Romans

Romans 13, it's page 11 40 in the church Biles. Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except that which god has established. The authorities that exist have been established by god. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what god has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right.

But for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the 1 in authority, then do what is right, and you will be commended. For the 1 in authority is god's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason, They are god's servants, agents of Roth to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities not only because of possible punishment, but also as a matter of conscience.

This is also why you pay taxes for the authorities are god's servants who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them. If you owe taxes, pay taxes, If revenue, then revenue, if respect, then respect. If honor, then honor. Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love 1 another.

For whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 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 1 command, love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to a neighbor Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. 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. The night is nearly over.

The day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light Let us behave decently as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery. Not in dissension and jealousy, rather clothe yourselves with the lord Jesus Christ and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh. Good morning. My name is Pete Woodcock, I'm the pastor of the church here.

We've been going through the book of Romans, and we're on this last section of Romans 13. I don't know whether I don't know whether you've ever written a CV. I guess most of us have written CVs in our life. I have. I have never written 1.

I don't think. But I guess most of us have. I looked up, at this week or yesterday. What is the what is the perfect CV. How do you write the perfect CV?

Most of us, if you wanna write a good CV, you have to go to PIM. And, pin will just rip it apart, and then tell you how to write 1 to get a job. So it's great having him in. But This website said these things. Pym, do you agree with this?

Employment history you've gotta put down. You could put gotta put down your education You've gotta put down your qualifications, your experience. And then it says this. You should use active language and make it personal. So I completed should be a phrase that you would use rather than the task was completed.

Put yourself in it. You need to get it spelling right, it's punctuation right, and checked probably by someone who knows what they're doing. You should use a good professional fonts and typeface and have it all and it goes on and on and on. That's how to ride a perfect CV. Now imagine that you were being asked to look at all the CVs of, someone that is applying for the job as disciple of the lord Jesus Christ.

Imagine that you were on the panel you're going to interview this person, but you're flicking through the CVs for but let's just say that you're s sifting through applicants at Cornerstone for Cornerstone Church Kingston as a disciple of the lord Jesus Christ. What is it you're looking for? Those things? There's 1 thing, actually. There's really only 1 thing you want to look for.

1 thing, 1 big thing If this 1 thing is missing from their CV, you can forget all the other qualifications. You can strip everything back to this 1 thing. If this isn't at the core of them of their heart, then whatever qualifications they might have pretend to have. However, clever, their CV is written and perfectly word searched and you use a thesaurus and all of that sort of stuff. Their qualification for being a disciple of the lord Jesus Christ will be false.

You're not looking for education. You're not looking for qualifications. You're not looking for knowledge. You're not even looking for experiences. There's 1 preeminent virtue you're looking for.

1 thing, actually. Without it, everything else will just be noisy. Doesn't matter what they know, doesn't matter how clever they are. Doesn't matter what experience that they've had. Doesn't matter what they've achieved, even in Christianity.

Without this 1 thing, you could say that that CV is worth nothing. Nothing. It's the first fruit of the spirit. You can't know god without it. It's the way that the world will see whether you really are following Jesus.

Or not. It's the way that will show that. It's how you can keep the commandments of god. In fact, it's a description of god himself. So if you're a child of god, then you've gotta have this.

It's a must for a disciple of Jesus. It's the only thing that lasts forever, and Paul writes at the end of his letter to the book of Galatians, the only thing that counts in faith is faith expressing itself through and here's what you're looking for. Love. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love, love. Is that is that is that what you're looking for?

On any CV. Love. And if the person hasn't got that, it doesn't matter how many add ons, how clever, how theologically accurate they may even be. All of the things that may be good and we want, but they're nothing without love. So how's your CV then?

If we're gonna have a look at each other's CV, how how is it? It may be messy. It may be spell. You may be misqualified, but have you got this? So love is the great theme that Paul's just been banging on about.

In in in Romans. Love is is the defining mark of an authentic christian he's been saying. Because we know the love of god in Christ. That is not just an academic thing that you know about. It powerfully breaks into your life and causes you to be a lover of others.

If it doesn't, you've not understood it. And so in Romans chapter 12, right the way through to chapter 16, he spelling out after the first section of his of his book chapters 1 to 11 where he spelled out the love of god in Christ for us in great, wonderful, glorious detail. Now he says because of that, The mark of you understanding that is to live a transformed life in this world, and it's a it's a life of love. And in chapters 12 to 16, he's saying, how is it? What is love?

You wanna know what love is? Well, here we are. He's gonna define it in these chapters, and that's what we've been working through. Some of the things that we've already seen in chapter 12, let me just pick out Some, not all of them, but look at verse 9 of chapter 12, love must be sincere. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good.

If you have a sincere love, you will hate evil. If you don't hate evil, you don't have a sincere love. If you have a sincere love, you're to cling to that which is good and you're let go of that which is evil. Look at verse 10. Be devoted to 1 another in love, honor 1 another above yourselves.

How are you devoted in love? You honor each other? You first Oh, look at verse 13. Share with the lord's people who are in need, practice hospitality. You wanna know whether you're a lover or not, practice hospitality.

Simple as that. Look at verse 14. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. My goodness me. That's a that's a that's a big 1, isn't it?

We wanna know whether you're a lover, you bless those curse, you'll persecute you. Right? Look at verse 17. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.

Look at verse 19. Do not take revenge and then it carries on. If your enemy is hungry, how do I know whether I'm a lover? If my enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

And then you go on to chapter 13, which we've already done. And the first part of chapter 13, we see that part of loving my neighbor is that I pay my taxes. I pay what is owed, that I owe. And that is love. You see, love is not sentimental.

It's solid. It's real. It's tangible. And it hurts us to some degree. It costs us as we sacrifice ourselves.

For other people. That's what love is. And now we're in this second part of chapter 13, and he's still speaking about love. And spelling it out so we get it clear. So let's get into this, these, few verses from chapter 8 to 14.

Here's the first thing I want you to see. The debt of love I owe. If you're a follower of the lord Jesus Christ, then this should speak to you. The debt of love I owe. Look at verse 8.

Let no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt of love to love 1 another. So it's loving to try and pay off your debts, he says, in the first half of that verse, and to do so on time. We've sort of looked at that stuff before. But there's 1 debt, 1 debt that you will never pay off in full, never. There is 1 debt that keep the installments keep coming.

You pay it off, and another 1 comes. You pay it off, and another 1 comes. There is 1 debt that remains. Every time Paul is saying that I meet someone, I ought to say to myself, oh my goodness. I owe them something.

There should be that sort of tension. I owe them love. I actually owe them love because I'm in Christ, and I'm in great debt and when I when I look out at you, I should I'm in debt. I'm in debt. I don't know whether you've had a personal debt.

I I know when when you do it through an institution or a bank, it it becomes less personal and you don't sort of worry about it so much. But if I'm just looking out all of people that owe me money. Some of you forgotten, but you ought to remember, but you know, if if if if if you owed me some money, I was only joking on that, by the way. So but if you owed me some money, every time you see me, if I've given you some some money. Every time you see me, you would see, oh, yes, I I owe him.

I owe him. I owe him. It becomes very personal. Well, that's what Paul is saying here. With spiritual debtors.

Every time we see someone, every time we go to church, every time you sit the people you're sitting next to, you know? You should be saying, oh, yeah. Yep. No. No.

I owe them. Yet I'm in debt to that person. A Christian can never say that I've loved enough. A Christian can never say I've paid off my debt of love. That's what Paul is saying here.

See, this is the difference between love religion and and works religion, isn't it? Works religion, you can tick off and feel that you've done your duty and you can think, yes, okay. I'm a pretty good person because look, I've ticked these things off. I've done my duty, but love religion is that I have to love. And when I've loved, I have to love.

And when I've loved, I have to love. So in 1 sense, that verse, I don't know about you, but when I read it, I found it quite depressing. Because it's a horrible thing when you know, through the post, you know, bills are coming in again and again and you pay them off and there's another 1. You pay them off and there's another 1. We're endless in trying to pay these bills off.

And he's saying you can never pay it off. Never. So there's just sort of this stress, this tension of the next bill. So it feels awful, and it would be awful if we were talking about money, but we're talking about love And this is what I want to try to convince you of. Paying this debt of love will never ever make you a poorer person.

Never. It will only make you richer. It will only make you happier. It will only give you more depth. It will only make you more like Christ and more like god.

As I pay this debt, again, and again, and again and continued in this debt of love. My world doesn't decrease, like when I pay financial bills. I don't have less at the end of the day. I have more. I have a bigger world, not a smaller world.

A bigger world. It includes others. It includes Christ. It includes god. So this debt of love is not some nasty thing where I get poorer and and, it decreases my world.

It increases my world. That's what Paul is trying to show us. Look at verse 8 again. That no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love 1 another. You gotta get this, that this debt, it may not be that you've done anything for me that I have to pay back.

He's not saying that. I think he's saying this in the light of chapters 1 to 11. Which is all about the free extraordinary, just gracious big, sovereign love of god towards us that owe him so much that he had every right to damage to hell for all eternity. If he did that, he would have a right to do that. For we are guilty, in so many ways, we owe him so much.

And Paul has been saying in chapters 1 to 11, we are so guilty, so condemned, so sinful, but and there's those great butts, isn't there? I mean, particularly in chapter in chapter 3, but because of his love for us, Christ has come into this world and taken and paid our debt and cleansed us and sent us his spirit and made us children of the living god and we've forgiven all our debts in Christ and now he is our god is our father, not just some god, but our father, our loving heavenly father, and we are his children, and our debt has been paid. And because of that debt, I owe you. Now that doesn't sound right, does it? Doesn't it?

It it it should be you'd think it would be because My debt has been paid for Christ. I owe Christ. And of course, that is true in some way, but the way Paul is putting it because my debt's been paid off in Christ. I owe you. It affects how I live.

This is how 1 John, John, the apostle John, follower of the lord Jesus wrote in his little letter in the Bible called 1 John, And it's all about love. Listen to what he says. Chapter 4 verse 11, dear friends. Since god so loved us, We also ought to love 1 another. It's not a very good translation.

It really should say this, dear friends. Since god so loved us, we are debtors. To love 1 another. It's the debtor word. You see that?

God has paid my price And because he's done this, I should love. I'm in debt to love others. You see that? This is why church is so utterly vital. This is why when you meet those people that, you know, They they they they seem so sound, don't they?

But they're not in a fellowship. They're not in a church. They're not loving anyone. They're on their own. They have their own little world, and they say, I love god, and I go god, debt, you know, I'm gonna, you know, love Christ, and and they even might go and do evangelism, you know, on their own, but they don't know anyone.

They're not involved in people's lives. That can't be. That's not right. That's not sound. Dear friends, since god so loved us, we are debtors to love 1 another.

And as we live as debtors to love, and as I love others, I grow I grow in my understanding of just the love of Christ for me. I grow in my understanding. My life becomes bigger. There's the first thing. The debt of love I owe.

And that is how I will live as a disciple of Jesus. I live owing you love. As for Paul's first point, here's the second point. The law of love I keep the debt of love I owe, but the law of love I keep, look at verse 8 again, let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love 1 another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. Now, let's get this right.

Love and law are not contrary in Christianity. They don't contradict each other. Love and law don't contradict each other. It's not that by obeying the law, it somehow makes me less loving. We sometimes sort of talk like that, or that loving makes me less interested in obeying the law.

They actually go together. Love needs law. Love needs law to define what love is. Love needs law for its direction and its for its meaning and law needs love for its power, for its motivation, for its heart, for its reality. They go together.

Now this is really important for us to get and actually quite hard for us to get because we are in a generation that has changed the meaning of love. We've changed the meaning almost reversed it. We've changed the meaning of love to mean feelings and emotions that in the end, come back to how I feel. It's all about me. We've turned love and redefined it into almost self love, which is not love at all, according to the Bible.

We've made love orbit around me, around the self, and that self love, and it's utterly destructive for everyone, even the person that's trying to love themselves. Is utterly destructive. Instead, love should orbit around god's love for us and as we owe our debt to others. Look at verse 10. See how he sort of puts it love does no harm to a neighbor.

She's thinking that love and other people, it goes together. Therefore, love is a fulfillment of the law. It does no harm. But it's seeking their good to fulfill the law of god is to love them is to outward look. Is to not have people orbiting around me, but me orbiting around them in that sense.

So we gotta get this clear that love is is not against law, and love is not some alternative sort of theme to law like an alternative lifestyle. So, you know, we we we think of, you know, it feels good, it feels right. That is not love. It's not love. And then we focus on emotions and try to fill up that category.

I'm not I'm not against emotions, not at all, but It's not a definition of love, whereas the Bible is very interested in the action category. Do it. Act of love. And that act of love will often mean that we say no to our feelings things, no to our emotions, and no to self. That's exactly what happens.

And the law gives us this objective standard of what it means to love my neighbor. It, in other words, it tells me what it means to love my neighbor. It shows it to me. So if I love my neighbor, I won't go to bed with his wife. That's what it says.

It says no to that. If my love my if I love my neighbor, I won't kill her in word or in act actually, If I love my neighbor, I won't steal his things. If I love my neighbor, I won't covet her life or what she has. You see what he says? Look at verse 9.

The commandments, you shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steel, you shall not covet. And then he just embraces all the other commandments. I love the way he does it, and whatever other commandments there may be.

Are summed up in this 1 command, love your neighbor as yourself. In other words, if you love, you have to have a no in love. Which is no to these things. That's how the commandments help us and direct us and define love. It's a nonsense you know, when you hear this nonsense where you say I left my wife because I love her.

What are you talking about? I left my wife because I love her and I love my another man's wife. I love this love that I'm living. No, you're not. You're lying.

You're not living love. You heart you're doing harm to both parties and yourself. You see that? There's a no in love, and the law helps us do this. So do you see what Paul is doing?

He's showing us what love really is. It's practical. It's tangible. It's feet on the ground. Verse 9, the commandments.

You shall not commit adultery. You not show not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not love. And and, whatever commandments there may be are summed up in 1 commandment.

Love your neighbor as yourself. Now let me just stop here because it is amazing what people do with that little sentence. You probably heard it. I hope you're not thinking it. If you are, can I smash it out of your head right now?

This is how it goes. Love your neighbor as yourself. You need to love yourself first and then you can love your neighbor. It is extraordinary how we could do that. It is not saying that, and yet because we're into self love and narcissistic thinking, that's how we think.

Oh, yes. And I've heard people say this. I've heard preachers say this. You need to learn to love yourself and when you love yourself, you'll be able to love your neighbor as yourself. It's nonsense because you'll be continuingly in debt to yourself, paying off love to yourself continually, and you have no time to love anybody else.

It's nonsense. It makes no sense, and it's definitely what not what the Bible is saying. Self love is a sin in the Bible. What we need to know is not that we love ourselves, but we are well loved by god, Romans chapter 1 to 11. When I know I'm well loved by someone bigger than myself, outside of myself, by god himself, and I see that love demonstrated in the cross, then when I know that there's an absolute demonstration of the love of god to me a sinner who's failed in so many ways when I see that love and that I am loved by god then I can be big.

When I know that, I can live and love my neighbor. But it's not self love. What it means is it's just a summary of what Jesus says in Matthew 7 verse 12. He says this, at the end of his sermon on the Mount, So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you. For this sums up the law and the prophets.

Do to others? That's how you're to live. That's what love your neighbor as yourself means. So We love 1 another because Christ love us. And as we love 1 another, it's fulfilling what all the law is about.

That's the second thing. Here's my third point. Here's the third point. The time of love that I'm in So we've looked at the debt of love that I owe. Do you see that?

Does anyone not owe owe that debt? The debt of love that I owe, the law of love that I keep. And now here's the third 1, the time of love that I'm in. Look at verse 11. Do you see it?

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. We love, and we're helped to love when we understand the present time that we're in. Yeah? We love 1 another because our ultimate rescue is nearer than when you first believed.

It's it's because our salvation is nearer now than when you first believed. In other words, the complete daytime of this glorious new creation is coming, and obviously it's nearer. It's nearer now than when you first believed. And so what he's saying is, look at the clock. Keep looking at the clock.

Keep looking at your watch. Keep an eye on the time, and this will help you love. This is what really what he's saying. Look at it. Firstly that 1 again.

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 we first believed. Now, what is this present time What is this hour that has come? What's he talking about? Well, you could go back to Romans chapter 12 and verse too, and you'll see that, you know, with, we're not to be conformed to the pattern of this world. When he says pattern of this world, it's an age.

It's a time related thing. It's not just this world, but it's this age. Don't be don't be conformed to this age. And if you look through the Bible and you followed that theme through, you'll see that this present age is 1 of night And what has happened is into the night and you get a lot of this in those early chapters of Luke that we've been looking at in the evening. Into the night comes this Jesus he's born to bring daylight, the rising of the sun, the dawning of a new day.

And Jesus has come into the night of this world, this age, this time of darkness, to bring this this light, this good news, this wonderful message. And so we now don't act as night children, we are children of the daylight. So wake up, he says. Know what the time is. The dawn has come.

Jesus has come and we're heading towards the brand new day and it's nearly here and it's nearer now than when you first started. The dawn has come, and 1 day it will be midday. So get your timing right in this world, he says. Make your time. And in this day, this new light It's the time of love.

It's a kingdom of love that we're in. So look at the time. Look at now we're sort of we're between day and we're in this twilight, if you like, or in this dawn of a new day. It's a better way of putting it. So look at now in the light of then, look be in the present in the light of the future.

Let me just say this, that this is how Christians reads time. There are 3 days in mind, and this is how we should read our time that we're in. Yesterday, Jesus died for me. Yesterday, he died for me. Today, Jesus lives for me, and tomorrow Jesus is coming for me.

So live in the time. Get your time. Look at your watch. See what it is. Okay?

It's, today he lives for me. And tomorrow he's coming for me. And yesterday, he died for me. So get your watch right, set it right. Don't be any hours at, you know, out.

Get it right with heaven. Yeah. You know, when we change times or your watch battery goes low, stick a new battery in, wind it up. Know what time it is, you know, when old, you know, none of you know how to do this, but if you had an old wind up watch, used to tap it like this, get it clicking, Look at the time. Get your time frame right.

Now's the time to wake up because the light of the full day is coming. The dawners come wake up. Sleeping is what so many people are doing, isn't it? It's like their zombies. They're confused.

They're sleepwalking. People dream. 1 of our great preaches today is dream. Follow your dreams. Well, if you're dreaming, you're asleep.

It's all nonsense, isn't it? Follow your dreams. Well, that means I'm asleep. I mean, I have the weirdest dreams. Don't you?

I don't wanna follow my dreams. They're weird. Was dreaming about IJ last night. I don't even know where she is. It was weird.

It was like a horror, you know. But weird, weird dreams. So if you're sleeping, if you're dreaming, you're sleeping, or it's a nightmare. It's confusing. You're not sure what it's about.

It bits of truth. Bits of lies all muddled up, all kinds of weird things muddled up. It's better to be awake. Look at verse 12. The night is nearly over.

The day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. I looked up a definition of sleep, and this is how it goes. A state of inactive, eva, a state of inactivity the loss of consciousness, a decrease in, responsiveness to events taking place. It's a great line, isn't it?

If you're asleep, it's a state of inactivity, a loss of consciousness and a decrease in responsiveness to events that are taking place around you. And Paul is saying wake up from your spiritual sleep, wake up from unconsciousness, start responding to the day, which is what you're going to, and it's love, it's the kingdom of love. That's what this dark world needs. It demands love. We're passing through the darkness and it needs love.

We're in the time to express love in a dark world. So the debt of love I owe, the law of love I keep, the time of love I'm in, and here's the last point. The clothes of love I wear. The clothes I love of wear, the the clothes of love that I wear in this in this time. Look at verse 14.

Rather, clothe yourself with the lord Jesus Christ and do not think how to gratify the desires of the flesh. So he's saying, this isn't time for sleepwalking. This is time to wake up and get dressed. Get out there and love. That's what he's saying.

The day is dawned. Christ has come in other words. We're heading towards the bright, glorious day. So it's the time to get out your night clothes. Get out your night clothes and put on the clothes of Christ and love.

It's the time to do that. With the second half of verse 12, let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. The stuff you sleep in. It's all crumpled. It's slightly smelly, you know, because you've been under the duvet in these clothes.

Probably farting all night. You just don't know, and they're smelly and they're crumpled and they're rather dirty. You're not meant to be them in them in midday. You take off those clothes, and you put on the armor of light, put on the armor of light, armor, It's a battle. You dress.

You go out to fight. We're we're children of light in a dark world to fight back the darkness. We go out there in love and love demands conflict with myself. Love demands it costs You see, no, you can't talk about love without it costing. That's why what we've already heard in remembrance.

We remember the cost of sacrifice. We remember the cost of Christ. This is how you know what love is. Christ died for us. He gave his life for us.

So get off your night clothes and put on the clothes of dark. Now what are what are the night clothes? Well, verse 13, he tells us. Look at them. Let us behave decently as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.

He picks on 3 pairs of sins. He puts 3 pairs of sins together and say that they are the night clothes. Get them off. What are the nicholas? The first couple or a lack of self control, carrows, carousing, and drunkenness.

Carousing just means excessive feasting. It's all about you. It's all about your feasting. It's all about your revelry. Life is all about your fun and revelry constant 24 hours.

Put that off. It's a lack of self control. It's the it's the bedclothes of the night, and drunkenness It's all about self. It's a, you know, a drunken person is all about themselves. They try to pretend to be kind to people.

They never are. They take over wherever it is they are with loudness and stupidity or sick and vomit, and they just take up everybody else his, energy. He says, that's a lack of self control. That that's of the night. And look at the second pair, a lack of sexual control, sexual immorality, and debauchery, debauchery means gross sexual excessiveness.

And so here are people taking up with themselves, wanting their own little pleasures and desires and using people for their own pleasure. And then look at the look at the the third, night set of nightclothes, a lack of control towards others. That's what it is. Dissension, which is arguing and bitterness and jealousies. I wanna be better than you, and you've got what I want.

All of this kills love all of this stuff, the grumbling and the moaning, and these are clothes of of sleepwalking. These are pajamas that you should be out of. Yeah? They're the wrong clothes for the for the time. Morning is dawned.

There's the fresh day coming. Get on the clothes of love, put on the armor of light And then he says in verse 14, look, rather clothe yourself with the lord Jesus Christ and do not think how to gratify the desires of the flesh. Where Christ? Put on Christ. Remind yourself of Christ.

Remind yourself that he was the glorious 1 who came to this world to die for us. Go on about it. Read Romans 1 to 11. Here are the sermons on Romans 1 to 11. Dig deep into what Christ has done.

You're united with Christ, you're clothed with Christ. And if you put on Christ, you'll start to love like Christ. That's what he's saying. Will reflect his character, his righteousness, his holiness, his glory, his majesty, and the world is dark, and we will shine The world will laugh and point and and condemn us and say all kinds of ugly things about us. But we'll say we're forgiven and we bring glory to the lord Jesus Christ because I've been give for forgiven so much but I love you in return.

Do you see that? So when you're bored and when you're upset and remember you're in the day, don't turn to wine and carousing and excessive feasting or excessive self stuff. You love. You love. You got it?

Let's just have a summary of this. To stand against the pressures of this dark world that is telling you to dream your dream and follow your dream and love yourself. Constantly, it's a wicked teaching to love yourself. It will destroy you completely. To love yourself.

It makes your world so tiny and pathetic. But when you love god, Your world gets bigger when you love people and give yourself your world gets bigger. That enormous transformation that Paul talks about in Romans 12 happens through our thinking, through the mind, through understanding what Christ has done, and works into our heart through the laws of god to love, to love people. Our whole life is changed, and we'll live this debt of love, and we'll live to keep the law of love, and we'll remind ourselves. We're in the time of love, and we're wear the clothes of love.

So can I just encourage you to cultivate these things? You know, I encourage you to have a sense of debt, look around you. You owe people love 1 of the things that we can do is say, oh, yeah, but they're there. Love it. I really like them.

I love being with them. I see. Jesus says in Matthew chapter 5, even the pagans love their own mates. That's a paraphrase. Yeah.

Even the pagans love their own mates. We all love our own mates. People that find us lovable. I I love. You know?

But go. Go into a world and love someone that's pretty hard to love. There's plenty of them in this church. Go and find 1. Go and find someone that's quite hard to love.

Go and find someone. Go and find someone who perhaps doesn't speak English very well. And you can't understand what they're talking about. And you could try to sort of communicate with them and say hello, and and they say, What? And then they what did you say?

Right? Okay. Only ask 3 times. That's the British way. Once you've done it 3 times before, I didn't hear what you said.

Oh, and as Anne was saying last night at some dinner party we were at the the the the the use of the word right is brilliant. Oh, right. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

So go to someone that's really difficult. And if you find us saying, right. Alright. Yeah. And you've just said, you know, my grandma's just died.

Right. Lovely. It's because we didn't hear. So love us back. Go and love someone that's a bit more difficult.

That's the point I'm making. Very badly, but that's the point I was making. Cultivate a sense of time that you're in. The daylight at the dawn has come. We're heading for day.

So let's live for children as as light. Take off the deeds of darkness, which is all about self. All about stuff. It's all about me. It's all about look at me.

Put on Jesus every day. Get out of your pajamas. Get out of your night clothes. You know? In AD 3 8 6, 386.

There was a bloke walking around Milan with his mates. He wasn't from Milan. He was from North Africa. Was from a place called hippo in North Africa. It's a great day, him, isn't it?

And, he was a very educated man. He was a He was a an absolute carouser and a drunkard and a womanizer. And, he was walking around Milan with his mates find the women, I mean, lots of women. And he went in to hear a very famous preacher called Ambrose. An Ambrose preached a sermon that had an effect on this man, but he tried to put it out of his head.

In some way. That's he was trying to sort of I was gonna use that, but then I thought it was a bit crummy. He tried to put it out of his head in some way, but he, was walking around Milan and kids were singing a little song, a sort of rhyme. In Latin, but it it basically was take up and read, take up and read. And he couldn't get Ambrose's sermon out of his head, And he heard these kids singing this song as they played their games, take up and read, and so he took a Bible up.

And he turned to Romans chapter 13. And verse 13 and 14, which said let us behave decently as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather clothe yourself with the lord Jesus Christ, and do not think how you can gratify the desires of the nature and bang. Those verses hit him. And he became 1 of the most famous men in Chris Christianity augustin, his name is.

Saint Augustine, and he was converted by these words. See, these words change you if you really dwell on them. They totally change you because they bring you to Jesus. It's not that I have to try and like people or try and put on affection or try and work up an emotion or get some kind of sentimentality towards people. No.

It's that when I'm clothed in Jesus, when I see who Jesus is, he changes my life, and even though I don't like you, I should love you. And that's what happened to Augusta. So what's your CV like? Is love at the center of it? Let's bow our heads and have a moment of prayer to think these things through.

And to repent, And then after a few minutes of thinking these things through, I'm gonna ask Tom to come up and read A chapter in the Bible about love, 1 Corinthians 13, and will have more time to reflect. On whether we are our lovers.