Scripture: Matthew 6:13; Luke 11:4, James 1:13-15
Listen link: www.lcepc.org then look for “sermons” tab
For today’s sermon, we focused on the words “lead us not into temptation” and what that phrase might sound like to the new believers who will be arriving as God adds them to our numbers. As you heard James tell us in, 1:13-15, a, when it comes to sin and temptation, God doesn’t lead us anywhere. We’re pretty good at finding it all by ourselves. James says clearly that we are tempted when our own evil desires drag us off into sin.
Therefore says, James, “When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone. But if that’s true, why do we have to ask God to lead us not into temptation? The prayer sounds like he might lead us right into temptation if we don’t ask Him not to! What is Jesus asking us to pray for in this petition? To get a handle on that, I want to quickly review the other petitions, or prayer requests in the Christian’s Prayer so that we get a picture of where Jesus’ is leading us as he teaches us this prayer.
The prayer opens with an address to God. We realize that we are talking to our perfectly loving and Holy Heavenly Father who is in Heaven, forever alive, forever watching over us in his sovereign reign and who loves to provide us with all good things according to our need. The first petition then, or request we make of our Father, is that His kingdom should come. We are asking God to bring in His kingdom, that is, for Jesus to come again and complete the redemption work he started and provide that perfect peace that we long for. The next thing we ask is for His will to always be done on earth as it is in heaven. That is to say, until Jesus comes again, we pray that God will nevertheless rule and reign in the world by ruling and reigning in our own hearts. We want to be his ambassadors and show the world what Kingdom life is like. But we can’t do it on our own. We need His power at work in us.
So, in the next petition we ask God for physical and spiritual sustenance. We recognize that he is the source of life in us. Remember daily bread is both physical food from the table, and the spiritual food of Jesus, the true Bread that we get from the Bible; every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. I like that. At table and Bible we acknowledge our total dependence upon Him for that abundant life he wants us to live in Christ. Then we acknowledge that, despite the petitions and prayers we are being taught to pray, we also sin. We are saved by grace through faith, but that does not immediately make us morally perfect and so we will stumble and fall. We will grieve the Holy Spirit and hurt each other too. We acknowledge all that whenever we ask God to forgive us and promise that we also will forgive as we have been forgiven.
Let me summarize, a really modern way to pray the Christian’s Prayer up to this point would go like this: Our perfect Father who lives in heaven, everybody should know how wonderful you are and say so. Help us acknowledge that you have a right to be in charge of our lives more than we do. Then if we trust and obey You this world will look more like your idea of good. We depend on you for everything, even our daily food, both physical and spiritual. Yet we ignore you and pretend we don't need you. Forgive us for that, and help us to have the same forgiving attitude toward those who hurt or ignore us.
So now we come to the petition or request we are studying today. An exact translation from the Aramaic language Jesus spoke into the Greek language that was written down does sound like, “Lead us not,” as in “please don’t lead us there!” But we sure don’t want to pray that God would not lead us because we depend upon His leading to live a good life.
By now it should be clear that in every petition or request in this prayer we are asking God to operate for our good. That means we are acknowledging that we have no strength apart from Him. We have no life to live but the life He gives us. Yet because the power of sin still tries to have its way with us, we try to go our own way and live according to our own will, with pride in being able to take care of ourselves, believing in our own strength and relying on that to live in a way that pleases God, or else in the worst case we aren’t even trying to please God but only ourselves.
There is a tendency in us, even after we believe the gospel, to revert to relying on our own efforts. Our self-will rises up so easily and says to God. “Now I get it. I can take it from here.” But God wants us to stay humble before him and dependent upon him through the Holy Spirit. So, we pray that He will lead us. In particular we pray that He would lead us away from temptation so that we do not give in. Guide us as we go along Oh Lord. We acknowledge our own moral weakness before the powers of the world, the flesh and the devil.
And since we are painfully aware of our constant failures and ashamed of them, we end up doing the only thing we can, try to hide it, the way Adam and Eve tried to hide from God in the garden, another futile effort that only pushes us farther and farther from the only source of hope to win the victory.
This line in the prayer, “Lead us away from temptation should lead us to pray more like this, “Strengthen us Lord so that when we are tested we come through with flying colors and flee from the devil and all evil.” Then we find that strength to do that comes from clinging to Jesus, like a branch on a vine. That’s what he said we are, branches. He is the vine that gives us life to be fruitful. We must believe the gospel, that the resurrection power that raised Jesus from the dead is powerful enough to change our lives. Believe that His Holy Spirit is at work in us and that He will be faithful to complete what he has begun.
We will all be tested. Temptations will come. We don’t have to be lead to them. Our adversary is eager to throw up roadblocks and stumbling blocks trying to cause us to fall away from God. But God has promised in 1 Cor. 10:12-13, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”
When you are tempted, you don’t have to look around and hope to discover some secret way of escape like a trap door is hidden somewhere. The way of escape is to turn to God! In a few words just before the verse I just read it says, “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” Paul is warning us that we will fall if our confidence is self-confidence. If we think we can resist temptation without God’s help, we will surely fail.
But the moment you ask God to lead you away from the temptation, you have the freedom to trust in His power and promise that you do not need to fall into sin. Now God will not grab you by the hand and force you to run from the tempter. But you can trust and believe in this, you have the power to choose. The Truth that sets you free sets you free to choose a different response than that which your natural inclination may dictate or desire.
The root word for temptation is actually not about an invitation to selfish pleasure or to do evil. It is really about testing or proving. That is why it is the word used about what happened to Jesus after 40 days in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry. Jesus was tempted by the devil three times in that episode. But Jesus stood up to his adversary and won the day. He proved that he was strong enough to not sin. We will sometimes be tested. That is actually a good thing because it will reveal to us how we are doing in our growing Christian maturity.
Let’s take a bridge as an example. The engineer that designed the bridge have assured the investors that the bridge can hold one hundred tons of weight. Now, should the investors just trust the engineer’s professional declaration? Well, if they did, they may never know for sure that the bridge will hold. Instead, for peace of mind, they will load one hundred tons of weight on that bridge, tempting it to break. They are testing the bridge, loading it to its limit, tempting it to fail, but hoping that it won’t, while the engineer of course, knows that it won’t, if they’ve done their job. (But I’ll bet Lee is over their thinking, Engineers who have done their best don’t really know but still really hope for the best when their work is put to the test.) When the test is over and the bridge has proven itself, the engineers can relax, and the investors can be confident in promoting the use of that bridge because it did what its designer said it could do.
You may not wish to hear this, but the truth is, as your engineer, and creator, God has created you to endure. God said to satan, “Have you considered my servant Job?” When satan approaches God concerning you, God replaces Job’s name with yours when He brags to satan about you. Have you considered my servant Lee? Have you taken a good look at Mike Klein lately? And how about the amazing Teresa Purkiss? God knows what stuff He made you out of. Satan may not believe it, and God will allow satan to prove what God already knows to be true, but God will not allow you to be tested beyond what He designed you to bear.
Paul tells us in 2 Cor. 4:8-9 that, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” Why, because the life of Jesus is in us.
In Hebrews we are told, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are yet was without sin.” (Heb. 4:15) When Jesus instructs us to pray, “lead us away from temptation,” or more directly, “don’t let us be tempted beyond what we can bear,” He knows what He is talking about. I doubt that the three temptations that we read about in the wilderness were the only ones that Jesus faced during His ministry here on earth. I’m sure that there was discouragement and a sense of being overwhelmed as He walked among the mass of humanity, trapped in sin and its consequences.
Jesus knew, however, that there was always a means of escape and I’m sure that Jesus found that way in His prayer life. Instead of being overcome by the evil around Him, He turned to His heavenly Father, in prayer, to be restored, refreshed and renewed. In prayer, Jesus was delivered from evil. In this prayer, Jesus teaches us that we can do the same.
But not without Him. Think back to the very first temptation, back in the garden of Eden. Eve knew the command of God: this tree in the middle of the garden was forbidden. But the voice of the serpent sounded so reasonable that she decided to try the offered temptation. And Adam willingly participated. They reasoned that the eating of the fruit of this tree could bring delight and wisdom. They trusted their own reasoning more than God’s command. How often have I also trusted my own reasoning and turned away from God’s commands? God’s commands would lead me away from temptation. And so, I pray that I will listen and obey.
It is very fitting that today is our Communion Sunday in which we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper, the very thing that Jesus told us to do, to remember all he has done to provide for our forgiveness and eternal life, an eternal life that we begin to live from the very day we begin to believe the gospel. By partaking of the bread, that represents the body of Christ broken for us, we give thanks for the ways that Jesus makes us whole and incorporates us back into one body, the Body of Christ. By partaking of the fruit of the vine, we cling to the vine that is Jesus, and receive his life that gives us life. Jesus came to provide forgiveness of sin and the power to resist temptation. I’m so glad he came.
Listen link: www.lcepc.org then look for “sermons” tab
For today’s sermon, we focused on the words “lead us not into temptation” and what that phrase might sound like to the new believers who will be arriving as God adds them to our numbers. As you heard James tell us in, 1:13-15, a, when it comes to sin and temptation, God doesn’t lead us anywhere. We’re pretty good at finding it all by ourselves. James says clearly that we are tempted when our own evil desires drag us off into sin.
Therefore says, James, “When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone. But if that’s true, why do we have to ask God to lead us not into temptation? The prayer sounds like he might lead us right into temptation if we don’t ask Him not to! What is Jesus asking us to pray for in this petition? To get a handle on that, I want to quickly review the other petitions, or prayer requests in the Christian’s Prayer so that we get a picture of where Jesus’ is leading us as he teaches us this prayer.
The prayer opens with an address to God. We realize that we are talking to our perfectly loving and Holy Heavenly Father who is in Heaven, forever alive, forever watching over us in his sovereign reign and who loves to provide us with all good things according to our need. The first petition then, or request we make of our Father, is that His kingdom should come. We are asking God to bring in His kingdom, that is, for Jesus to come again and complete the redemption work he started and provide that perfect peace that we long for. The next thing we ask is for His will to always be done on earth as it is in heaven. That is to say, until Jesus comes again, we pray that God will nevertheless rule and reign in the world by ruling and reigning in our own hearts. We want to be his ambassadors and show the world what Kingdom life is like. But we can’t do it on our own. We need His power at work in us.
So, in the next petition we ask God for physical and spiritual sustenance. We recognize that he is the source of life in us. Remember daily bread is both physical food from the table, and the spiritual food of Jesus, the true Bread that we get from the Bible; every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. I like that. At table and Bible we acknowledge our total dependence upon Him for that abundant life he wants us to live in Christ. Then we acknowledge that, despite the petitions and prayers we are being taught to pray, we also sin. We are saved by grace through faith, but that does not immediately make us morally perfect and so we will stumble and fall. We will grieve the Holy Spirit and hurt each other too. We acknowledge all that whenever we ask God to forgive us and promise that we also will forgive as we have been forgiven.
Let me summarize, a really modern way to pray the Christian’s Prayer up to this point would go like this: Our perfect Father who lives in heaven, everybody should know how wonderful you are and say so. Help us acknowledge that you have a right to be in charge of our lives more than we do. Then if we trust and obey You this world will look more like your idea of good. We depend on you for everything, even our daily food, both physical and spiritual. Yet we ignore you and pretend we don't need you. Forgive us for that, and help us to have the same forgiving attitude toward those who hurt or ignore us.
So now we come to the petition or request we are studying today. An exact translation from the Aramaic language Jesus spoke into the Greek language that was written down does sound like, “Lead us not,” as in “please don’t lead us there!” But we sure don’t want to pray that God would not lead us because we depend upon His leading to live a good life.
By now it should be clear that in every petition or request in this prayer we are asking God to operate for our good. That means we are acknowledging that we have no strength apart from Him. We have no life to live but the life He gives us. Yet because the power of sin still tries to have its way with us, we try to go our own way and live according to our own will, with pride in being able to take care of ourselves, believing in our own strength and relying on that to live in a way that pleases God, or else in the worst case we aren’t even trying to please God but only ourselves.
There is a tendency in us, even after we believe the gospel, to revert to relying on our own efforts. Our self-will rises up so easily and says to God. “Now I get it. I can take it from here.” But God wants us to stay humble before him and dependent upon him through the Holy Spirit. So, we pray that He will lead us. In particular we pray that He would lead us away from temptation so that we do not give in. Guide us as we go along Oh Lord. We acknowledge our own moral weakness before the powers of the world, the flesh and the devil.
And since we are painfully aware of our constant failures and ashamed of them, we end up doing the only thing we can, try to hide it, the way Adam and Eve tried to hide from God in the garden, another futile effort that only pushes us farther and farther from the only source of hope to win the victory.
This line in the prayer, “Lead us away from temptation should lead us to pray more like this, “Strengthen us Lord so that when we are tested we come through with flying colors and flee from the devil and all evil.” Then we find that strength to do that comes from clinging to Jesus, like a branch on a vine. That’s what he said we are, branches. He is the vine that gives us life to be fruitful. We must believe the gospel, that the resurrection power that raised Jesus from the dead is powerful enough to change our lives. Believe that His Holy Spirit is at work in us and that He will be faithful to complete what he has begun.
We will all be tested. Temptations will come. We don’t have to be lead to them. Our adversary is eager to throw up roadblocks and stumbling blocks trying to cause us to fall away from God. But God has promised in 1 Cor. 10:12-13, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”
When you are tempted, you don’t have to look around and hope to discover some secret way of escape like a trap door is hidden somewhere. The way of escape is to turn to God! In a few words just before the verse I just read it says, “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” Paul is warning us that we will fall if our confidence is self-confidence. If we think we can resist temptation without God’s help, we will surely fail.
But the moment you ask God to lead you away from the temptation, you have the freedom to trust in His power and promise that you do not need to fall into sin. Now God will not grab you by the hand and force you to run from the tempter. But you can trust and believe in this, you have the power to choose. The Truth that sets you free sets you free to choose a different response than that which your natural inclination may dictate or desire.
The root word for temptation is actually not about an invitation to selfish pleasure or to do evil. It is really about testing or proving. That is why it is the word used about what happened to Jesus after 40 days in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry. Jesus was tempted by the devil three times in that episode. But Jesus stood up to his adversary and won the day. He proved that he was strong enough to not sin. We will sometimes be tested. That is actually a good thing because it will reveal to us how we are doing in our growing Christian maturity.
Let’s take a bridge as an example. The engineer that designed the bridge have assured the investors that the bridge can hold one hundred tons of weight. Now, should the investors just trust the engineer’s professional declaration? Well, if they did, they may never know for sure that the bridge will hold. Instead, for peace of mind, they will load one hundred tons of weight on that bridge, tempting it to break. They are testing the bridge, loading it to its limit, tempting it to fail, but hoping that it won’t, while the engineer of course, knows that it won’t, if they’ve done their job. (But I’ll bet Lee is over their thinking, Engineers who have done their best don’t really know but still really hope for the best when their work is put to the test.) When the test is over and the bridge has proven itself, the engineers can relax, and the investors can be confident in promoting the use of that bridge because it did what its designer said it could do.
You may not wish to hear this, but the truth is, as your engineer, and creator, God has created you to endure. God said to satan, “Have you considered my servant Job?” When satan approaches God concerning you, God replaces Job’s name with yours when He brags to satan about you. Have you considered my servant Lee? Have you taken a good look at Mike Klein lately? And how about the amazing Teresa Purkiss? God knows what stuff He made you out of. Satan may not believe it, and God will allow satan to prove what God already knows to be true, but God will not allow you to be tested beyond what He designed you to bear.
Paul tells us in 2 Cor. 4:8-9 that, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” Why, because the life of Jesus is in us.
In Hebrews we are told, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are yet was without sin.” (Heb. 4:15) When Jesus instructs us to pray, “lead us away from temptation,” or more directly, “don’t let us be tempted beyond what we can bear,” He knows what He is talking about. I doubt that the three temptations that we read about in the wilderness were the only ones that Jesus faced during His ministry here on earth. I’m sure that there was discouragement and a sense of being overwhelmed as He walked among the mass of humanity, trapped in sin and its consequences.
Jesus knew, however, that there was always a means of escape and I’m sure that Jesus found that way in His prayer life. Instead of being overcome by the evil around Him, He turned to His heavenly Father, in prayer, to be restored, refreshed and renewed. In prayer, Jesus was delivered from evil. In this prayer, Jesus teaches us that we can do the same.
But not without Him. Think back to the very first temptation, back in the garden of Eden. Eve knew the command of God: this tree in the middle of the garden was forbidden. But the voice of the serpent sounded so reasonable that she decided to try the offered temptation. And Adam willingly participated. They reasoned that the eating of the fruit of this tree could bring delight and wisdom. They trusted their own reasoning more than God’s command. How often have I also trusted my own reasoning and turned away from God’s commands? God’s commands would lead me away from temptation. And so, I pray that I will listen and obey.
It is very fitting that today is our Communion Sunday in which we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper, the very thing that Jesus told us to do, to remember all he has done to provide for our forgiveness and eternal life, an eternal life that we begin to live from the very day we begin to believe the gospel. By partaking of the bread, that represents the body of Christ broken for us, we give thanks for the ways that Jesus makes us whole and incorporates us back into one body, the Body of Christ. By partaking of the fruit of the vine, we cling to the vine that is Jesus, and receive his life that gives us life. Jesus came to provide forgiveness of sin and the power to resist temptation. I’m so glad he came.
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