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Romans 9-16

Wake Up

Gary Wright · Sunday, 16 November 2025 · Romans 13:11-14 · 38:09 · 4,720 words

Romans S30 · 13:11-14 Burton

Listen to this message

The speaker interprets Romans 13:8‑14, explaining that believers carry an ongoing debt of love to God and to every person, even enemies. He shows that loving others fulfills the Ten Commandments, because love expressed horizontally flows from the vertical love God has placed in us. The message urges listeners to wake up, put on Christ, and keep their thoughts captive to Him. It invites those who have never trusted Christ to believe, receive the Holy Spirit, and begin loving as He loves.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

love 78 loan 8 put 34 borrow 7 wake 13 armor 9 besides 7 neighbor 12 commandment 12 money 11 rogers 4 light 13

Topics

Faith 3 The Holy Spirit 3 Salvation 3 The Law 3 Sin 2 Obedience 2 Spiritual Gifts 1 Election & Predestination 1 Government & Authority 1 The Flesh 1 Atonement & Sacrifice 1 Sanctification 1 Love 1

Scripture referenced 23

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 12:1-2 0:00 Romans 12:3-8 0:55 Romans 12:9-12 1:18 Romans 13 2:42 Romans 13 2:44 Romans 13:8 3:04 Romans 13:7 3:29 Psalms 37:21 6:33 1 Corinthians 16:14 8:18 Romans 13:9 8:35 Matthew 22:38-39 11:46 Romans 8:3-4 14:27 Romans 5:5 15:42 Romans 5:11-12 16:06 Romans 13:11 16:25 Romans 13:12 24:06 Romans 13:12 24:16 Ephesians 6 30:18 Romans 8:6 31:48 Romans 12:2 31:57 1 Peter 1:13 32:06 Philippians 2 32:21 Matthew 22 32:30

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

So in the last few, Paul's been writing about since Romans chapter 12 verses 1 and 2

about being a living sacrifice.

Once we received his mercy, which is salvation,

there's other mercies involved there.

There's actually quite a few.

But because we've received salvation from him,

that we are to be a living sacrifice for him.

Okay?

So from then on, a living sacrifice is really all about love.

It's about a vertical love we have for the Lord

and a horizontal love because of this vertical love we have for the Lord

or the Lord has for us as well.

We spread that out in the world.

We let the love that we've experienced through Jesus into the world.

That's the living sacrifice.

And in Romans 12 verses 3 through 8,

the Lord tells us,

he gives us a spiritual gift in order to share this love with others.

We're to use it in the church.

Honestly, the spiritual gifts can even be used outside of this building and they should be.

But the spiritual gift is all about love.

And then in Romans 12, 9 through 12, 21,

Paul shared with us how to fulfill this law of love that we've received from the Lord.

That we're to love.

We're to love those in the other fellow believers.

We're to love people outside this building that aren't believers.

And get this, we're even supposed to love our enemies.

And this is a sacrificial type of thing

where we don't require anything in return to help somebody out,

including our enemies.

And it's difficult, right?

But then last week we learned about the law of love,

when it comes to respecting authority, right?

We had all of our state and local officials here.

And what a blessing that was.

Did you love that?

I love that.

They were here and they were worshiping with us.

It was fantastic.

But we have an obligation as believers,

because of the love of Christ,

to honor our people that serve in the government,

whether we agree with them or not, right?

Unless they're going against God's word.

And that was chapter 13, 1 through 7.

Today we're going to be in chapter 13, 8 through 14,

if you have your Bibles.

The scripture will also be on the screen.

So not only is love obedient to the authority in the world,

but love is obedient to God.

And we're going to see that in these first few verses.

Let's look first at Romans 13, verse 8.

Paul says,

Now when Paul...

First, I need to let you know this.

In the previous verse, verse 7, it says,

Speaking of the officials, the government and people in authority.

Taxes whom taxes are owed.

Revenue whom revenue is owed.

Respect who respect is owed.

Honor to whom honor is owed.

So then Paul, the very next thing he says is,

Oh, no one, anything.

So it seems to contradict what he's saying there.

But we can pay respect.

And it's not like a thing.

It's really love.

And what Paul says is this love for each other is not like a loan.

So when Paul...

Like a loan of money.

So when Paul says,

Oh, no one, anything.

He is really not speaking of debt of money.

Okay?

He's not.

Because the scripture...

And sometimes you've maybe even heard it taught that way that we shouldn't have debt.

But the scripture nowhere, New Testament or old, forbids borrowing or lending money.

As a matter of fact, I don't know about you, but if I didn't have a mortgage,

I wouldn't have a home because I couldn't afford it.

Right?

Right?

Maybe you're in the same boat.

I could...

If I didn't have a car loan, I wouldn't be able to drive...

I wouldn't have a car or I would have a lot different car than what I have now.

Probably not a reliable one.

The Bible does, however, warn against debt that's over our head.

It's okay to have a loan.

It's okay to have a mortgage if we can afford that.

But to go over our head or to borrow money...

I'm going to try to do well with this word.

I have a hard time saying that.

We don't want to borrow money that way.

Because what happens when we borrow money or borrow over our head,

we become a slave to that loan.

We can't afford it.

And what happens, that loan becomes the focus of our life

because we work more to pay the loan.

And instead of focusing on God, we're worried about the loan

because we can't afford it and it makes us a slave.

You've been there?

I know as a younger man, and I've been there.

But what Paul is talking about here when he...

What Paul means is that debt should be managed, still speaking of money,

that it should be manageable and we should be making our payments.

Matter of fact, in Psalms 37 verse 21, it says,

The wicked borrows but does not pay back,

but the righteous is generous and gives.

Okay?

And I promise you, this sermon is not about money.

I just wanted to cover that.

But our payment should be made on time.

Our payment should be made on time.

Our mortgage payment should be made on time.

And I realize hardships come sometimes and we have to do different things.

But we should be able to, when we borrow money,

we should be able to have a plan to pay it back and pay it off at some point.

I mean, it's kind of freedom when you do pay something off.

You ever paid a car off?

Oh yeah, it's great, isn't it?

You've been paying this payment, all of a sudden you got all...

What am I going to do with this?

Right?

But...

That we should always be paying on.

This is what Paul's actually talking about.

I kind of got on a rabbit trail there, sorry.

The debt that Paul is talking about, that we should never pay off,

that we should always owe, is loving one another.

If we're believers and we've experienced the vertical love of God,

we should be sharing that love all the time.

It is our debt.

It's what we owe and we should want to do that.

Here it is.

I'm going to tell you again.

It's sacrificial and it is a choice, even as believers,

whether we're going to love others.

Put them before ourselves.

Be that living sacrifice.

1 Corinthians 16, 14 says,

Let all that you do be done in love.

When we love one another, we fulfill the law.

And Paul writes about it in Romans chapter 13, verses 9,

and 10.

He says,

For the commandments, and he's speaking,

he's referencing the 10 commandments in the Old Testament here.

He says,

For the commandments, you shall not commit adultery,

you shall not murder, you shall not steal,

you shall not covet,

and any other commandment are summed up in this word.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Love does not...

There's no wrong to a neighbor.

Therefore, love is fulfilling the law.

So Paul's saying, if we love one another,

we're fulfilling these commands in the 10 commandments.

And let me explain that.

When he talks about when we break these laws,

we are hurting someone else.

We are hurting our neighbor.

I mean, you're not going to commit adultery or murder

or...

Or you're not going to steal anything

or want what someone else has without hurting someone else.

That is not love.

Sin, listen to this, is not victimless.

Sin hurts people.

It's not victimless.

All of these are not victimless.

If we truly are loving others,

we are naturally keeping these laws

that Paul is...

Mentioned here from the 10 commandments.

If we're loving people, we're not going to kill them.

If we're loving them, we're not going to steal from them.

So we're keeping the law.

There's a passage...

Well, first I need to talk about what a neighbor is.

You may have to be a certain age

to understand what I'm about to say here.

There used to be a kid's show on TV.

The guy's name was Mr. Rogers.

You ever heard of Mr. Rogers?

And he came on every day and he says,

won't you be...

He, my neighbor, he wanted everyone to be his neighbor.

And guess what?

Everyone that God's put in our path is our neighbor.

Those are the ones we're supposed to love.

If you're the person God puts in your path,

is your enemy who you despise?

Guess what?

You're to love your neighbor.

Everyone God puts in your path is your neighbor.

Jesus says this,

and he says,

he's basically saying the same thing

that Paul's saying here.

In Matthew 22, 38 and 39,

Jesus is asked,

what is the greatest commandment?

And Jesus gives two.

And he says this,

you shall love the Lord your God

with all your heart,

with all your soul,

and with all your mind.

This is the great and first commandment.

And the second is like it.

You shall love...

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Now listen to this next part.

On these two commands

depend all the law and the prophets.

Look, all the commandments

that we are required to follow

and from the Old Testament

are covered when we do these two things.

I would love to tell you that loving is easy,

but it's not always easy.

Especially when you're loving your enemies

or somebody who's in a relationship with you.

Or somebody who's not that great

and you don't really want to love them.

Right?

It's difficult.

And sometimes even loving your own family

can be difficult.

Can I get an amen there?

It can be difficult.

But listen, when we love...

So the Ten Commandments is broke down this way.

Right?

It starts off with

don't put any other gods before me.

Don't have idols.

Don't...

Put something else that you worship instead of me.

And don't take the Lord's name in vain.

That's this vertical love we've been talking about.

That's the first part of the Ten Commandments.

The second part is the horizontal love

that Paul's talking about here.

Because we have this,

we can love like this.

Because I'm going to tell you this right off.

We're not going to be able to love anybody

like Christ loved them

unless we have Christ.

Unless we're saved.

And we have the Holy Spirit living in our hearts

because we can only love sacrificially

through His power.

And the Holy Spirit is a His.

Guess what?

When we get saved,

He's the second person of the Trinity.

God lives in you.

It is His power that helps you to love.

Listen to these verses.

Romans 8, 3 and 4 says,

For God has done what the law weakened by flood.

The flesh could not do.

Let me explain this first.

The Israelites tried to keep the law

under their own strength.

And guess what?

They failed miserably over and over.

But the passage goes on and he says,

He did what the law couldn't do

by sending His own Son

in the likeness of sinful flesh

and for sin.

He condemned sin in the flesh

in order that the righteous requirement

of the law might be fulfilled in us

who walk not according to the flesh

but according to the Spirit.

God sent His Son Jesus to die on a cross.

And Jesus didn't stay dead.

He rose again.

And when we realize that He is the way,

the truth, and the life,

we're not getting to heaven without Him.

And we realize we're sinners

and we turn to Him.

We'll be saved.

And we will receive the Holy Spirit

and the truth.

The Holy Spirit will start to transform us.

And He will pour this love into us.

Romans 5.5 says,

And hope does not put us to shame

because God's love has been poured

into our hearts through the Holy Spirit

who has been given to us.

It is only through Him

that we can love sacrificially

and love like God loved.

Paul goes on in verse 11 and 12

and gives another reason

that our love,

that living a life of sacrificial love

as a Christian is so important.

This is Romans 13, 11, and 12.

He says,

Besides this, you know the time

that the hour has come

for you to wake from sleep.

For salvation is nearer to us now

than when we first believed.

The night is far gone.

The day is at hand.

So let us cast off the works of darkness

and put on the armor of light.

And you may hear this passage

and you may be thinking,

this is for people who don't know Christ

to come to Christ.

But who's Paul talking about here?

He's talking about believers.

And he's saying,

wake up, believers.

Wake up.

Because he uses some words here

that you have to understand.

He says the word besides.

He starts it off.

He says, besides this,

if you want to throw that back up there.

He says, besides this,

you know the time.

The word besides

forces us to look back

at the previous verses,

which is talking about love.

So he's saying, besides this,

what I've already told you,

that we're keeping,

by loving, we're keeping the commandments.

Besides that, you know the time.

And what do we mean by time?

The word know means

to be aware of,

of a fact.

And the word time here

does not mean like,

I hope he's done by 1130

or 12 o'clock, right?

Because I'm tired

and I want to go home.

But he's not talking about

a time like that.

He's talking about an error.

Okay?

He's talking about an error.

He's talking about the church age.

From the time that Jesus rose from the dead

to the time he returns.

There is a time there.

And that's the time Paul is talking about.

And he uses

references to this

when he says,

again, or when he talks about

the night is far gone,

he's talking about this error.

And when

he says,

the day is at hand,

he's talking about the return of Christ.

So really what Paul's saying is,

The age you currently live in,

the age you currently live in

you can share your salvation

when you can share the love of Christ.

And you can tell people

what the love of Christ is.

And that time where people can respond

and put their faith in Jesus,

he says, is far gone.

And he wrote this to,

what, the Romans 2,000 years ago?

He's urging us as believers,

wake up.

We're talking the difference

between eternal life

and eternal death.

Sometimes we get,

we get complacent as believers

and we just start going

through the motions of life

and we forget about what's

important. Paul's saying,

wake up, wake up, believer.

Show your faith.

He speaks with urgency to

Christians. And when he

talks about sleep, he's talking

about being unresponsive.

The state of unconsciousness.

The state of inactivity.

He's motivating us.

I hope it's motivating you

as a believer this morning.

He says, why the urgency?

Because salvation

is closer than it's ever been.

And that may be difficult

to understand, but when we talk

about salvation, we have to realize

that salvation really is

three different parts.

It's the part where

that we're sinners and we need

Christ and we come to him in faith.

That's called justification.

And I like to always say this,

just as if I've never sinned.

Because that's what happens.

God looks at us and he sees

the blood of Christ and it's just like

we've never sinned when we come

to him in faith, believing that he died

for our sins and that he rose from the dead.

The second part is this.

Sanctification.

Once the Lord, once we're saved,

we have that Holy Spirit I talked

about. And the Holy Spirit

us apart for Christ.

That means he's going to

begin transforming our lives

to look more like

Jesus as we continue

on this journey, walking

in faith. And the last one,

I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward

to this one. It's called justification.

It's when we're going to get to heaven

and we are going to be like

Christ. We're never going to be like

Christ completely until

So when he says,

your salvation is closer than

Before he's talking about

justification. Okay.

Kent Hughes, a Bible commentator,

he speaks of a little boy

whose family clock was

malfunctioning and the clock

chimed 15 times

and the little boy freaked out.

He ran to his mom and he said,

Mom, it's later than

it's ever been.

Right? That's what Paul's telling

us. Christian, wake up.

It's later than it's ever been.

Every day that goes by, we're

closer to Christ returning.

Wake up. Become

active. He's urging

Christians to be vigilant.

Help people and show

people the love of Christ

and share the gospel in the

world because the time

is running out. We don't know the day

or the hour. It could be tomorrow.

It could be a hundred years or a

thousand years from now. We don't know.

But it's closer than it's ever been.

And here's the other thing.

Not only are we talking about

the return of Christ here, but

if somebody dies and

don't know Christ, it

is too late for them.

There is an urgency here.

And Paul is

motivating us as believers

to step into this

and become active. Wake up from

your slumber and become

active. How do we do this?

Paul tells us in the next couple

verses. So he's going to tell

us that there's something

as believers that we need

to cast off.

It's like taking off.

Be like Superman. Taking off

his shirt. Taking something off.

Cast something off. And he says

this in Romans 13, 12

and 13. The night is far

gone. I'm going to read this scripture

again because I need to

reference it again. But verse 12.

The night is far gone. The day

is at hand. So then

let us cast off the works

of darkness and put

on the armor of light.

Let us walk properly as in

daytime. Not in orgies

and drunkenness. Not in sexual

immorality and sensuality.

Not in quarreling

and jealousy. Cast off

the works of darkness, Paul says, and

put on the armor of light.

We need to cast

off these things that Paul's talking about.

Like a lot of times

me as an early believer

I struggled with a lot of

things still. And God

was transforming me and I needed to

cast off those

things. I'm going to be honest. He's still

working in my life.

I'm not glorified yet. I'm still

a sinner and he's still

working in me. But we

need to cast off these things.

Why? Because

we are a chosen race.

First Peter says.

I forgot to put the reference here.

The first Peter

is it up there? Maybe I didn't send

it. But it says. I'm sorry.

I don't know the reference. Okay.

do nine. It says

but you are a chosen race

again speaking of believers

a royal priesthood

a holy nation. Why

are we holy? Only because of

our faith in Jesus Christ. A

people of his own possession

that you may proclaim the

excellencies of him who called you

out of darkness

into his marvelous

light. Once you were not

a people. Once you were

not a people. But now you

are God's people. Once

you had not received

mercy. But now you have

received mercy.

And we are

this royal priesthood. We're to proclaim

what he did. We're

supposed to not walk in

the darkness. When we talk about

darkness in scripture we're always

talking about a sinful

life. We're to walk in the

John he says if we walk

in the light as he is in the light we'll

have fellowship one with the

other. There's scriptures all about

dark and night. But

he says let us walk properly

as in daytime. That means

how we're pretending to act

on Sundays or how we act on

Sundays mornings is

how we should be living all

week. It is. And

Paul lists some of these

things that believers were

struggling with. I'm not really even going to get

into those. He talks about orgies and

drunkenness, sexual immorality,

sensuality, quarreling

and jealousy. Believers

are struggling with this.

And we cannot participate

in these if we're going

to share the love

of Christ. We cannot

live in the darkness

and share the light

because we're not in the light.

There's a really good verse I

believe about putting on the armor

of light. This is a really

good verse understanding

what it looks like

to walk properly in

the love of Christ. Colossians

3, 12 and 14.

It says put on then

as God's chosen ones

holy and beloved, compassionate

hearts, kindness,

humility, meekness

Bearing with one another

and if one has a complaint

against another

forgive each other as

the Lord has forgiven

you. So you

also may forgive

and above all put

on love which binds

everything together

in perfect harmony.

That's what it means to

walk in the light. That was so inspiring.

Thank you for that. Paul goes

on in the last verse here, verse

14 and he says, he

just talked about putting on the armor of light

but then he says put on the

Lord Jesus Christ and make

no provision for

flesh to gratify its

desires. Put on

Christ. It's like putting on a

new suit. And I have to think of Mr.

Rogers again. Juby, my neighbor

what's the first thing he did when he came

into his house? He changed clothes.

He took off the old and he put

on the new. That's what it means

to put on Christ. We're not

supposed to be living the old way Christians.

We're supposed to wake up

and put on the new sweater.

The slippers were to

put on Christ. What a great

example he was. Putting on

Christ is not just salvation.

It's letting the Holy

Spirit transform us

from the inside out.

It reminds me of

the armor of God in Ephesians

chapter 6, 11 through

18. I'm not going to read that

at this point but I

encourage you to read that. Put on the armor

of God. That's really

what it's about. But the last

thing Paul talks about

as far as putting on Christ

he says make no provisions

for flesh to gratify

its desires. The word

provision means to

think. And what Paul's saying

here is believers

tempted by many things

and it's not a sin to be tempted

but when we dwell on that

and we make plans to do that

we're allowing the mind to

control us. And guess what? When you do that

and I'm speaking from experience

that is probably

where you're headed. Josh

Clark told me that

he talked to the high school students

this week about where they're looking

is where they're going.

And he had an example where they had to look

at something and throw the ball to them.

And the kids thought, oh I can throw the

ball to you when you're not looking. But guess

what? They couldn't. Where our mind

is focused is where we're

going. The mind is

what's going to lead us to sin.

Romans 8, 6 says

to set the mind on the flesh

is death. But to set the mind

on the spirit is life and peace.

Romans 12, 2 says

don't be conformed to this

world. Be transformed by the

renewal of your mind.

1 Peter 1, 13 says therefore

preparing your mind for action

and being sober minded

on grace that will be

brought to you at the

revelation of Christ. It's

the mind. Philippians 2,

5 says have this

mind among yourself which

is yours in Christ Jesus.

37 which we already read.

He said and Jesus said

to them you shall love the Lord

with God with all your heart

with all your soul and all

your mind. Because

our mind is going to lead us astray

if we let it. Sin starts

in the mind. And when we think

about it, when we fantasize about

it and we desire it

we're going to act on it.

Instead the scripture gives us

an alternative. Philippians

4, 8 says finally

brothers whatever is true

whatever is honorable

whatever is just, whatever

is pure, whatever is loving

whatever is commendable

if there is any excellent

if there is anything worthy

of praise, think

about these things. And we're

to make every

thought captive to Christ.

10, 5. We destroy

arguments of every

raised against the knowledge of God

and take every thought

captive to obey Christ.

I'm going to tell you, I struggle

with temptation just like you do.

And sometimes it

becomes really difficult.

And I'm going to encourage you with this.

that last verse. Make

every thought captive

to Christ. Every time

I'm struggling with temptation

I go to that.

And then this is the second thing

I do. Lord would you help

me make my thoughts

obey you. To obey your

son. Help me. And I

do that every time that thought comes to

my mind. Sometimes it's a battle.

And I wish it wasn't but it is.

The Lord will help us.

We ask him

and he will help us make our thoughts

captive. Otherwise

we're going to end up where we don't

want to be. It's a battle.

That's why it's called the armor

of God. And that's why it's called the

armor of light. Believers

we have a debt of love

to others. We've experienced

God vertically and we're to share

that love horizontally.

And when we owe money

to something, when we see

a person, what's the first thing? If I

owed Paul money, what's the first thing I

would think of when I've seen her?

Oh man, I owe her five bucks.

And I don't have it. Right?

And we have the debt

of love. When God puts

somebody in our life, the first thing we should

think of is, how can I

share the love of Christ

with this person?

How can I tell him,

tell this person about the

wonderful things that he shared?

How can I share

the mercies that he's

given me with this person?

That's the first thing we should think

of. We don't experience people

by coincidence. God

puts them there for us to talk

to. Just like Mr. Rogers,

not only do we have this

debt of love, but we need

to change our clothes. We need to

love our neighbor

and put on this,

put on Christ. Paul

is urgently calling us

believers. Wake up! Wake

up! The world needs us.

He's given us a mission

and we have to wake up and put on

Christ in order to do that

mission. This morning, maybe you're here

this morning, never put your faith

in Christ. Maybe you want to love

people like Christ loves them. I want to

share this with you. You can't do it

putting our faith in Jesus.

We need Him. We need the Spirit

in us. And how do we do that?

To understand that we're sinners

in need of Jesus.

Believe that He died in your place

on the cross, that He rose

again. When you truly

believe that, follow Him.

Put on Christ. He will begin

to transform you and you will be able to

show the love of Christ

horizontally because you've experienced

Him vertically.

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