I Owe You - Part 2 (Romans 13:8-14)

Romans chapter 13 verses 8-14 in our scripture reading together, and uh, this is where we're at in our, in our study. So, I'll read the even-numbered verses, if you'll read together the odd-numbered verses. By the way, verse 9, I think it's the longest verse I've ever heard you guys read before.

So, but verse eight begins, "Owe no one anything except to love one another. For he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments. You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet, and if there is any other commandment, all are summed up, saying, naming, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. And do this knowing the time. Now is a high time to awake out of sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. Wow, love that. 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. Let us walk properly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust."

Father, we pray right now that by the power of your Holy Spirit, your word, the word of God, the will of God. And Lord, just reading this, it is so obvious that man never would have thought this one up on his own. So Lord, we pray that you'd emboss upon our hearts your holy truth, that we might be a people walking freely, boldly, rejoicing, and knowing the truth. And that as we hear in this study, both last week and this week, how much we owe one another in the area of love. We pray in Jesus name. And all God's people said, "Amen." You may be seated, church family.

And last week we started part one. Today, part two, and we'll go as far as we can today. And we're looking at this message series titled, "I Owe You." And in, uh, in accuracy, you owe me as brothers and sisters in Christ. Number one is the fact that as Christians, we are to be loving one another. Listen, we may not be able to have the greatest theological explanation about this or that at any given time, but one thing is certain. We are called by God as brothers and sisters in Christ to love one another without argument, without excuse, without anything added. We're to love one another.

And then listen, what about those that are around us who don't know Jesus? The unbelieving world, those who don't know Christ, how, how are we to deal with them? Well, quite frankly, the Bible says you're to love them. And I, I would insert this. If you love the people that, uh, in that are in your life that are not Christians, you might just find out that they want to become a Christian after you've loved on them. When you treat somebody like a Christian, they want to become one.

And then what about the extreme, your enemy? What does the Bible say about love your enemy? I think we already know the answer to this, don't we, from scripture? Jesus said, "Bless your enemy." Why? What's the point to that? Well, number one, we'll be acting like God if we do that. We'll be honoring him. And, and the, the whole foundation to all of that is, is based on this. How much does God love you? Well, how much did God display his love for you? That's called the cross. And, uh, Jesus died on the cross for your sins and my sins, the Bible says. And he rose again from the dead. And God displayed his love even though that while we were yet sinners, the Bible tells us Christ died for us. And, uh, heaven is open to all if you're willing to come God's way, not our way, God's way. And, uh, that's a very liberating and beautiful thing.

We saw this last time together in verses 8-10. We, we won't, uh, uh, read through those again. We read it, uh, just a moment ago, but we learned this first of all last time was, you and I owe each other love. We owe each other love. It's funny because as the Bible says, we owe no man anything except to love. It's funny. You might be thinking, well, you know, pastor, I've been so loving all week. I, I've kind of reached my quota. I've just loved so much that, nope, that's not true. Because listen, the kind of love, listen carefully, the kind of love we're talking about right here in the Bible is the kind of love that is this way. It's not the kind of love that runs out. It doesn't grow stale. It's not tired. It, it doesn't, it doesn't, uh, take a pause. This is none other than the very love of God that God loves through his people. It's a supernatural thing. Listen, it's not like this. Oh, you're such a loving person. Listen, you might be, but this is not the kind of love we're talking about. This is a love that is deposited into the heart of the believer that comes from God, and it's almost without explanation because it is effortless, and yet at the same time, it is daunting because God will take us and point us in a direction not as a canon of truth, but as a reach of love. And when I say love, I'm talking about God's love. I'm talking about the love of God that sets people free. The kind of love that God loves through us, which will tell people the truth. And we live in an age where a lot of people are making up their own truth. And I wonder the reason why is that there's, uh, a great misunderstanding about what love is. The love of God is never changing. It's never moving. It's a constant. And God's love is there always.

And we saw it this way, that you and I owe one another based upon the law of love. A lot of people, a lot of legalists, you know, there's people who are religionists. They also happen to be often religion or legalists. They got all the dos and don'ts and all those regulations and all the signs about, you keep these rules and then maybe we'll accept you into our group. Listen, warning. Those people know nothing about the actual love of God because the number one thing trumps all, and that is, I owe you love. And in that act of love, I'm, I would be then possessed by the spirit of God to help you, to pick you up, to encourage you, to, uh, have your spiritual progress move forward, and you would be the same way toward me instead of putting you through a bunch of hurdles. No, there's a law of love in the Bible. That was in verse 8.

In verse 9, we learned about the, the love that we owe one another as proof. We can talk about love all day long, but what about the proof of God's love? You can write a book on love. You can sing a song about love. Doesn't matter to us. We won't know at all how much one another we love each other unless we actually prove it by actually doing it. By finding out how are you doing and how's it going? Really becoming, I guess, in our age, a real problem in people's lives. How are you? And you know, you know the answer to that right in our, in our world, in our western world. You could be dying and people will ask us, "How are you?" and we'll say, "We're fine. Fine. Thanks." We lie. "Oh, how are you?" "Fine. Fine." I told the Wednesday night, uh, church Wednesday night group. I'm curious. Do any of you come to Wednesday nights? I'm just curious. Anybody? Because it's a whole different church on Wednesday night. The people tell me, "We don't come here on Sunday, we come here on Wednesday because our church doesn't have a midweek service." So I'm not quite sure who you are at any given time.

But, um, this last week, I took it upon myself because of last week's Bible study. I took it upon myself this last, uh, week to exercise this and to ask people wherever I bumped into them, "How are you?" So, you know, you see people all the time and you ask them, "How are you? How are you? How are you? How you doing?" You go to a register, you go to the store, uh, whoever you were at Walmart, um, "How are you?" And the response is the, the same. "I'm fine. Fine." And then you say, "I mean, how are you?" And then they get nervous. Inst. And then you ask again. For example, last, this last week, as I said, on Wednesday night, uh, we needed a, a plumber to come to the house. And so when he was all done, and I gave him my month's wages, um, knowing the study we're in right now, "I owe you." I asked him, "How you doing?" And he goes, "I'm fine." And I said, "How's your family?" And he goes, "Okay." And I realized right then and there, "Oh, something's up." He didn't say, "Fine." He said, "Okay." And I said, "Anything I can pray for you for?" And he went, "My wife's got cancer." And I go, "Let's pray." And, uh, what happened in my house? Uh, first of all, I hadn't paid him yet, so he couldn't go anywhere. But it was, it was neat because when it was, when, when we prayed and paid the bill, he shook my hand and he meant it. What kind of effect does that have on somebody? I don't know. But listen, it's good, and it's the right thing to do, and it's evidence of love. I think if we as a people began to just simply obey the simple ministry of Jesus and to love one another, if we really determined to do that, I think we might be beautifully, wonderfully surprised.

And then last time, finally, in verse 10, we learned that you and I owe each other everything that is of the love of God itself. Everything that is good, we're to bless each other with. It's a selfless love. And, um, if we think about doing that, here's, here's a little clue, especially for some of you who are young, but it's not, it's not age-sensitive, but learn it young. When you start realizing in your life that as a Christian, I owe nothing, as it were, to the bank or to whatever, those debts will be paid. And I make my payments, and that has nothing to do with touching somebody's life. But I do owe everyone the act of love. And, uh, that's a debt that you and I will never pay off, is loving one another. And, um, in doing that, I think we're conducting ourselves in the most Christ-like way. And we need it today, church, because this world is in a world of hurt. The opportunity for us to love and love big and love loud is before us because the world is ever darkening.

And so we pick it up now in our second argument. It's just found in two verses, verses 11 and 12. And it is this. It says, "And do this." Here's a command. "And do this." This is what you're to do. What is that, Paul the Apostle? What are you saying to us? "Knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. 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." What great words.

And so we learn this. The second argument is attention. I owe you attention. And what do we mean by attention? And I encourage you to do this, everybody. If you do not own Daniel Webster's, uh, dictionary of the American language of of English, you got to get it. It's the 1828 dictionary. You can get it online or you can buy the book. You got to buy the book. It will impress Amazon when they show up to your house. That dictionary is about this thick, and it's that book's about this big. And it is the actual original definition of English words in 1828 by Noah Webster. It's the one and only real dictionary. Attention. The act of attending to or the heeding of the proper application of the ear to sound or of the mind to objects presented for its contemplation. Literally meaning a stretching towards or leaning towards. I love that.

According to what God is saying to us in this, in verses 11 and 12, you and I are to give each other attention and lean into each other's life. We're to lean in and find out how are you really doing? What's really going on? And listen, if we really care, have you noticed this? If we really care, and this is one of the remarkable things about church, it doesn't matter what, uh, cultural background you're from. It doesn't matter what, uh, financial background you're at. It doesn't matter, uh, your age. If any one of us honestly detects that the other one cares for the other one, there is a remarkable connection that is timeless. It's, it's, it's, it's not based on generation. When, when a kid knows that this old woman or this old man, grandpa style, loves on them, there's freedom, there's love, and there's healing. And vice versa.

And remember last week, which I'm really happy to see you came back. You weren't supposed to. You surprised me. Last week, I doubled down very hard on marriage. How can we talk about these things of love and owing one another nothing but love and we talk it up, but then we're brutes and beasts at home in our marriages? And I made it very clear that you're actually lying to yourself and you cannot be a Christian. The Bible made it very clear. And so I said goodbye to many of you, but I didn't expect you to come back. But here you are, unless you're all visiting, which would be both sad and good, I guess, wouldn't it? But it's a remarkable thing. Attention. We give attention to so much in life. Everything's clamoring for our attention. Everything's pulling on us. Well, I want to submit to you today that if I slow down, I'm going to hear God just like you're going to hear God say, "Love one another." And by doing this, you're also preparing yourself to not only be more like Jesus, but we're also getting ready for eternity. You think about that for a moment. When the Bible gives us these awesome truths, these are timeless truths.

And so when the scripture says, "Knowing the time," what do we learn from this? Well, mark this down. The attention that I should give you should be manifested this way. I should be calling you as a friend and as a lover of your soul, and you to you of mine. Calling one another both to, uh, wake up. We, that we need to wake up. See, what do you mean by that? Well, right here, the Bible is telling us that know the time, or knowing the time. This is a great word. The word in, uh, Greek is, uh, Chronos, uh, chronology. Know the time. The Bible tells us that as a believer, we are to be knowing the time, or knowing the atmospherics that are around our life. Listen, I'm convinced of this. I really mean what I'm about to say. Christians are the only ones that really know anything about real time. You say, "What kind of statement is that?" I'm not talking about what is a person that, that does, is it, is it a horologist that builds clocks and timepieces? Isn't that the word horology? Anybody know? Horologist? Hor. Anyway, tell me later. Um, there's, there are those who make timepieces. There are those who study time. In fact, about 30 years ago, I think the study was at Stanford University where they were able to conclude, listen to this, because we think time is a constant, don't we? In the physical realm, time is a constant. We also think light is a constant in the physical realm. Guess what? If any of you have had basic physics, did you know that you cannot have in this world, in the physical universe, even though light and time is properties of a physical universe, for entropy? I didn't mean this to turn out this way. It's just starting to come out. I can feel it. Here it comes.

So, the second law of thermodynamics is called entropy. And that means that all things are going from an ordered state to a chaotic state. It means that the universe, including your body, sad to say, not your body, my body, is going from an ordered state to a chaotic state. We would say it this way, the moment we're born, we begin to die. That's based on the second law of thermodynamics. Things are going from an ordered state to a disordered state. In other words, you buy a brand new car, and by the time you get it home, some nuts and bolts have fallen off of it. How did that happen? You can notice this. No, no nuts and bolts ever screw themselves on tighter. They always unscrew themselves. That's a good way to remember that. So, listen. According to time in this physical realm, time, you can manipulate time now. You can move time in a laboratory. And light, what about light? We now know that light, the great constant in the physical realm, is slowing down. Light slowing down. What does this mean? It means the Bible's been true all along. That there's an end coming. Even if you don't believe in God, according to science, there's an end coming. Science speaks of it. The Bible warns about it. Or for us as believers, it encourages about it. How are we encouraged? Because the believer is the only one, as I said, who really knows what time it is. You and I live on ET time, not Eastern time, but eternal time. Because heaven, listen to this, heaven is eternal. The lives that we are now living is such a huge contradiction. We live in this physical realm. We have to deal with time all the time, but yet we're living in light of eternity. I hope you're living like that, in light of eternity. Now, that doesn't mean you don't invest. Doesn't mean you don't brush your teeth. It doesn't mean that you don't mow your lawn. You got to do those things. But we don't know when the end is going to be. But we do know this. I will not always be around. Neither will you. Young people have a hard time with what I just said because they feel like they're going to live forever. You're not. And there's going to come an end because time in this physical realm plays out that role upon our bodies. But glory be to God. You cannot go to heaven and say, "What time is it in heaven?" It's timeless. Isn't it beautiful? And it's not a lot of time. The world sees God as some old man with a long white beard. That's impossible. That would be an old man, meaning there's time. And a long white beard means there's age. He's eternal. The Bible says Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. No time in heaven. I can't wait to get there. Are you excited to go there? I can't wait to get there, man. It's going to be great. Could happen today. Think about that. The Lord could come back today, or I could drop dead right now. He said, "Oh, pastor, don't say that." Okay, you could drop dead right now. Are you ready to meet God? Think about that. What a remarkable thing.

And you, I, you and I, if we love one another, we are to call one another to wake up because the Bible says here that knowing the time that now it is high time that we awake out of sleep. This is a remarkable theological statement. You might want to write it down because this means that man without God is asleep spiritually. You ever seen someone in, in a coma without God? The spirit that is within you is in a state of coma. The Bible tells us when the spirit of God quickens you, you become alive spiritually, and he makes us alive. Now, as believers, we are to encourage one another and give attention to one another, calling each other to wake up. Why? Because it's high time that we awake out of sleep. And that's a powerful truth. Time is an important thing.

Now, I'll give you a verse, but I'll, I'll just give you the verse reference, but then I'll skip over to the second one. First of all, Jesus said in Acts 1:7 and 8, Jesus said, and I'll paraphrase it. The disciples asked Jesus, "Awesome. Now that you're risen from the dead, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" They, they knew the right question to ask. They, they didn't have the right time. Jesus answered and said, "Listen, we got a lot of work." I'm paraphrasing. Got a lot of work to do. That's not for now. You're going to, you're going to go wait for the Holy Spirit's power, and I'm going to send you out to the ends of the earth." Why? Because 2,000 years ago, he told the disciples, "We got a lot of work to do, guys. You got to go and preach this word all around the world. That's the job."

But listen to, look at First Thessalonians chapter 5. I love this. Paul says, "Oh, remember numerous times Jesus will say, 'Nobody knows the day or the hour of the coming of the Son of Man.'" You got, right? You have, you, you've read that. Nobody knows the day or the hour. We do not know the day or the hour. And we're not going to know the day or, or the hour. Don't let somebody say, "Oh, but God showed me a dream last night, and I'm going to write a book. It's about the day and the hour God showed me." Listen, run away from that person. Jesus says, "Nobody knows the day or the hour." Listen to what Paul says concerning the times and the seasons. That's different than day or hour. Concerning the times, the years and the seasons. It starts out broad, concerning the times, years, and seasons, months. Paul says, "I don't have to write to you. You'll have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night." But listen, that's not going to happen to you. He says, "For when they say that's not you. You're not a they. You're not a they and you're not a them. For when they say peace and safety, sudden destruction comes upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they shall not escape. But you, verse four, brethren, are not in darkness. You're spiritually alive now. So that this day should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of day, sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as others do. Don't be comatose, but let us watch and be sober."

And to be watching and to be sober, that is spiritually level. It means that we're going to be loving one another. It doesn't mean you go enroll in some seminary to be, to get your doctorate in theology. That's not what it means. Who needs that? I'm not, listen, I'm not downplaying learning. What I'm saying is your learning and your knowledge means nothing to us unless you're loving one another. What would it matter if you've achieved this, that, and the other thing, and you're just gross to be with, and you exhibit nothing of what you suppose that God has done in your life? Oh, God loves me. Does he now? Then why is it so rare, if never, you're loving toward other people? How can that be? You think God loves you. You know God loves you, but you can't return that love to others. This is a serious situation where it looks like you don't really know what you're talking about because we don't want to hear theology. We want to experience it. And I'm not talking about bells and whistles and little shivers up your spine and goosebumps. I'm talking about love. Real rolling up your sleeves love for one another.

Listen, you heard Ashley give her, uh, announcement about reaching these young kids in public school. There's an opportunity. You say, "Yeah, but she needs all this money." Understood. But listen, she's going to be getting $10 from me. You say, "$10? That's ridiculous." Well, then give $20. Here's what happens. If all of us gave a dollar, she would be able to meet her budget for the LA County and Orange County school outreaches. Think about that for a moment. That's love in action. Say, "Well, I can't go to the schools." No. So send her. Amen. I can't go to Africa for the outreach in Mali. No, I can't either. Send somebody. You see, it's love.

And so, he says, "And do this knowing that the time is that it's high time." This word "high time" is an amazing statement because it means that it's a designated time. It's a particular time. It's a time that has been known to God, and it's a time that God has revealed to us. We are now living, according to the apostle, for the last 2,000 years. Watch. For the last 2,000 years, the apostle announced, "It's high time." You said, "Well, Jack, you just, you just contradicted yourself. If he said it 2,000 years ago that now's the time and it's high time that we wake out of sleep, then how does that apply now?" You remember in eternity, there is no time. In this world, there is time. Conclusion. If he said it back then 2,000 years ago, how much closer are we to it now? We are more responsible now than those then, what they were living. And you and I live much further down the timeline in chronology. And yet you and I are living in light of eternity. And it's a beautiful thing if you think about that. But I do believe that we as believers know what time it is. We, uh, we know that the time is spiritually valued. And so when we look at the news, for example, uh, we know what time it is. I believe the believing Christian who's looking at the world through the lens of the Bible, uh, they see, they understand, they look at things. And number one thing is this. Don't you and I want as many men and women and boys and girls to join us in heaven forever as possible? Amen. It's always that way. No matter what it is. Listen, this church holds elected officials accountable for their authority, for their position. That doesn't mean we want to establish a kingdom on earth, that ain't going to happen. We want as, as much as they want us out of here, we want out of here more. But in the meantime, in earth time, we're going to do the right thing. We're going to stand for what's right. And we are going to be salt and light because this is what Christ has called us to do, with all the while looking up.

Have you, what is that lizard? I always get them messed up. What is the lizard that has the independent eyeballs with the independent brain or the one eye looking all over this? Is it a chameleon or is it a, I don't know. It's the one with the tongue and it, it's it's like a, it's able to, you know what I'm talking about? How can you know? I don't even know what I'm talking about. It's the, it's the, oh, it's, he moves real slow. That's a chameleon. And his, his eyes go like this. Look, his one eye, one's looking over here. Have you seen him? He's looking at, forget it. But as a Christian, we need to be like that. We need to have one eye up in heaven. And the other eye, the other eye here with one another. And we're living like that. When you, God will show you what lizard I'm talking about. But he's, his, his brain's divided and he can see these things differently. So is the Christian. We live right now, but we live with eternity in mind. That's our goal. And if we're going to be doing that, we're going to be actually deploying love and giving attention to one another. And one of those things that I think is very time-sensitive is in 2 Corinthians chapter 6. It's beautiful regarding high time, urgent time. 2 Corinthians chapter 6 tells us, "We then, as Paul is speaking, we then as workers together with him, that is God, also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain." In other words, experience his salvation. Please do and run with it. For he says, God says, "In an acceptable time, I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you." Paul goes on, "Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation." You know what's awesome about this? It's, it's technical, but I think you would appreciate this. This is Isaiah 49:8. But what's amazing is Paul here is quoting verbatim, not from the Hebrew Bible. He's quoting from the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. This is exactly what it says in the Greek language. In other words, you say, "Well, who cares?" We do. For this reason, Paul is using the street language of the day to speak a biblical truth so that all would understand. The book of Heb, or the Hebrew Bible, says it clear enough, a little bit different, but clear enough here. Paul, a Jew, Hebrew, is speaking to the Corinthians, pagans, and he's using the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, which preceded Paul, uh, by several centuries. And what's his argument now? How about this, church? Now is the acceptable time for you to consider living forever with Christ, forgiven of your sins. Given a new life and a new meaning. And, oh, by the way, don't receive that grace in vain. Join us and let's tell the world together that sins can be forgiven. Life can be lived all over again. God can give you security of eternal life in heaven. And when you finish your course in this world, Christ receives you into his glory. What's better than that? What's better than that? There's nothing better than that. No.

So, for the believer, we're looking forward to the running out of time. You know, time is not working against us as Christians. I hope you don't feel like that. Now, I must say this. Um, I lament, and then I have to trust God. I have to repent of this, but I'm just being honest with you. Um, I, I get tired sometimes, and it's like, I'd love to, I'd love to do that. I'd love to do this. I'd love to do that. And then my body says, "Yeah, you just keep dreaming." Um, but the amazing thing about it is the problem, the, what's the word? The dichotomy, the split takes place. My body subject to the woes of this world, and then my spirit is the one that's saying, "Let's do this." I'll be honest with you. Yeah, I've been talking for months internally in this church. We've got to do outreaches. We've got, we're going to be doing tremendous things. That whole thing is, is going to, it's going to be amazing. But in the meantime, let's go out there and preach the gospel on the streets of Palisades. Let's get out there and eat in Canyon. Let's just stand on top of a tree, climb a tree, preach the gospel. Let's do it. And so, we're working on doing that. But then when we start to sit down to talk about, okay, today we're planning on doing the outreach, uh, discussion about the fire victims, my, my heart shows up going, "Yay!" And my body's like, "Really? This, in this lifetime?" You ever feel like that? And so for me, as a believer, I can't wait to get to eternity. But the problem with me now is this Chronos, the time that is wearing upon me. And, um, I want to use what I have left for the glory of God. And, um, we want to be sensitive to that.

The second thing is this, everybody, is also verses 11 to 12, is that for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. And in the night, it is far spent. So, if I owe you my attention, I'm going to be encouraging you to get ready, to get ready. You and I are to encourage each other to get ready. When he says that our salvation, I hope, I hope this warms your heart. For now, our salvation. Do you know what's implied here? That you own it. It's your salvation. Can you all hear me? This is important. If you have salvation, you're not going to lose it. You're not going to lose it. The problem is, some of you think you have it and you don't. And then people wake up around you to find out you didn't have it. They thought you had it. The Bible says in First John, "These things have been written that you might know you have eternal life." You need to make sure in your own life, do you really, really know the Lord Jesus Christ in the sense that you are the sinner and He is the Redeemer? That He is God and you're not? That He did it all and you can do nothing but turn to Him and love Him and thanks for all that He's done. That's it. That He died on the cross for you because you couldn't buy your way into heaven. And then He rose again from the dead to sanctify your life forever.

This is so good because, you know what? When we're in heaven, can you imagine being like 2,000 years? We've been in heaven 4,000 years, and you trip over, you know, you trip over some tin can and a vulgar word comes out of your mouth, and then Gabriel says, "Come over here, you're out." You know that's not going to happen. Aren't you happy about that? I thought there'd be an amen to that. Yeah. Thank you. That's really not heartwarming at all when you got to ask for it. Anyway, good try. We will be completely redeemed for all time and eternity. And by the way, we will not be in heaven like this. We won't be in heaven saying, "Oh man, how long we, how long we've been up here?" Oh, it's a long time. There's no keeping of time. It doesn't exist because time's physical. Isn't it fascinating? It's physical in eternity. It's not physical, but it's more real than what you and I are living in right now. See, what does that mean? Like, we can, like, shake hands, touch each other. Can we give each other a hug? If you can do that here, why can't you do it there? It's going to be better there than it is here. What? Listen, whatever is of this world is going to pale in comparison compared to what God has in store for us. The Bible says, "Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, neither has it entered the mind of man, the things that God has prepared for those who love Him." He's talking about heaven forever is going to be awesome. And I can't wait to go. Yes. You're so, you guys. Yes. But it's your salvation. It's mine. And the Bible tells us, I love it. We're closer now to the fulfillment of it. So, wait, do we have it or not? Yes, you have it. But the realization of it, the totality of it. So keep this in mind regarding salvation. Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Technically, what? He died on the cross and rose again from the dead for our justification. Okay, what does that mean? It means Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Rose again from the dead for our justification, meaning that none of our past life is no longer held accountable to us if we repent of our sins to Him. He's the great Justifier. Well, what could be better than that? The next word is sanctification. The moment you come to Christ, you're justified. And from that moment on, you live like you and I are living right now, called sanctification. See, what does that mean? Means the spirit of God every day in your life is working out more and more the image of Jesus in you. So think about you. Are you more like Jesus than you were five years ago? Are you more like Jesus than you were 10 years ago, three years ago? Think of it. Because I know how it is. We all know how this is. We kind of feel like we're not growing. It's like, and we get frustrated. Man, I wish I was growing. You know, your little kids, you know the door. Do you guys have a door at your house that's got all the markings of your kids having grown up and then now the grandkids are doing it, carving into the wall, setting dates? You notice when you're around them all the time, you don't see them growing. They're just there. But if they're gone for a month and they come back, you go, "Whoa." And they go, "What?" To them, nothing's happened. To you, a lot's happened. I think that's true regarding our spiritual growth, too. I think we look at each other and say, "Man, you should, you should have grown up by now." Or, "You should, I should have come along a little further with you." I think God someday is going to look at us and say, "Man, look what my spirit has done in your life with my word to the glory of my son. Look how much you've grown." And you graduate. You graduate. I believe this. The Bible says, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints," His believers. I think when you and I die in this world, it's, it's because we outlive our body. It's like, and you know what? Spiritually, the inside comes out too big. Time to go. I got to die. I got to keep growing. I got to die. I've grown. Can't go anymore. Time to go to heaven. We all walk around this world, "Oh, so-and-so died." And like, what are you crying for? Are you into heaven? If we only knew, we would have hung on to her, hung on to him and gone with him. Listen, for those of you who are followers of Jesus Christ, Jesus said, "You're born again by the spirit of God." Listen, this is as close to hell as we'll ever get right here. This world. If you're feeling a little left out right now, then you can join us any, any time now. You can believe in Him, too. Trust Him, too.

I want to read to you St. Augustine. Augustine of Hippo. I want you to hear him. This is, uh, we're going back nearly, what, 17, 600 years ago. Um, "Oh, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. How can I free myself from these terrible urges within me that drive me to the things that hurt me?" I want you to look at that for a moment. This is coming from one of the greatest theologians of all time. And he cries out, "Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. What about tomorrow?" Have you noticed if you put it off until tomorrow, it never happens. "I'm going to get on that tomorrow. I'll take care of that tomorrow." And then tomorrow, you say, "I'll do it first thing in the morning." Have you noticed that? "I'm going to start my diet tomorrow." "How can I free myself from these terrible urges?" You cannot. That's what he learned. You can't. The urges that drive me to the things that hurt me. Do you find yourself hurting yourself, so to speak, self-inflicted wounds? Trying to do your life without Jesus? You don't have to do that anymore.

But concerning the times in which you and I live in, think for a moment. God wants to deliver you instantly from sin that plagues your life. He wants to give you a new life, and He also wants to turn you on to eternity because, glory be to God, this time in this timeline is not all there is. Have you, have you talked to any New Age people? They always, there's, they're always around. If you, if you, if you, if you've never seen one, you can, at least you can go to Laguna Beach. You'll see some there. If you really want to see them in full, full color, go to Sedona, Arizona. Beautiful place. But people are walking around with pyramids on their heads, and they're putting crystals in their navel, in their belly button, in the lotus position on a rock, and they're going, and it's like, and what are you doing? "I'm converging with the harmonics of the world of the universe." Great. Awesome. What? So, what are we do? What's going to happen next? "We're going to become one with the universe." Okay. Like, are we going to feel it? When is it going to happen? "Oh, you have to imagine it. You have to imagine it." Okay. And then what's going to happen? "The world's going to get better." That's the message. What's happening? The world's getting better. It's just getting better. It is. Yes. Don't you see it? Trying real hard. Uh, and they'll say, "It's getting better. It's all getting better." And then what? Then what is going to happen? We're going to reach this level of man becoming one and everything becomes great. Isn't it interesting? The same people that do that because they don't have the gospel of Jesus Christ liberating them in their heart, they do their harmonic convergence and then they self-medicate. Have you noticed the correlation between the two? Peace with the world. All is one. Give me some drugs. Have you noticed it's true? All is love. It's all peace. I need drugs. It's so funny. Sad, but funny. Jesus says you don't need drugs. That's right. Well, how am I going to cope? Oh, He'll get you through, friend. He'll give you a peace. The Bible says that passes all human understanding. And we get ready to meet Him. Christ is coming. The Bible is telling us here in these two verses that it's all about the night being far spent. What a great word. It means all of these millennia of time man has suffered and the world has suffered under the yoke of sin. The night's almost over. Isn't it beautiful news? Christ is coming. The night is almost over. And for the believer, either we go up in the Lord together in the rapture, or we die individually. It doesn't matter. We still go home. Amen. The night is far spent, everybody. It's almost over. Glory awaits.

I want you to hear something. But before you hear this, it's C.S. Lewis talking to us that will give you a time to prepare your brain to hear from such an intellect. But my daughter showed me the other day. I, I need to repost this. My daughter showed me, it's perfect timing because graduation season. This young man, he's texting while he's driving, and he blows an intersection, and it's so graphic. It is so powerful. It really, really bothered me. And then I said to my daughter, I said, "Everybody has to see this because it's really disgusting. This kid graduating from school, he's free, right? All right. It's the summer." Texting, looking down, looking down, and gets t-boned and is in a vegetative state for the rest of his life. Texting in a second, as it were, in a twinkling of an eye, it ended for him. Well, in a twinkling of an eye, the Bible says it's going to begin for us. But we need to be ready and understand what the scripture is announcing to us. Listen to C.S. Lewis's challenge to you and I to pick a side now while you can, and to get ready now while you can, because you can't get ready later.

Okay, listen to this. "Another possible objection is this. Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it that He is not strong enough? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force. We do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely. I do not suppose you and I would have thought much of a Frenchman who waited till the Allies were marching into Germany and then announced he was on our side. God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the Author walks onto the stage, the play is over. God is going to invade. All right. But what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else, something it never entered your head to conceive, comes crashing in. Something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left. For this time it will be God without disguise. Something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you could choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing. It will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment."

is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it. Wow.

God will not will not come next time in disguise. Think about that. God came the first time in disguise. He was wrapped in human skin, born in a little humble stable in Bethlehem. God came because the mission was for him to be our atonement, our sacrifice for all the sins of the world.

The Bible said the second time he comes, he will not be disguised. The Bible tells us that the sun will flee from his presence. It will diminish from the brightness of his face. Can you imagine that? When the when the spiritual, eternal meets the temporal physical. Everything that you and I think and feel that is stable, real, and lasting turns into dust in eternity arrives.

And I leave you with this. The attention you and I owe one another is in verse 12. And we're to help each other to be looking up, to be looking up. It's okay to live life in the here and now. Of course. Just keep your eye on eternity. The Bible says the day is at hand. Wow.

Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness. Throw them off. Heave is the word. Heave it off. What is what? the the things of darkness, the things that tend have a tendency to wrap around your ankles and pull you into dark places, dark things, the Bible says, cast them off, heave them off from you, violently seize them, whatever it might be, anything that would keep you from looking up.

Can you Don't answer please out loud. Can you with all assurance knowing that we're not perfect? None of us are perfect. But down deep inside, if you could choose perfect, you would be perfect. You strive to be perfect for this one reason. You love him. And you don't want to offend him. And because we're not, God's grace comes in. Do you hear me? His grace mitigates all that for us. But we love him. We don't do it to earn his favor. We've got it through Christ. We don't do it because it's the moral thing to do or it's the law. We don't do it for that reason. We do it because he first loved us and he gave himself for us and that he purchased for us the ticket to eternity.

Lisa and I were dating. So that puts it back in late 1870s and we went to uh the Universal Amphitheater in those days and some guy was an opening band for the band we went to go see and I think his name always get this messed up so don't hold me to this because I've lost track but uh I think his name was uh either Eddie Eddie Money or Eddie Rabbit or Bunny Money or Bunny Rabbit, but he he had a song called Two Tickets to Paradise and you know that song now, but nobody knew it back then except a little bit and he was the opening act and the guy they introduced him like you know there's like 10,000 people there but they introduced the guy by the way what is his real name. Eddie Money, ladies and gentlemen, you know live in Los Angeles tonight. Eddie Money and people like It was really embarrassing. So, the music starts up and he comes running out from behind the stage and grabs the microphone and he sings this song called Two Tickets to Paradise. I think that's the guy. Is it still the guy? And he opens up with that song. I've got two tickets to Paradise. and he Good evening, LA. He wraps himself up in the cord of the microphone, falls flat on his face. The crowd goes crazy, screaming and applauding. The guy had two tickets to paradise, but he couldn't even keep himself off the floor. It was so comically amazing.

Listen, Jesus has two tickets to paradise. He was crucified to buy the ticket. And he gives it to you. He's got more than two tickets. And the fact of the matter is if if you would only look to him, as the prophet Isaiah said, look unto him. Look unto the Lord. Look unto him and be ye saved, all ye earth. Wow. Can you look? Said, I'm not going to look. Come on, look. Nope, not going to do it. Just Just give him a look. And maybe your heart today would be one where you're you may be willing to look. I I encourage you to open your eyes. The very one who you've argued, you've tried to argue out of your life is the very one that is your healing. He is your joy. He is your salvation. And the fact of the matter is is that all those works of darkness, they don't have to own you anymore. The stuff that you're ashamed of, give it to him. And then the scripture says, "But put on the armor of light."

I'm going to ask you to stand. We're going to do this right now in our prayer in our closing time together. You say, "Jack, how do I do this? You just said it. How do I do it?" This is good question. This is what we're going to do. You know how you know how you put off the darkness? There's only one way. You pray it off. And and by the way, that doesn't mean you have to, you know, you you have to pray 20 21 hours a day and then it like No, no, no, no. You cry out to him every time a temptation comes into your life. Every time that thing starts to arise in your mind, you can say, "Lord, in Jesus name, I'm asking you to take it away from me, God. I'm not strong enough for it. Jesus, help me now. I need you to help me." Call upon his name. Call upon his name.

So let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we come before you now as one people and we're asking you, Lord, that you would now come down upon our lives as we right now in in in our all clumsiness and with all awkwardness, Lord, we would lift up to you and pray off from ourselves to you. Lord, take it. Please remove it. And that is Lord, these things of darkness that have plagued our lives. Thinking that either it's too bad for you to forgive or as a Christian, it's just something I guess I have to put up with till the day I die. Not true. Lord, you said right here in your word, we cast the works of darkness to you. And Lord, we also put on the armor of light. We ask you, Father God, as we pray off one and pray on the other, we pray for the helmet of salvation. We pray for the sword of the spirit. We pray, Lord God, now for the shield of faith. We pray for the belt of truth. We pray, Lord God, for our feet to be prepared with the gospel of peace. We pray, Lord God, the breastplate of righteousness upon our lives. God, please, we pray from this moment on, may we walk, live, move, breathe in being a people of prayer to experience the constant pushing off of the darkness, drawing closer to the light, and being ready to owe one another always love, attention. you. May we love each other just as though we were loving you in Jesus name. And all God's people said, "Amen." God bless you, church. God bless you.