"Awake, Rise Up, and Know"

Scripture: Romans 13:8-14

You may remember from last week’s message, that Paul’s final words to us were “Give to everyone what you owe them.” (Romans 13:7) He wants us to pay our debts, and he specifically lists the obligations of taxes, revenue, respect and honor that we owe to others. It appears that when he speaks of debt, Paul is not limiting our responsibilities to those having financial characteristics, but that we need to extend our accountability to others through the things of the soul.

Why does Paul see that as important for us to understand? Probably because few of us ever thought that paying respect and honor to others is actually an obligation, a debt, that we owe to them. And, apparently Paul, and the Lord, both believe that we do! But the question for today is how much further does this list of debts go? How much more is there that we owe to others?

Read Romans 13:8-10

In that call to love others, Paul saw, as the basis for his love, the debt of ministry to the world. While Jewish believers felt that the message of salvation should be offered to only the people of Israel, and if it extended to the gentile world, that it should only be for those who would surrender their lives to the law of Moses, and to the ways of Judaism. Paul and a few others, however, knew that God was far greater than this, and that whoever would believe in Jesus Christ would also know the righteous life and love of Almighty God. (Romans 1:14-17)

This call, this love, this debt, can never be paid off, but it is a gift that must constantly be paid out. The kind of love that Paul, and we, are to show to others is that of God, and not of the world. (Mark 16:15-16) But what Paul is not saying is that love nullifies all sin, that it does not negate the commands regarding sexual sin, hatred, murder, theft, and every other command that the Lord has set down for us. However, what love does do for us is to guide us in the ways of Almighty God, and keeps us on his path.

The world’s ways are the ways of sin, or at best, only half-hearted ways of God. And when Paul reminds us of the law “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 18:19), we also must remember that these “neighbors” are seldom related to us, seldom have the same personal standards that we do, seldom live a life that parallels ours, seldom believe in the same God that we do. Loving others as if they are just like us, is very possibly the most difficult thing we will ever be called to do. And yet, there it is – God’s call to do it just the same.

But to what extent? Are we to be accepting (e.g. Loving) of the things that they do? No. But then, that’s how the Lord loves them, loving the person - not the things they do, not even the good that they do, and definitely not the things in their life that defy the way he calls them to live. And while the world’s version of love can, and quite often does, cause great hurt, Godly love never will and never can. We may not like, or even agree with that which the Lord asks us to do, but it always comes from the love of God, and is always the very best for our lives.

Read Romans 13:11-14

As hard as we try, our love for others almost always falls short of what the Lord requires of us. In Micah 6:6-8, the prophet writes “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” The verbs and adverbs that are shown here are defining attitudes, not actions. It isn’t what we think, it isn’t even what we do – it’s how and why we do them. And this is the very issue that Paul is addressing. The time has come for us to act, and love, and walk with God in Godly ways.

It’s also interesting in the various ways the word “sleep” is used in scripture. In Luke 8:23, Jesus falls asleep in the boat during a storm – he was resting. In John 11:11, he tells his disciples that their friend Lazarus has fallen asleep – he has died. And in this passage, Paul is using the word “sleep” to describe inattentiveness, disobedience, and the lack of understanding.

There are two Greek words that speak of time that we need to pay attention to. The first is Chronos, or the time we observe on our watch. Chronos helps us to stay on our daily schedule, to know when it is time to go to work or to be at home, and it measures the aging processes in our lives. The other type of time is Kairos, or God’s time. It heralds the arrival of an event that we have very little to say about. The day that a baby is conceived; the day we meet our true love; the day we give our life to Christ. In essence, Kairos defines the time when God brings an unexpected blessing into our lives and everything changes whether we recognize it at that moment, or not until sometime later.

Kairos is the moment that we awake from our slumber – the dawn of a new day in Christ, and the sunrise of a new understanding of God and his plans for us. Paul is not suggesting that we will soon experience Jesus’ return, but I do believe that he is saying that the amount of time that is available for our reawakening is running out. He isn’t implying that our salvation is in need of greater deeds and actions, but we will always be in need of fulfillment in our life with Christ.

James 2:25-26 we read that our Christian life requires both faith and faithful actions. He writes “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.” And just as our faith grows stronger and deeper from the day that we made our confession to Christ, so do our desires and abilities to serve him in true, Godly, and righteous ways.

But when is the age of Christ to be upon us? When is this age of the world to end? I expect that we all feel that neither can occur soon enough! But the truth is that the age of Christ began at his birth, and the age of the world will end at his second coming. We are immersed in them both right now, and we need to let the light of Christ shine brighter within and through us, than the darkness can limit and diminish.

The world likes the darkness – they believe that it hides their life from exposure, that darkness prevents the possibility of condemnation. But Psalm 139:11-12 disputes that thought, that in the Lord, “darkness is as light to you.” And as we begin our walk with Christ, Ephesians 6:10-20 describes the necessity of putting on the armor of God, but Paul tells us that it is just as important for us to be wearing the armor of Light, which, of course is Jesus. (John 8:12) The apostle now makes a comparison between living in the holy Light of God, versus the darkness of the world.

In Galatians 5:16-21, we see this comparison again, as the difference between “walking in the Spirit [vs.] gratify[ing] the flesh.” As Paul describes it, the flesh is only a temporary covering for us, and will, one day, putrefy and die, but when we put on the Light of Christ, and wear that as our only garment in faith, it is then that eternity becomes ours, and love in the way of Christ begins to make sense.

I love the early mornings, especially in the spring and summer. As the sun slowly rises, and the darkness of night slowly fades, life seems to return to the earth. The birds begin singing in earnest, vision of the yard and woods around us becomes more and more clear, shadows begin to appear as the only reminder of the former darkness, and the dawn seems to be preparing me for the coming day.

The time for sleeping is past, and the time for living and loving has come. May the dawning give us a sense of a new day, a new life, and a new love by faith in the living Lord, Jesus the Christ.