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.
Darkness reign in those secret and deep corners of our lives. If we don’t want people to know something there is a good chance that it is sin. Do you know the places I am talking about? It was dark in the house and no one knew I was on the computer when I started looking at porn.
I was invited to be a valet for Mid Americas corvette rally. It was so amazing. I got to drive a 63 coverable, a crème white 69; I drove more 2000 models than I can count. Each one got my adrenaline pumping, and I was amazed by the power each car had. I was parking them in the grass below these two mansions on top of the hill. At one point I gave one a little gas as I turned into the field and I had done a 360 before I knew what happened. Then as the party was ending people started picking up their cars. We where suppose to put all our money into a common pot that would be divided at the end of the night. I started receiving 10’s and 20’s sometimes it was a few drop offs before I went to the pot. I started to think about how no one would know if I didn’t put all the money in. Know one would know. I had been putting the money in my breast pocket, but on one occasion I slipped a 10 into my back pocket and I forgot about it. At the end of the night we all put the last of our money in the pot, but the 10 in my pocket stayed their and it burned in my mind, I remembered it was their, but I remembered that know one knew. Two of the people I worked with were my two best friends in this word. As the hours past by I realized that I had stolen money from them. The deed was hidden in the darkness of my heart, but that is where Christ lives. So though it was hidden from everyone else to me it was in the light, but it was dirty.
To be clean I had to go to my friends a week later and admit my greed and my betrayal for a mere $10 dollars.
I know for many of us the stakes are a little higher. It will cost more to clean up than the story I have told.
However a time is coming when Christ will return and darkness will be eliminated. If we are in the dark when Christ returns we will be part of what is eliminated. To prepare for the coming of Christ we need invite Christ into those dark and dirty areas.
This brings us to the last way we can prepare for the coming of Christ.
3. “Grow up!” (Rom. 13:14) We are to cloth ourselves with the character of Christ. To “put on” the Lord Jesus Christ means not being ourselves. There have been allot of talk lately about being ourselves, and it is really pretty amazing that we could buy into this as Christians. Those who claim to desire to live like Christ.
We need to grow up and realize that being ourselves is limited and empty. We are unique and there is no getting around that one. However, there are no greater characteristics than those of Christ.
Let’s not miss the subtlety of this verse. We are not to “work to be like Christ” we are to put on Christ.
A few weeks ago I was working with Bridge town ministries and we were washing homeless people’s feet underneath the Burn Side Bridge. I know that Christ desires to touch and hold and love all those people. When I see those homeless people I am scared and I feel awkward and uncomfortable thinking about washing their feet. If I were to focus on being myself, I should act scared and grossed out. In that moment because of the grace of God I was able to put on the character of Christ. As I started washing Sam’s feet I felt love, honor, and humility. In that moment the love of Christ lived in me. I had put on the character of Christ.
We grow up by putting on Jesus more and more. Letting his character slowly become our character.
Conclusion
Jesus has already come to bring light into the world. Hopefully that light has woken us up and moved us out of the grip of darkness. We all know that evil still has an influence in our lives, but because of Jesus that evil can be pushed back. We look forward to the day when Jesus will come again in all his glory. Their will be no more darkness, and evil will be eliminated. This is a time of great victory unless we are living in the dark and use darkness to hide from the light. Part of preparing for Jesus coming is putting on his character. As we do this over and over again, we grow to be more like Christ.
