08-14-11 The Journey

We did some things last week,

in preparation for the passage we will look at this morning,

that are critical to a correct perspective on the passage we will be studying.

In our study last week

we looked at the nature of the warfare raging in our world,

a warfare that involves three distinctly different groups.

There is the Creator God,

with all the angelic forces under His command,

there is Lucifer,

with all the demonic forces in league with him,

and then there is us - the human race.

We focused primarily on the first two groups last week,

looking at the conflict between them,

and especially at how that conflict affects us.

Our study of the 6 principles

that govern life within the Church

has brought us to the 5^th principle

in which Paul outlines for us

our role in this battle,

and provides us with instructions

on how we can effectively fulfill that role.

We saw last week

that the war raging around us

is a battle between God and Satan

for the hearts of men and women.

But that does not mean we have no part in that battle.

On the contrary,

we have a crucial part

because God has given each of us

both the right and the ability

to determine who wins that battle in our own lives.

And Paul’s comments to us in Romans 13:11-14

are designed to provide us with the information we need

in order to fulfill our part in this warfare successfully.

Perhaps the easiest way for us to do this

is just to walk through the passage together statement by statement.

Paul begins this section of his letter in 13:11 by saying,

“Do this, knowing the time...”

OK, the first thing we’re going to see

is that this passage is directly linked

to the one that just precedes it.

Paul says, “Do this...”

Do what?

His obvious intent is to arm us with some information

that will help us to more effectively fulfill whatever it was

he has called us to do in the verses just before this.

If you were with us several weeks ago

you may remember that it was in those verses

that Paul provided us with THE foundation principle

both for all healthy human relationships

and for the fulfillment of all truly moral living.

He called us to “love one another”,

but he didn’t stop there.

He went on to reveal to us

exactly what real love is.

He showed us that to love another person

is to relate to them in a way that is consistent with the moral commandments of God.

Contrary to what the human race has chosen to believe throughout most of history,

the moral commandments of God

were not an arbitrary list of forbidden fruits established by our Creator

that we were required to avoid

in order to achieve some level of acceptance by Him.

In reality they are the perfect description

of how one human being loves another human being.

They are, quite simply, a description of how human relationships work.

To love another person,

to build a strong, solid, safe, durable relationship with them,

is to relate to them according to the pattern revealed to us in the moral commandments of God.

To hate another person

is to relate to them

with actions that are inconsistent with the moral commandments of God.

Now, having revealed this truth to us,

and having then given us the high calling

of restructuring our lives and our relationships with those around us

in a way that is consistent with this truth,

the next thing Paul does

is to give us the added incentive we need

in order to fulfill this calling.

He says, “Do this, knowing the time...”

It’s as if he is saying,

“My friends, I know that what I’ve just called you to do

is going to be really hard stuff for most of you.

It’s going to require many of you

to completely rethink the way you have been approaching your human relationships,

and it will demand some difficult choices,

and some painful rebuilding in many of your lives.

But I want you to know

how vital this calling is

to the expression of the life of Christ through you.

It is not just something our Lord wants you to tack onto your walk with Him.

It is the very heart of the life He is leading us into.

And so, knowing the importance of what I’ve just said,

I want you to... “Do this, knowing the time...”

And then he goes on to share with us

just exactly what time it is.

Do this knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is almost gone, and the day is near.

Do you know what that is?

That’s an attitude statement.

That’s where it all begins -

with our building into our lives

the attitude presented in those words.

And oh, how I hope you don’t switch into your “church mode” right now.

How I hope you don’t take what I’m about to say

and tuck it away into your platitude file.

What Paul says here is not a platitude...

it is not chicken soup for the Christian soul -

nice words that never seem to make it into real life.

This is why we took last week

to prepare us for our entrance into this passage.

Our lives in Christ are never stagnant -

there is always a purpose and direction to the work of God’s Spirit in our lives.

Yet at the same time we live every day of our lives with an intense warfare raging around us.

In this passage right here

Paul takes these themes

and presents them to us in a powerful analogy.

He compares our life

prior to our union with Christ

to being in a deep sleep.

Prior to our union with Christ

we were living in our own little dream world,

oblivious to what was really taking place around us.

We had no awareness of the intense warfare

raging both in our own life,

and in our world.

We really believed

the most important challenges we faced

were the preservation of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

We in America actually built our entire social structure

on the belief that the high calling given to us by God Himself

was that of pursuing happiness

and defending our personal rights.

To all such thinking

Paul says, “It’s time to wake up!

Wake up and see what’s really going on around you.”

Have you ever fallen into a deep sleep

and then suddenly woke up

not knowing where you are

or what’s going on around you?

Paul’s words here are designed

to create in our minds

that kind of feeling that comes

when we come out of a deep dream state and have to adjust to the reality around us.

And with every growing Christian

there will be those times,

as we recognize our blindness from our past lives,

and become aware of what’s really taking place,

that we will find ourselves thinking, “I had no idea what was really going on.”

And there is something more here, as well.

Paul doesn’t just call us to wake up,

he tells us what we are to wake up to.

He wants us to wake up to the journey we enter into in Christ,

a journey from darkness into light.

Did you notice that remarkable statement Paul makes in this passage... “for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed”?

Statements like that help us see

what damage we have done to the whole concept of salvation in the church world.

We tend to view salvation as a point in time,

a finished act in a person’s life.

We are either “saved”

or we are “not saved”.

Now, it is certainly true

that there is a point in time

when, well, as Paul puts it in Colossians 1:13,

God ... rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son..”

But the salvation He seeks to bring into our lives

is not a point,

it is a process,

a pilgrimage,

a journey.

I am more saved now than I was a year ago,

or ten years ago,

because my Lord has been able to bring more of His truth into my life

in a way that has brought more stability,

more freedom,

less fear,

and less bondage to my weaknesses than I had in the past.

And my point here is simply this -

don’t ever allow yourself to loose sight

of the powerful progressive nature of the salvation God is bringing about in your life.

If you have entered into Christ,

you have entered into a journey that is going someplace,

a journey in which your Lord

is walking with you through events and circumstances each day

that are carefully selected by Him

to enable you to discover truths about Him,

and about yourself,

truths that will alter your life profoundly.

We can, of course, refuse His offer of the journey if we want to.

Our church world is filled with folks

who point to a salvation experience in the past,

or perhaps who point to numerous moving religious experiences since then,

but whose lives have not changed significantly for years,

or for decades.

They are clothed in the external appearance of Christianity,

and they know all the words, all the language of the church,

but nothing ever changes.

If you’re interested

I can tell you why that happens,

and also tell you how to avoid it in your own life.

I just mentioned that our entrance into Christ

is the entrance into a journey with Him.

There is a definite forward movement in our walk with Him.

And He tells us clearly where that walk is taking us.

He shares with us what He is about,

what He is seeking to accomplish in our lives.

One of the clearest statements of where we are going

is found in Romans 8:29 where Paul says,

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son...

Having already recreated our hearts in righteousness,

our Lord then shares with us

the process of changing our thinking

and our living

into greater and greater conformity to the image of Christ.

He does this most of all

because He loves us with an everlasting love,

and because He wants us free to be the people He created us to be,

and because all sin,

and all immorality,

and all addictions,

and all lies rob us of that freedom.

But with all of us

there are areas in our lives

where change does not come quickly,

or easily.

And there will be some areas

where that journey with our Lord into greater conformity to the image of Christ

will require from us great courage in the face of very real fear,

and requires, too, a fierce determination to trust our Lord

more than we trust our feelings,

giving Him the freedom to do

whatever needs to be done

in order to bring healing into our lives.

It is not at all uncommon

for Christians to hit a point in their walk with the King

where they simply refuse to allow Him

to lead them through the changing process.

When He knows the time is right,

the Lord will bring some issue,

or some area to light -

perhaps a damaged relationship,

or a destructive behavior pattern,

or an emotional addiction,

and invite the person to trust Him

to lead them from bondage into health.

But with each of us

He gives us the right to say “No way! I’m not going there, Lord. I’m not getting near that one.”

And when we do,

our journey, our forward movement ceases,

and we stagnate.

And I find it fascinating to see how the human spirit responds to this resistance to the Journey.

Some people, of course,

just drop out of the church world altogether.

But many others become fervently or comfortably religious.

There is no better place in the world to hide from God

than behind a religious facade.

Warning his young friend, Timothy, about such people

Paul wrote:

1TI 1:5 But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

Love from a pure heart - that’s building those love relationships we’ve been talking about.

A good conscience - that’s building basic moral integrity into our lives.

A sincere faith - that’s growing in practical trust in our Lord.

But then Paul goes on to say,

1TI 1:6 For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion,

1TI 1:7 wanting to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.

There it is - those who reject the journey

and then hide from their rejection

behind a religious facade.

So how do we prevent falling into such traps?

Well, the simple answer is, “Embrace the Journey”,

but that doesn’t help much, does it?

During those times when we are resisting the leadership of our Lord

we are sometimes so skillful at hiding the truth from ourselves

that we can easily miss what’s happening consciously.

So, let me tell you what to look for.

Do you have some struggle,

or some issue in your life right now

that you have chosen not to actively share with your Lord?

It may be a relationship that’s all messed up.

It may be some behavior pattern,

or area of fear,

or chronic moral weakness,

or addictive behavior.

Paul himself lists some suggestions in the 13^th verse of this passage we’re studying.

He says,

ROM 13:13 Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy.

It could be any one of a number of things,

but the truth is you’re pretty sure

you don’t want God anywhere near that area of your life.

If we could be honest with ourselves

we’d have to admit that what we’re doing

certainly isn’t bringing about the quality of life we want.

It’s not meeting our needs.

It’s forcing us to be sneaky,

to be deceptive,

to fear being found out.

It’s creating a tremendous amount of tension

both within ourselves

and in our relationships with others.

But still we cling to it

because it’s familiar,

and because we are afraid -

afraid of what our God would do if we let Him in.

So how do we break the power of such lies

and such fears?

How do we embrace the Journey?

Paul gives the answer to that question

in the final verse of this passage.

And it is a truly remarkable verse.

It contains just two instructions,

but taken together they give us the approach to our Lord

that guarantees the Journey will never stop.

We’ll look at the first instruction this week

and the second next week.

The verse says,

ROM 13:14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.

Step one...put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

What I will share with you now

is by no means all that is involved

in what Paul is telling us in this statement,

but it is a crucial start.

Paul’s wording here sounds strange to us.

He uses words that we normally use

to describe our relationship to a piece of clothing

and then applies them to Christ.

We understand putting on a shirt,

slipping on a robe.

But how do you put on Jesus Christ?

When you put on a piece of clothing

you are choosing to live inside it,

surrounded by its presence.

When Paul calls us to put on the Lord Jesus Christ,

he is calling us to choose to consciously live with the awareness

that we are immersed in the presence of Christ.

Whatever it is you’re struggling with,

share it with Him.

Don’t run from Him,

run to Him.

You can’t fix it yourself.

You can’t make it go away.

You’re tearing yourself up trying to hide it from Him.

Stop trying to be good for Him,

and just rest in being His.

All I’m really trying to say here is this-

don’t be afraid to live each day immersed in the presence of your Lord.

You do not have to hide from Him any longer.

You don’t have to carry that burden any more.

I know you’re afraid of what may lie ahead

if you drop it into His hands

and allow Him to lead you through the mess,

but I promise you

He really does know the way,

YOUR way through the wilderness,

and His heart longing

is to bring you into freedom.

You are, right now and forever IN Christ.

And He has promised -

there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Him.

There can be no condemnation

because Christ Himself has already been condemned,

and judged for your sins,

even that one you’re packing around with you now,

trying so hard to keep out of His reach.

The debt is paid,

the penalty has been paid for you forever,

and now all that remains

is your willingness to rest in His presence with you,

and enter into the Journey with Him.

I guess this says it best, doesn’t it -

MAT 11:28 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.

MAT 11:29 "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

MAT 11:30 "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

When we put on the Lord Jesus Christ

we are, quite simply,

wrapping ourselves in the conscious mental awareness

that we are living every second of our lives immersed in His presence.

We don’t ever have to wonder if He’s there,

we certainly can’t hide from Him,

nor do we need to

because our God is not after us,

He is for us,

and...If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

We didn’t get as far as I hoped to with this today,

but we made a start.

And next week we’ll see if we can take it the rest of the way.