There are now just 51 shopping days until Christmas! By now many people have bought their presents. Some have written and addressed their cards. Many have already booked their Christmas dinner. I guess that most of us have thought about where we will be spending Christmas this year, and who with. But don’t make too many plans. Because Christmas Day 2012 may never come! There is an even more exciting and important Day coming, and that Day may come even sooner than Christmas.
Romans 13:11-12. And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.
“The Day” of course means the Day of the Lord, the Second Coming of Jesus, the Day of the Return of Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself taught his disciples to be ready for His return.
Mark 13 32 “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. 34 It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.
35 “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. 36 If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. 37 What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’ ”
“Wake up!” says Paul. “Watch, be on guard, be alert,” says Jesus. And even sound evangelical churches like us need to wake up and watch and be on guard and be alert! Because we have tended to neglect what the New Testament teaches us about the Second Coming. Our lives are too comfortable. There are too many things in this life we still want to experience and enjoy before everything changes when Jesus returns. If only our attitude was like that of a poet a hundred years ago who wrote:
“The best part is the blessed hope of his coming soon. How I ever lived before I grasped that wonderful truth, I do not know. How anyone lives without it these trying days I cannot imagine. Each morning I think, with a leap of the heart, “He may come today.” And each evening, “When I awake I may be in glory.” Each day must be lived as though it were to be my last, and there is so much to be done to purify myself and to set my house in order. I am on tiptoe with expectancy. There are no more grey days — for they’re all touched with colour; no more dark days — for the radiance of His coming is on the horizon; no more dull days, with glory just around the corner; and no more lonely days, with His footsteps coming ever nearer, and the thought that soon, soon, I shall see His blessed face and be forever through with pain and tears.”
Jesus Christ is coming back. One day – maybe even today! The rest of the world may ignore that truth, but then that isn’t so surprising when even most Christians live as though this world was going to go on forever. But it isn’t. Our salvation is nearer now than it was when we first believed! Will we be ready?
C.S.Lewis wrote this about the Return of Jesus Christ.
“The doctrine of the Second Coming teaches us that we do not and cannot know when the world drama will end. The curtain may be rung down at any moment. . . . This seems to some people intolerably frustrating. . . . We do not know the play. . . . The Author knows. The audience, if there is an audience (if angels and archangels and all the company of heaven fill the pit and the stalls) may have an inkling. . . . When it is over, we may be told. We are led to expect that the Author will have something to say to each of us on the part that each of us has played. The playing it well is what matters infinitely.”
Playing it well – living our lives to the full for God’s glory – is what counts. Lives based on the certainty that Christ is coming back – and He is coming back soon!
The great preacher F. B. Meyer once asked D. L. Moody, “What is the secret of your success?” Moody replied, “For many years I have never given an address without the consciousness that the Lord may come before I have finished.”
The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. Wake up – because Jesus is coming back soon. Maybe even tonight. Maybe even before the end of this sermon! So there are two things Romans 13 tells us we must do to be ready for Christ’s return.
THE DEBT TO LOVE
Romans 13 8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellow-man has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,’’ “Do not murder,’’ “Do not steal,’’ “Do not covet,’’ and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbour as yourself.’’ 10 Love does no harm to its neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.
The debt to love each other is not a small debt to each other. It is our enormous debt to God for His love for us! God has loved us more than we can possibly imagine, certainly vastly more than we could ever repay. So we owe it to God to love our brothers and sisters and our neighbours.
The Old Testament Commandments were prohibitions – don’t do this, don’t do that! They were essentially negative. But the commandment which sums them all up is “Love your neighbour as yourself.” And that is entirely positive. It demands action and initiative. In recent weeks we have seen in Romans 12 how Paul spells out we should love other people.
Romans 12 9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.
13 Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
But then our love must not be limited to our brothers and sisters in the church. We should love our enemies as well as our friends!
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil.
18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
19 Do not take revenge,
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
So we have this debt to God to love our neighbours. But who is my neighbour? The parable of the Good Samaritan makes it clear. The neighbour is the person we would not usually mix with, somebody we might not usually love and indeed may find it difficult to love. Our neighbour is the person God brings across our path who needs our help and compassion. And loving our neighbour is not an airy fairy feeling but an act of the will, a determination to seek and work for what is truly best for our neighbour. Wake up says Paul – and love your neighbours! Then as we show God’s kind of love to people, we should also,
LIVE IN THE LIGHT
Living a holy and Christ-like life has two sides to it.
PUT ASIDE
Romans 13:12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armour of light. 13 Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. I hope orgies and drunkenness and immorality and debauchery are not a problem for us! But the last two issues in that list are just as dangerous for Christians as the first four. Dissention, division, arguments and disunity can tear a church apart. And being jealous is just as harmful, whether it is over material or worldly things or over spiritual things. We must “put aside all the deeds of darkness!”
I can’t remember where I heard it, but there is a little saying which I have always found helpful and challenging. We should never do anything we wouldn’t want to be found doing when Jesus returns. And we should never say anything we wouldn’t want to be found saying when Jesus returns. Christ has died. Christ is risen and Christ IS coming again. We need to be ready.
We must “put aside all the deeds of darkness!” And then we must also “put on the armour of light.”
PUT ON
14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. The secret is not to even think of doing evil but to live as Jesus lived, following our Lord’s example of prayer and holiness and service and sacrifice. Because Jesus is coming back and we all need to be ready!
Revelation 16:15 15 “Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed.”
Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ WILL come again, like a thief in the night. So wake up! The Message puts it this way.
But make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! God is putting the finishing touches on the salvation work he began when we first believed. We can’t afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around and dissipation, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed! Don’t loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about!
So wake up! The night is almost over. The day is almost here. Our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed! Remember the debt to love and to live in the light and not in the darkness. Real life is waiting out there – the sermon is over – time to wake up!
