Scripture: Romans 13:8-14
As we venture into our 11th lesson from
Paul’s letter to the Romans, we are reminded that every Christian community is
a little bit different from all of the rest.
We have different missional opportunities, different cities, towns and
villages that we live in, different congregations in so many distinctive ways,
and even some different styles of worship.
But in spite of all those things that make us individually unique, there
is one aspect of our existence that we all have in common, in addition to our
faith in Jesus Christ, and that is the command that Jesus gave to us all, 34 “A new command I give you: Love one
another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my
disciples, if you love one another.”
(John 13:34-35)
The love that we show to each other, as
well as the love that we show to all people, can never be based in the love
that we know as human beings. It is to
be a Godly love, a divine love, a love that goes beyond all expectations, and a
love that challenges description. It is
the love that we experienced when we first discovered that God loves us
intimately and completely, in spite of the worldly life that we had been
living.
In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul offers us
a few words on what this Godly form of love is all about. No matter what we do, no matter what we give
to others, no matter how we obey and cherish and proclaim the promise of God,
unless everything that we are and do is based in love of the Lord, they are all
meaningless. And in the apostle’s conclusion
to that chapter, he writes “ 13 And now these three
remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Greater than faith, greater than hope and
greater than anything else we can ever imagine.
That is how important love is for our human lives, as well as for our
life in Jesus Christ.
Read Romans 13:8-10
“Love is the fulfillment of the Law”, but in
addition, Jesus Himself tells us in Matthew 5:17
that He came, not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it! So by association, we come to understand that
faith in Christ is the Love that fulfills all that we do. Without love, observance of the law falls
short of glory, just as love without obedience to the word of God must also be
seen as imperfect.
And as an example of what he is referring to, Paul
quotes several of the 10 commandments (Exodus 20:1-17),
and tells us that all of God’s commands are completed and based in Jesus’
command to “love your neighbor as yourself”. (Matthew 22:38-40 & Leviticus 19:18)
Love of God and of others is the attitude, and
approach, and the reason that we must incorporate into the life we live and
serve through. Legalistic obedience is never
sufficient in the Lord’s eyes! In Matthew 23:25-26, Jesus confronts the Pharisees with the
thought that it will never be a righteous act as long as it is done simply out
of obligation, neglecting the most important aspect of our acts in love. It can never be about our own prestige and
gain, but rather we must be focused on what our life will do and mean for the
other person and for God.
Read Romans 13:11-14
Time is one of those nebulous things that can be
quite confusing when we read about “time” in scripture. Some of you have
heard me mention that in the Greek, there are two words used to describe
“time”. The first is what we know as “cronos”,
which is the basis for our word “chronological”, and which refers to the daily
and common time that we use to measure duration in our lives. The second is “kairos” which refers to the
time when God’s will is carried out within us.
The two almost never coincide, and for many of us, we’re never quite
sure as to which one is at work within us at any given moment!
In this passage, Paul is using the second meaning,
reminding us that God’s “time” is running out for us, that it is “time” that we
put the ways of our Lord first in our life, and to allow the ways of earth to
fall far, far away.
Later when Paul writes about dark and light times,
we need to understand that night time is “Chronos” time – that time before we
welcome the Lord into our life and faith.
Day time is “Kairos” time, when we look to our Almighty and Perfect God
to guide us through the rest of this life and into the life He has prepared for
us to live eternally in Him. Paul is
warning us that our “Chronos” is rapidly coming to an end, and that it is time
for us to wait no longer, and begin living again in our Kairos.
In Luke 8:16,
Jesus offers the analogy of lighting a lamp and displaying it so that it will
be obvious for others to see. Do we
celebrate and keep the light of our Kairos life evident for others to see, and to
show them the way to discover the Light of Christ for themselves? Our time in Kairos is about rejecting
the ways that bring fulfilment and honor to our humanity, and instead to give
God the honor and glory for all that He has done to make us whole in
Him!
And when we consider how these verses fit with the
ones we read a few moments ago, we discover that it is the love we carry in our
hearts for God and others that will make all the difference between the
darkness that covers our human failures and the light that displays the grace
and glory of our Precious Lord and Savior Jesus.
But you may be wondering what it takes for us to be
“clothed” with Christ? What does it mean
for our life? In His parable of the Wedding
Feast, (Matthew 22:1-14),
Jesus tells us in verse 11-12 of that passage that a man had entered the
wedding celebration without wearing the mandatory “wedding clothes”. The parable itself is about salvation and the
difference between those who will be welcomed into relationship with the Lord
and those who have denied and rejected it.
The point is that the invitation includes everyone – from the
most wealthy and prestigious of the area, to the lowest of strangers who were
just passing by, but all who accepted the invitation to celebrate were expected
to be properly attired.
In Zechariah 3:1-9,
we read of Joshua, the High Priest who is standing before the Judgment Seat,
and the first order that the Judge Jesus gives is to remove the man’s filthy
clothes and redress him with the finest of raiments. The filthy clothes represent sin, and the
finest clothes represent righteousness.
That is what being “clothed with Christ” means for our lives. It is the loving and sacrificial act of
Christ at Calvary that grants us, by faith, the means of living again in
Almighty God.
Loving others in the way that Jesus has loved us in
His ultimate love for all time, is the greatest gift that we can ever give.
- Reject your filthy clothes in favor of the finest
ones that God provides.
- Step out of the world’s darkness and into the
light of a new day in Christ.
- Fulfill the commands that God has provided us with,
by living out each and every one as a loving offering of faith, hope and
acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Savior.
If you have never taken that step in faith, won’t
you take it today, and give God the glory for what will come to you in the
moment that you show the love of Christ in all that you do.
Your Chronos is getting shorter every day, you know!
