Romans 13:11-14 The Day Is at Hand

Romans 13:11-14: The Day Is at Hand

Please turn with me in your Bible to Romans 13. If you’re using one of the Story Bibles, that’s on page 785. We’ve been working our way passage by passage through the book of Romans, and this morning we come to Romans 13:11-14. Romans 13:11-14:

11 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. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. 

One of the most important questions people can ask in their lives is, “What does the future hold?” “What does the future hold?” And by that, I’m not talking the future of technology, the future of politics, the future of entertainment, or anything like that. I’m talking about the future in a much more comprehensive sense. Essentially, is anything going to happen in the future that has eternal implications? Is anything going to happen that’s of eternal consequence?

Now, many people in our society would say “no, nothing like that’s going to happen.” I had a friend in high school named Skylar who told me one time, as we were sitting at the cafeteria table, that he believed the only thing that was going to happen to him when he died was that his body would decompose. No heaven, no hell, nothing except his body decomposing in the grave. And I don’t know why Skylar’s words have stuck with me all these years. Maybe it’s because that was the first time I had heard that belief stated so bluntly. But that’s the view that many, if not most, people in our society hold. They may not often state it as directly as Skylar did or even prefer to think about it very much, but that’s what they believe. And that belief is on full display in the way they live. They’re guided by the philosophy that life is short, so you’ve got to live it up while you can. Make the most of it because this is all you get. And so, people will often spend all of their energy chasing after the treasures and the pleasures of this world. And, honestly, that’s a very reasonable way to live if you believe that when you die your body just decomposes in the ground and that’s it. 

However, as Christians, we of course believe something very different about the future. We believe that at some point in the future, we’re going to find ourselves face-to-face with Jesus. Either Jesus will come back before we die or we’ll die and then face Jesus. But either way, we’re going to find ourselves in his presence with everything we’ve done in our lives visible to him. And that belief about the future changes everything about the way we approach the present—or at least it should. If we’re thinking clearly, our belief about finding ourselves face-to-face with Jesus in the future will change everything about the way we approach the present. There will be nothing short of a revolution in the priorities we maintain and the goals we pursue. Instead of spending our lives chasing after the treasures and pleasures of this world, we’ll live lives that anticipate what we know the future holds. And that’s what Paul encourages his readers to do here in this passage in Romans 13—only he makes it a bit more specific and talks about Christ’s return in particular. Paul says that Christians should live lives that anticipate Christ’s return. That the main idea of this passage. Christians should live lives that anticipate Christ’s return. And as we can see from what’s written here, that involves two things. Number one, recognizing the nearness of Christ’s return. And number two, getting ready for Christ’s return.

Recognizing the Nearness of Christ’s Return

So first, recognizing the nearness of Christ’s return. Look at what Paul says in verse 11 and the beginning of verse 12: 11 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... So according to Paul, some people—even some who claim to be Christians—are going through life as if they’re asleep. They’re tolerating sin in their life and are living for Jesus half-heartedly. So Paul says to them, “Wake up!” “The hour has come for you to wake from sleep.” Then he tells them the reason. He says, “salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.” Now what do you think Paul means by that? “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.” Well, even though we typically speak of “salvation” or “being saved” as something that happens when a person first becomes a Christian, the word “salvation” in the Bible can also be used to talk about our final and ultimate salvation that’s still to come in the future. More specifically, that salvation will come when Jesus returns. And that’s the kind of salvation Paul’s referring to here when he says that “salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.”

And it appears as though Paul expected that ultimate salvation to happen during his lifetime. We get hints of that in several places in Paul’s letters, including the next verse, verse 12, where Paul writes, “The night is far gone; the day is at hand.” That is, the “day” of Jesus coming back “is at hand.” So notice that Paul’s point here isn’t just that Jesus is coming eventually but that he’s coming soon. His return isn’t just certain, it’s imminent. “The day is at hand”! 

Now, how do we deal with the fact that that didn’t happen—that Jesus didn’t come back during Paul’s lifetime? Well, number one, let’s remember that Paul never taught definitively or guaranteed that Jesus would return during his lifetime. We just get the sense that he expected it as something that was likely. But he still left room for the possibility that Jesus could return after his lifetime. And number two, God operates on his own timetable. As Peter was responding to people who were scoffing at the idea that Jesus would return since he hadn’t returned yet, Peter told them in 2 Peter 3:8 that “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” So God operates on his own timetable. Kind of like a boss at work. You don’t tell your boss at work when to show up for things. He or she tells you when to show up for things. The boss operates on his or her own timetable—and so does God. Then Peter explains in the next verse that Jesus was actually delaying his return so that more people could come to repentance. So going back to Romans 13, Paul tells his readers that “salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.” Even though we don’t know when exactly this salvation is coming, Paul says, we do know that it’s nearer now than it was when we first believed. It’s one day closer than yesterday. And we should be ready for it to happen very soon. “The night is far gone; the day is at hand.” 

Getting Ready for Christ’s Return

And the fact that “the day is at hand” has enormous significance for us and our lives. It should lead us to do some very practical things as a way of getting ready for Christ’s return. So having talked about recognizing the nearness of Christ’s return, let’s now talk about getting ready for Christ’s return. Look at verses 12-14: 12 The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. So Paul’s basically saying here, “Get ready for Jesus to come back. He’s coming back soon, so make sure you’re ready.” 

I remember when I used to work at a supermarket as a teenager, the district manager would sometimes come around. And whenever our store manager knew ahead of time that the district manager was coming, you can probably guess what that meant for us. The store manager would want everything to be immaculate. He would want us to buff the floors until they shined. He would want all the cash register areas and everything on the front end of the store to be wiped down. He would want all the items on all the shelves in the store to be pulled forward so that the shelves looked better. And of course the purpose of all of this was to have the store looking good for the district manager. 

Likewise, Paul says, we as Christians should be getting ready for the coming of Jesus. And according to Paul, here’s how we do that. First, he says in verse 12, “let us cast off the works of darkness.” Think about that phrase “cast off.” We could also translate it “throw off.” It refers to a very forceful action and perhaps even a violent action. And that’s how we have to approach the sin in our lives. If you want to defeat sinful habits in your life, there’s no room for moderation. Defeating sin isn’t something you can do in a leisurely or lackadaisical manner. You’ve got to be ruthless. In fact, back in Romans 8:13, Paul described the way we should approach sin in an even more forceful and violent way. He said that, through the Holy Spirit’s power, we should “put to death the deeds of the body.” We have to put those sinful deeds to death. Also, in Colossians 3:5, Paul said, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” In other words, show no mercy to the sin in your life. Ruthlessly put that sin to death or it will get the best of you. As the great theologian John Owen once said, “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.” “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”

Then going back to Romans 13, Paul tells us not only to “cast off the works of darkness” but also to do something very similar to that. A couple of verses down, in verse 14, Paul says to “make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” “Make no provision for the flesh.” Now, the “flesh” is a term Paul likes to use in a very specific way. He’s not talking about our physical flesh but rather about the sinful desires and sinful tendencies we have even as Christians. We’re supposed to make no provision for those things, Paul says. Don’t do anything that will give those sinful desires any room or any opportunity to flourish in your life. And that includes not putting yourself in situations in which you know you’re likely to be tempted. 

I heard a story not too long ago about a little boy whose mother told him not to eat any cookies. And originally, the cookies were on the kitchen counter. But in order to make it easier for the boy to not eat the cookies, the boy’s mother took the cookie jar out off of the counter and put it on a shelf in the pantry. However, one day, the mother was trying to find the boy, so she called out for him to see where in the house he was. And he answered her from the pantry. So naturally she asked him, “What are you doing in the pantry?” And he said, “I’m resisting temptation.” I think we can all agree that the pantry was not the place for that little boy to resist temptation. Yet how often do we try to do something similar? How often do we make provision for the flesh by going places or putting ourselves in situations in which we know we’re likely to encounter temptation? 

A pretty obvious example would be the alcoholic who tells himself that he’s going to go to the bar just to have a single drink. Just one drink, and then he’ll leave. Obviously, that’s probably not going to happen. Another example would be for an unmarried couple, like a boyfriend and girlfriend, to be alone together at one of their houses. Now, they may do that for quite a while without anything inappropriate happening. But sooner or later, I can almost guarantee something’s going to happen. I can’t imagine something not happening eventually. So it’s much better for unmarried couples to hang out in a public setting if they’re spending time one-on-one or, if they are hanging out in someone’s home, to make sure that some of their friends are present as well. And then a final example may very well be the most common one, and that is for someone who’s had a history of looking at pornography to allow him- or herself regular access to the internet without using any kind of filter or accountability software. If that describes you this morning, let me just be very direct with you for a moment: that has got to be one of the worst ideas ever. Why would you ever think that you have the ability to consistently resist that temptation when you’re carrying around the biggest source of that temptation in your pocket all day every day? You seriously need to go home and install some filtering or accountability software on all of your electronic devices this afternoon. I recommend software called “Covenant Eyes.” Covenant Eyes covers all of your devices for the whole family for $13/month. It not only filters the internet but also takes a screenshot of each device every 60 seconds and sends those screenshots to your accountability partner. You need to get that today if you have any history of looking at porn. Stop trying to resist temptation in the pantry. “Make no provision for the flesh,” Paul says.

However, we also see in this passage that there’s a lot more to overcoming sin than what we’ve mentioned so far. If you want to defeat sin, you need more than just the willpower of casting off the works of darkness or a commitment to make no provision for the flesh. More than anything, you need Jesus himself. Notice how verse 14 says, “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh.” “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” What do you think that means? 

Well the first and most immediate meaning is to put your trust in Jesus for salvation. You see, the Bible teaches that each one of us is morally and spiritually broken. And not only are we broken but we also can’t fix ourselves. To use a silly example, we’re kind of like Humpty Dumpty. If Humpty Dumpty fell of the wall and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again, then do you think Humpty Dumpty could put himself together again? Probably not. And neither can we. We’re morally and spiritually broken and don’t have the ability to fix ourselves. That’s why we need Jesus. And the reason Jesus is able to fix us is because of something that happened two thousand years ago. Two thousand years ago, Jesus came to this earth as a real human being and lived a perfectly sinless life. He then died on the cross to pay for our sins. Somebody had to pay for our sins—somebody had to suffer the punishment our sins deserved. And usually that “somebody” would be us. But Jesus acted as our substitute and died on the cross to bear the punishment for our sins in our place. He then resurrected from the dead three days later in order to conquer sin and death. And because of all of that, Jesus is now able to offer forgiveness and rescue to everyone who puts their trust in him to do that. And that rescue includes not only eternal rescue in heaven but also rescue from the power of sin even now.  It includes Jesus enabling us to overcome the sinful tendencies in our lives and break free from the dominance that sin has over us. That’s the sense in which Jesus “fixes” us. So the first and most immediate meaning of “put[ting] on the Lord Jesus Christ” is to trust him for salvation. 

And let me just ask you: have you come to the point yet where you’re ready to do that? Have you become so weighted down with your sin and so desperate to be free from it that you’re ready to stop trusting in yourself for rescue and instead “put on the Lord Jesus Christ”? That’s precisely what the great church father Augustine did in response to this very verse. Augustine was a theologian who has shaped the history of Christianity perhaps more than any theologian since the Apostle Paul. Yet for the first few decades of his life, Augustine lived in bondage to sin. More specifically, his life was dominated by sexual lust. Augustine went from one mistress to another even though he knew the whole time it was wrong. It was as if he just couldn’t stop himself. But eventually, Augustine found himself deeply distraught over his sin and desperate for God’s rescue. And his inner torment came to a head as he was in a garden one day. 

Let me read to you what happened in Augustine’s own words. This is from his autobiography: “I flung myself down beneath a fig tree and gave way to the tears which now streamed from my eyes…In my misery I kept crying, ‘How long shall I go on saying “tomorrow, tomorrow”? Why now now? Why not make en end of my ugly sins at this moment?’ All it once I heard the singsong voice of a child in a nearby house. Whether it was the voice of a boy or a girl I cannot say, but again and again it repeated the refrain ‘Take it and read, take it and read.’ At this I looked up, thinking hard whether there was any kind of game in which children used to chant words like these, but I could not remember ever hearing them before. I stemmed my flood of tears and stood up, telling myself that this could only be a divine command to open my book of Scripture and read the first passage on which my eyes should fall. So I hurried back…seized [the book] and opened it, and in silence I read the first passage on which my eyes fell: ‘Not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.’ I had no wish to read more and no need to do so. For in an instant, as I came to the end of the sentence, it was as though the light of confidence flooded into my heart and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled.” And that moment would prove to be the defining turning point of Augustine’s life. From then on, he was a new man. So God used these verses from Romans 13 mightily in Augustine’s life, and I wonder if he might use them mightily in your life this morning. Will you “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” and be rescued from your sins? 

Then once you’ve put on Christ to begin your Christian life, you have to keep putting on Christ as you continue your Christian life. This isn’t something you do once and then forget about. It’s something you do continually. As a Christian, you continually look to Jesus for the power to overcome sin in your life. You rely on his strength rather than your own. That’s a huge part of what it means to put on Christ as a Christian. 

However, I also believe there’s something else wrapped up in this idea of putting on Christ, and that’s the idea of delighting in Christ. We “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” by delighting in him and looking to him rather than looking to sin as our ultimate source of satisfaction. You see, God’s wired us in such a way that we all desire satisfaction. We want to be pleased and happy and satisfied. However, we often get confused about where true satisfaction is found. We look for satisfaction in sin rather than in Christ. So, all sin can basically be traced back to a failure to delight in Christ. That’s why you commit sins. Whenever you commit a sin, it’s because—in that moment—you’re not delighting in Christ. You’re sinning because you’re empty. And so, the way to overcome sin in your life isn’t just by gritting your teeth and trying harder. That never works for very long. Instead, if you want to overcome sin, you have to delight yourself in Christ and be so full of joy in Christ that sin no longer seems appealing to you. You know, when I’m full of a nice steak dinner, I’m no longer tempted to snack on stale potato chips. And when you’re full of joy and delight in Christ, you’re not tempted to fall into sin. 

Another way to think of it would be to picture yourself as a hot air balloon. How does a hot air balloon stay in the air? Well, through hot air, right? The hot air rises and lifts that balloon up. So if you’re a hot air balloon and you want to stay in the air and not go back down to the ground, you need to make sure that you have a steady supply of hot air. Because the only way you’ll find yourself headed down to the ground is you’re lacking hot air. But as long as you have a sufficient supply of that hot air, you’re good to go. And in the same way, as long as we’re delighting in Christ, we don’t have to worry about falling down into sin. The only time we’ll find ourselves sinking down into sin is if we’re empty of delight in Christ. So if you want to overcome sin, make sure you keep that balloon full. That means you’re going to have to fill it up regularly—or rather let God fill it up for you—through prayer, through Bible reading, and through regular fellowship with other believers. Those are all ways in which we’re regularly led to delight in Christ. So when Paul says here in verse 14 to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” I believe all of this is a critical part of what he means. He means to delight yourself in Christ so much that sin just doesn’t seem appealing. And that’s the only way you’ll ever experience lasting victory over sin in your life. “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

And of course, we always want to remember that even though we often find ourselves falling into sin and struggling to delight in Christ, there’s grace for that. Jesus’ blood covers all of our failures. His death on the cross atones for all our sins. So understand that God accepts you and loves you just as much on your worst day as he does on your best day. And not only that, but he’s promised, in Philippians 1:6, to complete the good work he’s begun in you. That means, even though you may stumble and fall a lot, God’s work in you will ultimately prevail. Some battles may be lost, but the war will be won. God’s going to make sure of that.