Romans 13:11-14 Ours to Do: Behold Your God!

The Text

Romans 13:11–14 (CSB)
¹¹ Besides this, since you know the time, it is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep, because now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

¹² The night is nearly over, and the day is near; so let us discard the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

¹³ Let us walk with decency, as in the daytime: not in carousing and drunkenness; not in sexual impurity and promiscuity; not in quarreling and jealousy.

¹⁴ But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.

The Introduction

Our God

¹¹ Besides this, since you know the time, it is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep, because now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

God is Holy: One Day Closer

John 11:43 (CSB) After he said this, he shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out! ”

You are not dead but alive in Christ! For:

1 John 5:1 (CSB) Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father also loves the one born of him.

You have been born again. You are in Christ and the Triune God has made his home in you!

John 14:23 (CSB) Jesus answered, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

Count one minute. You are one minute closer to see the face of your wonderful Savior. One minute closer to finish the path of life. One minute closer to the fulness of joy. One minute closer to pleasures evermore. One minute closer to kissing God's face with all of your kisses. One minute closer to having the Spirit bear witness we are the children of God. One minute closer to hearing the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant." One minute closer to the wedding feast of the Lamb. One minute closer to the new heavens and the new earth. One minute closer to the new Jerusalem. One minute closer to the throne of God. One minute closer to the river of life. One minute closer to the tree of life. One minute closer to the gates of pearl.

One minute closer to hearing the final judgment:

Oh close and blessed union! Justified by God, accepted in Christ, condemnation there cannot be. I stand in the Divine presence as Joshua stood before the Lord, or as the woman stood before the Savior, charged, accused, guilty; but I am in the presence of him who, though now he sits upon the throne as my Judge, once hung upon the cross as my Savior. And, investing me with his own spotless robe, he proceeds to pronounce the sentence- “NO CONDEMNATION!”

“These things write I unto you that your joy may be full.”

Octavius Winslow. No Condemnation in Christ Jesus: As Unfolded in the Eighth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. Banner of Trust. 1991. 191.

One minute closer to the final Sabbath. One minute closer to the sweetest rest. No evil. No sin. No wickedness. Perfect love. Worship God for all of eternity.

No tiredness. No disease. No weakness. No sadness. No more tears.

Just God.

^12-13 The night is nearly over, and the day is near; so let us discard the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk with decency, as in the daytime: not in carousing and drunkenness; not in sexual impurity and promiscuity; not in quarreling and jealousy.

God is Holy: Put Away Sin

1 John 1:5–7 (CSB) This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him. If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

1 John 2:1–2 (CSB) My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ the righteous one. He himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world.

My beloved, you and I don't have to sin. We don't! We have been set free from the bondage of corruption and decay. Sin wars against us--outside and within. But there is no doubt that God has made his home in me and he has forgiven me and cleansed from all unrighteousness.

Who is like my God and who is dares to compare to him!

My brothers and sisters: you've sin? You have not fallen out of grace with God. God sent his Son to die once and for all time. He has you. Are you plagued with doubt and God feels far and you feel like you can't draw near? God bridges the eternal gap and sent his Spirit to comfort you and give you rest in his Son. Felt like you can slip out of his grasp? Impossible!

John 10:28–30 (CSB) I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

God has you. Wherever you are and wherever you might be, God has you. Are you backsliding and seem to you cannot shake this sin? God knows and God knows you are made from dust. We are terribly weak but God is Almighty. He will save you. He has not abandoned you to hell! He will not let you see corruption.

Our God is the mighty one who saves. Where you are at now is not where you will end up. Trust in the Lord? That is because God is in you. Believe in His Son? That is because God has given you his soft and tender heart. Obey his laws? That's because the Son has fulfilled his word because the word testifies about the Son!

Struggle with these things? Rest today. Whether you think God has you or not does not keep you in God but rather that God never loses his children.

Our Response

¹⁴ But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.

God is Holy: We possess the Triune God

Ephesians 4:1-3 (CSB) Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

WE HAVE GOD!

Do you get this? Do you understand this?

Exodus 6:7 - I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

Leviticus 26:12 - And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.

Ruth 1:16 - But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.

Jeremiah 7:23 - But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’

Jeremiah 11:4 - that I commanded your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Listen to my voice, and do all that I command you. So shall you be my people, and I will be your God,

Jeremiah 24:7 - I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.

Jeremiah 30:22 - And you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”

Jeremiah 31:1 - “At that time, declares the LORD, I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they shall be my people.”

Jeremiah 31:33 - For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Jeremiah 32:38 - And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

Ezekiel 11:20 - that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

Ezekiel 14:11 - that the house of Israel may no more go astray from me, nor defile themselves anymore with all their transgressions, but that they may be my people and I may be their God, declares the Lord GOD.”

Ezekiel 36:28 - You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

Ezekiel 37:23 - They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

Ezekiel 37:27 - My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Zechariah 2:11 - And many nations shall join themselves to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you.

Zechariah 8:8 - and I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness.”

2 Corinthians 6:16 - What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Hebrews 8:10 - For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Romans 9:25-26 (CSB) As it also says in Hosea, I will call Not My People, My People, and she who is Unloved, Beloved. And it will be in the place where they were told, you are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God.

Revelation 21:3-7 (CSB) Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.

Then the one seated on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new.” He also said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will freely give to the thirsty from the spring of the water of life. The one who conquers will inherit these things, and I will be his God, and he will be my son.

Or to sum it all:

Songs 2:16 (CSB) My love is mine and I am his;

Forever.

Amen.