The Night Is Spent, The Day Is At Hand
A storm tore the ship apart while Jonah slept in the hold. In Romans 13, Paul takes the captain's role and shakes the sleeping church: arise — the night is far spent, the day is at hand.
What would it take to wake a sleeping Christian? In this exposition of Romans 13:11–14, Dr. Toby Holt begins where the Bible's most famous sleeper does — with Jonah, dead asleep in the lowest part of a ship while a God-sent tempest tears it apart, until the flabbergasted captain shakes him awake. Paul, Dr. Holt shows, takes up that captain's role in Romans 13, standing over a drowsy church and calling, in effect, arise, O sleeper — "the night is far spent, the day is at hand."
The sermon works verse by verse through the passage. In verse 11, Dr. Holt notices something striking: Paul reminds us that the clock is ticking, yet he never says our death is near — he says our salvation is "nearer than when we first believed." A reckoning with mortality is one of God's great catalysts for holiness, and for the believer it terminates not in dread but in homecoming: the day we no longer apprehend Christ from a distance but behold Him. In verses 12–13, Dr. Holt sets Paul's vice list — revelry, drunkenness, lewdness, lust, strife, envy — against the actual culture of Rome, where the cult of Bacchus made drunken debauchery an act of worship, then turns the mirror on a culture that markets even chocolate by calling it sinful. Sinners love the camouflage of the dark; Christians are called to be visibly distinct.
Finally, verse 14: put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh. Drawing in Galatians 5, Dr. Holt gives the practical mechanics of mortification: walk toward the Spirit and you necessarily walk away from the flesh — as surely as walking toward Atlanta carries you away from New Orleans. The listener leaves with a clear charge for the week — wake up, cast off, put on, walk properly — and a workable game plan for actually doing it.
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Questions This Sermon Answers
In Paul's picture, the "night" is the present evil age — the long darkness of sin and waiting — and the "day" is the dawning of Christ's return and the consummation of salvation. Because that day has never been closer, believers must live now by the light of what is coming: "let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light" (Romans 13:12, NKJV). In this sermon Dr. Toby Holt presses the point pastorally: the clock is ticking for every one of us, so treat today as short and precious, and get serious about your Savior's business.
Salvation in Romans 13:11 refers to its consummation — the believer's final glorification when Christ appears. We were justified the moment we first believed, but the completed homecoming draws closer with every passing day. Dr. Holt highlights how remarkable Paul's framing is: reminded of mortality, the apostle does not say your death is near but that your salvation is near. For the Christian, the end of the road is not dread but the best day you have ever had — beholding Christ no longer from a distance. Awareness of that approaching day is meant to wake us up, not frighten us.
Dr. Holt opens the sermon with Jonah 1: while a God-sent tempest tore the ship apart and every sailor fought to survive, Jonah lay asleep in the lowest part of the boat, until the flabbergasted captain confronted him — "What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, call on your God" (Jonah 1:6, NKJV). In Romans 13, Paul takes up the captain's role. Writing to a drowsy church surrounded by a storm of pagan darkness, he shakes the sleeper by the collar: it is high time to awake out of sleep. There are times to sleep, Dr. Holt observes, and there are a whole lot of times when we had better not.
Paul names them in verse 13: revelry, drunkenness, lewdness, lust, strife, and envy. Scripture equates sinful living with darkness dozens of times — Proverbs says the way of the wicked is like darkness, and John warns that walking in darkness while claiming fellowship with God makes us liars. Dr. Holt adds Peter's blunt arithmetic from 1 Peter 4: we have already spent enough of our past lifetime doing the will of the Gentiles. The works of darkness are to be cast off like night clothes at daybreak, and in their place the believer puts on the armor of light — ultimately, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
Jesus gives the diagnosis in John 3:19: "men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil" (NKJV). Dr. Holt explains the psychology: darkness is camouflage. If your neighbors, coworkers, and culture are all dark, your own sin never stands out — everyone is doing the same thing. This is original sin at work: fallen people do not stumble into the dark accidentally; they gravitate to it, drinking down sin like water. That is why conversion is described as being brought into the light, and why the Christian's visibly different life is itself a testimony the watching world cannot ignore.
Bacchus was Rome's god of wine and fertility, honored in Bacchanalian festivals of drunkenness, revelry, and orgies — a vice list strikingly like the one Paul forbids in Romans 13:13. Dr. Holt uses Bacchus to set the scene: the Roman believers were a small, young church trying to walk in the light inside a culture that worshiped its own appetites — and that would soon be feeding Christians to lions. Then he turns the mirror on us: nothing about the Bacchanalia differs fundamentally from what our own screens and marketing celebrate. Your flesh still wants Bacchus, he warns; the Spirit wants the living God — and at the point of decision, you must choose.
Mortification is the old theological word for putting sin to death in your body — Dr. Holt defines it as deciding, today, to start killing sin before it is killing you. The Puritan John Owen made this the burden of his classic treatise on the mortification of sin, arguing that the believer must make killing sin his daily business, because indwelling sin never takes a day off. Romans 13:14 gives mortification its practical shape: make no provision for the flesh — cut off the supply lines that feed temptation rather than negotiating with it. Mortification is not self-salvation; it is the blood-bought believer, by the Spirit's power, waging war on what remains.
To make provision is to plan ahead for something — to stock its pantry. Paul commands the opposite posture toward sin: give your flesh no supplies, no opportunities, no pre-arranged compromises. Dr. Holt exposes the deals we strike with ourselves — I have been righteous in this area, so I am entitled to indulge over there — and answers them flatly from the text: wrong; make no provision. Stop giving in to what your eyes want to see, what your tongue wants to say, what your appetites want to consume. The positive command is inseparable: put on the Lord Jesus Christ, so that the flesh finds nothing left to wear.
Yes — Dr. Holt argues both are marks of a healthy Christian. Inner peace is contentment toward God and His providence even in terrible circumstances, as Paul sang hymns in a Philippian jail. Inner war is the conflict Paul describes in Galatians 5: the flesh lusting against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. The Westminster Confession of Faith, in its chapter on sanctification (chapter 13), describes this very struggle as a continual and irreconcilable war in which, by the Spirit's supply of strength, the regenerate part overcomes. Feeling torn, then, is not evidence that grace has failed; it is evidence that grace has arrived and taken up arms.
Dr. Holt's answer comes from Galatians 5:16: "Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (NKJV). Walking toward one destination necessarily walks you away from another — head toward Atlanta and you leave New Orleans behind. So fill your hours with what feeds the Spirit — prayer, the Word, worship, obedience — and you will find yourself carried further and further from what feeds the flesh. But be intentional: no battle was ever won by a soldier sitting on the ground. Take up the armor God has given, expect the fight to be real, and remember that the day of complete deliverance has never been closer.
1. Numbering Our Days Is a Catalyst for Holiness
Dr. Holt opens verse 11 with an observation about human nature: one of the greatest catalysts for right living is a felt sense of our own mortality, and one of the greatest inhibitors to righteousness is the illusion that our days are endless. If life feels like a highway with no off-ramps, eternal consequences feel distant while sin's pleasures feel near. Scripture therefore regularly commands us to count our hours — we are grass, a vapor that appears for a little time. But Paul does something remarkable with that clock: he never says your death is near; he says "now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed." For the believer, the ticking clock terminates not in dread but in homecoming — the day we no longer apprehend Christ from a distance but behold Him face to face. This is Reformed eschatology in its pastoral form: the pilgrim lives between the ages, and every sunrise brings the consummation of his salvation closer. Rightly numbered, our days become an engine of urgency, gratitude, and hope.
2. Sanctification Moves in Two Directions: Cast Off and Put On
Verse 12 gives sanctification its double motion: "let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light." Dr. Holt traces the darkness imagery across Scripture — Proverbs says the way of the wicked is like darkness; John warns that claiming fellowship with God while walking in darkness makes us liars; Peter declares that we have already spent enough of our past lifetime in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, and revelries. Enough is enough: the question is what you will do with the time you have left. The Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q. 35) defines sanctification in exactly these two motions — God's free grace enabling us more and more to die to sin and live to righteousness. Neither half is optional. The Christian who only casts off becomes an empty house; the one who tries to put on light without renouncing darkness is wearing armor over night clothes. The passage culminates in verse 14, where what we finally put on is not a virtue but a Person: the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
3. Total Depravity Wears a Toga: Bacchus, Rome, and Us
Dr. Holt refuses to let the vice list of verse 13 stay safely in the first century. Paul wrote to a small, young church trying to live out its faith in a culture antithetically opposed to it — a Rome that would soon light Christians as torches in Nero's gardens. That culture's favorite deity was Bacchus, god of wine and fertility, honored in Bacchanalian festivals of drunkenness, revelry, and lust that read like Paul's list in reverse. But Dr. Holt turns the mirror: nothing about the Bacchanalia is fundamentally different from what our own culture streams, sells, and celebrates. The reason is the doctrine of original sin — man's fundamental nature has not changed since the fall. Fallen people do not merely live in the dark; they love it, as Jesus taught, because darkness camouflages their deeds. Against that backdrop, the believer's calling is visible distinctness. When the watching world cannot tell the holy from the profane by observing a Christian's appetites, choices, and attitudes, Dr. Holt warns, the problem is not with the world.
4. The Healthy Christian Knows Both Inner Peace and Inner War
From verse 14 and its parallel in Galatians 5, Dr. Holt draws the practical mechanics of holiness: "Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." Walking toward one destination necessarily carries you away from another — head for Atlanta and you leave New Orleans behind. Hence the sermon's closing paradox: every healthy Christian bears two marks at once, inner peace and inner war. Peace, because we are content toward God and His providence even in a Philippian jail; war, because the flesh still lusts against the Spirit — the continual, irreconcilable conflict the Westminster Confession describes in its chapter on sanctification. That war is fought by mortification. Echoing John Owen's counsel in his classic treatise on the mortification of sin, Dr. Holt charges believers to be killing sin before sin is killing them: make no provision for the flesh, strike no bargains with your appetites, and take up the armor God supplies. Battles are never won by soldiers sitting on the ground.
About The Speaker: Dr. Toby Holt serves as the third President of New Geneva Theological Seminary (Colorado Springs, CO), founded 1993. An expository preacher with over 1.9 million sermon downloads on SermonAudio.com, Dr. Holt brings over 17 years of pastoral experience to his verse-by-verse Bible teaching. New Geneva offers fully online, Westminster Confessional theological education — M.Div., Th.M., D.Min., and other degrees.
Summary. In this exposition of Romans 13:11–14, Dr. Toby Holt takes up Paul's wake-up call to a drowsy church: the night is far spent, and the day is at hand. Opening with Jonah asleep in the hold of a storm-tossed ship, he shows how Paul plays the captain's part — arise, O sleeper — reminding believers that their salvation is nearer than when they first believed. He sets Paul's vice list against the Bacchus cult of first-century Rome and finds our own culture no less dark, calling Christians to visible distinctness from the world. The sermon closes with the practical mechanics of mortification: walk in the Spirit, make no provision for the flesh, and put on the Lord Jesus Christ — for the healthy Christian knows both inner peace and inner war.
The Night Is Spent, the Day Is at Hand
In Romans 13 the Apostle Paul told his readers that the night was over and that the day had come in other words Paul wanted his readers to cast off the works of darkness and to put on the armor of light in today's study we'll see how this instruction applies to us and to our own sanctification you know a number centuries before Christ's time. There was a great storm at sea. Now, in and of itself, that's nothing New. There's always storms at sea. However, this was no ordinary storm. History records this particular storm as being a mighty tempest. Now, unfortunately for a particular crew, there was a crew that was out at sea when this tempest struck. They were out doing their thing. They were ferrying goods and passengers from one port to another, as was their charter. And as they were going about their business. The wind picks up. It begins to just batter the boat. It begins to rip this boat apart. Now, have you ever seen a movie where you'll have a captain in a situation like that, and he'll yell something like this? He'll say, all hands on deck. Why does he yell that? What's the objective? Why does he want the crew gathered? Well, the answer is simple, because everyone's help is needed if they are to survive. All hands on deck. The situation couldn't be worse. Everyone report to duty because the situation is so dark that we won't survive it if we don't have everybody working toward a common goal. Now, when this particular storm hit, there was one guy, one guy that was missing. The captain looks around. There's one guy that's missing, and because of the storm, He might have wondered, well, maybe the guy fell off. Maybe he fell out to sea. So he looks around the boat, and what he finds is that in the lowest part of the boat, there's this guy. What's he doing? He's asleep. You know the story. It's because of sleep. Asleep at the bottom of the boat. Everyone else is worried that they're doomed and he's well asleep. So the captain encounters this guy and his mind is blown. He's flabbergasted. He can't believe what he's seeing.
Continue reading the full transcript 29-minute read · 8 sections · every section links back to the audio
Wake Up to the Time
And so he grabs the man by the collar, so to speak. He says, what are you doing? What do you mean, oh sleeper? The words that are recorded for us. There are times to sleep and this is not one of them. There are times in life where we can and should sleep. There's a whole lot of times when we better not. Now, does anyone know the name of this sleepy guy, the sleepy passenger I'm talking about in today's text? What's his name? Jonah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, there's a different time when Jesus sleeps in a boat, but that's not what I'm referring to. Today, I'm referring to jonah. However, in today's text in Romans, in today's passage from Romans 13, what we're going to see is that the Apostle Paul is going to take on the role, not of Jonah, but of the captain.
And he's not just talking to Jonah, but he's talking to us. In today's text in Romans 13, the Apostle Paul is going to take on the role of the boat captain. And he's going to write to his audience in Rome, and by extension to you and I in Gulfport all these years later, and he's going to say this, arise, O sleeper. What are you doing sleeping? Can you not see that the storm has come?
Do you not know the reality of your circumstances? Arise, O sleeper. I saw it in Jonah's day and today we're going to see it in Romans chapter 13. All right, if you would, let's look at this. Let's look at this text, consider what Paul has to say and why he says it. Let's look at verse 11 and then we'll just work our way verse by verse through this passage. Verse 11, and do this, knowing the time that now it is high time to be awake out of sleep for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed you know one of the one of the greatest catalysts for getting your act together one of the greatest catalysts for doing the right thing is when you finally have a sense of your own mortality when you start thinking about how much time you have to work with the more aware that you become of your own mortality the more sensitive you are to how much time you have left, the more you think about the reality that you may stand before your Maker sooner as opposed to later, the more you let that seep in, the more you think about the amount of time you have left and what God has called you to do with that time, the more likely you are to use that time well. So one of the catalysts for right living is an understanding of the clock and what time you've got to work with. On the other hand, the opposite is true as well. One of the greatest inhibitors to righteousness, one of the greatest inhibitors to righteousness is the sense that your days are endless. If all you see is just this highway into the future, that there's no off-ramps, and you'll just be traveling it down all day long, all lifelong, as long as you possibly can, if life seems endless to you, as it seemed at one point to all of us, especially in our youth, then if life is endless, then so are eternal consequences. If life is endless, then any reckoning that I might ever have, any standing before God and the like, it's not today or tomorrow. Meanwhile, life's pleasures are right here. So one of the greatest inhibitors to righteousness is when you have no sense of your own mortality. The more you understand your mortality, the more likely you are to use your time well. So let me ask you, how much time do you got?
How much time do you got? Some have more than others. None of us has more than, I don't know, 100 years on the outset, some of us far less. I hope none of this is a shock. Whatever the case is, the point is this, the clock is ticking. We talked about this hourglass. Remember last week, we talked about the hourglass? The clock is ticking for all of us. Now, at face value, that could be depressing. We go, oh my goodness, that's not what I want to hear. That's not good
Romans 13 and the Coming Day
news. It could be depressing. However, what I want you to notice is fascinating. In verse 11, Paul's talking about the same thing, but he doesn't frame it in the negative. He frames it in the overtly positive. Look at verse 11. In verse 11, Paul doesn't say that our death is near. Instead, he makes the observation that our salvation is near. Our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. Our salvation is closer than we can possibly imagine. So in verse 11, is he trying to remind us of our own mortality, talking about night and day and the like? Yes, , and yes, but he doesn't do it to scare you. He does it to encourage the Christian.
He says, you know, the great homecoming, it's right around the bend. If you're a Christian, I hope that you look for that day with expectation, not fear. The day is coming when we'll set foot in that great, what Shakespeare called it, he called it the undiscovered country. And we'll finally see the things that this book tells us that we'll see. We'll no longer apprehend Jesus from a distance, but we will behold him in the flesh, look him in the eye, hold him in our arms.
That's a good day. It'll be the best day you've ever had. And what an irony it is that we live in mortal fear. We live in fear of the day that's going to come into your life that's going to fix everything. Everything that's broken to you right now, everything that's broken in you right now, will be righted like that. It'll be the best day you've ever had. It's a day to be optimistic for, and that's what Paul says in verse 11. That day, the day we've longed for, the day we desire, the day of that wonderful transition, it's closer now than when we first believed. It's closer now than when it's ever been, and he frames that in a positive sense. So what should we do right now?
To get back to his overarching point, although that day is coming and it's never been closer, the fact remains we're still here. What do we do right now? What do we do with the time that is immediately before us. Well, Paul suggests here, and in many of his epistles, he says, shake the worldly sleep out of your eyes. It's still day. Shake the worldly sleep out of your eyes. Get serious about your Savior's business. All right, let's look now at verse 12. Verse 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.
You know, the book of Proverbs, there's a verse that says this. It says that the way of the wicked is like darkness. They do not know over what they stumble. In 1 John 1, Jesus also talked about darkness. He said if we have fellowship with him and we walk in darkness, we lie. We do not practice the truth. There are dozens, dozens of times in the Bible where sinful living is equated with darkness.
If you look at the book of Revelation, you have men and women who love darkness to the point that when God shows up, what do these people desire? They desire the rocks to fall upon them. They'd rather have that and the darkness and the rocks upon them than an encounter with this God. Now, here's a question for you as a believer. Haven't you already spent enough time in your own life living in darkness, volitionally, of your own desire?
Haven't you spent enough time immersing yourself in sin? This is a rhetorical question. you and I both know the answer. 1 Peter, the apostle said this in 1 Peter 4. He says, we've spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lewdness and lust and drunkenness and revelries and drinking parties and abominable idolatries. See, what Peter and Paul are both emphasizing is that we've spent enough time doing that.
What are you going to do with the time you have left? So much of our life, if you were to calibrate, and it doesn't really matter if you're that young or that old, so much of your life has already been spent by percentage doing that which is dark, thinking things you ought not think, looking at that which you ought not look, saying that which you ought not say, desiring that which you ought not desire. So Peter's saying,
Cast Off the Works of Darkness
you've done that. Stop. Stop. He says, high time to wake up. High time to wake up and to live in the light. So the night is spent. The day is at hand. What do we have to do then? Well, start by counting your hours. Have a reckoning with your own mortality. Again, that doesn't have to be a scary prospect, but it is a necessary one. Scripture regularly tells you to count, hours, so to speak, and understand, you know, we're like a blade of grass. We're like a vapor that comes and goes. So have a reckoning with your own mortality, but then with the mortality you've got left, use it wisely. And what that usually means is that we have to be honest with ourselves and say the way I've used it in the past is not that great. I've spent enough time doing that. I'm not going to do that anymore. Today is the day I chart a new course. Today is the day I put to death that which I have been pursuing, knowing it won't lead anywhere but the tomb. Today I'm going to do something different. Today, I'm going to live the way God would have me to live. And night and day, again, that comes up time and time and time again. I could cite reference after reference that suggests we use the time we've got. Even Jesus did that. John 9 verse 4, Jesus said the same thing about night and day. He said this. He said, I must work the works of Him that sent me while it's day, because the night is coming when no man can work. All right, let's look at verse 13.
Verse 13, let us walk properly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. All right, let's stop for a minute. Sometimes it's helpful when we're looking at a text to apply it immediately directly to ourselves, and sometimes it's very important also to look at the text and contextualize it and understand who is Paul writing to? Why is he using these sort of words? What is he talking about in the culture to which he is writing. So, what's he doing here? Let me ask you a question. Who is the book of Romans written to? Who? Romans. All right, we are in business. He's written to Romans. Now, generally speaking, to Christians within Rome. He's not necessarily writing an evangelistic tract to the pagan community per se, but he's writing to Romans who are living in the midst of that pagan community.
See, the church in Rome at this time, it was small and it was young, comparatively speaking, and these were believers who were newer to their belief, newer to the faith, and they're trying to live out their faith, live out their beliefs in the midst of a culture that is just antithetically opposed to them. It would soon enough be lighting them on fire in Nero's gardens. It would soon enough be feeding them to lions. They're trying to live out their faith in a culture that is as dark and depraved as they come. Now, in the midst of this culture gone wild, Rome had gods. Now, one of the gods that they had, one I think their favorite gods, was this dirty, dingy, depraved God called Bacchus. Now, why did they like that God over the other options? Well, remember, the gods are the pagans. They did this weird thing. They said, well, you can be the God of, you know, the harvest and the tree frogs and the moonlight and all this other stuff, and this other God will be the God of this region or that season or what have you. So they took gods and they gave them different jurisdictions. And so you'd worship a God of this jurisdiction or worship a God of that jurisdiction and the like. So Bacchus, what jurisdiction did he have? Oh, I think we already know. Well, this is the God of the grape, the God of wine, and the God of fertility. And if there's things that Rome really liked, that the Roman citizens were really down with, it was wine and fertility. So Bacchus, Bacchus is their prime guy. He is the God that they all loved. And they'd have these things called Bacchnelius. And which, guess what? They would honor, you know, we're honoring bacchus, but they would honor him by engaging in all sorts of craziness. He was drunken on some revelry and orgies and lusts and all this different stuff is going on in the midst of giving tribute to this dingy, dirty, depraved God named Bacchus. So they'd get in these Bacchanalians. Now, was their culture depraved? Well, yes, but so was ours. There's nothing about the Bacchanalians of Rome that's fundamentally all that different than what you see on cable television.
Fundamentally all that different than what you see on Bourbon Street. Fundamentally all that different than what you see in the culture in the world around us. Revelry, drunkenness, lewdness, lust. These are ever-present in our television and our movies, but also in our marketing. It's not just television and movies to entertain us, but also marketing to solicit us. It never stops fascinating me that in order to sell chocolate bars, they determined that the phrase, sinfully delicious, was a way to go about it.
Put On the Lord Jesus Christ
So this sort of mindset, that engaging in the sinfulness and the like, is not only something to be seen on the screen, but also a way to appeal to individuals. That was true in Rome. It's true in Gulfport. And it's not going to change as long as man is who man is. Man's fundamental nature hasn't changed since the fall. We believe that we are depraved. We believe that we are fallen. It's the concept of Original Sin.
It's a different sermon, but it's true. We believe that we come into this world bearing this mark, bearing this stain of sin, and then we act accordingly. Fallen sinful people drink down sin like it's water, so to speak. We gravitate towards what our carnal desires want. We don't just live in the dark, but we love the dark. Now, Jesus, he said the same thing. He said, the light has come into the world, but men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. What Jesus was saying is that sinners love the camouflage that comes with darkness because if everything is dark and if your neighbor's dark and your others, your co-workers are dark and the like, then it camouflages your darkness.
It camouflages your sins while the world around you is sinful. Sinners love the camouflage of living in the darkness because then they can pursue all the wild things they might want to pursue and it won't stand out as wicked because everyone else is doing the same thing. That's why sinners love the darkness. With that said, you and I are supposed to be different. There is supposed to be a distinction between the world and us. Dear heavens, when there's not, the problem is not with the world, the problem is with us. When there's no distinction, when the world can't pick up the difference between that which is holy and profane, when they're looking at the life and choices and actions and attitudes and appetites of the believer, then something's wrong with the believer.
They've fallen into the mindset of the worst two words you could ever put together. The word's carnal Christian. There's no such thing. But so many in the visible body of Christ act as if there is. And Paul says, no. Paul is telling the people in Rome that as hard as it is to do what's right, in the midst of that culture that they're supposed to put on light, the armor of light, and not be dressed, decked out in the markings of sin that their culture was so engaged in.
So Paul says, walk properly, as in the day. Walk properly. It's true for them, it's true for us. All right, let's look at our final verse. Let's look at verse 14. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. All right. As we consider that one verse, I want to read a short, similar passage from Galatians 5, where Paul says the same thing, but he explains a little bit more. In Galatians 5, he said this, He says, walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary to one another
Holiness in Light of the Dawn
so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you're led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. All right. Let's say that you're a Christian who is convicted of your sin. Let's say that you're introspective right now and you say, well, it feels like this is a bit of a spotlight. This sermon is a spotlight on me or at least on this one thing in my life.
What to do? I feel some sense of conviction on what to do. Let's say that you recognize a disparity between how you're living and how God has called you to live. Now, what should you do about it? Let's say that you have a disparity. Let's say you look in your life and go, you're right. The word is right. God is right. There is a disparity between who I am and what I'm doing.
And if I see it, then God knows everyone else sees it too. Let's say that's where you're at. You see this disparity. So what do you do? Let's say that you just feel weighed down. Let's say you feel like you're trapped by your sinfulness? There's some desire, some impulse, something going on in your life that you feel shackled to. What do you do about it? What do you do? How do you put the brakes on your sin and stop giving in? Well, Paul gave us the answer in Galatians 5. He said this. He says, walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. If you do the one, you will be less inclined to do the second. Walk in the Spirit. Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. If you're walking towards one thing, you can't help but be walking away from something other. To put it in a geographic context, if here in Gulfport, we start walking towards Atlanta, I start walking towards Atlanta, I'm simultaneously walking away from New Orleans. As I approach one destination, I'm simultaneously leaving or departing or getting further and further away from the other. The same general principle is true in faith. Walk in the Spirit and you won't fulfill the desires of the flesh. The more time you spend in this, the more time as a Christian you spend in matters of faith, the more time you spend in prayer, the more time you spend devotional, the more time you're focused on loving your God, doing what He has said, it has the net effect of leading you away from the very things that you would otherwise pursue.
Walk in the Spirit. Again, this is 101 in sanctification. God says there's certain things that if you pursue them will have a positive beneficial effect upon you, upon your Spirit, upon your heart, upon your actions. Start doing those. If your problem right now is, I don't know how to stop doing the things I love, well then start doing the things that have been difficult spiritually for you to wrap your arms around. And you'll find as you walk towards the cross, as you walk towards Christ, you'll find that you are led further and further away from your fleshly desires. But you have to be intentional. You have to be intentional. You know, there's no battle that's ever been won by a protagonist who's sitting on the ground.
There's no battle that's ever been won by a protagonist who just throws down the weapons and just stands there. That's not how you do it. You're not going to win this by osmosis. You're not going to get victory over your sin by just waiting for some cosmic ether to enfold you and take you away. That's not the context. God says you are in the middle of a battlefield, so start fighting. He says there is a war within your flesh, so start winning. God says, I know the conflict you feel within you. I know that what you want with your body and your members and the like runs counter to that which is in your heart and the Spirit that dwells there. God says, I know that to be true. You know it to be true, so don't be shocked when you feel torn. You'll feel torn all of your life, as long as you live in this mortal cold, you'll feel torn. Well, start fighting.
Pick up the armor that's been granted to you. Wear it, and you'll find it protects you. Pick up the armor that God has given you. Pick up the sword he's given you. Wield it, and you'll find
Pastoral Application
you're protected from some of the very things that have otherwise just been gobbling you alive and kneecapping your witness in front of watching families and spouses and children and others. Now, as we look to wrap up this morning, there are two marks, two marks that every healthy Christian has. Now, the first mark is what we call inner peace, inner peace. The second one is what we would call inner war. Now, at face value, that sounds contradictory. How can that work? Inner peace and inner war, I mean, I can't have both. Well, wrong. You can have both and you do have both. See, inner peace is the tranquility that we have and we're supposed to have as believers. We're supposed to be contented towards God and towards our circumstances, even when our circumstances are bad. There's a sense of inner peace that Paul had even when he was in jail in Philippi, allowed him to sing hymns and preach and share, right? His circumstances were terrible. They were just awful. And yet he had a sense of contentment with God and even with His circumstances. Now you should have that. If you get a diagnosis, a phone call from a doctor, if there's something going on in your life that you don't like, well, no one's telling you to like it, but you can't have contentment knowing that God's still on his throne. So there is a sense of inner peace that comes with a right relationship with Him. At the same time, as inner peace is something you have, I also hope you have a sense of inner war. I hope you have a sense of inner war. It's every bit as biblical as inner peace. Inner war is this. It's when our flesh wants one thing this week, but when our heart and our mind and our soul wants something else, and we're willing to fight. Now, that's not fun. It's no fun to be at war with your own members, but it's unavoidable. What have we just been reading here? It's unavoidable to the believer. What your flesh wants and what your Spirit wants will often be antithetical things.
Now, in 1 Peter 2, the apostle Peter, he talked about this concept, and he used war to describe it. He said this. He said, beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul your flesh wants things it shouldn't have I know that's not a shock to you your flesh wants things that you shouldn't have your flesh wants bacchus right your flesh wants bacchus your Spirit wants jehovah and there are times and points of decision where you have to choose. And you have to say, as torn as I am, as much as I want, Bacchus, as much as I want what's offered there, as much as I want to gratify the things that are very real, the impulses I have that can be very strong, I will not. I will not because the pull of Jehovah is greater. And I want to do what the captain of my salvation would have me do. So let me ask you, in your own life, is there a sense, not only of inner peace and contentment through your faith, but also a sense of inner war? Is this something you can relate to, or is it a foreign concept?
Do your efforts to deal with your own sin cause you at times to strain, to sweat, to make it feel like you're in a battle? Now, for most of us, for many of us, the answer is yes, especially if you've been a Christian for some season of time, you can say, yes, by the grace of God, I'm not who I used to be. But it wasn't easy because I wanted to be who I used to be. But God wanted something better. And locking arms with Him in my sanctification, I'm no longer, you know,
Christ, Grace, and the Closing Exhortation
the creep, the jerk, the whatever that I used to be. I no longer give in to that which I used to give in to. Some of us know how that works. Others may have no idea how that works because we've never heard of the word mortification. What is mortification? Mortification is this. It's putting sin to death in your body. Mortification is the theological term for everything we're talking about. It's saying that today, I am going to start killing sin before it's killing me. Today, I'm going to stop. Today, I'm going to stop doing that which I was doing, and I'm going to start doing that which I ought to do. And that's what verse 14 refers to. It says, make no provision for our flesh. Because some of us compromise, right? You make a deal with yourself.
Well, I really have been righteous in this area, in this area, in this area, therefore I'm entitled to do this other thing over here. Because, you know, these deeds offset that deed and the like. Wrong. What do we see in verse 14? Make no provision for the flesh. Don't make deals with yourself. Dear heavens, if there's things you want to do or things you're engaged in or deals or, you know, things you've told yourself that you'll do, you try to make deals with God in order that He might allow or overlook some of your transgressions, stop. Verse 14, make no provision for our flesh. Stop giving in to what your eyes want to see. Stop giving in to what your tongue wants to say. Stop giving in to what your stomach wants to eat. Stop giving in to what your libido wants to have or what your hands want to hold. Now, that may seem counterintuitive, as we said before, because rejecting your own impulses is hard. But if your impulses conflict with God's law. Something's got to give. Something's got to go. If your body's impulses cause you to break God's law in order to satiate them, put those impulses to death and don't wait. Again, that's why John Owen is the one who said this. John Owen says, be killing sin or it will take to the bank or it will be killing you.
This morning, closing, if you've been saved by Christ, then the object of your life, the object with the balance of your days, however many you have or don't have, if you are a believer this morning, if you're a blood-bought, born-again, son and daughter, the most high king, then the job you have, the number one object that God has for you for the rest of your days is to become more like his son, to reflect his son more and more in the time that has been given you.
Now, I trust that's what you want. I trust that's your desire, but here's the thing. You've got to get more serious about it. We all do. Why? Because the night is long gone and the day is at hand. On the day of our salvation, when we'll have this opportunity, this moment, this reckoning, this encounter, this embrace with our Savior that's never been closer. So before that day comes, how do I want to live now? How do I want to live in the intermediate time? Well, you've got to have a game plan, and you need to implement that game plan not in just philosophical, theoretical, or even theological ways, but intentional ways. The final observation is if you look at all the verbs in today's text, you'll notice that all action verbs. He says, wake up, wake up out of sleep, cast off, cast off the works of darkness, put on, put on the armor of life and walk properly as it is in the day. All those things require you not only to give your intellectual assent to, everyone can say amen and amen when they hear propositional truth, but that's not what this is calling us to do. This is not calling us just to give assent to propositional truth, but it's asking us, demanding us, requiring us to act accordingly.
So this week, this week, wake up, cast off, put on, walk properly. Let's pray for the grace to do so.
More in The Book Of Romans
Continue the verse-by-verse series.
