The Armor of Light

The Armor of Light Romans 13:8-14 Reverend Min Chung Sunday Lord’s Day Service (May 1, 2011)

8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,”[a] and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b] 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. 11 And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. 14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.

Introduction  I believe this passage will teach us how to be powerfully influential. Many of you students will finish finals in a couple of weeks, and then--whether you like it or not —will go home. How can you be powerfully influential to your parents, family members, siblings, and old friends? Or will they be more powerfully influential to you, for good or bad? Can we make a difference in our calling? Some of you who are working in the community—how can you be powerfully influential in your workplaces and in your relationships? As we are serving in various ministries in the church, some of you have to think about how to be more powerful and influential? How to make a difference in other people’s lives. I believe this passage teaches us that. We need to wear the armor of light.  A famous person said, “Where there is love, there is life. “ Do you think a Christian said that? It’s Gandhi who said that. “Where there is love, there is life.“ Maybe he understood it more than us. Are we really convinced of this? Do we really want to live a life that makes a difference in other people’s lives? I believe we need to meditate about how we can be more powerfully influential to the people around us. The connection is really odd, but this passage comes right after talking about government.  Be submissive to governing authorities, to the Roman Empire, to Nero, who was the emperor at the time. And then right after that he talks about this. Paul teaches us how we can be influential in the world. We need to be submissive to governing authorities, and in that attitude of submission, we become Christ-like. This change in us then helps us to become persons of influence. As we submit to the laws of the government, we are living according to the law of God, the law of love, says Paul in this passage. Then we can be powerfully influential in our society and in the world.  So let’s get to this passage. There are four things about this passage: the source of love, the essence of love, the urgency of love, and the power of love. The source of love: where does love come from? Verse 8. What is the essence of love, what is love? Verses 9-10. What is the urgency of love, when should we love? Verse 11. And then fourthly, the power of love, how should we love? Verses 12-14.

I. The Source of Love- Where does love come from? [8] A. Let no debt remain outstanding- Debt  First is the source of love. Where does love come from? Chapter 13, you are indebted to the government because they protect you, so pay taxes and pay honor to the governing authorities. Then, connecting that thought to this, verse 8 says, “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt of love.” So there are a couple things here. Let no debt remain outstanding. We are commanded to live a debt-free life. Of course, it’s not sinful to be in debt. But as much as we can, the general principle is that we live with necessities and live free of debt. Practically, living in debt is not good because of all the interest you have to pay. But it also means that you are living beyond the means that God has given you. It’s about discontentment—you have to be content and live within the means that God has given you.  Now, having student loans doesn’t mean that you’re sinning. It’s OK at times if you’re absolutely in need, but as soon as possible you have to pay off your debt and live debt-free. But many times when you look at the heart of a person in debt, many times it shows one’s selfishness. We want to live beyond the means that God has given us. We are enslaved to selfishness, envy and jealousy. It shows a “I want to get more” heart rather than a “I want to give” heart. That’s why it’s related to love in this passage. Being in debt in many ways hinders our ministry to love others. Because many times giving of our material things, sharing, shows the heart of love to others. That’s why at CFC, we need to live on necessities and give.  I was thinking, when I go to some other churches, people say, “Does the economy and recession impact your church?” I say, not really because we all live with necessities. So, it doesn’t really hinder us that much. When we talk to other people, they might lose some money, but it’s OK. We can survive, because that’s what we teach at CFC. If we live with necessities, we can always give to others. Make sure our hearts are not “I want to get” hearts but “I want to give, I want to share” hearts. We must have a saving mentality rather than a debt mentality. So that we can give. Save not to be rich but save to give. This principle has been the financial principle of CFC for twenty years. That’s why we are able to survive without much money. B. Except the continuing debt to love one another- Debt of love 1. Love received from God  “Let no debt remain outstanding”—even though it’s not the main thing, it’s connected with the passage. And then it says, “except the continuing debt”. There is a debt you need to live with, which is the continuing debt to love one another. That means we are indebted. To whom? Of course, love is received from God. God has given us His infinite love in Jesus Christ. We are in Christ, so as He loves His son He loves us. 2. Love owed to God  So we owe our love to God. We are indebted to God. We need to love God. 3. Love owed to others  However, God doesn’t say, love Me back, but He says, love others. This means, the way for Christians to love God is not to express things for Him (although we do), but we need to love others as an expression of our love to God. That’s what this phrase is saying. “Except for the continuing debt of love”, not to God but to one another. This passage in John 13:14 really describes it well, “Now that I, your Lord and teacher have washed your feet”— selfless service to others with water and Jesus Christ’s selfless service on the cross with blood. As He washes the feet of the disciples He doesn’t say, “you should wash my feet.” No, He says, “now you should wash one another’s feet”. So the way to wash the feet of Jesus is to wash the feet of others. This could sound like a burden. “God loves me so I need to love others as my love for God”. But it’s really empowerment, isn’t it? Paul is teaching us to get out of debt financially but also to stay in debt spiritually. Stay in debt because being in debt to God is empowerment. Borrowing God’s love is His empowerment to us, so that we can love other people.  It’s such a simple principle, but also a revolutionary thought, if you think about it. Just think about this. Every time you see somebody, you ought to say, “I owe you”. “What, what did I do for you?” Nothing, but what He did for me, I owe you. Look around and say to the most unlovable person, “I owe you”.  We do not love others based on their lovability, but we love them with love given by God. The issue is not what others do or do not do for me, but the issue is what God did for me. That’s the foundation that we ought to have in our hearts. Be preoccupied with what God did for you, thru the Gospel. We are forever indebted people. But many times we are preoccupied with other things, like what bad things other people did to us. We miscalculate, don’t we. I Cor 13 says, “Love does not count the record of wrongs”. But we count when someone wrongs us, “Ding”—we calculate—“Ding”. And when it accumulates you explode. We are preoccupied also with what good other people did for us. We calculate, and we are nice to them. But we should be preoccupied with what God did for us.  This is a paradigm shift. Where does love come from? Genuine love only comes from God, implanted to us. Through us, God wants to show the world that He is love. That’s how He changes the world. We are the funnels, the channels of God’s love for the world. You see, when you react in vengeance, you are digging two graves. But when you act in kindness and forgiveness you are saving two lives. The source of love is God. God to us, and as the church of Jesus Christ we are the source of God’s true love in the world.

II. The Essence of Love- What is love? [9-10] A. Love “sums” up the commandments [9]  Secondly, the essence of love. What is love? Verses 9-10 suddenly talk about commandments. The second part of the 10 Commandments. Why suddenly talk about laws in the middle of talking about love? The last passage is about government, obeying the laws of government. Even though we are living in the physical realm, our hearts are in the Kingdom of God. The key to verse 9 is the phrase, “summed up”. And the key to verse 10 is “fulfillment”. The second part of the 10 Commandments—“do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet”—etc, are summed up in one rule, “ love your neighbor as yourself”.  The 10 Commandments contain two divisions. The first four commandments are about our relationship with God. The last six are about our relationships with other people. So in summary, love God, love your neighbor. So LOVE, his one word summarizes the whole 10 Commandments.  And remember, what does it mean when it says these commandments are summed up in the word “love”? Jesus said, “laws are about Me”. All the laws are about Jesus. Through the laws, we see if Jesus was an Israelite, this is how He would have lived. So “summed up” means all these laws are detailed descriptions of Jesus. So they can teach the Israelites what kind of Messiah is coming. That’s what it means when Jesus says, “the law is about Me”. B. Love “fulfills” the law [10]  But look at verse 10, the word is “fulfilled”, what is fulfilled? Verse 10 says, “love does no harm to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” How? If the law is the description of Jesus, the intent of teaching the law is to make us more loving like Jesus. So the law is to describe the most loving person (Jesus), so that by obeying it, it can make us more like Him. Therefore the intent of the law is fulfilled when we obey the law.  Some of you are legalists who obey without love. You may act like Jesus but you are not Jesus. You are not as powerful as Jesus when you are a legalist. Some of you are libertines, who indulge without the law. Obviously that’s not going to work. But we need to serve with love in obedience. Just as an arrow needs velocity and direction, your heart needs love as velocity and law for direction. Law is the life of Jesus. Love is the heart of Jesus. Love is the heart and the character of Jesus, which we can learn through the law of God, through the Word of God.

III.The Urgency of Love- When should we love? [11] A. Understanding the present [11a]  First of all we talked about the source of love, secondly we talked about the essence of love. Thirdly, let’s talk about the urgency of love. When should we love? Verse 11: “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.” Three things here, dissecting the verse into three parts. Understanding the present (11a). “And do this, understanding the present time.” B. Urgency of the moment [11b]  The second part of that, “The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber”—urgency of the moment. Now is the time to wake up. You have to understand the time, right now. You need to wake up. C. Perspective of the future [11c]  Because the latter part of verse 11 is saying, something is coming. Future perspective. So we have to understand the present, the urgency of the moment. Something is coming, so we need to love right now.  You know we are obsessed with time in our culture. How many times do we watch our watches during the sermon? Your daily planners, palm pilots, how often are we concerned about time? If you go to some other cultures, like, they’re not really concerned about time. Usually when they make appointments, they say, “well, let’s meet, I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon”. And then you wait for hours, and they come in the evening. But verse 11 says, “And do this, understanding the present time.” It’s not talking about time as we perceive it. Chronos is a Greek word for chronological time. But this verse if referring to kairos, which is not time in terms of chronology, but in terms of the moment. There’s meaning to that time. That moment. “The present time.”  That’s why in verse 11 it says “And do this”. “Do this” means love. There will be times when you cannot pay your debt of love to other people. So, urgency is given to the command to love. When Paul says, wake up from your slumber, usually he equates sleep with spiritual lethargy. Don’t sleep, stay awake so that you can love, every moment is a chance to love somebody. We need to think like this.  It’s saying every moment is a moment to love because we are in the midst of God’s redemptive process of transforming this universe with His love. God’s love is redemptive to us. True love is always redemptive. And our love is redemptive to the world. We are called to urgency because there is limitation of time. People are dying without Jesus Christ. When this life is over, there is a reward difference for believers, and that’s going to last forever. Even though He will pour His reward Himself to us eternally, so that God will be glorified.  The natural thinking is, “I’m dying, so I’m going to fulfill my bucket list”. Supernatural thinking is, “I’m dying, so it’s time to love”. Can’t lose a second. Some wise lady said this: “I’ve learned that people might forget what you say, people might forget what you do, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” It’s time to love, supernatural love. Make sure they feel love that is different than the love of this world.

IV. The Power of Love- How do we love? [12-14] A. The knights in the night [12]  Let’s go to the fourth point. The source of love, essence of love, urgency of love, now the power of love. How can we love? Verses 12-14 says it so well. I don’t even have to preach that much, just reading it is blessing I think, I hope. Verse 12 says we are in a battle. “Night is nearly over, and the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.” Many times in the Bible, especially Paul in the Epistles, night represents the absence of Christ, between the first and second coming of Christ. Our attire is our deeds. The armor of light, we must fight with love. It says put on the armor of light. We are in the battle, wartime, fight with love, be like Christ, hearts on fire, and deeds of kindness. Do not gratify the desires of your sinful nature but gratify the Spirit’s nature, which is stimulated by the Word of God. Be empowered by His grace so that you can love. Even though we live in night-like times, we are glowing in the darkness because we have the armor of light. Knights in the night. B. The lovers of the day [13]  Therefore we are lovers of the day, our actions should reflect the day, verse 13: “let us behave decently, as in the daytime”. Not like night people who are stimulated by night desires. “Not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.” These are sins that affect other people and hinder our relationships with other people. They hinder our love, light, and the expansion of God’s Kingdom. Drunkenness. Sexual immorality, literally being in bed with others. Debauchery and sexual immorality makes you incapable of feeling shame. You cannot lust and love at the same time. It’s just like being in debt. Lust means “me”. Private lust— you may say it doesn’t affect other people—still it’s self-worship. As you lust, you’re creating an image in your mind that you are king, and everyone is serving you. You are becoming a more selfish person, which in turn in your daily life will lead to becoming a self-centered person. Your desires are stimulated, your desire increases, and you become a self-centered person. It will affect your behavior towards other people in that context.  According to the Bible all sins are sinful, but in terms of our relationships with other people, there might be a hierarchy of sins. Some sins affect people more than others. Still, even the minutest of sins still affects our hearts to be selfish and self-glorifying people. They are all destructive because it affects our hearts. I remember a pastor who was talking about the most destructive person in the church. What kind of person do you think this person is? He said the most destructive person of his church is a gossiper. I said, wow. Because gossip causes so much dissension and jealousy, which breaks the body of Jesus Christ. We need to be knights in the night but lovers in the day. Wearing the armor of love. C. The attire of the knight lover [14]  So what is the attire of the knight love? Verse 14, “rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” Why does it say attire? I was initially thinking, is this passage talking about actions and how we are to live? It is, but I think it’s a lot deeper than just putting on our actions. Clothing ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ in the Pauline epistles is more than just our actions, it’s really the essence of who we are. It’s the union with Christ. It’s the same context as Romans 12:1 – we need to become a living sacrifice, like Jesus. Galatians 3:27, “for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ.” It means that Jesus Christ is a part of us. Union with Christ language. Wearing Christ as clothes in the scripture means not just acting like Jesus, looking like Jesus but I really think it means empowerment. Being in union with Jesus is our empowerment. It’s like wearing Jesus is like, for lack of better illustration, Spiderman. Man but spider. Superman, man but super. X-man, man but mutant. They have more power than who they are by “wearing” another nature. And of course, at least it means image. When we wear clothes it changes our image; when we wear Christ we show Christ to others. Ephesians 6 talks about the armor of the warrior of Christ. It’s a great chapter about the sword of the Spirit, the helmet of salvation, etc. is talking about the picture of Jesus. So the warrior is the church of Jesus Christ, going forth and fighting sin, changing the world. And oh, how we ought to wear the armor of light to show Jesus. Conclusion  First century people were flipped upside-down because of Christians, who were persecuted under the Roman government, but so loving. They took care of people, of orphans, widows. They were so loving in the midst of hardships and difficulties. They were being torched as lights, burned, but worshipping and praising God. They had to stop burning Christians because too many people were so impacted by that. They had to stop burning Christians because so many people were becoming Christian. Why? They wore the armor of light.

 Somebody said, “The ministry of Christians is to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.” Afflict them with love. They are coasting in their sins. Hinder that process. Cause problems in their life, make them think, what is life about? Why does that person have nothing in their hands, but it certainly looks like there is so much love in their hearts. As they are coasting into eternal destruction, afflict them.

 I will never forget what one of my professors at Biblical seminary said during my first year. It’s just a simple sentence, nothing revolutionary about it, I hope I will never forget. He said, “Your ministry depends on your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.” Such a simple sentence. It was a Greek class. I was falling asleep, he said this and I woke up. It was the most blessing Greek class I’ve ever had. Your ministry depends on your relationship with Christ. Isn’t that what John 15:5 says, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” You should be connected, and you receive nourishment from Me, and through Me. “If a man remains in Me, and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from Me, you can do nothing.” Gotta be connected daily. Your power is Jesus in you. Your power is how much like Jesus you have become. Many older people in our church have become spiritually lazy. Coasting and taking a break. I tell you now, you will become less and less powerful. Your prayer life should increase, never decrease.

 Richard Selzer, a medical doctor, writes this simple story in the book, Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery. In it, he talks about a young woman whose nerve was cut, so her face becomes crooked. And her husband was right beside her. The young woman asks, “Will my mouth always be like this?” she asks. The doctor says, “Yes, it will.” She nods and is silent. The husband smiles. “I like it,” he says. “It’s kind of cute.” And this is what he writes, “All at once I know who he is. I understand that and I lower my gaze. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth. And I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works.” Isn’t that what Jesus did to a crooked humanity? He comes down, and He accommodates to us. He becomes us, to live and die for us. If you look at an unbeliever, even the most impressive, just say, “He needs Jesus.” If you look at the biggest failure, be impressed with Jesus. Jesus can forgive that. If you look at the most impressive Christian, say Jesus in them is great. If we have eyes to see, we will only be impressed with Jesus. Work hard to have Jesus in you. Make sure you look like Jesus.

 Again, let me ask you the question I asked in the beginning. Who is the most influential person at work? Someone who is the most like Jesus. Let me ask you one more question. In our church, at CFC, who is the most loving husband at CFC? Let’s ask the wives. Or who is the most loving wife at CFC? Let me say this. Someone who loves God the most. The most loving husband is not someone who gives more flowers than other husbands. It’s not about expression, whatever our interpretation, whatever our action is in terms of our minds. No. Someone who has the heart of Jesus, someone who has the most love for Jesus. It’s not the frequency, but more so the intensity, more so the quality of Christ-likeness in that person. Who is the most impactful, powerful person? Someone who is most like Jesus Christ. Someone who is the most loving in their hearts will make impact. Are you convinced? Then wear the armor of light. You’ll make a difference in the world.