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In the name of Jesus. Christ the Lord is coming. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. Saint Paul's instruction in tonight's epistle reading is no different than the teaching of Jesus. He has no more to say than Jesus has already said. It's funny that there are those who love to debate the continuity of Scripture. But St. Paul doesn't speak a different language, a different message than Christ. And as Christians, neither should we. Love fulfills the commandments. It seems simple enough. Except we most often have a skewed view of love, don't we? We believe love resides in our emotions. We believe love is a matter of our affections. Except Scripture uses neither of these words to describe love. Our perceptions skew what we believe Jesus is saying. It distorts what St. Paul's written exhortation. So then let's start from the right perception. Let's deal with scriptural perceptions. Love is law. From our perspective as God's creation, fallen creation now, love will always be law. It's commanded of us. It's required of us. A lawyer in St. Matthew's Gospel once asked Jesus this question Which is the great commandment in the law? To which our Lord deftly responds, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and 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 your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law. And in another place, Jesus says, If you love me, you will keep my commandments. My fellow Christians, love is how Christ sums up the law. So in this way, St. Paul says in Romans, 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 no wrong to neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. Love is how St. Paul describes the fulfilling of the law. No matter how we twist it and turn it, no matter how we try to dress it up, love is law. That's why loving those who hurt you is so difficult. That's why loving your enemies seems near to impossible. Yet we are commanded to do both. And why? Because if God loved them enough to die for them, then who are we to withhold our love toward them? God's love toward us is his undeserved grace. And if we claim to be of God, if we claim to be the children of God, if we claim to be the baptized child that we are, then God's love should have its way with us. If we claim to be of God but have not love, then we are not acting according to his spirit, but according to our own flesh. Even if we have every spiritual gift, if we have not love, we have nothing. God's love is demonstrated in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, your Savior, which has won for you the forgiveness of all your sins. Who are you, dear Christian, to withhold forgiveness from someone else if Jesus loves them enough to die for them? Lest we end up like the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18, who is forgiven more than a lifetime's worth of debt by his master, but is unwilling to forgive the debt of his fellow servant who owed him. You cannot love and hold a grudge at the same time. I'm sorry. This is not of Christ. Repent and be forgiven daily, so that you may live in his forgiveness by the renewing of your heart and mind. In this way, the Lord grants you the grace and the strength that you need to forgive and serve your brother or sister in Christ. 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 then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. It's not a mistake what St. Paul has to say to the Roman Christians. It goes together. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. Does he not lump quarreling and jealousy with orgies and drunkenness and sexual immorality? Are not all these the works of darkness? Dear friends in Christ, don't be tempted to say, well, this just demonstrates that sin is sin. Yes, but all sin is damning. Nor should we treat any sin as though it's insignificant or a small thing. Didn't someone give their life for you and for your sins? Didn't someone pay the price to get you out of eternal death? Or did you forget that Christ has done it all in your place? So then, dear Christian, dear baptized, how do we cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light? How do we walk properly as in the daytime? How do we owe no one anything except to love one another? The answer cannot be found in a pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and try harder moment. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. You must put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Or better yet, let the Lord put himself on you. Because without Christ, you can do none of these things. You must let your Lord have his way with you. He must have his way with your heart. You must be immersed in him in order to cast off the works of darkness. For he himself is your armor of light. You must be covered in Christ. This is baptismal language that St. Paul is using with us, if you don't recognize that. His exhortation is to receive what Christ Himself is doing to his people, where he promises to unite with them. Unless Christ unites himself to you, you have no hope. You must be covered in Christ in order to stand before the one true God and live. You must put on Christ. He is your armor of light, he is the white robe, he is the right garment to wear at the wedding feast of the Lamb in His kingdom, which has no end. You must be covered with Christ and receive all that he has for you. In order to make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. The flesh will always want what it wants. Not only the gross desires of sexual immorality, but also the desire to quarrel or be jealous or to hate or to hold a grudge or even talk about somebody behind their back. And St. Paul's clear that the only way to overcome the desires of the flesh, the only way to put off the darkness of our minds, is to be covered with Jesus. And it is he who covered you with his most holy and precious blood in your baptism, where you were sprinkled clean and washed from all your sins. Because, as St. Paul also says to the Galatians, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, as in clothed. And again, in Romans, all of us who have been baptized into Christ were baptized into his death. Yes, his death on that cross. What is even more is that every Lord's day, which is Sunday, he comes to us in humble and powerful means. He feeds us with his life-giving word and then unites himself, unites us with himself in and through his own body and blood, offered here at this altar. He is the bread of life. His body is true food, his blood is true drink, and Christ our Lord comes to you in order that you may be full of him. You need Jesus. You need Jesus in all the ways he promises to come to you and unite with you and to cover you with himself. You need Jesus. So receive what your Lord has for you and let yourselves be clothed with him and filled with him so that you can love each other as he first loved us. That's why the Lord's Supper, every Lord's day, is so important. You can never get too much Jesus. It is the only way you can overcome the desires of the flesh, dear baptized. It is the only way you know him and trust his word. It is the only way that you can come before the Father and live. That when the Father looks at you, he must look down and see his beloved Son, with whom he is well pleased, who has life and has it abundantly. So be covered with Jesus. Be filled with Jesus. For behold, Christ our Lord comes to you, dear beloved, riding in on humble means of water and word and bread and wine. And yet, it is the Lord. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. In the name of Jesus. Amen.