30. “It’s Time to Wake Up” (Romans 13)

 

Intro: 

Some of you may know that about a month ago the Owens and Potoshnicks took a trip to Europe where Matt and I ran in the Berlin Marathon…  it was great…. Just the adults for a week in Europe that ended with a really fun race on a beautiful day.  We spent a couple of days in Prauge and then the rest of the time in Berlin.   It was only the 2nd time that I’ve traveled to Europe, having gone the first time when Erin and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary.  

 

I must say…. I forgot how grueling traveling across time zones like that can be.  We were 7 hours ahead of Chicago time.  

 

The journey started with us flying out on a Sunday late afternoon around 4pm and took an 8.5 hour flight to Frankfurt.  We land in Frankfurt, local time in Frankfurt, Germany was like 7:20am, but of course it felt like 12:20 am.  I never sleep well on planes so I’m going on, I don’t know, an hour of sleep total.  

 

Then we get on another plane and fly to Prague.  We land in Prague and it’s 11:15am local time – you know around lunch….. but it feels like 3:15 in the morning and maybe at this point I’ve had 1.5 hours of sleep total.  We get to the hotel and as much as you feel like sleeping, it’s day time where you are, so you got to get out, drink some coffee, get in the sun light, don’t go to sleep.  

 

Nicole had this rule, which I kept breaking, that we weren’t allowed to talk about what time it was back home. It’s a good rule, it probably would have helped to listen to her.  Because it’s just really not helpful when you’re in Prague and the sun is shining and it’s lunch time and I’m talking about how it’s like 4am back home and if I was home I’d still be in bed sleeping.  

 

The experience of jet lag is incredibly disorienting.   Whether you’re flying east or west that experience of – ok supposedly it’s this time, but man, parts of my body don’t feel like that’s true – messes with you.  And there’s something of that experience that helps us to understand what happens when someone believes in Jesus and becomes a Christian.   

 

When a person believes in Jesus they are transferred from one realm of existence to another.  To use language Paul uses in other places – a person who believes in Jesus has been transferred from one kingdom to another – from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of light (Col 1:13).  When a person believes in Jesus they are united to Jesus by faith by the work of the Holy Spirit and by this union with Jesus, as Paul writes in Eph 2 –  Christians have been raised up with Jesus and seated with Jesus in the heavenly places.  Through this union with Jesus, a Christian is part of the new creation (2 Cor 5:17) – that new creation that began when Jesus was raised from the dead.  

 

 

Through union with Jesus by faith, a Christian has been transferred not on an airplane to a new country and time zone, but by the Spirit, the core us – our truest identity has been moved, has been transferred from this world and this age – to the age to come and the new creation God will bring when Jesus returns.   

 

And this…..spiritual jetlag…….. is disorienting because if you’re a Christian though you’ve experienced this move in one sense – this realm transfer – you still live in this world.  A world of brokenness and suffering, a world of sin and death, a world that doesn’t acknowledge God as central to life – and so has it has it’s own way of making life work apart from God.     

 

To use the language of this passage – If you’re a Christian – you belong to the day – the Day when Jesus will return and bring the fullness of God’s kingdom and new creation – that has already started and that you’ve already begun to experience.  

You belong to that day.  When you believed you awoke to that future day, and yet you live in a world that is sleep-walking when it comes to God and what he’s doing in Jesus.  And not only that, but you still battle with temptations to sin – with desires that would pull you to live in darkness and threaten to lull you asleep to the most important reality about life and who you really are.

 

This morning we’re going to really focus in on v. 11-14 – if you look at those verses in your bulletin – the first half of the passage v. 11 through the first half of v. 12 tell us something that is – Paul keeps referring to what time it is – he writes…

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come 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.

 

But then in the 2nd half of v. 12 through the end of v. 14 Paul tells us how we are to respond to this reality – So then….. he says….. because of what time it is, what hour it is….. because of that – Therefore – this is how you must respond, this is what you should do.   

 

So let’s consider these two parts of our text this morning.  

 

– 1) The gospel tells us something – and that is, history has forever been changed by the death and resurrection of Jesus.  AND 2) The gospel calls us to respond and live awake to the dawn of salvation in Jesus.   

1) That the gospel tells us something – history has forever been changed by the death and resurrection of Jesus.  

 

In this first part of v. 11 through the first half of v. 12 – Paul gives the reason why we should listen and do, really all the things he’s been saying since the beginning of ch. 12 – Everything we’ve looked at and considered this fall in our study of Romans.  V. 11 and 12 tell us why we should listen to the call to love, to relate to the government as Paul instructed, to be active and participating in the church, the body of Christ, to live lives where we give our whole selves to God…

 

And it’s because of the time we’re in. We are living in the time where God’s kingdom and new creation are breaking into this world through Jesus.  

 

Many of us, when we hear this word “gospel”, we might think about what the good news of Jesus means for our lives – that the good news of Jesus death and resurrection means we can be forgiven of all our sins and made right with God, that we can be saved and know we will be forever with God.  And that’s true.  

 

But first and foremost the gospel or good news of Jesus – tells us something that God has done in history – and that the world and history have been forever changed because of the death and resurrection of Jesus.  

The gospel tells us – That in the death and resurrection of Jesus something decisive happened, something that can’t be undone.  In the death and resurrection of Jesus the trajectory of history was forever changed…..because a new age has dawned…. The age of God’s new creation and his kingdom through Jesus.  

 

I don’t know if that language sounds strange to you – but think of it this way – just like we can talk about different ages in history – whether we talk about the bronze age, or iron age, or the industrial age – we’re talking about major shifts that happened in history where life and the trajectory of how life was lived forever changed.  

 

The gospel tells us news – and that news about Jesus is that God’s promised kingdom and new creation has begun in and through his Son.  

 

It is an absolute monumental claim. 

 

About 2 years ago around Easter – the NYT had an opinion piece interviewing NT scholar N.T. Wright.  N.T. Wright, scholar and Anglican priest, has written extensively on a range of topics having to do with the Bible.  One of his largest works is an 800 page book on the Resurrection of Jesus, where he looks at NT documents as well as other texts from that time period where he digs into the details of what people believed and thought about the afterlife in that time as well as making historical case and argument for the Resurrection of Jesus. There are few people living who have done more work in this area.  

 

In this interview in the NYTimes he says many interesting things, but one of the things he emphasizes is how strange and unexpected the idea of resurrection was in the 1st century.  He basically says – It’s not like people in the 1st century didn’t know that people who die stay dead.   Listen to what he says – 

 

 

 

 

 And that’s what Paul is doing in this passage.  He’s reminding the Christian believers in Rome – look Jesus has already won, he’s risen from the dead and he’s the true Lord and ruler.  The next event on God’s clock, the next event in the history of salvation is the return of Christ, where Jesus will do away with all evil and bring judgment upon all who have turned away from God and not believed in Christ.  And then salvation will be experienced in all it’s fullness and the world will be completely renewed.  This is why Paul writes in v. 11 – For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. 

In another one of his writings N.T. Wright says this, “We could cope – the world could cope – with a Jesus who ultimately remains a wonderful idea inside his disciples’ minds and hearts. 

Meaning – the world would be fine with a Jesus who is just a nice religious idea for people who want to believe and think about that sort of thing…..   But he goes on to say ….. 

 

The world cannot cope with a Jesus who comes out of the tomb, who inaugurates God’s new creation right in the middle of the old one.”

 

But this is what happened and this is what the gospel tells us – history has forever been changed by the death and resurrection of Jesus.   This is what Paul is preaching all over the Roman Empire.  

 

And if you read the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) this is what Jesus is preaching about and this is what Jesus is showing through his miraculous works – Jesus says, much like Paul in this passage – in essence – “Turn and wake up because God’s kingdom is drawing near through me – believe and follow me.”  This is what he’s preaching.  

 

And then Jesus goes about doing things like healing people, defeating evil, forgiving sin, giving life to the dead.  You see, when Jesus is near, it’s like God’s kingdom and new creation life break into the world – there is life instead of death, wholeness instead of sickness and brokenness.  

 

There’s a particular event in Jesus’ life that I’ve always found moving perhaps because I’m a dad, or maybe because of a sermon I heard by Tim Keller on this passage many years ago.  It happens in Mark ch. 5.  

A man named Jairus comes to Jesus falling at his feet and begs Jesus to come heal his 12 year old daughter who is about to die.  As Jesus is going to Jairus’ house news comes that the child has died.  Jesus looks at Jairus and says, “Do no fear, but believe.” He goes into where the child is lying, Jesus takes her by the hand and says to her in Aramaic – “Talitha cumi,” which is the sort of thing a parent would say to a child when waking them from a nap.  Though she is dead, Jesus comes to her and in essence says, “honey it’s time to wake up.” And reaching down into death he brings her back to life.  

 

You see, when the Son of God takes on humanity and invades this broken world – that’s what he brings – the life of new creation, where there’s no longer sickness and things like cancer, where there’s not sin and evil, where there’s no long suffering.   

 

You see this is what – Jesus, God in person in our world – was doing. Through his life, through his death, and through his resurrection he brought life to this world.  He has won.  The day where the fullness of salvation and life that comes through him is dawning and when it comes all who have trusted in him will be raised up to new life in God’s new creation, forever.  

 

Now is the time to wake up to that reality…..

 

God in his loving mercy says to you this morning, “honey, it’s time to wake up.” 

 

Some of you here this morning don’t know Jesus.  You’ve not yet turned to him and received him and what he did for you – the good news to you from God this morning is God saying to you – Honey, it’s time to wake up.  It’s time to come into the light, to become a child of the light, to turn away from the darkness.  It’s time to turn from the way of being a human where God is irrelevant, where you’re trying to make life work on your own, where you’re trying desperately to control, where you’re trying to sooth yourself and your pain and your brokenness yourself rather than come to Jesus and find healing and find hope, and find someone who truly cares for you. It’s time to wake up. 

 

Many of us here belong to Jesus, we’ve been believers and followers of Jesus for many years, decades even.  In love he says to you – honey, don’t forget – it’s time to wake up…… and stay awake to me.  You are a child of light, you belong to the Day, you are part of the new creation through faith in me – don’t fall asleep to me.  It’s time to wake up and stay awake – salvation is near. 

 

You see …… The gospel tells us news – that history has forever been changed by the death and resurrection of Jesus……. And the Gospel calls us to respond to that news.  

 

And this is what we see in the second half of the text.  

 

Because of the time v. 11 and the hour, and the nearness of salvation…. because the night and darkness v. 12 is moving toward it’s final stage and the day has come near 

 

THEREFORE or – So then this is how we ought to respond.  

 

We are to respond negatively by casting off or putting off certain ways of living and we are to respond by positively by putting on…. 

 

Consider first the negative.  Notice how Paul describes what we are to cast off  – in v. 12 he describes this way of life as “the works of darkness” – there are a ways of living that are opposed to the coming DAY we’ve been talking about in the first half of the passage.  Then in v. 14 he refers to this way of life with the term – “Flesh” when he says – we are to make no provision for the flesh.  

 

And here we come back to something we’ve seen already many times in the book of Romans.  When Paul talks about the “flesh” remember he’s not talking about the body.  Paul isn’t anti body.  

 

Flesh – we’ve said throughout Romans – this is the “it’s up to me” way of life – it’s the way of life humanity entered into when we turned from God in the beginning when we sought to make life work apart from God.  It’s the way things are in the world – where the world goes about life obvious to God, where God is irrelevant.  Humanity in the flesh says – We make it work, we figure it out, we make our way, we control – it’s up to us.  

 

The specific things Paul mentions in v. 13 of what we are not to do – these things are characteristic of the “Flesh.”  They come from the way of life and the logic that life is up to me, I make my life work, I’m in control….. I know what’s best for me.   

The 3 pairs Paul mentions in v. 13 are not an exhaustive list – if we looked at other writings from Paul or other lists in the NT, many of these would be mentioned but also others – like greed, for example.  The list is not exhaustive but names common examples of life lived in the mode of the flesh…. Life lived in darkness to God.  

Consider the examples he gives:

• “orgies and drunkenness” – It is a life of YOLO – you only live once – it is the party life – the life of excess food and drink – living to feel good, have a good time, escape pain and brokenness through food and feasting, through partying, through substances.   

• 2nd pair – “sexual immorality and sensuality” – It is a life that lives for sexual fulfillment – a life that rejects God’s boundaries and good gift of sex given in the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman – Whether something like pornography, or sleeping around, or engaging in sex but not willing to bind one’s life to another in the covenant of marriage….. this is the logic and way of life that says…. Well this is how I do it…. This is what’s best for me…. This is what makes me happy and what God and Jesus say isn’t really relevant for me.  

• “quarreling and jealousy” – It is a life of disharmony with others –  fighting, jealousy, envy.  

 

This is what we must cast off.  We can’t continue in this way of life or in other ways of living in the flesh, living in darkness, lights out to God.  

 

V. 14 Paul says – “make no provision for the flesh” – meaning – don’t plan to meet the needs of the flesh – Remember….It’s time to wake up.  Don’t give an inch.  We know, don’t we, when we feel pulled by temptation and we just dip in a toe – it’s just one click, it’s ok, it won’t ever get serious. It’s just this one little part of my life – I don’t think it really matters.  It’s ok for me to hold on to bitterness – that person deserves it….    No, Paul says. Don’t feed the flesh, cast off the works of darkness….. 

 

Cast it off AND….. notice what Paul writes, v. 14 – put on the Lord Jesus Christ

 

it’s not – ok, so now because Jesus has changed history and won – you need to not do bad, and do good. No, we are to put off certain ways of living so that we can put on a person – that’s a weird thing to say – but it’s quite beautiful – Jesus wants you to wear him, which is a close and intimate way of speaking.  Remember, being a Christian means you’ve been united to Jesus such that all he has done you benefit from and all you’ve ever done or will do – he takes care of – It’s like marriage where when the two people get married their debts become their collective debt and their assets and bank accounts become a collective bank account. Only in this instance we bring the debt and Jesus brings the riches of his grace and love. And the call here is to get up every day – and live out your union with Jesus.  Put it into practice, re-appropriate the reality that you belong to Jesus. Put Jesus on afresh – in every part of your life, because he wants to be with you, and lead you. He wants to grow you and help you become everything you’re meant to be through him.

And as is typical whenever we’re reading the Bible – while it’s so easy to read all this as if you – individual Christian, need to cast off – put off these things and you individual Christian need to put on Jesus – actually no – all of these commands are in the plural – We are to do this together.  

 

Which is why we need the church – we need the community of God’s people – We need each other – we need help to stay awake.  We need help to turn away from the darkness.  We need each other as we seek each day to put on Jesus and live into what it means to belong to him together as his body.  

 

This is how we are to respond to the news that Jesus has won, that history has been forever changed because Jesus died and rose again.  

 

Closing Illust – A couple of weeks ago I was in the office on a Friday, sort of wrapping up the day, checking email, when I came across an article in the New Yorker.  It was an excerpt from Alexei Navalny’s prison diary.  Alexei Navalny was a Russian political opponent of Vladimir Putin who died in a Russian prison this past Feb.   

 

Back in 2020 Alexei, the Russian opposition leader and anticorruption campaigner was on a flight and thought he was dying––he was disoriented, and felt his body shutting down. The plane made an emergency and he was hospitalized. A few days later he was allowed to fly to Berlin for treatment.  It was later confirmed that he had been poisoned.  As a result of this he went into a coma but then recovered.  A week after coming out of his coma, he announced that he would return to Russia, knowing full well what he was in store for.  Upon landing he was arrested, brought up on false charges and went to prison.  

 

So, a few Friday’s ago, I’m reading his diary entries – Here is picture of a man trapped in the dark night of prison, suffering, persecuted by the state because he dared to call out the lies of a dictator and stand against him.  He’s in one of the toughest and worst Russian prisons, up near the arctic circle, temperatures of -26f when he goes for his forced morning walk of exercise that consists of walking back and forth about 11 paces because that’s all the space he’s given in the outdoor cell he’s taken to each day.      He journals and writes, with a strange sense of humor at times, a lightness and peace.  He writes some about his faith and the way Jesus has called him to live – he references passages like when Jesus calls those blessed who hunger and thirst for righteousness – for things to be set right.  

 

he writes about his settled convictions about Russia. In one of his last entries on Jan 9, 2024 slightly more than month before he died in prison he journaled about how the present Russian state, the “Putinist state” as he called it, that it is only a matter of time before the current regime collapses – because it is built on lies and therefore it cannot last.  

 

He writes, “Lies, and nothing but lies. It will crumble and collapse. One day, we will look at it and it won’t be there. Victory is inevitable….”

 

Reading these words – I was struck by his courage.  Courage to face injustice, darkness, cruelty, rooted in the knowledge that such things can’t last.  

 

This is the kind of courage we can have through Jesus – because Jesus faced the ultimate darkness when he faced death and evil, when he went to the cross to win our forgiveness that we might have life in his kingdom. 

 

Jesus went to the cross and rose again and because of that – the power and penalty of sin is broken, the darkness will give way to light and life, and the way of life in this world – of living without God, of brokenness, suffering, and sadness will come to an end – it’s days are numbered….  

 

Because Jesus died and rose again we can live courageously as children of that day – knowing that he will free us from all sin and sorrow and he is with us even now by his Spirit helping us to live as those who belong to the day. 

 

In light of what Jesus has done and what he calls us to – let’s turn to a time of prayer – 

 

Each week we do this, spending some time in prayer after hearing God’s word so that we can speak honestly to God – to confess our sins, to seek his grace, mercy, and help.  He himself calls us to do this and delights to hear us and help us – so let’s spend a few moments in silent prayer and confession and then I’ll close us in prayer.