The Fourth Watch ends with light. The Fourth Watch, if you remember, is roughly the period between 3:00 AM and 6:00 AM, the time of night when Jesus walked on water out to his disciples who were exhausted after struggling with their oars for hours against the wind and waves. The Fourth Watch was when an owl attacked me while I was running through the forest a month ago. The Fourth Watch is when it is the darkest, just before dawn.
And that’s exactly where Paul takes us, with echoes of the Easter story. The old age is passing away like the night, and the new age has dawned with Jesus the Messiah.
“It is already the moment for you to wake from sleep,” Paul writes. “The night is far gone and the day is near.”
Paul is calling for the Roman Christians—and us—to wake up from spiritual sleep. “Stumble to the kitchen and pour yourself a cup of ambition,” Paul would say, if he knew the song. He continues, saying that Christ is returning, and his salvation is nearer to us now than before. So live like it! Live like Christ’s return is imminent! Wake up! This is Paul’s message.
And if you’re going to wake up and face the day, you have to get dressed.
Paul doesn’t just tell us to wake up. He tells us what to put on.
Wake up. Put on Christ. Live in the light.
Paul writes a beautiful chiasm here—a literary structure where ideas are repeated in reverse order. Watch this chiasm unfold in verses 12-14. [SLIDE]
A-B-C-D-D-C-B-A
A – Let us then throw off the works of darkness
B – Put on the armor of light
C – Let us walk decently as in the day
D – Not in reveling and drunkenness
D – Not in illicit sex and licentiousness
C – Not in quarreling and jealousy
B – Put on the Lord Jesus Christ
A – Make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires
Paul starts and ends his urgent appeal with the things we are to throw off and the things we are to put on. And right in the center of his chiasm, he lists behaviors to leave behind: drunkenness, debauchery, quarreling, and jealousy. Paul lists illicit sex as well, without knowing about Internet porn.
Has much changed since First Century Rome?
Nobody is pushing these behaviors onto us. Nobody makes us jealous, drunk or browse illicit websites.
Ephesians 6 lists for us the familiar armor of God—the belt, breastplate, shield, helmet, and sword—armor for standing against the forces that come against us. But Romans gives us another kind of protection. Paul is teaching us how to protect ourselves from our most dangerous enemy: ourselves.
In Romans 7:23, Paul, practically despondent, writes, “I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am!”
Steve Bailey, a Christian men’s ministry leader, described his relatable internal warfare this way: “I am often reminded that the enemy attacks me from within… my thoughts, my fears, and the intrusive ‘stinkin thinkin’ that haunts me every day is where I fight.”
We often resist seeing ourselves as the problem. We create excuses to protect our pride and justify or hide our behavior.
It was two thousand years ago when the Apostle Paul described his internal civil war. He pulled back the curtain on his own heart to show us that our greatest spiritual threat isn’t outside—it’s inside us. The phone call is coming from inside the house, as it were.
There is a raw vulnerability in looking in the mirror and admitting our true spiritual condition. “What a wretched man I am!” Paul was willing to see himself as he really was. But that’s only half the equation. Patrick Morley writes, “The man in the mirror will never change until he is willing to see himself as he really is, and to commit to know God as He really is.”
It’s not enough to see ourselves clearly. We need to know God clearly, too. Because the goal isn’t simply to become better versions of ourselves. The goal is to become more like Christ.
And Paul tells us what we need to do. He surrounds those works of darkness in the center of his chiasm with two things we are told to put on:
· Put on the armor of light
· Put on the Lord Jesus Christ
He starts with, “Put on the armor of light.”
This armor carries the power of light—the power of a sunrise after rowing or running all night. The power of leaving the darkness behind. Verse 12: “Throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” Ephesians 5:11-12: “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them… But everything exposed by the light becomes visible.” “Armor of light” becomes a metaphor for living as though the lights are always on, refusing to return to the deeds of darkness.
At the other end of his chiasm, Paul writes, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is also the armor you wear together with the armor of light.
Wake up. Put on Christ. Live in the light.
“For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” – Galatians 3:27
Paul told the Galatians what he is telling the Roman Christians—and us: Put on and wear the Lord Jesus Christ.
Since Paul is telling us to put on Christ, eventually we’re going to have to ask what that looks like when we walk out the door.
Joanne referenced Colossians 3:12, for her spiritual gifts article in this month’s “The Branches,” our church’s newsletter. “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Those are characteristics a Christian would want to put on – and live out.
Jesus listed eight core Christian characteristics in the Beatitudes: humility, compassion, meekness, righteousness, mercy, purity of heart, peacemaking, and perseverance.
That is what putting on Christ looks like: allowing His character to become our character.
So imagine Joan Rivers were standing at the door as if it were the red carpet, asking her famous question of each of us, “Who are you wearing?”
In 2013, Jennifer Lawrence was wearing a Christian Dior gown when she went up to accept the Oscar for Best Actress. On the way up, she tripped and fell.
Her recovery was almost as memorable as her fall. She immediately laughed at herself, giving everyone else permission to laugh with her.
Christian Dior didn’t make her immune to falling. And wearing a beautiful dress didn’t make her nimble, either.
Who are you wearing?
As you awake from the Fourth Watch, remember: your greatest enemy is the one within. Before you tumble out of bed each morning, choose one characteristic of Christ to put on. Compassion./ Kindness./ Gentleness./ Forgiveness./ Patience./ Put it on intentionally. Don’t just put on clothes. Put on Christ.
Because when we put on Christ, we don’t just change how we look to other people. We change how we respond to them. We change our behavior. His character becomes our character. When we look in the mirror, we start to see Christ’s character reflected back.
And that matters not only because it changes us. It changes the way people experience the church. When people encounter Christians who respond with:
· patience instead of anger
· forgiveness instead of resentment
· gentleness instead of hostility
· kindness instead of contempt
· compassion instead of indifference…
They see something different. They also see a glimpse of Christ.
That’s what it means to live in the light.
“Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” – Matthew 5:16
Paul says, “Throw off the works of darkness. Put on the armor of light. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”
So, Wake up. Put on Christ. Live in the light.To the Lord our God, Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, be all glory and honor forever.
