Walking In Love

Some of you will remember January 4th, 2014 as Colts fans because it was the second largest playoff comeback in the history of the NFL when the Colts took down the Chiefs.

I remember that day for a very different reason.

Emily and I were all dressed up, and uh we were getting ready to go to a wedding.

I had my best suit on, she had this long gown on, it was a super swanky venue.

It was downtown Indy at the uh Grand Hall of the Union Station.

I think we got a picture of it up here of what that uh venue looked like.

It was uh really, really awesome place.

And we were getting ready to walk out to the wedding.

We hear this burst of water coming out of the laundry room.

And we looked over, and there's a current of water flowing down the hallway and into the kitchen.

And we looked at each other, thought, well, our plans for the night just changed.

So we went racing around and we'd not lived in the home very long.

We didn't actually know where the water main was yet.

If you're getting ready to purchase a home, figure out what that is right out of the gate.

Eventually we found it, got it turned off, started to mop it up, tried to figure out what was going on, and uh, suffice to say, we missed the wedding but made it to the reception.

So it's all right, we got to celebrate.

But uh it was an issue as we looked at each other, we immediately realized this is both urgent and important.

Right?

This cannot be delayed.

We have to take action right now, and if we don't, there's gonna be really serious consequences.

It was urgent and it was important.

Those two words, I think, accurately characterize what Paul is saying here at the end of Romans 13.

This is urgent, and this is really important.

Now, the the broad theme is living in light of the gospel.

That's the whole back quarter, back 25% of the book of Romans.

But particularly what he's saying here that's both urgent and important.

How do you live in light of the gospel as you walk in love towards one another and you walk in the light?

Listen to me on this.

To truly walk in love, to love others, it will absolutely disrupt your plans for the day.

Just like that water disrupted our plans.

You need to wrap your mind around that.

And to walk in the light, some of you have been walking in the darkness, and for you to walk in the light today is gonna require a change of plans this afternoon for you.

You're gonna need to have some conversations you weren't planning on having.

So here's what I want to do right out of the gate.

I don't do this all the time, but I think it's worth doing.

I want you to make a commitment to the Lord right now.

Say, Lord, whatever you have to say to me this morning, I'm willing to change my plans this afternoon.

Because what Paul says in here in Romans 13 is both urgent and important.

And Emily and I had no chill choice but to change our plans when the water is pouring down the hallway, right?

I want you to make that commitment to the Lord.

Lord, whatever you have to say to me this morning, I'm willing to change my plans this afternoon.

I hope you'll make that commitment because what he has to say here has profound implications for what it means to live the Christian life.

Living in light of the gospel means that we're gonna walk in love, we're gonna walk in the light.

That's actually gonna be the two points of the sermon.

It's very simple.

The text is not complicated in the sense of it doesn't take lots of Greek words being explained and analyzed.

It's gonna have a lot of boots on the ground application.

Here's what it means to take these truths of the gospel that Paul took 12 chapters to explain, and now we're living them out.

All right, first point it is important to walk in love.

Important to walk in love.

Why do we put that word important there?

Well, in verse 8, here's where Paul is highlighting the importance.

He says, the one who loves one another has fulfilled the law.

And then in verse 10, almost the exact same thing, love is the fulfilling of the law.

And when Paul says the law, he's referring to the Mosaic Law.

So the narrow view there is the Ten Commandments.

He lists four of them in the passage.

But more broadly, this Mosaic law involves 613 commandments, 248 positive, go do this commandments, 365 negative prohibitions, don't do that.

But if you take all 613, Paul says the summary of all of it is this love one another.

And how do you know that you have fulfilled the whole thing, every single one of them, if you have loved one another?

This is really important, is what Paul is trying to say.

In fact, it's really difficult, I think, to overstate the importance.

It might be impossible to overstate the importance.

We'll unpack what is meant by that.

There is one question in the beginning part that kind of begs our attention before we get into more uh application-driven analysis.

The question is this Is debt of any kind a sin?

Look at verse 8.

What look what it says.

It says, Owe no one anything except to love each other.

I remember first time I heard a butt a fella tell me that he didn't think he could buy a house because he'd been saving up and he didn't have enough cash to pay for the home in cash, and therefore, according to Romans 13, 8, it was a sin to get a mortgage.

Owe no one anything, including the bank.

Is that what is actually meant right there?

Well, before I answer the question, it's worth pointing out that according to the Bible, debt is really bad.

Right, many of us in the American culture have lost the view of what Proverbs 22, 7 says, that the debtor is servant to the lender.

And we've grown accustomed to carrying large amounts of debt that we probably shouldn't have.

It's facilitating our greed, sometimes inhibiting our generosity.

And eliminating debt is very, very important.

But that's not really the main thing that's being said here.

I think the NIV translation actually helps to capture the idea a little more clearly than the ESV says.

So the NIV is on the screen.

See what it says in this translation.

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another.

In other words, pay your debts, pay the things you owe, don't let them remain.

And at some point, there's an endpoint to those payments.

Couple of years, car payment ends.

15, 30 years, the house payment ends.

But there is one debt that is entirely not stopping on you, that is entirely enduring.

It will persist.

Keep loving one another.

You can't stop loving one another.

That debt will always remain upon you.

So keep paying the payments.

Theologian John Stott said it this way.

We can never stop loving somebody and say, I have loved enough.

So you see, what Paul's actually doing with this statement is highlighting the significance and the importance of continuing to walk in love.

It's never a box you check and move on from it.

Remember, he said, When you walk in love, that is the fulfillment of the entire law.

You fulfilled all 613 commandments.

And if you want to summarize it in one commandment, love God, love one another.

Here he's talking about the second great commandment.

This is the number two thing that God requires in all the universe of you, second only to loving him.

And he begins to list these commandments, and he says, basically, no one is loving their neighbor when they're committing adultery.

Should be obvious.

No one is loving their neighbor, no one is walking in love when they are murdering, no one is walking in love when they are stealing.

No one is walking in love when they are coveting.

You say, Justin, I understand those things.

That makes sense.

I've avoided the major sins, but it seems there's something deeper going on here.

Like, what is what is love?

What does it mean to walk in love?

Some of you, like like the band foreigner, saying, I want to know what love is.

Or like Hathaway, like, what is love?

Baby, don't hurt me.

Some of you got the little head nod going, I see it.

Yes, okay.

Um seriously, you read a passage and you say, How do I know what it is to love?

Is it loving to affirm someone in what they're doing?

Or is it loving to confront someone in what they're doing?

And how do I know that my thoughts and my words and my actions are proceeding out of genuine love for that person rather than just what's comfortable or convenient for me?

Like these are pretty action, pretty difficult questions to work through.

You see, at the beginning, when you say, well, this sermon's gonna talk about walking in love, it's like, oh good, that's what the preacher should talk about.

Well, that's a Bible thing, that's a God thing.

Friends, listen to me here.

Walking in love will be one of the hardest things you ever do.

It is not easy to walk in love.

Perhaps it would be helpful for us if we went back to 1 Corinthians 13, to the love chapter.

This is sometimes misunderstood as a wedding chapter, which it would apply within the marriage context.

But keep in mind, Paul in Romans 12, he says, I've already explained the gospel.

Now here's how that transforms your life.

Here are spiritual gifts given to the church, Romans 13.

Continue walking in love.

1 Corinthians 13, you know what's happening?

Almost the exact same argument.

I've explained the gospel, 1 Corinthians 12, here are gifts given to the church, 1 Corinthians 13.

You exercise gifts by loving one another.

Let's just read through this and think through what the Bible actually says about love.

Love is patient and kind.

Love does not envy or boast.

It is not arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way.

It is not irritable or resentful.

It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

The love of Romans 13 that's being referred to is what we know as agape love.

It is God's self-sacrificing love.

And so as we think practically about how we embrace and live out this kind of love, I want to give you three prayerful principles.

I say prayerful principles because it's kind of an ongoing reflection and meditation thing to think through how I am actually acting in love, living in love, thinking in love, speaking in love, motivated by love.

How do I do that?

Right?

Number principle number one: love overflows with grace.

It overflows with grace.

You see, in any relationship, any conversation, you can be focused on being interesting yourself or on being interested in the other person.

To listen well, to be heard is almost identical to being loved.

Like most people can't tell the difference between someone listened to me and they loved me.

You overflow in grace by listening well, by being interested instead of needing to prove that you are interesting.

I heard someone say one time that they try to get three questions deep in every conversation.

It helps them keep the conversation off of themselves.

Someone tells you, hey, I'm gonna go hiking at Turkey Run.

Oh, okay, first question.

Well, which is which trail is your favorite one?

They start to tell you about it, oh, how did you discover that trail?

Second question deep.

Oh, who are some of your favorite people to go hiking on that trail with?

Three questions deep, regularly, trying to overflow with grace, not pull it back onto myself, but recognize this grace is far more than just being interested in someone else's life.

It certainly shows up in that way.

But grace is unmerited favor.

This is what God gives to us favor, blessing that we do not deserve.

So when Romans or 1 Corinthians 13 says love believes all things, it means it's giving the benefit of the doubt.

It believes the best.

Overflowing with grace is biblical love in the sense of 1 Peter 4.8.

It says love covers a multitude of sins.

And if I could just be transparent with you, what I would tell you is real easy for me is to overflow with correction and occasionally drip a little bit of grace.

Maybe you can relate.

Guys, love doesn't drip grace.

Love overflows with grace.

And I can only imagine as I say that, some of you are thinking, yes, Justin, I get that.

But where's that line towards enabling?

We're gonna get ourselves in a ditch.

I hear you, I see you, second principle.

Love prioritizes the truth.

Love prioritizes the truth.

This might be the hardest principle for walking in love in our cultural moment, because in this moment, feelings are king, and the loving thing is often defined as the comfortable thing.

And that's not true.

We take our cues here from Jesus, who was full of grace and full of truth.

That's what John 1.14 says.

And I think in the church, sometimes what happens is we say, we're gonna speak the truth in love.

And what that turns into is speaking half the truth, which is the easy part of the truth, withholding the difficult part of the truth, and by speaking half the truth, we call it speaking the truth in love, and it's not at all.

We need to be willing to say difficult things.

Love is willing to have difficult, direct, hard conversations.

Maybe not five times a day.

But Hebrews 3 does say, exhort one another daily, that you may not be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

There's a one-anotherness that is necessary, involves speaking to one another, because sin is very deceitful in all of our lives.

And if you can't tell me about someone who's regularly speaking into your life, or someone whose life you are regularly speaking into, I'm wondering if you're actually prioritizing the truth according to Hebrews 3.13.

This is to say that love offers correction, but love also can be corrected.

Both of those are difficult.

One of the ways we talk about this from a staff standpoint here at the church is we use what's called the OIC method.

Like, how do I enter into some difficult conversations?

O I C, we say this: observe, interpret, confirm.

Hey, I've observed these things happening.

I've seen these behaviors, a couple, two, three, four of them.

It looks like this to me.

I'm interpreting.

Can you confirm if that's accurate?

That way I am speaking the truth.

I'm not rushing to judgment.

I'm leaving open the possibility that I've misunderstood things, but I'm not shrinking back from the truth.

O I see, observe, interpret, confirm.

Maybe that's helpful for you.

I think there are some low-key ways that we unintentionally fail to speak the truth.

Especially in this culture where participation trophies run rampant, where everyone has to be the best.

And let me just tell you a couple of the ways.

I think we accidentally fail to speak the truth.

Grandparents, can I talk to you for just a second here?

I know your grandkid is awesome.

They are not the greatest ever.

I mean, I know statistically, one of them has to be.

But that also means statistically all the rest cannot be.

Teachers, educators, can I talk to you?

And we have end-of-year award ceremonies and concerts.

It is not statistically possible that every single senior class is the greatest senior class ever.

It just can't be true.

Right?

Or maybe parents, let's let's let's hone this in a little bit.

When there's a conflict at the school, I know you think your kid was never part of it.

They probably were.

And you hear me say this.

You say, Justin, I thought you said a couple weeks ago, Romans 12, 10, outdo one another in showing honor, right?

Absolutely outdo one another in showing honor.

These things are not in contradiction to one another, but let me say it in a different way.

We are not walking in love when we accidentally embrace flattery.

We're not walking in love when we accidentally embrace flattery.

It should be okay to say that was a great effort, and a B minus execution.

And I mean, I was joking with our teachers, our educators a second ago.

We need to understand they're under a ton of pressure right now that everyone get an A all the time.

And that is a zero fun situation for them for them to be in.

But you can look at it, if everybody in the whole school gets 4.0 all the time, you're like, something is broken in the model.

I think in our words, we sometimes don't speak the truth with a very similar principle at play.

But you know what?

It can flip around the other way as well.

Love prioritizes the truth.

The way we speak up to authority, we talked about this last week in Romans 13.

Let me talk to the kids a little bit here.

You need to love your parents in the way that you speak about them to your friends.

Because it's easy to exaggerate the badness of how they are parenting or their rules or their restrictions.

That is not loving your parents even though they're not present.

And the same can be applied to a boss relationship or a governmental relationship or any authority relationship, that same exact pressure to magnify the negative in how we speak.

Love prioritizes the truth.

Let's not exaggerate these things.

Third principle for what it means to walk in love.

Love sacrifices for others.

So it overflows with grace, it prioritizes the truth, and it sacrifices for others.

It's just a recognition that love is costly.

Right?

This whole section of Romans got kicked off with chapter 12, verse 1, Paul urging us to offer our lives as a living sacrifice.

To be a sacrifice is difficult and painful.

It'll cost you quite a lot.

Like if we're honest with ourselves, this sacrificing for others' part is often where we look for the unsubscribe button.

I can be kind of gracious, I can try and speak the truth.

But when it starts to really cost, that's when I want to opt out.

But catch this, brothers and sisters.

Christ-like love is sacrificial love.

There's no two ways around it.

You just look at the cross, and there's no way to understand agape Christ-like love without sacrifice.

We are not walking in the way of Christ if we're not willing to sacrifice for Christ, for the people of Christ.

Nobody has sacrificed for you more than Christ has.

It is a mark of biblical love.

And do you know what Hebrews 12 said?

It said it was for the joy that was set before him that he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

So may we train ourselves by the grace of God to see the joy in sacrifice, not merely the duty and discipline of sacrifice.

I remember when our family moved to Pennsylvania, I was in college, we had a big trailer of stuff, all our possessions went out there.

As the college-age student, you kind of figured this was going to be my baby to unload the majority of it here.

We got there, and there were more than 20 people from our new church waiting on the curb as we pulled up.

I can't tell you how much joy I had in seeing them.

And I thought these people have sacrificed a couple of hours, half a day from their Saturday for a family they don't even know.

And they said it's a small way of sacrifice, but a real way of sacrifice where we can live out what it means to be the body of Christ and love one another.

Look, the reality is I don't know what levels of joy they felt.

But there is joy not only in receiving the sacrifice of others, but joy in sacrificing for others, whether or not they realize it, whether or not they verbalize it, whether or not fill in the blank.

There's a joy to be had in sacrificing for others.

So we sacrifice for the body of Christ.

But we also sacrifice for the community around us.

We don't love the broader Brownsburg, Pittsburgh, Hendricks County community.

We don't love them by isolating ourselves.

That's simply not how it works.

We love this community by having a vision for the kingdom of God that is bigger than Parkside Bible Church.

We love this community by investing outside these walls.

Like there are so many of you that are investing your daily hours in maintaining Northwest Community Park.

It's a very simple way to love the community where you could be doing something else.

I praise God for that.

This is why we're seeking to plant a church.

Right here as well.

So love, biblical love.

This is the fulfillment of the law.

It's the summary of the law.

It means you must overflow with grace, prioritize the truth, sacrifice for others.

It's prayerful principles.

These are what I encourage you to consider this week in an ongoing way.

As I'm asking, am I walking in love?

How do I know that my thoughts, my words, my actions are flowing out of love?

Am I overflowing in grace?

Am I prioritizing the truth?

Am I sacrificing for others?

That's the first thing Paul points out.

The second thing he gets to, he says, this here's what's urgent that you walk in the light.

You walk in the light.

Now, urgent is not to say like it isn't important.

It is both urgent and important, but in the passage, what we're going to see is more of a tone of urgency.

Hey, you got to get into the light now, man, because you're hanging out in the darkness, and we got to take action.

Look at verse 11.

We'll start to see this urgency come through in the text.

Here's what it says.

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 then, let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Look, the basic point here is you need to morally wake up and discover some urgency in your life.

And Paul appeals to this end times conversation.

Jesus coming back, salvation is near now.

Sometimes we think about the end times, the return of Christ, like a flight schedule.

Show up at the airport, you look at the monitor, here's the arrivals and the departures, when's he showing up?

Let's try and map it out.

That's not the logic of the Bible.

The biblical logic is there is a certain reality that Jesus is coming back, therefore change how you live today.

That's the logic of the Bible with how the end times affects what you're doing today.

He says, cast off the works of darkness, put on the armor of light.

And the illustration that Paul gives is so perfect.

There's no need to reinvent the wheel or come up with a different one.

What does he say?

He says, morally, wake up.

The night.

I love this.

He didn't say the night is gone.

He didn't say the night is past.

Look at verse 12, I believe.

What does he say about the night?

Lost my place there.

It's far gone.

Okay, translation.

Night is far gone.

Here's what he's saying.

Dude rolls out of bed, groggy.

Stretching.

Flannel PJs on, bedhead everywhere, sleep in his eyes, comes out, looks at the clock.

It's a crisp, 11:30 a.m.

Did you guys leave any breakfast for me?

And everybody kind of looks at him like, What are you doing, man?

He's like, what?

I just slept in a little.

It's not even lunchtime yet.

And he's kind of oblivious to the situation.

And everyone's looking at him like, man, the night is far gone.

Day has come.

Wake up.

Get some urgency here.

Listen, students, you're coming up on the summer.

Young adults, you may not have all the same demands upon your life.

This is really important to understand.

You're not going to live a God-honoring life staying up all hours of the night and sleeping till noon.

It's not going to happen.

You don't have to get up at five in the morning every day.

But as you have some more time this summer, develop the discipline that sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is actually go to bed and then set an alarm and get yourself out of bed.

And if Jesus rose early to pray, maybe there's a pattern there that you ought to be embodying as well, rising early while it was still dark to pray and commune with the Lord.

And what Paul does in the rest of the text here is he gives some specific ways that people walk in the darkness, and some specific ways they need to wake up and put off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

I see six sins listed that might be in three categories.

So they're not totally distinct, they're kind of overlapping categories, but I see differences here.

You might see social sin, sexual sin, and relational sin.

So social sin is the first category.

He says there are orgies and drunkenness.

Very simply, the world says that the drunken party and mob sensuality is the good life.

That's where the joy is to be had.

That's where the fun is at.

And it's absolutely contrary to the gospel.

And what's interesting is our culture actually knows this because we have language for it.

We call it daytime drinking.

Why do you call it daytime drinking?

It's like, well, that belongs at night.

It's a different kind of living.

Like, no, that's not appropriate here right now, man.

So put off the works of darkness, put on the armor of light, and get busy investing your life for the gospel.

He then says, sexual sins, sexual immorality and sensuality.

Very simply said, this is any sexual activity outside the context of marriage.

It can be with a person or it can be on a device.

Put it off.

And just in case somebody would say, Well, we didn't do something that really crossed the line, we're still kind of in the gray zone, he says, sensuality.

What is sensuality?

Anything that warms you up sexually.

So that's not appropriate.

Put it off.

Don't go there.

Instead of asking, how far can we go?

You need to switch it around, start asking a better question and saying, is this honoring to Christ right now?

It's a paradigm shift.

It's what it means to live out the gospel.

You walk in the light.

You offer yourself as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God.

This is your spiritual act of worship.

Third category: relational sins, quarrels, and jealousy.

I love that Paul puts those third.

Because I just imagine the church at Rome, there's somebody in there reading it.

I know, those people getting drunk, those people running around having affairs.

I'm not like them.

And Paul just like lets them gloat in their self-righteousness for just a second.

He says, You're not off the hook either, man.

Because your self-righteous attitude is totally contrary to the gospel.

Like some of you know, like you're always living in strong relational tension.

It's all over the place.

Maybe we should be honest about you are more of a quarrelsome person than you want to admit.

You're difficult to get along with.

Or you're jealous.

Because it really grates on you when somebody else gets the praise.

Especially if there's no nuance that points out their weakness.

Jealousy shows up.

Coralsome spirits show up when your critics cannot walk safely through your mind.

Can your critics walk through your mind safely?

If not, we may have something to talk about here.

Now listen to me, I didn't linger in any of those categories very long at all.

But some of you are harboring sin in private corners of your life and you know it.

And you knew it before I said anything this morning.

Listen to me, I want you spiritually to exhale just a bit.

Because your heart starts to beat, it starts to throb, it starts to pound.

What does he say to you next?

He says, but put on the Lord Jesus.

Wear the clothes you were given.

He says, if you are in me, if you've received me by faith, I have clothed you in the robes of my righteousness and utter perfection.

Wear the clothes you were given.

And recognize that the patterns of behavior that you're hanging on to are not appropriate for the clothes you've been given.

When you're wearing a long tuxedo or a formal gown, you're not gonna go play pickleball because those activities are not appropriate for the clothes that you're wearing.

See the clothes that have been given to you in Christ and recognize these other activities are not appropriate for those who've been clothed in the gospel.

Remember your gospel identity, is what he's saying.

Take action, yes.

And if we go back just a couple of chapters, like remember this.

What does he say in Romans 7?

I don't do the things that I should do.

I do the things I shouldn't do.

Maybe this is you right now in the moment, feeling this way.

Oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?

But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And right after that, Romans 8.1, he says, I'm in the midst of the fight.

I'm not where I want to be, but I am on the way.

But because of Christ I know that therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8.1, no condemnation.

In the end of Romans 8, what does he say?

There's no separation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

So you're in the midst of it, and you need to put the deeds of the flesh to death, but you need to remember your gospel identity, put on the Lord Jesus.

There's no condemnation, there's no separation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

What Paul would say in 2 Timothy chapter 2 is this: flee the youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

2 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

Christianity is not a solo sport.

To make real progress, to walk in the light, to put to death these deeds, you're gonna need other brothers and sisters walking with you.

And then he goes on and he says, and make no provision for the flesh.

Make no provision.

I'm gonna tell you a story deep in the archives of the cookhouse.

First year of our marriage, we had a mouse problem.

And uh Johnny on the spot, I jumped up, ran over to the Lowe's store, grabbed the mouse traps they had.

They had the glue ones, not the snap kind.

It was a bit of a bummer.

I like the snap kind better, but we took what they had.

Grab the glue traps, lay them out everywhere, get up the next morning, walk out, and uh all of a sudden I had a furry friend who was joining me in the kitchen.

So I walk out and I I see him right there, and I thought, okay, well, I just woke up.

I'm gonna get the coffee started, grab a bite to eat.

I don't really want to like take care of this first thing in the morning.

That just didn't give you all the feels, right?

So I get the coffee going, I I brew a pot, I drink the first cup, I'm having a toast or something, I come back to grab my furry friend, and um, you know what I found?

A tuft of hair.

That bad boy had barrel rolled right out of that glue trap.

So impressive.

These things are way more athletic than I ever gave them credit for.

Listen to me.

Some of you are making provision for the flesh by brewing a pot of coffee and getting a bite of toast before you deal with that sin in your life.

Make no provision for the flesh.

Put it off.

It is urgent, and you must act now because sin is slimy, it is slick, Satan knows how to deceive, and if he can slip away and make you feel like you're okay right now, I don't have to take action this morning, he can wait till tomorrow.

His aim is to kill you, to destroy you, to sift you as wheat, to tear you apart.

Take action immediately.

I just wonder if I think about this.

Like, is there an app that you're hanging on to that needs to be deleted?

Is there a subscription that needs to be canceled?

Is there a beverage in your fridge that needs to be poured out?

Is there a relationship that needs to be confronted?

Is there a quarrelsome spirit or a jealous heart that you've simply not been honest with yourself about?

I think a lot of times what we say is something like this.

Well, Justin, I know I'm not perfect, but I'm working through some stuff.

But a lot of times when we say I'm working through stuff, that's a cover for I'm living in this, not working through this.

And the language of scripture is not that we work through these things.

Is sanctification an immediate thing?

No, it's not.

But the language of scripture, Romans 8.13, you put to death the deeds of the body.

Jesus didn't die so that you could manage your sin and keep it at arm's length in a corner.

He died so that your sin would be put to death as well.

If you say I'm working through things, I just challenge you.

Are you working through it or are you living in it and are you putting it to death the way Romans 8.13 demands?

And to put it to death is a process where I'm just gonna ask you, like, okay, have you confessed it as a specific sin to God and to one or two other brothers or sisters in Christ?

Vertical and the horizontal confession.

And secondly, do you have a specific plan in place how you're gonna put it to death and make no provision for the flesh?

Like, what's your game plan here?

And do you have scripture that you're specifically calling to mind and you've memorized so that in the moment of temptation you can fill your mind with truth instead of the allure of this temptation?

The psalmist said, Your word have I hidden my heart that I might not sin against you.

And if we haven't done those three things and we're not actively practicing those three things, there's a likelihood that we're living in our sin, not putting our sin to death, and we're calling it working through, and we're just simply not.

Listen, I started out telling you this morning about a water leak.

Interrupted plans to go to a wedding.

We didn't get to go downtown right like we wanted to.

The water issue was urgent, it was important.

We had to take action right then, right?

Friend, walking in love and walking in the light are both urgent and important.

And I asked you to make a commitment to the Lord this morning when I got started.

That if he would speak to you, that you would be willing to change your afternoon plans.

Listen to me, living in the light of the gospel, walking in love, walking in the light, it is worth changing your plans to go on an afternoon prayer walk with the Lord.

It is worth changing your plans to call a brother or a sister.

Saying, hey, can we grab a cup of coffee this afternoon?

We need to talk.

It's worth coming to your pastor saying, Pastor, can we get together right after the service and pray?

I need to talk to you.

Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

What does the apostle say?

I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

God in heaven, we need your help.

Would you, by your mercy, change us?

Would you strengthen us to offer our lives as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing, acceptable to you as our spiritual worship?

Lord Jesus, I ask specifically for the saints who are harboring sin in private corners of their life.

Would your spirit impress upon them?

Would it bear heavy upon them the need to make no provision for the flesh?

Would you remind them of the gospel identity they have received in Christ?

Put on the Lord Jesus.

Wear the robes of his righteousness.

We ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.