realized it is only 2 AM?
3. Cooking, eating, or both – ever wondered how that cake disappeared?
4. Jumping out of windows – comedian Mike Birbiglia jumped from the window of his hotel room – it appears he was trying to get away from a threat in his nightmare.
e. Which reminds me of the time I woke up screaming in my childhood bedroom closet – my family opened my closet door, saw me sitting there, and asked what I was doing – I explained I was hiding in the closet and was warning them of an intruder in the house.
B. Why have I spent so much time talking about sleep at the beginning of this sermon?
1. Because in Romans 13:11, Paul says “it is time for you to wake up from your sleep.”
2. Sleep is not only something that we can experience on a physical level, it is also something that can happen to us spiritually.
3. As we will see in today’s section from Romans 13, Paul will employ several helpful illustrations regarding sleep, and daytime and nighttime.
4. But before we get into those illustrations and Paul’s important teachings, let’s be reminded of the context of this section we will study today.
C. This fourth section of Paul’s letter to the Romans began in chapter 12, where Paul called on believers to offer themselves completely to God as living sacrifices.
1. This call included a resistance to conformity to the world through a spiritual renewal of the mind.
2. This renewal of the mind should cause us to think of ourselves in the right way (12:3), to use our gifts for the good of the body of Christ (12:4-8), to display sincere love (12:9-21), and to submit ourselves to the governing authorities and to pay our obligations of taxes and respect (13:1-7).
3. Last week, I demonstrated how Paul’s call for believers to submit to governing authorities fits into this section, even though it seems like a bit of a detour.
4. But as Paul continues the letter in verses 8-10, we see Paul returning to his main theme of love.
D. So let’s pick up our study of Paul’s letter in chapter 13, with verses 8-10: 8 Do not owe anyone anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, Do not commit adultery; do not murder; do not steal; do not covet; and any other commandment, are summed up by this commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself. 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law. (Rom. 13:8-10)
1. Do you see how Paul cleverly plays on the notion of “debt” that he introduced in 13:7 to create a transition back into the topic of love?
2. Christians are expected to pay their “debts” and they are not to be in “debt” to anyone, but Paul wants us to understand there is one kind of debt that will never be paid in full: the debt of love.
3. Some people over the years have taken Paul’s words out of context and have suggested that obedience to Paul’s command means that Christians should never borrow money.
a. But a study of the Bible, however, reveals that borrowing is not forbidden, but that there is a warning given in Proverbs 22:7 that the borrower becomes a servant to the lender.
b. We must be careful to avoid debt, because excessive debt leads to shame and sometimes crime.
c. Christians who do not pay their bills bring reproach on the name of Christ and hinder their witness.
4. Let’s think about the truth that love is a debt that can never be paid in full.
a. Does God ever give us permission to say, “I’ve loved that person enough, so I’m going to stop loving them now?” No, God does not.
b. We all realize that some people are easier to love than others.
c. Some people seem to have the “spiritual gift of irritation” and are E.G.R. people (extra grace required).
d. We must also realize that the way that God wants us to keep on loving people is going to require a divine love from a divine source.
e. We must keep in mind how much God loves us, and that God has lavished His love on us, and that God has put His love in our hearts.
f. God calls us to love all people, including the unlovely people of the world.
g. We owe them a debt of love because of God’s love for us.
5. Paul then encourages us with the truth that love is the fulfillment of the law.
a. It is so helpful to clearly know what God wants from us.
b. Jesus was asked what is the most important commandment of all God’s commands.
c. And you know that Jesus answered “Love God, and Love your Neighbor.”
d. “Love,” indeed, is the answer – the noted psychiatrist, Dr. Karl Meninger said: “love is the medicine for the sickness of the world. Love cures. It cures those who give it and cures those who receive it.”
6. Love is what everyone needs and it is the guideline we need for knowing how to treat others and how to obey God.
a. When we truly love as God loves, then we will keep God’s other important commands.
b. So many of God’s “Thou Shalt Nots” ultimately flow from love.
c. If we truly love our neighbor, we won’t sleep with his wife, or we won’t kill him, or we won’t steal his money, or begrudge him his prosperity.
d. Many of God’s commands merely spell out what love looks like in concrete situations.
7. In verse 10, Paul concludes: “Love does no wrong to a neighbor.”
a. When we truly love someone, we don’t want to do anything that will hurt them.
b. For example: if you love someone, you won’t commit adultery, for you would be harming many people whom you are supposed to love if you commit adultery.
c. By committing adultery, you would be inflicting great harm on your spouse whom you profess to love, not to mention your children or other family members.
d. If the person you are committing adultery with is married, you are hurting their marriage partner and family.
e. Some people who have wandered into adultery have tried to explain or justify themselves saying, “I couldn’t help myself because I am in love with both women, my wife and my girlfriend.”
f. But the truth is that person isn’t really loving anyone at all – they might love the pleasure they get from the adultery, but they are not really loving anyone.
g. Real love does what is best for everyone and does no harm to anyone.
h. Adultery is harmful to everyone involved, therefore is not an expression of love.
8. Our Christian calling is one that is a commitment to real, concrete, sincere love that has no end and is a continuing debt that we owe to all people.
a. This command is foundational to the challenge Paul will be addressing as he moves into chapters 14 and 15 and suggests how the Christians in Rome can get along with each other in the midst of their vast differences of conscience and practice.
b. In the end, only God and His love can keep us loving people the way God wants us to love them.
E. Let’s turn our attention to the final verses of this chapter, verses 11-14: 11 Besides this, since you know the time, it is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep, because now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. 12 The night is nearly over, and the day is near; so let us discard the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk with decency, as in the daytime: not in carousing and drunkenness; not in sexual impurity and promiscuity; not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and don’t make plans to gratify the desires of the flesh. (Rom. 13:11-14)
1. This short paragraph brings to a conclusion the survey of Christian lifestyle issues that Paul began in chapter 12, verses 1 and 2.
a. Paul emphasizes the need for immediate action because the time is short, and illustrates the process of transformation with the simple process of changing one’s clothing.
F. Let’s start with verse 11: Besides this, since you know the time, it is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep, because now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.
1. The Christian Standard Bible says: “since you know the time…”
a. The NIV says: “understanding the present time…”
b. The New Living Translation says: “for you know how late it is; time is running out…”
2. Paul is trying to ask them: “Do you know what time it is?” “It’s game time!”
a. The alarm has already gone off and you keep hitting the snooze button!
3. It’s time to wake up! Why? Because our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.
a. This is a reference to the second coming of Jesus – Jesus is coming and each day brings us closer to that great life-shattering event.
b. None of us know when Jesus will return, but all of us can say that every day that passes brings us closer to the day when Jesus will return.
G. Paul then skillfully employs the imagery of day and night to describe spiritual realities.
1. Verse 12 says: The night is nearly over, and the day is near; so let us discard the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.
2. When Paul says that the night is nearly over and the day is near, he is saying that this present time, when Jesus is physically absent up in heaven, is the nighttime and it is nearly over.
3. The day of Christ’s return is near, and Paul likens Christ’s return as the break of day.
4. And because the night is about over and the day is about here, it is time to wake up and get dressed – it is time to take off our nighttime clothes and put on our daytime clothes.
a. The nighttime clothes are the deeds of darkness and the daytime clothes are the armor of light.
5. The day and night contrast is a helpful one as we understand that the nighttime is when people often indulge in their sinful behavior in darkened bars and bedrooms, and it’s when thieves and murderers often do their wick work under the cover of darkness.
6. In many of Paul’s writings, he describes the transition from one form of conduct to another in terms of “putting off” one set of clothes and “putting on” another.
7. And so here, Paul commands the “discarding” or “putting aside (off) the deeds of darkness” and the “putting on the armor of light.”
8. Why is the clothing of light that we are to put on described as “armor”? Because we are in a spiritual battle. We are engaged in spiritual warfare.
H. In verse 13, Paul contrasts daytime behavior that should characterize the Christian life and nighttime behavior that should not: Let us walk with decency, as in the daytime: not in carousing and drunkenness; not in sexual impurity and promiscuity; not in quarreling and jealousy. (Rom. 13:13)
1. Our walking in daytime decency doesn’t need any description other than what nighttime indecency looks like.
2. Paul lists six deeds of darkness and suggests that they go in pairs.
3. The first pair is carousing and drunkenness.
a. Carousing is also translated “revelry” and “orgies.”
b. In ancient times the word carousing was used for all-night parties and celebrations that included drunkenness and drug use, sorcery, and every form of sexual immorality – it’s easy to see those are deeds of darkness.
c. And everybody knows what drunkenness looks like – it is drinking to excess that causes us to loosen our inhibitions and forget our commitments and troubles.
d. How many people do you know who “live for the weekend” when they party hard?
e. When I think of carousing and drunkenness, I think about frat parties and college spring break trips.
f. There are certainly luxury vacation get-aways and cruises that cater to revelry and drunkenness and when I think of revelry I think of the annual Marti Gras in New Orleans.
g. Christians must never participate in these kinds of indecent deeds of darkness.
4. The second paring of sinful activity is sexual impurity and promiscuity.
a. The KJV translates those words as “chambering” and “wantonness.”
b. The NKJV translates those words as “lust” and “lewdness.”
c. The KJV went with “chambering” because the literal Greek word means “bed” or “bedding” which refers to immoral activity that takes place in the bedroom.
d. Scholars call the word translated as “promiscuity” or “wantonness” or “lewdness” as one of the ugliest words in the Greek language.
e. It refers to brazen, shameless sin – so it describes the person who not only engages in illicit sex, but flaunts his lustful attitudes and actions without shame.
f. These two parings of sins caution Christians to avoid any kind of sexual relations outside of marriage, which include pre-marital sex, extra-marital sex, prostitution, and pornography.
g. God made us to be sexual beings and He made sex to be beautiful, holy and good when it is enjoyed within the bonds of marriage.
h. As you know, the people of this world laugh at that standard.
i. The world laughs when abstinence is suggested as a way to avoid immorality, pregnancy, and sexually-transmitted diseases.
j. In some places in our country, teaching abstinence is being legislated against.
k. If we are not careful, it is easy for Christians to get “sleepy” and get sucked into the world’s ways of thinking about sex through our friends and the media we absorb – books and magazines, music and movies and television programs.
l. We get bombarded by the philosophies of the world and begin to think, “Well, maybe it’s not as bad or as wrong as I have thought, and everybody is doing it, and it doesn’t look like it is hurting them.”
m. But we must not be deceived, God says these are works of darkness, they are nighttime clothes and we must not wear them.
n. We must walk in a manner that is decent and is fitting the bright lights of daytime.
5. The third and final pairing of the deeds of darkness are quarreling and jealousy.
a. Are you surprised that strife and envy are listed with awful, ugly sins like carousing, drunkenness, sexual immorality and promiscuity?
b. Inebriation and sexual immorality certainly don’t belong in the life of Christians, but neither do quarreling and jealousy.
c. As people called on to love like God loves, envy and strife, quarreling and jealousy do not lead to loving relationships nor a loving environment in the church or the home.
d. Picking fights, criticizing others, gossiping and lying about them are hateful, destructive behaviors.
e. They are actions driven from a darkened heart motivated by jealousy and envy.
f. Strife and envy are nighttime clothes and have no place in the heart and life of a Christian.
g. We must put them off and walk in a manner fitting with the daytime.
I. In verse 14, Paul concludes with a final contrast: But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and don’t make plans to gratify the desires of the flesh. (Rom. 13:14)
1. We might ask: Put on Christ? Haven’t we already put on the Lord Jesus Christ in baptism?
a. We know what Paul wrote to the Galatians, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27).
b. So, if we have already put on Christ, why are we told to do it again here?
2. On a daily basis, we must be reminded to do what we did, once and for all, in our baptism.
a. I like the way Ray Stedman describes it: “When I get up in the morning I put on my clothes, intending them to be part of me all day, to go where I go and do what I do. They cover me and make me presentable to others. That is the purpose of clothes. In the same way, the apostle is saying to us, ‘Put on Jesus Christ when you get up in the morning. Make him a part of your life that day. Intend that he go with you everywhere you go, and that he act through you in everything you do. Call upon his resources. Live your life IN CHRIST.’ ”
3. So, what do well-dressed Christians wear? They wear the Lord Jesus Christ.
a. When we put on Jesus, we are dressed in a way that is appropriate for every occasion.
b. We should put on his holiness. Put on his beauty. Put on his humility. Put on his purity. Put on his compassion. Put on his wisdom. Put on his forgiveness. Put on his righteousness. Put on his zeal. Put on his patience. Put on his love.
c. When we clothe ourselves with Jesus early in the morning and we will be well-dressed all day long.
4. As the negative counterpart to putting on Christ, Paul says that we are also not to consider how to gratify the desires of the flesh.
a. The flesh has its desires and hungers, but we must not allow our human, fleshly impulses dominate and control our behavior.
b. Notice that Paul says that we should not make plans to gratify the flesh.
c. Other translations say “don’t think about how to gratify” or “make no provision for.”
d. In other words, “don’t strategize how you’re going to satisfy your flesh; don’t give it forethought.
5. The truth of the matter is, most of us don’t just fall into sin all of a sudden.
a. When we see Christians fall into sin, we often say, “they got caught in a weak moment.”
b. That’s usually not what happened, rather there had been a pattern that led up to that sin.
c. The downward spiral begins when we start opening our minds to the world’s ideas and values.
d. Then it continues as we let those thoughts linger in our minds and allow ourselves to fantasize about them.
e. Eventually we begin to plan how we’re going to act out our fantasies.
f. That’s making provision for the flesh and we must not do that!
6. Our best defense is to put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
a. To be conscious of His presence with us throughout the day.
b. To fill our minds with His Word and spend time with Him in prayer.
c. To depend on the power of His indwelling Holy Spirit moment by moment.
d. Consistently putting on the Lord Jesus Christ will cause the tide of the battle turn to victory.
J. Allow me to end with this illustration from the life of Augustine, the great 4th century theologian.
1. Before he became a Christian, Augustine was a brilliant young philosopher who was thoroughly caught up in this world system.
a. For one thing, he insisted that sex drives were meant to be satisfied, and he did just that, any way he could.
b. But there was an emptiness about his life that began to distress him.
2. Christian friends challenged him to consider Christ, who could meet him where he was and give him strength to overcome sin.
3. Augustine obtained a copy of Paul’s epistles, which in the fourth century, was not easy to come by.
a. He had it with him in the garden one day when he heard some children playing and singing outside the garden gate.
b. It sounded like they were saying, “Take up and read, take up and read.”
4. It seemed that God Himself was speaking to him, so he picked up the scroll and began to read.
a. He happened to read the very passage we are studying today: Let us walk with decency, as in the daytime: not in carousing and drunkenness; not in sexual impurity and promiscuity; not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and don’t make plans to gratify the desires of the flesh.
5. At that moment, the light dawned on his darkened soul, and Augustine decided to turn to Christ and after becoming a Christian and clothing himself with the Lord Jesus, he received the power to resist the sinful temptations of his flesh.
6. Later, after some time of walking with Christ, he saw a beautiful woman with whom he had been involved before he had become a Christian, and she was coming in his direction.
a. Augustine turned and began to run away from her.
b. She ran after him calling out, “Augustine, why do you run? It is only I?”
7. Running even faster, he looked back over his shoulder and replied, “I run, because it is not I.”
8. He knew he was a new creation in Christ, but he also knew that he could not give any thought whatsoever to fulfilling the desires of the flesh.
9. We would do well to follow his example.
10. Let’s wake up, and put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh.
11. Let’ love one another for love is a fulfillment of the law.
12. As we walk with God and trust in Him, God will give us power to win the victory as we are clothed in the armor of light.
Resources:
Romans, The NIV Application Commentary, by Douglas Moo
Our Outstanding Debt, by Richard Strauss
Wake Up, You Sleepy Head, by Richard Strauss
God’ Medicine for a Sick World, by Ray Pritchard
Do You Know What Time It Is?, by Ray Pritchard
