A Time for Action

INTRODUCTION

In the classic movie Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne is sitting and talking with his best friend, Red—played by Morgan Freeman.

Andy sits with Red talking about getting out of prison.

Andy is played by Tim Robbins and he was wrongly convicted.

Red essentially tells him that there is no life outside of prison. Red says he wouldn’t even know what to do.

And Andy responds with a line that is etched into Hollywood history:

“Get busy living or get busy dying.”

After Andy says this, he gets up and walks away and it is the last time Red sees him in prison.

Andy escapes that night and they reunite on a happy beach on the coast of Mexico, looking at the Pacific Ocean.

Andy’s words were that of a man who knew it was a time for action.

He could not remain in prison another night.

He could not wake up there another morning.

It was time to try to escape.

He would live or die, but it was time to get busy doing one of these things.

And those words are pertinent for us this morning.

While we may not be prisoners sitting under a wrongful conviction, we are a people who must understand that it is a time for action.

As those who are members of the redemptive Kingdom of Christ, representing the Lord in the common kingdom of man, we must understand that it is an hour which requires alertness.

This is no time to sleep. This is no time to be distracted. This is no time to be spiritually groggy.

This is a time to have our eyes open.

This is a time to have our hearts guarded.

This is a time for our prayers to be unhurried and often offered.

It is a time to believe.

It is a time to act justly.

It is a time to be holy.

BRIEF REVIEW

If you remember what we have seen so far in this series.

Week 1: We looked at verses 1-4 and saw the origin and purpose of government.

God put the state in place after the flood to restrain evil and provide a level of peace to humanity.

Week 2: We looked at verses 5-7 and talked about how we are resident aliens.

We are citizens of the redemptive Kingdom of Christ because we believe.

And yet we live in the common kingdom of man where we vote in elections and we pay our taxes

Christ is Lord and we render to Him that which is His

Caesar has been put in place by the Lord, therefore, we subject ourselves to the authorities in place as an act of obedience to God.

And yet that is a call for individual Christians.

The church is not subservient to the state, nor is the state subservient to the church. They are two separate authorities with separate purposes.

Last week, we saw how we represent the kingdom of God in the kingdom of man by living out the 2nd table of the Law.

We fulfill the law through neighborly love.

We work for the good of the city while we live in it

We preach the Gospel of the New Jerusalem in Babylon until the Lord returns.

We do this with our words, but we also demonstrate the love Christ has given us in our actions toward the world.

And now, this morning, we arrive at Romans 13:11-14.

We arrive at a passage that calls us to wake up and look at the time. Get out of bed, look at the clock and take action.

THE NATURE OF THE TIME (v. 11-12)

TIME

Our text this morning begins with Paul assuming that Christians “know the time.”

There are two Greek words used when speaking about time.

One is chronos. That is like clock time. Calendar time. Chronological time.

Thursday at 3:30pm.

Next Saturday.

But that is not the word that Paul uses here. He uses the word kairos, which does not refer to a point in time, but a quality of time.

It talks about a “kind” of time.

What kind of time is Paul talking about here? What is the quality of this time that he is mentioning?

To know, we have to keep reading. In verse 11, he goes on to say that “the hour has come for you to wake from sleep...”

And then in verse 12, “The night is far gone; the day is at hand.”

What is the “day” that Paul speaks of in verse 12?

Well, it is the day when our salvation, which is nearer to us now than when we first believed, will be consummated and we receive our glorified bodies and begin an eternal age in the presence of God Almighty.

It is the day when the New Jerusalem will come down out of heaven as a Bride adorned for her husband.

It is the day when the sixth seal is opened. It is the day when the seventh trumpet is sounded. It is the day when the seventh bowl is poured out.

It is the day of judgment, when the Serpent from the Garden and death itself are defeated and thrown into the lake of fire, which is the 2nd death.

That is the day we are talking about.

And the time in which you and I live is pregnant with the coming of Christ.

It is like with each passing day, the season we live in is swelling.

It is swelling with evil and birth pangs in creation.

It is swelling with wars and rumors of wars.

It is swelling with raging nations.

But it is also swelling with Gospel proclamation.

It is swelling with Gospel belief.

It is swelling with the church’s fulfillment of the Great Commission as each soul believes

And at some point, this pregnant season that we live in will give birth and the day of the Lord will come.

1. Kingdom citizens must understand the nature of the time (v. 11-12).

LAST DAYS

When Paul says that the “hour” has come for you to wake from sleep, he is speaking about the specific moment we are living in.

If I set my alarm on my phone for 7am, I do not expect it go off around 7am. I expect it to go off at 7am on the hour. It is a specific time.

Well, Paul says the alarm is going off. The specific time has arrived.

You need to wake up and look at the time and recognize that which each passing day, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is drawing closer.

Currently you and I live in the last days.

People often ask, “Pastor, do you think we are living in the last days?”

The answer is yes.

Now, what they mean is, “Is Jesus coming back soon?”

“Are we at the last part of the last days?”

But truly, this entire period in between First Coming of Christ and Second Coming of Christ are the “Last Days.”

You see this from the writer of Hebrews.

Hebrews 1:2 ESV

but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

You also see it in the prophecy from Joel that Peter quotes in Acts 2, talking about how the Spirit is poured out on all believers.

This will happen in the “last days.”

Acts 2:17 ESV

“ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams;

This is the final leg of the story of redemption.

This is the age of witness. The age of the church. The age of tribulation.

At the end of this age, Christ will return.

In the in between, we are here, on His directives, following His commands, building His Kingdom.

SALVATION DRAWING NEARER

The world denies this. The world is fast asleep in their deception and their depravity.

They say God does not exist.

They say we are waiting like fools for this hope within us to appear.

They say that if God does exist, He must be slack concerning this promise for His Son to return.

But He is not. He is gathering His people to Himself in His time and not a single one of them will perish.

And once He has saved each citizen of His Kingdom to the uttermost, the day of repentance will have passed and the day of the Lord will come.

2 Peter 3:9–10 ESV

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

So the Lord is not slow or slack. The Lord is fulfilling His promise.

And He will do that all the way through the events of His Son’s return.

For He has not only promised to save through Christ, but to judge the world through Christ.

And when Jesus returns, it will be as in the days of Noah, with the people of the earth going about their lives as if there is not accountability with God.

For believers, the Day of Jesus’ return will not be a day of condemnation, but a day of consummation. A day of glorification.

And that day is drawing nearer with each passing second.

People always want to know how close we are to Jesus’ return—and the answer is—we are closer than we have ever been.

And tomorrow, we will be even closer.

That is what Paul means when he says that “salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.”

See, you have not experienced all of your salvation yet.

You have experienced it in part.

Now, don’t get me wrong—you are fully saved.

Signed, sealed and delivered by the blood of Christ according to the will of the Father and by the power of the Spirit.

But we know from Paul’s golden chain of salvation in Romans 8, that there is more than just the moment in which we believe and our sins are forgiven.

Romans 8:30 ESV

And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Predestined: the part of our salvation that comes from eternity past

Justified: The legal standing we get with God upon saving faith

Glorified: After a life of being sanctified by the Lord and putting away sins, we will cast off these bodies that resemble the first Adam and we will get our glorified bodies, made in the pattern of the Second Adam.

In other words, God has had His love set on you from before time.

And then He saved you in time.

And, He will preserve you in His saving grace throughout life and then be your life in glory.

You have been saved. You are being saved. You will be saved.

From eternity past to eternity future, the saving arm of the Lord acts on your behalf.

As those who have experienced God’s love in this way and wait in faith for His Son to return and bring about glorification, we must know the time.

The world is lost.

The world dismisses the teachings of the New Testament on Jesus’ return.

But not us.

We know the days are short.

We know the Lord will return at the appointed time.

We know that this is a pregnant season and that it must be treated with urgency.

This is the last leg of the world’s race.

PROPER ATTIRE FOR THE TIME (v. 12-14)

WAKE UP AND CAST OFF

In light of the time we live in and the reality of Jesus’ return, we are a people that must take action.

And Paul describes this action to us in these verses.

The night is far gone.

The night is this age that we live in.

It is the history that has already passed.

The day is at hand.

This is the final age. Christ will return and draw this age to a close.

So what do you do when the night is gone and the day is arriving?

You wake up. You wake from sleep.

And then you get up and cast off the clothes that you slept in.

That is the picture that Paul is giving us in these verses.

It is very tangible. It is something you have done hundreds and hundreds of times since before you can remember.

You wake with the dawn and you cast off the clothes of the night.

2. Kingdom citizens must understand the proper attire for the time (v. 12-14).

WORKS OF DARKNESS

The rags of the night that must be removed are called “works of darkness” (v. 12).

What are the works of darkness?

We have them explained in verse 13.

Orgies and drunkenness: This is probably referring to participation in the obscene cultural celebrations of sex and alcohol

In Rome, there would be festivals dedicated to Bacchus, the god of the vine, where people would get as drunk as possible, so that they could participate in the most depraved things possible without feeling morally bad about it.

In our culture, you can find these sort of celebrations around the world.

Carnaval in Brazil.

Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Or even just a Friday night in Newport News

Sexual immorality and sensuality: This is not just the participation in sexual sin, but the love of it.

Sexual immorality is the act.

Sensuality is the love of it.

This is adultery and the sinful affections that get stirred up in the heart when it is considered and participated in.

This is everywhere we look in our culture.

Our culture is sex-obsessed to the point that we have created entire societal classes purely based on what someone desires and pursues in their bedroom.

Everything is sexualized.

Freud argued that people were obsessed with sex because society repressed it.

Well no one is repressing it now, Sigmund.

And everyone is just as obsessed.

That is because their obsession has nothing to do with the repression of sex in society but the suppression of truth in the human heart.

The Bible tells us that sexual sin is actually a judgment within itself for unbelief in the heart toward God.

Quarreling and Jealousy: This is covetousness and the fighting that comes from it.

The quarrelling and jealous heart cannot stand for someone to look better than them.

They cannot stand for someone to outdo them in earthly stature—be it wealth or position or power.

Quarrels come about because of jealousy and covetousness in the human heart

These works of darkness are everywhere in the common kingdom of man.

And they are the opposite of the good works that you and I are performing as dual citizens.

They are the opposite of the ideals represented by the morality in the 2nd table of the Law.

When believers go and do good works as a response to the work of salvation that God has done in their lives, fulfilling the Law through the 2nd table of the Law, society benefits.

This is why Paul says that “love does no wrong to a neighbor” in verse 10.

God’s marvelous grace has gripped us and and now we owe neighborly love to the whole world.

And the world benefits when Christians do that well.

But the opposite is also true. When unbelievers OR believers go around breaking the Lord’s neighborly commands in the 2nd table of the Law, society is impacted negatively.

And that is because sin does not occur in a vacuum. It affects others.

Just using Paul’s examples...

If someone is participating in orgies and drunkenness, there’s a myriad of awful things that could happen as a result, from unplanned pregnancies to drunk driving accidents.

If someone commits adultery, it does not just impact the two people involved, but families and friends when the inevitable fallout comes.

If someone is jealous and quarrelsome, taking everything personally and reacting with a hair-trigger temper, people will mark and avoid them or grit their teeth as they deal with them.

Sin is an earthquake with tremors.

WEAPONS OF LIGHT AND THE LORD JESUS CHRIST

So Paul is saying that as Christians, you can’t be engaging in these things.

You can’t be relaxed about it. You can’t act like the day of the Lord is not at hand.

You know the time.

You know the night is far gone, so you must take off these works of darkness.

In their place, Paul calls on believers who are awakened and alert to the time to put on the “armor of light” and “the Lord Jesus Christ.”

You see the “armor of light” in verse 12.

The ESV chooses armor, but the Greek word is more often translated as “weapons” in the New Testament.

You can just as easily say “weapons of light.”

You see where he says, “the Lord Jesus Christ,” in verse 14.

To “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” is to rightly position King Jesus.

It is to place yourself under His Lordship and to say, “Christ is God and Master—I intend to do what He says at all times.”

And these two things go hand in hand.

If you put on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will bear the armor of light.

If you bear the armor of light, you will put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

If you give up yourself to God as a living sacrifice, honoring Christ as Lord by representing Him in the common kingdom of man everyday, you will by default bearing weapons of light.

It is the only way to fight the good fight.

It is the only way to chase holiness like a bloodhound.

It is the only to love your enemies.

Kingdom citizens bear Kingdom weapons because they have given themselves up to the daily service of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So what are these weapons of light? What is this armor that Paul is talking about?

Well I believe the answer is actually pretty robust.

There are three New Testament passages that speak to these weapons.

I will start with the most famous.

Ephesians 6:14–18 ESV

Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,

In John Bunyan’s classic, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian is wearing the Ephesians 6 armor and he becomes concerned about what it does not cover.

Christian then began to fear and consider in his mind whether to go back or stand his ground. He considered again that he has no armor for his back, and he thought, therefore, that turning his back to him might give Apollyon a greater advantage and allow the fiend to pierce him with his arrows.

John Bunyan

Is it possible the back is not mentioned because the Christian life is meant to be one of moving forward in the fight against sin?

There is no retreat. Sin must be slain.

A shorter passage can be found in 1 Thessalonians 5:8

1 Thessalonians 5:8 ESV

But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.

Very similar to Ephesians 6...

And then we have Paul’s words to the Colossians in Colossians 3:5

Colossians 3:5 ESV

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Same idea from Romans 13—these are the works of darkness that must be cast off.

More are listed in verses 9-10.

Colossians 3:9–10 ESV

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

And in their place, Paul says that believers should put on certain clothing as those that are chosen by God.

Colossians 3:12–17 ESV

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

I want to list it out church.

I want you to know your arsenal.

I want you to know what God has given you and put at your disposal.

I want you to understand the weapons in your hand to fight lust and porn. To fight gossip and slander. To fight jealousy and sinful anger.

To fight Apollyon and stand against his schemes...

To be able to withstand in the evil day...

God has given us:

His truth as a belt

Righteousness as a breastplate

The Gospel of peace as shoes for our feet

The shield of faith that extinguishes the devil’s flaming arrows

Our salvation protecting us from the fatal blow of the Second Death

The sweet, life-giving, faith-rending, living, active, sufficient sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God!

The Word of Christ to dwell in us richly.

And the ministry of prayer that Jesus’ blood allows us to boldly engage in

But it does not stop there!

He has given us compassionate hearts.

He has given us kindness and humility and meekness.

He has given us patience so that we can bear with one another in love and forgive one another and stop holding onto grudges.

He has give us the peace of Christ to rule our hearts.

He has given us psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to sing with thanksgiving in our hearts toward God—meaning, our Christian worship is warfare!

And then, above all of these things—as we talked about last week, He has given us love.

Paul says that love is above all and is binds everything together.

Without it, our Christian life is an out of place cymbal or a gong in the heavy metal of this world, when it should sound like a perfectly tuned Stradivarius violin.

It is listed next to faith as our breastplate in 1 Thessalonians 5...

There are your weapons of warfare, church.

And as those who know the time and understand that the day is at hand, we must wake up and use these weapons each day.

We must cast off the works of darkness and put on the Lord Jesus Christ and bear our armor in the common kingdom of man as the King’s ambassadors.

MAKE NO PROVISION (v. 14)

But in order to do this, we must be serious about this issue of seeing sin put to death.

The works of darkness are not cast off by accident. They are sins to be repented of.

They are rebellious habits that must be put in the grave.

They are witness-harming actions that must be mortified and killed off.

Sin must die. It belongs to the darkness and we are people of the Light.

We can put it like this: because Christians have been washed, they must keep themselves clean.

Martin Lloyd-Jones

The way that this happens is through starvation.

You must starve your flesh.

Make no provision for it.

Don’t give it an opportunity to eat and gratify its sinful desires.

Your flesh is like a gremlin after midnight. You can’t feed it. It will turn into a monster.

Romans 8:13 ESV

For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Your flesh longs for your old life—before you put on the Lord Jesus.

Your flesh longs for the night.

Therefore, you must starve it out.

Are you sick of being unrighteously angry while you are watching your sports team? Turn the game off when you feel the temperature going up, have a drink of water and take a walk. Don’t just sit there and burn and then treat everyone badly the rest of the day.

Are you tired of not reading your Bible in the morning? Set your alarm earlier and change your habit. Don’t give your flesh an out.

Are you sick of looking at porn? Stop scrolling Instagram on your phone at 11pm. It’s not going to work out well.

Are you sick of overeating? Bring less to the table.

Are you sick of speaking harshly to people? Stop talking so much.

Are you sick of being angry? Stop believe the lie that you are entitled to whatever it is you think you are entitled to.

If you swimming in the shark tank and wondering why you come out missing limbs, you have you stop and take stock of your decision-making.

There is a lot of sins in our lives that are there because we are lazy and groggy and spiritually sleepy.

But we can’t be that way.

We are not unbelievers sleep-walking through this age as if this life is all there is.

We know that the day is close and we must live like it.

DISTINCTION FOR THE TIME (v. 13)

Now let’s wrap up with a final brief point about the practical result of all of this.

If we are bearing the weapons of light and fighting our spiritual fight against the rulers, authorities and cosmic powers over this present darkness, then our lives should look different.

This is what Paul is speaking of in verse 13.

“Let us walk properly as in the daytime...”

You have woken up from your groggy sleep that you may have started to slip into.

You have picked up the weapons of light.

You are starving out sin and putting it to death.

If these things are true, then your lifestyle will reflect it.

And when Paul says walk, that is just what he is speaking of—your lifestyle.

The same word sometimes translates to “practice” or “behavior.”

3. Kingdom citizens must understand the distinction needed for the time (v. 13).

Brothers and sisters, we cannot look and act like the world.

There should be a clear difference between those who belong to the redemptive kingdom of God and live in the common kingdom of man and those who belong to the common kingdom of man.

Unbelievers live here and they call this home.

They deny the time and the Lord’s promise.

They deny accountability and live as if there is no day of judgment to come.

The here and now is all there is.

But we look to heaven where Christ is seated and long for the day when He returns.

We do this because His Spirit has worked faith in our hearts.

We have been born again.

We have been given a new nature as new creations in Christ and our wills have been freed from the slavery of sin.

We are liberated to pick up the weapons of light and fight the darkness.

And we are on a mission to bring others out of the night and to show them how to put on the Lord Jesus and follow Him.

We are on a mission to show others the way home to the New Jerusalem.

How can our lives look the same then?

How can the same rotten fruit come from one tree that has an evil root and one tree that supposedly has a new, righteous root? It makes no sense.

Therefore, as Christians work out their faith with fear and trembling and put sin to death, our lives should be distinct from those who are not doing that.

In a grumbling and complaining world, we should stand out and those who sparkle with contentment in Christ and an expectation of His coming.

Philippians 2:14–15 ESV

Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,

Those who walk as though in the daytime should stand out against who walk as though in the night.

CONCLUSION

ASK THE BAND TO RETURN

As the band comes back up, this wraps up our Romans 13 series.

Next week we ride into the Psalms for Advent season. What a joy that will be!

But for today, we must recognize that the next year will test our metal.

One election season has passed, but now we get the Presidential cycle.

Looks like it might be round three of Donald J. Trump campaign.

Might be round two of a Joe Biden campaign.

These things are not unimportant.

As believers we work for the good of the city we are in.

We certainly don’t just sit here and watch the world the burn.

But you must not forget the Scriptures. Please don’t forget the Scriptures!

The sword of the government is here to restrain evil and provide us with a certain level of peace, but it is not the answer for the world’s ills.

Donald Trump cannot fix this. He will not make the world great again.

Joe Biden cannot fix this. He will not build it back better.

The mission of the church is to make disciples of all nations by the authority of Christ, baptizing them in the name of the Triune God and teaching all of His glorious commands to them.

This is our purpose.

And as ambassadors, we show this world love by living out the neighborly commands as God calls us to in all of the contexts He has us in in our lives.

As the world gets worse and the election fires grow hot, there will be a temptation to act like the world.

To rip apart those who disagree with us...

To act as if the election is the most important thing in the history of earth...

To set aside our Christian duties because we become idolatrous on the campaign trail...

There will be a temptation to fall asleep this year. To take our minds off the things above.

To live like this world is all there is.

Don’t buy the lie. Don’t ignore the alarm.

The day is at hand.

Live like a Kingdom citizen.