Put On The Lord Jesus Christ

11-30-25

Hoonah-Hadley

Romans 13:11-14

Call to Worship Psalm 122

Daily Verse Romans 13:14

Put On The Lord Jesus Christ

“But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” (NKJV) This morning we have just a few verses, straightforward, relatively simple in appearance and the reading herein. What to do and what not to do. What to put on and what to take off. How to walk and how not to walk. No problem right? You look out the window, it’s raining, you put on your rain boots, raincoat and grab an umbrella. If it’s cold and snowing, you layer up, put on a warm hat, grab the snow shovel. Simple stuff, we look at the calendar, time of year, time of day, check the evening weather report, have a quick look at the radar on our smart phones, smart, not wise, and we dress accordingly for the task at hand. High pressure is clear skies and smooth sailing, dry weather, low pressure is the opposite, cloudy with precipitation, “H” for happy, “L” for lousy. Dressing for the weather, pretty simple, putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, no small thing. Vs. 11 “And do this…” First we must see the need to change our wardrobe and make a conscious, deliberate effort to dress differently, speak differently, walk differently. John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” There are ways, straight ways and crooked ones, right ones and wrong ones. God’s word is full of opposing ways, He is forever telling us, showing us “the way”. John 10:9 “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, they will be saved.” There is one door, one way to salvation, no back doors, no compromise, no options. “And do this…” God tells us what to do, it’s simple.

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Vs. 11 “And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.” Last week’s message from the Gospel of Luke 23:34 was in part about spiritual ignorance, not knowing. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” Here, the apostle Paul, the penman of this epistle to the Romans is putting on the coffee while dawn is still dark, this is the rooster’s crow for those that have ears, those whose name is in the Book of Life, those called, elected, chosen, it is a wake up call for spiritual discernment about the time. It is the trumpet blast to startled us out of ignorance, indifference, apathy, fair to midland, milky toast. “And do this…” Do it! And do it “now”! Why now? What’s the urgency? 2 Timothy 4:2 “Preach the word! Be urgent in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine…” Other versions use “instant”, “ready”, “prepared”, “persistent”. Esther 4:14 “For if you remain completely silent at this time…you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Time is precious, it does not stand still, “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.” (Ecc. 3:1) Truth be told, we have no other time and for some of us, we’re closer to the end than the beginning, the hour is getting late. Much of Bob Dylans music has it’s foundation in the bible. One of his legendary works, “All Along The Watchtower” fits in with our message, “But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate. So, let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.” God’s word is forever an urgent plea, a wake-up call, time is precious, it is brief, and as Paul tells us in Romans, “for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.” 

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Vs. 12 “The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.” Not only is there much to do in the bible about light and darkness, night and day, but in our lives, physically and spiritually speaking. We live in the tension of the already and the not yet, the was and the will be. When day breaks, when the light bends over the eastern shore board we look to the color of a new day and turn our backs on last evenings news. We use it often and we’ll use it again and again and again, until it becomes an anchor for your soul, 2 Peter 1:19 “And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the Morning Star rises in your hearts.” Whether it is actually a sunrise, a new day, Christ second coming or the light that comes on in your heart that Jesus is your Lord and Savior, there is a certainty in all of it. The sun will rise, Christ will come again, and, He is still saving lives, none of this is in question. The question is, will we “cast off the works of darkness, and…put on the armor of light”? This is spiritual warfare, and it deals with the tension between the flesh and the spirit and it does play itself out in the physical world in which we live, night and day. There are many scriptures, with the bibles main characters, about rising early, Christ being the main one, we’ve preached on it before, and you would do well to search and apply that biblical truth to your life, but let us go a little further this morning. Ephesians 4:21-24 “if indeed you have heard Him and have  been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus; that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.” Truth, put it on.

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Jesus Christ work is finished, period. He conquered sin. He conquered death. He overcame the grave. The tomb is still empty. All the finished works in Him are yes and amen, they are ours. Ours to live in, to walk in, it is a new way, a better way, a higher way, the dawn of a new day. We live in a time between His first coming and His second coming. 1 John 2:8 “…a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.” John 8:12 Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Those who follow Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” Rev. 21:23-25 “The city has no need of the sun…for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is the light…Those who are saved shall walk in its light…there shall be no night there.” Darkness is for the unbeliever. A Christ-lessness is a sleep walking, dead men walking. Rev. 21:27 “But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” Take off your pajamas! Put on the armor of light! Wake up! Lord I believe, help me in my unbelief! A Christ-lessness is like jumping out of a plane without a parachute. The unbeliever is giddy with the wind and speed of the free fall, wow, what a feeling! As they approach their end, they realize they have no parachute. 1 Thess. 5:4-8 “But you…are not in darkness…You are children of light…Therefore let us not sleep, as others do… but let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.” And do this!

“But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” Make no provision, don’t feed your sinful desires. Have no forethoughts. Don’t awaken, don’t dwell on, don’t give the devil a foothold on your lusts. And do this! The hour is getting late. Wake up! Put on the Lord, your parachute. Amen!