SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the First Preds Sermon Podcast, where each week we dive into scripture, wrestle with truth, and discover how faith intersects our lives.
SPEAKER_01: God's word meets us where we are, challenging, shaping, and calling us into something greater.
SPEAKER_01: No matter where you are on your journey, you belong here.
SPEAKER_01: And we're praying that this sermon might help you take a next step in faith towards Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, let's dive into today's message together.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
SPEAKER_00: This morning I'm going to be reading from Romans 13, verses 8 through 14.
SPEAKER_00: Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another.
SPEAKER_00: For whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.
SPEAKER_00: The commandments you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command Love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: The night is nearly over, the day is almost here.
SPEAKER_00: So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.
SPEAKER_00: Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Good morning, church.
SPEAKER_02: Good to be together.
SPEAKER_02: Great is his faithfulness, amen.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord is faithful, he has his presence with us as we sing, as we pray.
SPEAKER_02: We know he's here with us, and we know he's calling us.
SPEAKER_02: He's always calling us, he's always calling us to step forward and to follow him.
SPEAKER_02: We're grateful for Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: We're in Romans 13.
SPEAKER_02: You had it read.
SPEAKER_02: Let me pray for us and we'll jump into it.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, we pray that your word would settle into our hearts in a way that we're not just educated or inspired, even, but in a way that we can hear your voice through your word.
SPEAKER_02: In a way that by the power of the Holy Spirit, when we walk out of this room, we can each say, genuinely, I heard from Jesus today.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, we love you.
SPEAKER_02: We want to hear from you.
SPEAKER_02: It's in your name that we pray.
SPEAKER_02: And the church said, Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Romans 13.
SPEAKER_02: So we're in the back of Romans 13.
SPEAKER_02: We're in our series on Romans.
SPEAKER_02: We're going through Romans all the way.
SPEAKER_02: And uh and we're in Romans uh 13, 8 to 14.
SPEAKER_02: Hope it's open in front of you.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna study it, take it apart together.
SPEAKER_02: And what we're talking about is love.
SPEAKER_02: What we're talking about is the rule of love, that love rules, that love dominates everything in the Christian life.
SPEAKER_02: That at the very heart of the Christian ethic is the rule of love.
SPEAKER_02: Everything that we do, we measure against the rule of love.
SPEAKER_02: So when we're asking, is this, should we do this or not do this?
SPEAKER_02: What we should be asking is, does it accord with the rule of love?
SPEAKER_02: But love doesn't mean you'll do anything.
SPEAKER_02: You know, love has its, it's it's uh it needs to be guided.
SPEAKER_02: We misunderstand love if we think that it always means tolerance and celebration of every single thing and doesn't have any limits.
SPEAKER_02: Love is defined and guided by the word of God.
SPEAKER_02: So we can say we want love to be everything, we want love to be everything that we do.
SPEAKER_02: I would do anything for love.
SPEAKER_02: In the immortal words of me loaf, I would do anything for love, but I won't do that.
SPEAKER_02: Now, here's what I know from this morning.
SPEAKER_02: If you know that song, you are part of a very special niche, a generational niche in the church that I'm actually a part of.
SPEAKER_02: And so I love that you those of you who knew that song, you get extra credit.
SPEAKER_02: Special extra credit if you can picture the video on MTV.
SPEAKER_02: I would do anything for love, but that doesn't mean I'll do anything.
SPEAKER_02: Love love is defined, love is guided by the word of God.
SPEAKER_02: Love, it but it's it's the defining uh central facet of the Christian ethic.
SPEAKER_02: Love rules.
SPEAKER_02: Love rules and our life together.
SPEAKER_02: We're studying 13 through 15 of Romans under this rubric of life together.
SPEAKER_02: We need to understand that what defines our life together is love.
SPEAKER_02: It's love.
SPEAKER_02: Love.
SPEAKER_02: What is love?
SPEAKER_02: We use that same word to mean so many different things in the English language.
SPEAKER_02: It's just this broad range of meaning.
SPEAKER_02: You can say, I love skiing.
SPEAKER_02: You can say, I love my parents.
SPEAKER_02: You can say, I love my country.
SPEAKER_02: You can say I love my wife.
SPEAKER_02: Someone hops up and says, I'm headed out to get a burrito.
SPEAKER_02: Do you want a burrito?
SPEAKER_02: And you say, Love it.
SPEAKER_02: I love, I love burritos.
SPEAKER_02: Do you love a burrito the same way you love your wife?
SPEAKER_02: Stay after class.
SPEAKER_02: If you can't figure that out.
SPEAKER_02: There's different kinds of love.
SPEAKER_02: And we in English we're just using the same word for everything, but in other languages, in fact, in biblical Greek, there's different words for love.
SPEAKER_02: But and to define these different ideas, these different usages, love.
SPEAKER_02: But here's the big thing that I want you to know it really breaks down to the direction of love.
SPEAKER_02: There's two key types of love.
SPEAKER_02: And it depends on the direction that the love is flowing.
SPEAKER_02: There's a love that draws in, that comes toward yourself, a love that consumes the thing that is loved.
SPEAKER_02: There's a love that wants the reward of the special thing that has gained your affection.
SPEAKER_02: There's a love that takes in.
SPEAKER_02: And there's a love, there's a love that flows out.
SPEAKER_02: There's a love that gives away, a love that builds up the thing that you love, the object of your love.
SPEAKER_02: It actually wants that thing to thrive more.
SPEAKER_02: And so it gives away out of its self.
SPEAKER_02: There's a love that takes, and there's a love that makes.
SPEAKER_02: That's actually the love that God has for you.
SPEAKER_02: And it's the love that our life together has got to be marked by.
SPEAKER_02: Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book, Life Together.
SPEAKER_02: It's a good read-along book.
SPEAKER_02: It's not too long.
SPEAKER_02: If you want to read that along at the series, Life Together.
SPEAKER_02: He said this.
SPEAKER_02: He said, self-centered love loves the other for the sake of itself.
SPEAKER_02: It says, I love this for me.
SPEAKER_02: It basically I love this thing for the reward, for how it makes me feel.
SPEAKER_02: I love this thing in order to benefit myself.
SPEAKER_02: That's self-centered love.
SPEAKER_02: But there's another kind of love.
SPEAKER_02: Spiritual love, he calls it.
SPEAKER_02: Spiritual love loves the other for the sake of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Gives yourself away as Christ gives himself away for us.
SPEAKER_02: Love.
SPEAKER_02: Alright, did you have a teddy bear as a kid?
SPEAKER_02: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_02: Teddy bear as a kid.
SPEAKER_02: Come on, raise your hand.
SPEAKER_02: Don't lie to me.
SPEAKER_02: I'm standing on I've got the like the Bible's open in front of me.
SPEAKER_02: I'm on the stage.
SPEAKER_02: Teddy bear, raise your hand.
SPEAKER_02: Doll.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, now we're being honest.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't have one teddy bear.
SPEAKER_02: I actually had three special animals.
SPEAKER_02: I had I had one teddy bear, two other things, and I had a blanket, a blanket.
SPEAKER_02: And if all four things were not present in my life, there is gonna be no sleeping.
SPEAKER_02: There's no order to the household for the whole night.
SPEAKER_02: I needed all four of these things.
SPEAKER_02: I treasured all four of these things.
SPEAKER_02: My mom sweetly kept them for me when I when I grew up, and and I went off to college and and I came back and she kept them in a box uh for me.
SPEAKER_02: And I she I got this box out and I was back from college.
SPEAKER_02: I sort of opened it up to look at these things, and I looked at them, I thought, ew.
SPEAKER_02: What is that?
SPEAKER_02: Like it's the ears falling off and it's stained and dirty and smelly, and and it's got this, you know, you can't clean it off and all that.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, my mom cleaned them.
SPEAKER_02: She put them away clean.
SPEAKER_02: I don't want my mom to think she should put them away clean.
SPEAKER_02: But I just think, oh my god.
SPEAKER_02: And one of them I couldn't even recognize what it was.
SPEAKER_02: Like, what is this thing?
SPEAKER_02: Some kind of a grotesque amalgam of tigger and piglet or something.
SPEAKER_02: What are you?
SPEAKER_02: And I thought, you know, at one point this whatever was my everything.
SPEAKER_02: The house was on fire.
SPEAKER_02: I would have run into the house to grab what?
SPEAKER_02: Whatever that thing was.
SPEAKER_02: Because I had to have it.
SPEAKER_02: Was it worth 25 cents?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: But my child's heart's love built value into it.
SPEAKER_02: So much so that that thing to me was worth a thousand bucks, right?
SPEAKER_02: That was worth everything, is what I had to have.
SPEAKER_02: That's the kind of love that God has for you.
SPEAKER_02: Love that builds, love that builds into you, love that adds value, love that makes you into something that you you never knew you could be.
SPEAKER_02: Love that gives.
SPEAKER_02: That's what we're called to participate in.
SPEAKER_02: Let's jump in.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 8.
SPEAKER_02: Let no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt to do what?
SPEAKER_02: To love one another.
SPEAKER_02: For whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.
SPEAKER_02: Last week, Romans 13, 1 through 7, we talked about the government.
SPEAKER_02: Like, what do we owe?
SPEAKER_02: Honor, where honor is due, respect, where respect is due.
SPEAKER_02: And what do we owe?
SPEAKER_02: We owe taxes, right?
SPEAKER_02: Last week we we actually get in the Bible, this is why you pay taxes, it says in the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: And like, oh, well, that's good because some of us were wondering, why am I paying this?
SPEAKER_02: And this is why we pay taxes, because the government is an instrument of God's mercy to do what?
SPEAKER_02: To reward good, to restrain evil, and to fill potholes.
SPEAKER_02: And so that's why we pay.
SPEAKER_02: We pay.
SPEAKER_02: And so we we're not gonna leave a debt outstanding.
SPEAKER_02: It says, let all those debts be paid, but there's one debt that you are gonna leave open.
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna hold on to this debt.
SPEAKER_02: You're not gonna close it out.
SPEAKER_02: What is that debt?
SPEAKER_02: The debt to love one another.
SPEAKER_02: This is a debt that you're never gonna fully pay.
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna carry this debt to love one another.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Well, how can I how is it this is never gonna get paid off?
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's because it's a love that gives, it's a love that builds, it's a love that adds.
SPEAKER_02: And the more you love, the more you love.
SPEAKER_02: The more you you value, the more you value the object of your love.
SPEAKER_02: The more you give, the more you want to give.
SPEAKER_02: And it just keeps going.
SPEAKER_02: It keeps going.
SPEAKER_02: And you never let go of that debt of love that you owe one another.
SPEAKER_02: It's not like a car payment where you come, I've got six payments left, right?
SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna pay, I'm gonna pay you a little love, little love, little love.
SPEAKER_02: Boom, last one.
SPEAKER_02: I paid it off.
SPEAKER_02: That's not it.
SPEAKER_02: It says there's a debt that you're gonna keep owing, a debt of love for one another.
SPEAKER_02: Love one another.
SPEAKER_02: You know, the Ten Commandments is all about love.
SPEAKER_02: Did you know that?
SPEAKER_02: You got four commandments at the beginning, those are all about love for God.
SPEAKER_02: Then you got six commandments on the back half, those are all about love for one another.
SPEAKER_02: It's the vertical and the horizontal dimensions of love.
SPEAKER_02: Love for God, love for neighbor.
SPEAKER_02: And so Paul continues, verse 9, Romans continues.
SPEAKER_02: The commandments, he's talking about the second group here, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command, love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_02: It says they all get summed up.
SPEAKER_02: All these negative commands, all these don't do that, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that, they all get translated and transferred into one positive call to love your neighbor as what?
SPEAKER_02: As yourself.
SPEAKER_02: It says you do that.
SPEAKER_02: You see, because if you do that, and it's not just talking about a sentiment, this is talking about love that's an act.
SPEAKER_02: If you're willing to do as much, to care as much, to take care of the needs of your neighbor, you say, I'm going to do as much to care for my neighbor's needs as I'm willing to do to care for my own.
SPEAKER_02: If you do that, well then you're going to fulfill all these commandments.
SPEAKER_02: Because if you do that, there's no way you're going to sleep with your neighbor's spouse or steal your neighbor's property or take your neighbor's life.
SPEAKER_02: It's an impossibility.
SPEAKER_02: You love them.
SPEAKER_02: You love them, you see?
SPEAKER_02: And so love does no harm to a neighbor.
SPEAKER_02: Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.
SPEAKER_02: Now, Paul didn't make this up, did he?
SPEAKER_02: He was familiar with Jesus' teaching back in Matthew 22.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, Jesus was asked, What's the greatest of the commandments?
SPEAKER_02: Jesus replied, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.
SPEAKER_02: And that's the first and greatest commandment.
SPEAKER_02: And then the second one is like it love your neighbors yourself.
SPEAKER_02: All the law and prophets hang on these two commands.
SPEAKER_02: If you keep that, you're not going to break the commandments.
SPEAKER_02: If you love the Lord your God with all you got, and you love your neighbors yourself, it's an impossibility to break the commandments.
SPEAKER_02: So, in as much as these things are still happening, there's a lack.
SPEAKER_02: It's a lack of what?
SPEAKER_02: It's a lack of love.
SPEAKER_02: Love the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Love your neighbor.
SPEAKER_02: Don't stop owing the debt of love.
SPEAKER_02: So, Paul, maybe anticipating that a little motivation is needed here.
SPEAKER_02: Because is that easy or hard, what we've just talked about?
SPEAKER_02: Hard.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna need a lot of help.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna need the Lord to save us, actually.
SPEAKER_02: It's out of reach.
SPEAKER_02: So we do continue to break the laws.
SPEAKER_02: We do continue to break the commandments.
SPEAKER_02: We do continue to love ourselves more than we love our neighbors.
SPEAKER_02: We do continue to love other things other than we more than we love God, put things in the way of God.
SPEAKER_02: And so these things befall us and our world.
SPEAKER_02: And so we say, Lord, help us out.
SPEAKER_02: But Paul recognizing you're gonna need a little motivation here, he says, do this.
SPEAKER_02: How?
SPEAKER_02: Do this, and here we go in uh in the next verse, uh verse 11.
SPEAKER_02: Do this understanding the present time.
SPEAKER_02: How am I gonna do this?
SPEAKER_02: Well, pay attention to what time it is.
SPEAKER_02: Look at the present time.
SPEAKER_02: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.
SPEAKER_02: What's he saying?
SPEAKER_02: He's saying, do this because the time is short.
SPEAKER_02: Do this with urgency.
SPEAKER_02: Love the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_02: Love your neighbor as yourself, not in sentiment, in action, and do it now.
SPEAKER_02: The time is now for this love.
SPEAKER_02: The time is now to do what the Lord's put on your heart.
SPEAKER_02: This is the moment.
SPEAKER_02: Love in action is not best put on uh on wait.
SPEAKER_02: It's best done now.
SPEAKER_02: Now is the pregnant moment.
SPEAKER_02: Now is the hour.
SPEAKER_02: It's not best put off to a more convenient moment down the road.
SPEAKER_02: You don't know if a moment down the road is coming.
SPEAKER_02: The time is now to act on the rule of love.
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm 52.
SPEAKER_02: Be 53 in a few weeks.
SPEAKER_02: Um of you are even older than that.
SPEAKER_02: I know.
SPEAKER_02: Our churches, you know, and so one of the things we do together is a church, you know, we do uh we have memorial services a lot.
SPEAKER_02: We attend a lot of memorial services.
SPEAKER_02: I was at a memorial service uh a couple of weeks ago and and with a friend, and afterward we were talking, and and I said, it's it's tough, huh?
SPEAKER_02: It's tough.
SPEAKER_02: And he said, Yeah, it's tough, but but not for him.
SPEAKER_02: He's with Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: It's tough for us.
SPEAKER_02: To that I said, it is tough for us.
SPEAKER_02: It's hard to say goodbye.
SPEAKER_02: And he kind of looked at me and good Christian spirit, a little twinkle in his eye.
SPEAKER_02: Said, no, Tim.
SPEAKER_02: It's tough not to know which one of us is next in the box.
SPEAKER_02: That's what's tough.
SPEAKER_02: A little dark.
SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
SPEAKER_02: He he said it, not me.
SPEAKER_02: He said it.
SPEAKER_02: But it's true.
SPEAKER_02: I don't care how old you are.
SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't, it doesn't matter if you're old or young, or we don't know how much time we have.
SPEAKER_02: We don't know how many moments we have.
SPEAKER_02: The time to respond to the rule of love is now.
SPEAKER_02: It's now.
SPEAKER_02: And we don't know when the end of time is.
SPEAKER_02: We don't know when the end of days are.
SPEAKER_02: That's what he's reminding the Roman church of.
SPEAKER_02: That's what Romans is telling us today.
SPEAKER_02: We don't know when the end is.
SPEAKER_02: People try to calculate it.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, from medieval times, monks have sat aside, they've peered through, combed through the scriptures.
SPEAKER_02: Like, let me put the dates together, let me tell you when the end of times is gonna come.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's gonna come, you know, next month, Tuesday, third Tuesday, three o'clock.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, and then what devout followers, they quit their jobs, they go into debt, they wind up destitute.
SPEAKER_02: We don't know, right?
SPEAKER_02: We don't know.
SPEAKER_02: But what we do know is that it's coming.
SPEAKER_02: What we do know is that our time is limited.
SPEAKER_02: What we do know is that we do this with a sense of urgency.
SPEAKER_02: We follow the rule of love now because the end is getting closer with every passing day.
SPEAKER_02: The church fathers called it the eighth day.
SPEAKER_02: The eighth day.
SPEAKER_02: Why would they call it the eighth day?
SPEAKER_02: Because we live in a cycle of seven days.
SPEAKER_02: Seven days, and back to the beginning.
SPEAKER_02: Boop, I'm back to the beginning.
SPEAKER_02: Boop.
SPEAKER_02: But they said one day it's gonna be an eighth day.
SPEAKER_02: The eighth day is when all this is finished.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord returns and puts everything in order.
SPEAKER_02: Basil of Caesarea, he put it this way.
SPEAKER_02: He said, It's this day which the psalmist called the eighth, because it's outside of this time of weeks.
SPEAKER_02: Whether you call it a day or an age, it expresses the same idea.
SPEAKER_02: It's the day that never ends, the day that knows no evening, the day that has no tomorrow, the day that never passes away into another age.
SPEAKER_02: That day is coming.
SPEAKER_02: Listen.
SPEAKER_02: Because there was a third day.
SPEAKER_02: What happened on the third day?
SPEAKER_02: Because there was a third day and the tomb is empty, we know there's an eighth day coming.
SPEAKER_02: It's on the way.
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know when it is, you don't know when it is, no one in town knows when it is.
SPEAKER_02: We don't know when it is, but we do know this, and we say it with the scriptures.
SPEAKER_02: It's coming, it's coming.
SPEAKER_02: And every day that passes mean it's one means it's one day closer.
SPEAKER_02: Look at this.
SPEAKER_02: Wake up.
SPEAKER_02: The night is nearly over, the day is almost here, verse 12.
SPEAKER_02: So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the army of light.
SPEAKER_02: It's time to wake up, wake up, the day is coming.
SPEAKER_02: The eighth day is on the way.
SPEAKER_02: Wake up.
SPEAKER_02: It's my dad used to say, quit farting around.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if I can say it in church.
SPEAKER_02: One of my youth staff said, Tim, you can't say it in church.
SPEAKER_02: My kids are gonna have to put a dollar in the jar, you know?
SPEAKER_02: Quit farting around.
SPEAKER_02: It's not in the scriptures.
SPEAKER_02: Should be.
SPEAKER_02: Do this.
SPEAKER_02: This is the rule of love.
SPEAKER_02: What's the urgency?
SPEAKER_02: What's the push?
SPEAKER_02: Well, the day is coming, and we don't know how much time we've got.
SPEAKER_02: Do it.
SPEAKER_02: Do it now.
SPEAKER_02: This is the pregnant moment.
SPEAKER_02: Do what the Lord is calling you to do an act of love.
SPEAKER_02: It's a little bit like the image that we get here is like when you're camping out and it's it's still dark, it's still night, but you can tell that the day is coming.
SPEAKER_02: And so Paul says, then wake up.
SPEAKER_02: Wake up and put on the clothing for the day.
SPEAKER_02: Let us behave decently, verse 13, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.
SPEAKER_02: You don't do those things.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Well, those things, look, these things have an intoxicating effect.
SPEAKER_02: These vices, these sins, they have a way of dulling your senses.
SPEAKER_02: They have a way of making you kind of drunk, all of them, not just alcohol, but not just drunkenness, but spiritually drowsy, spiritually drunk, like you don't want to get out of bed.
SPEAKER_02: You don't want to move.
SPEAKER_02: You don't want to, you just, you're kind of slothful because you've taken these things on.
SPEAKER_02: They leave you spiritually drowsy.
SPEAKER_02: Before you know it, you're kind of uh head bobbing down the highway of life, right?
SPEAKER_02: It's like trying to just stay awake, trying to just have enough energy.
SPEAKER_02: Put that stuff away.
SPEAKER_02: Put it off.
SPEAKER_02: That drowsy, that drowsy dope is not you, by the way.
SPEAKER_02: It's not who you truly are.
SPEAKER_02: You take that stuff on and it pulls you down in the spiritual drowsiness and spiritual stupor, and it isn't who you truly are.
SPEAKER_02: Look at this.
SPEAKER_02: He wrote it, Paul wrote to another church, Thessalonica.
SPEAKER_02: He said, You are all children of the light and children of the day.
SPEAKER_02: We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.
SPEAKER_02: So then let us not be like the others who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober.
SPEAKER_02: For those who sleep, sleep at night.
SPEAKER_02: Those who get drunk get drunk at night.
SPEAKER_02: But since we belong to the what?
SPEAKER_02: The day.
SPEAKER_02: Let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate and the hope of salvation as a helmet.
SPEAKER_02: You belong to the day.
SPEAKER_02: Wake up.
SPEAKER_02: Armor up.
SPEAKER_02: Get dressed for the day.
SPEAKER_02: Get dressed for the eighth day.
SPEAKER_02: Get dressed for the day that's coming.
SPEAKER_02: You say it's still night, it's still dark.
SPEAKER_02: I know it is.
SPEAKER_02: But it's time to wear the armor of light.
SPEAKER_02: It's time to put away the stuff that drags you back, the stuff that promises comfort or relief, and it comes along at you, and you feel like you deserve it.
SPEAKER_02: And so you give yourself into it.
SPEAKER_02: And what does it leave you with?
SPEAKER_02: It leaves you empty.
SPEAKER_02: It leaves you wondering if you've just wasted another day of your life.
SPEAKER_02: Put it away.
SPEAKER_02: Put away the infinite scrolling.
SPEAKER_02: Put away the extra margaritas, the drinking.
SPEAKER_02: Put away, you know, the stuff that just it offers itself to you as a reward.
SPEAKER_02: You think, I deserve that, right?
SPEAKER_02: I deserve it.
SPEAKER_02: And what does it do?
SPEAKER_02: It sucks your life out of you.
SPEAKER_02: You just you wake up and think, I think I lost another day.
SPEAKER_02: Hey guys, put away the video games, you know?
SPEAKER_02: Put away the binging.
SPEAKER_02: You know this stuff sucks on your soul.
SPEAKER_02: You know it does.
SPEAKER_02: So he's just saying, hey, get up, wake up.
SPEAKER_02: The word is just saying, get up, wake up, put it away.
SPEAKER_02: Put on the armor of light.
SPEAKER_02: You were made for this.
SPEAKER_02: You were made for the day.
SPEAKER_02: You weren't even made for that.
SPEAKER_02: Listen, I can't tell you.
SPEAKER_02: I cannot tell you what it is like when you begin to live into God's purposes for your life.
SPEAKER_02: When you are awake, when your eyes are bright, when you are looking for what the Lord is calling you to do, and you're responding with yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes, Lord, at every impulse of faith.
SPEAKER_02: That's life.
SPEAKER_02: It says, wake up.
SPEAKER_02: It's time to wake up.
SPEAKER_02: Turn to the dead of love, the rule of love.
SPEAKER_02: Say, Lord, where can I wake up?
SPEAKER_02: Where do you want me to love?
SPEAKER_02: Not just as a feeling, but as an action.
SPEAKER_02: An act of love.
SPEAKER_02: Because one obedient act of love under the impulse of the Holy Spirit can change the world.
SPEAKER_02: I heard a testimony this week on a podcast of a young man named Jonathan Almonte.
SPEAKER_02: And Jonathan works for Compassion International in the DR.
SPEAKER_02: The uh Dominican Republic, I call that the Democratic of Republic or something in an earlier service.
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: What is it again?
SPEAKER_02: That's it.
SPEAKER_02: And he works for Compassion International in the DR, and he actually uh he grew up as a compassion kid.
SPEAKER_02: He was born to a single mother, very poor, and his father didn't recognize him.
SPEAKER_02: And and in a DR, you don't get a birth certificate until your father registers your birth.
SPEAKER_02: He lived the first five years of his life with no birth certificate.
SPEAKER_02: Because he grew up as a kid, his mother arranged for his father to see him, for him to see his father.
SPEAKER_02: He remembered seeing his father for five minutes a month.
SPEAKER_02: That's all he got with his father.
SPEAKER_02: A friend introduced him to a church where compassion was active, and he started to receive the care and the love of this Christian community.
SPEAKER_02: He started to feel the love of God through this church, and he started getting letters from a woman named Jamie in Michigan.
SPEAKER_02: How many of you ever done a compassion?
SPEAKER_02: Have you ever done a compassion kid?
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_02: We share these letters.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: I think you're pretty familiar.
SPEAKER_02: Jimmy and Leanne are like, yeah, we've done some compassion kids.
SPEAKER_02: We've done this.
SPEAKER_02: And uh and so he's getting these these letters, and he's he's growing in in love with the Lord and some confidence and some health.
SPEAKER_02: And and um and when he's 14 years old, here's what happens.
SPEAKER_02: He's 14 years old.
SPEAKER_02: His dad says, We're gonna have a meeting.
SPEAKER_02: And his dad sits him down, 14 years old, and he says, You were a mistake.
SPEAKER_02: You're not a part of my family.
SPEAKER_02: We will not have a relationship.
SPEAKER_02: You should have been aborted.
SPEAKER_02: Fourteen years old sitting there watching his dad get up, walk out of his life.
SPEAKER_02: He's doubted everything, he doubted himself, he doubted his his his he doubted God, he doubted life, he was he was sort of he was in despair.
SPEAKER_02: And along came a letter from Jamie in Michigan.
SPEAKER_02: And at this point in his testimony, he didn't pull out a letter and say, Let me read this.
SPEAKER_02: No, he leaned forward and he recited it because it was etched on his heart.
SPEAKER_02: And the letter said this.
SPEAKER_02: Greetings, Jonathan from Michigan.
SPEAKER_02: We've received a fair dusting of snow today on Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_02: Today is a great day to reflect on all the things that I am thankful for, and you are one of those that I am greatly thankful for.
SPEAKER_02: It is because of Jesus' birth that we can have hope and assurance of eternal life after death.
SPEAKER_02: Today, in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you.
SPEAKER_02: He is Christ the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Luke 2, 11, in Christ love Jamie.
SPEAKER_02: Jonathan recited that whole letter by memory because in that letter, God reached out to his heart and grabbed a hold of him and pulled him back from the brink of despair when he heard from this woman so many miles away in a different place, a different realm, you know.
SPEAKER_02: You're one of those things that I'm thankful for.
SPEAKER_02: You're worthy, you're you're valued, you're loved, you're treasured, you're a gift to me, a gift to this world.
SPEAKER_02: I'm thankful for you.
SPEAKER_02: It broke his heart, and he felt that there is a God who loves him.
SPEAKER_02: There's a person who loves him.
SPEAKER_02: God would would bring this person into his life a thousand miles away.
SPEAKER_02: He said, I didn't really know what Thanksgiving was, but but here is this woman who's thankful for me.
SPEAKER_02: She's grateful for me, and I knew that there's a God in heaven who loves me.
SPEAKER_02: One act of love.
SPEAKER_02: Was that a hard thing?
SPEAKER_02: I think about Jamie in Michigan writing that little note.
SPEAKER_02: Was that a hard thing for her to do?
SPEAKER_02: That's not much, right?
SPEAKER_02: It's not a big thing for her to write that letter, to send that letter, she didn't really know.
SPEAKER_02: But it was it wasn't just a sentiment of love.
SPEAKER_02: What was it?
SPEAKER_02: It was an act of love.
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't just feelings.
SPEAKER_02: It was an act of love.
SPEAKER_02: An act of love.
SPEAKER_02: One act of love is worth a thousand sentiments and good feelings.
SPEAKER_02: One act of love, it was an act of love that God used to reach a boy who was in total despair and pull him back from the brink of self-destruction.
SPEAKER_02: An act of love.
SPEAKER_02: You see, an act of love is something that God can take and Christ can take in his hands, and he can multiply it like the loaves and fishes.
SPEAKER_02: He can make it bigger than it is.
SPEAKER_02: An act of so small, an act of love is something that God can use to bring a man a boy up like Jonathan, to grow him up in the Lord until he is standing as a man of God, a man of Christ in this world, through whom the love of God is flowing to hundreds of kids, thousands of people.
SPEAKER_02: An act of love under the impulse of the Spirit can change the world.
SPEAKER_02: The rule of love.
SPEAKER_02: Where's God calling you?
SPEAKER_02: Where is he pushing you?
SPEAKER_02: Where is he prompting you?
SPEAKER_02: Wake up.
SPEAKER_02: It's enough kind of slumbering along, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Wake up.
SPEAKER_02: The time is now, this is the moment.
SPEAKER_02: You say, How do I do it?
SPEAKER_02: How do I put off the night clothes, the clothing of the night?
SPEAKER_02: How do I put on the armor of light?
SPEAKER_02: This sounds uh like, is this a program?
SPEAKER_02: Is this uh something you're prescribing?
SPEAKER_02: Some something you want me to adapt, you know, to participate in.
SPEAKER_02: It's not a program, it's not a philosophy.
SPEAKER_02: It's a person.
SPEAKER_02: Look at this last verse.
SPEAKER_02: Because right when we're feeling pushed, I gotta do, I gotta do.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to feel pushed.
SPEAKER_02: The time is short.
SPEAKER_02: Right when we're feeling pushed, I think it's about doing.
SPEAKER_02: What are we reminded of?
SPEAKER_02: It's not a program, it's a person.
SPEAKER_02: Look at this.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 14, Romans 13, 14.
SPEAKER_02: This is how we close.
SPEAKER_02: Would you read this with me, church?
SPEAKER_02: Rather clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.
SPEAKER_02: Why would you?
SPEAKER_02: You've got Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: What do you put on?
SPEAKER_02: You put on Christ.
SPEAKER_02: It isn't a question of what are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_02: It's who are you gonna be?
SPEAKER_02: Are you gonna be saved by Christ?
SPEAKER_02: Are you gonna be born again in Christ?
SPEAKER_02: Have you asked the Lord to take off these night clothes, these this worthless, this junk?
SPEAKER_02: Say, Lord, take it off.
SPEAKER_02: Clothe me in you.
SPEAKER_02: Would you clothe me, Lord Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: Would you be my armor of light?
SPEAKER_02: Would you, Jesus, be my clothing, my righteousness?
SPEAKER_02: You, Lord, would you be my savior?
SPEAKER_02: You, Lord, would you be my life?
SPEAKER_02: Would you be my light?
SPEAKER_02: Would you be the one who's calling me into your purposes?
SPEAKER_02: Would you, Lord, call me into being who you've called me to be?
SPEAKER_02: The rule of love is calling you to act.
SPEAKER_02: What we're gonna do is spend some time in prayer.
SPEAKER_02: And uh as the praise team comes up and leads us in a time, so they sing over us.
SPEAKER_02: You can sing if you like.
SPEAKER_02: But this is a time of prayer.
SPEAKER_02: Prayer team's gonna go around and stations around uh the room.
SPEAKER_02: I see the praise team coming up, but prayer team, go ahead and get where you need to be.
SPEAKER_02: Uh Wendy is there.
SPEAKER_02: Um where are you gonna be?
SPEAKER_02: Matt's Pastor Matt's gonna be right there.
SPEAKER_02: And uh Mike and Janet up here in the corner.
SPEAKER_02: Um, I'll go right down here.
SPEAKER_02: Well, Wendy, you're there.
SPEAKER_02: I'll be around.
SPEAKER_02: Here's what we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to take this time and open your heart to the Spirit's prompting.
SPEAKER_02: What is the rule of love calling you to do?
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what it is.
SPEAKER_02: What's the next thing that the Lord is calling you to do?
SPEAKER_02: That you need to build up the courage to step in obedience toward and do it.
SPEAKER_02: You don't want to come back next week and say, Oh yeah, I meant to go off and do that thing.
SPEAKER_02: You want to come back and say, Lord, I did it?
SPEAKER_02: What is that thing that the Lord's prompting you to do?
SPEAKER_02: If you want to be prayed for for any reason at all, I want you to get up and move around, be prayed for.
SPEAKER_02: Would you stand and go ahead, if go ahead and stand where you are, go ahead and stand.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna pray for us and we're gonna sing.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna move around, be prayed for, be blessed.
SPEAKER_02: Open your heart to the prompting of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: What's the rule of love calling you to do?
SPEAKER_02: Lord Jesus, thank you for this church, thank you for these people.
SPEAKER_02: We love you, we follow you, we honor you, we worship you, help us to lay down our night clothes, help us to wake up, to open our eyes, to wear the armor of light.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, be with us by your spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Call each and every one of us into a prompting of your love.
SPEAKER_02: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Hearing God's word is just the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: What connected with you?
SPEAKER_01: What challenged you today?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's surrendering something, stepping into community, or simply trusting him more deeply.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever it is, don't leave it for later.
SPEAKER_01: Act on it today.
SPEAKER_01: We're praying that this message moves you closer to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And we'd love to walk with you in that journey and answer any questions you've got.
SPEAKER_01: Connect with us by visiting firstpresdos.org.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, if today's message encouraged you, take a moment and subscribe so you never miss an episode and share it with someone who needs to hear it.
SPEAKER_01: Check in next week, and we'll continue to grow in our faith together.
SPEAKER_01: See you next time.