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"LORD TEACH US TO PRAY" LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATIONMatthew 6:13 with 1 John 3:7-10INTRODUCTION Just this week I heard another story that illustrates how uncomprehending so many within the Christian church are of the good news of Jesus Christ as Jesus himself explains it in this “Lord’s Prayer.” A man who professes to be a Christian was committing adultery with a married woman. The woman’s husband found out and the woman broke off the relationship. This professing Christian man then murdered the husband and his former lover. He is now facing the death penalty. The man’s Christian mother is obviously distressed and is working to keep her son off death row but she has told several that even if he gets the death penalty it is going to be OK because her son is a Christian. This is not because he has had a conversion experience since this happened but because when he was child he “asked Jesus into his heart.” What is most troubling about this story is that this Christian mother has been attending an evangelical church, going to Sunday School for at least thirty years. How can she possibly have no doubt that her adulterous, murdering son is a Christian? For so many years the evangelical church has been taught that because we are saved by grace and not by works that it is possible to be a Christian and on your way to heaven and to have no interest in Christ or in living a righteous life. We have been told that there are two kinds of Christians, carnal and spiritual or saved and Spirit-baptized or saved and sanctified. In other words, most of evangelical Christianity has been taught that you can have Jesus as Savior but not have him as Lord. You can be forgiven of your sins and go to heaven while at the same time you have no interest in avoiding sin or in going to heaven. This prayer that Jesus commands every one who professes to be a Christian to pray cannot be prayed by those who know Jesus as Savior but not as Lord. There is only one kind of Christian and every one who is a Christian sincerely and honestly prays this prayer. What this prayer teaches is that our sins are forgiven and we are on our way to heaven not because of anything we have ever done or will do but entirely because of what Jesus Christ has done, is doing and will do. It teaches us that Christ has saved us from our sins, both their penalty and their power. What we have seen about this prayer is that it expresses the new desires of the new person that God has made us to be. As a result of the salvation given to us in Christ we are people who yearn for God to be made much of, not ourselves. What makes us happy is God’s reputation growing in the world, not our reputation. We long for Jesus to be king in our lives and in his church and over more and more people in the world. We are passionate about doing God’s will and helping others do God’s will just like angels and glorified saints do his will in heaven. We don’t fear the loss of earthly pleasure or necessities, nor do we pursue earthly comfort as the goal of life, rather we ask our heavenly Father to give us what we need to live out the days he has granted us on earth. Every day we tell him our sins and rejoice that we are forgiven because of Jesus’ life and death for us while telling him that we also have forgiven everyone who has sinned against us. Now in this final petition we daily ask God to not lead us into temptation but to deliver us from Satan and all his schemes. This morning I aim to convince you that you are in a war every day of your life and if you do not live as if you are at war, then you are going to be killed in the battle. Because we are saved by grace we are people who fight against sin. This is the only kind of Christian that exists. All who profess to be Christians but who do not pray as this prayer directs are merely pretenders. MAIN POINT We must ask God to keep us from temptation and deliver us from Satan because… I. We have been born of God (1 John 3:7-10) If you did not hear last week’s sermon I would highly recommend that you get it on tape or CD, read it on line or contact the office to get a copy of the manuscript made so you can read it. What I described last week was the fact that we are saved by grace, not by or because of what we do or who we are. Every Christian, every day must ask God to forgive their sins knowing that they are forgiven, not because we ask but because God must honor the life, death, resurrection and present intercession of Jesus Christ. In this final petition we are asking God to keep us from sinning. Don’t miss the logic of what Jesus is saying here. All those who are freely forgiven of their sins, daily ask God to keep them from sinning. All those who daily sin also daily ask God to keep them from sin. We don’t think that because we are forgiven it doesn’t matter whether or not we sin. The balance in what Jesus says here is so necessary if we are going to appreciate the glory of his salvation. Many reason that if it is impossible for me to stop sinning and if I am forgiven of all my sins because of what Christ did, then why should I bother with trying to not sin? It’s like a pastor I once knew who committed adultery. He was found out and confronted by his Christian friends. They asked how he could engage in this behavior for two years while preaching the gospel. He said, “I just figured I wouldn’t get any rewards in heaven.” He planned to go to heaven because of what Jesus did. The only motive he could think of for not sinning was getting “extra” rewards in heaven. As there was no chance he would go to hell and as the extra rewards offered could not compare with the pleasure he was experiencing, he could think of no reason to not go on committing adultery. 1 John 3:7-10 is one of the scores of passages that give the primary reason as to why it is that those who are freely forgiven through Christ seek to not sin. John wrote this letter to make clear how you can recognize true Christians and a true Christian church. This letter seeks to clarify how to distinguish between a true work of God and what is merely words. Throughout the letter John uses one overarching metaphor to describe the work of God. You can see it in our passage. It is the metaphor of birth. In 2:29 John tells us that because God is righteous in his nature then you can know that everyone who does what is righteous has been born of God. It is in the genetic code that all who have been born of God are going to do righteousness because they have God’s life in them and God is righteous. In 3:9-10 he says the same thing from the negative direction. He says that those who have been born of God do not and cannot go on sinning because they have been born of God. God’s seed, which is another word for his very nature, dwells in us and so we cannot go on sinning. Now we know that John is not saying that Christians never sin because in 1 John 1:8 & 10, he says that anyone who claims to not sin is lying and calling God a liar. He says, in v. 9, using a present tense verb that we continually confess our sins, not that we don’t sin. The tense of the verbs here is very important. First, “have been born of God” is a perfect past in the passive voice. In other words this verb tells us that there was a point in time in the past when these people were born of God. However, it didn’t just happen to them once but they are in a continuing state of “being alive”. In addition, because it is a passive verb it means that they were given birth, they didn’t cause their birth. Everyone in here has been physically born of his or her mother and father. As I have said many times, you did not decide to be born. You did nothing to contribute to your birth. You were born at a point in time and you continue to experience the effects of that birth in that you are alive. Everyone in here has been born of his or her mom and dad. How do we know when a baby is alive? It cries, moves, eats, goes to the bathroom. We know that life is given by the effects we observe. This is exactly the logic that John uses repeatedly in this letter. Once I was born physically I could not keep myself from growing to this height. I could not stop from looking like my father. Once I was born and given life, then I breathed and grew. I am my father’s son and so there are certain things that are going to be true of me. Follow through vv. 7-10 with me to see how John applies this idea. First, in v. 7 he warns us to not be deceived or led astray. Those who live righteously are righteous in their nature because God is righteous in his nature. When God gives you birth you are given his nature and he is righteous by nature, therefore you do righteousness. It is natural to do so and is the evidence you have the life of God in you. The warning to not be led astray is due to the fact that many would have you believe that you can be God’s child and not practice righteousness. That is not true. Every true child of God is growing in their practice of righteousness. While not all true Christians are equally skilled in the practice of righteous living, all practice righteousness. The birth metaphor is helpful here. My grandson Max cannot walk, talk, do the dishes, read a book or run a mile or any number of things that I can easily do. What’s the problem with Maxwell? Doesn’t he know that every one who is born is supposed to be able to talk and walk? Why doesn’t he talk? How come he can’t even crawl? He must not be alive because he can’t do what I can do. Wrong, he needs to grow, right? I am not more alive than Maxwell. I do not possess more life. I have never added to the life I possessed at birth. The life I was given then has caused me to grow. However, it has been a process through time with which I cooperated. It is the same in spiritual life. Everyone who has been born of God immediately upon being born is sinning less but he is not sinning as little as he is going to 30 years later. And yet he is going to keep on sinning until the day he dies. John has some very bad news to tell us also. He says that everyone who is in the habit of sinning, in whom there is no break from sin, is of the devil. The reason is because the devil has been sinning from the beginning of the world. Either you have divine life and are growing to sin less or you have the life of Satan and you never stop sinning. Those are the only two conditions that every human being falls into. We are told at the end of v. 8 that the reason that Jesus came was to destroy the devil’s work. What is his work? Sinning and leading others to sin. The children of the devil can be seen by the fact that they continually, non-stop live in sin. They break God’s laws and have no interest in not breaking God’s laws. They don’t ever live by faith in the promises of God or live to the glory of God. The children of God are known by the fact that they are in the process of keeping God’s laws more and more by faith to the glory of God. There is an inevitable connection between being the recipient of divine life through Christ by the Holy Spirit and how you live and how you pray. Everyone who has been born of God shows that they possess divine life by their sinning less and their obeying more over time. They make this progress by asking God to do make the life he planted in us to grow. Yet, as we saw last week, we never come to the place in this life where we are sinless. Obedience to the law of God is not the cause of our having divine life but rather the effect of having God’s life and yet it is never a perfect obedience. When we daily pray that God would not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the devil we are expressing this divine life that is within us. Like a child asking his father to help him tie his shoes or learn to ride the bike or swim or shoot baskets so we are asking our heavenly Father to help us to learn to practice the righteousness that he has planted in us. Children are able to do these things because of the life that is in them. They need assistance to practice and perfect what is already in them. That is, in essence what we pray for. We ask God to keep us from sin and to assist us in practicing righteousness. We must ask God to keep us from temptation and deliver us from Satan because…
II. We are weak but God is strong (Matthew 6:13) When we ask God to not lead us into temptation but to rescue us from the devil we are admitting to our weakness. It is significant that this request follows right on the heels of our asking God to forgive our debts. It is like we are saying to our Father. “Let me tell you about all the ways I have failed to bring glory to your name, establish your kingdom and do your will. I have failed miserably at the thing I want most desperately to do. You know how weak I am so please make sure that no circumstances come into my life that will finally overwhelm me and cause me to abandon you. You know how susceptible I am to temptation so direct my steps away from those places and people where I will be tempted to sin and be overcome.” When we are praying this prayer right it is out of a great sense of our weakness and incompetence. There are no competent Christians, just incompetent Christians who rely upon their omni-competent Savior. Many have observed that this petition is quite strangely phrased. We are to ask God to not lead us into temptation, which sounds like God is in the business of leading his people into temptation unless we beg him to not do so. Why does Jesus say it this way? Why not have us pray, “Lord, keep me from sinning” or “Don’t let me fall into temptations that I can’t resist?” In answering that let me first be very clear by quoting for you James 1:13-15, “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” Temptation is not sin, it is the occasion of sin. We give into temptation because we want to. Therefore, when we ask God to not lead us into temptation we should never think that we are, by our praying, stopping God from leading us into sin. The prayer is phrased in this way because we recognize that God is in control of all things. Everything that happens in the world is under his sovereign control. There are no accidents. He knows our weaknesses and he is the one who sovereignly ordains the course of our lives. We are asking him to have mercy upon us and not permit to come into our lives those things that he knows would destroy our faith. It is very informative to realize that the same word that is translated temptation is also translated trial (Compare Matt. 6:13, Luke 4:1 with James 1:2, 1 Peter 4:12). God we are told sends trials into our lives but they are sent by him, not to lead us into sin but to purify our faith so that we will sin less. Therefore we are asking God to not send trials that will become temptations to sin. Only he knows what those trials might be and so we trust him to direct the course of our lives so that all that comes to us builds our faith rather than destroy it. We are requesting that God take note of our weaknesses and our propensities to sin and that he direct the course of our lives in ways that keep us from the snares and pitfalls that he knows we will not be able to resist. We are asking him to give us strength so that when we are tempted we will not surrender to the temptation and thus sin against him. The person who is daily praying this prayer knows that the circumstances that come into their life cannot harm them. There is a question that this prayer raises. If I ask God to keep me from temptation and to deliver me from Satan, why do I still commit acts of sin? It’s like the young mom that told me one time, “God doesn’t want me to yell at my children. I don’t want to yell at my children. I ask God to keep me from yelling at my children. So why do I still yell at my children?” God has the power to eliminate sinful impulses from us now, why doesn’t he do it? Wouldn’t it show off his glory in impossible to miss ways if every Christian, upon conversion, never sinned but always did righteousness? The Bible gives us many reasons as to why God does not make us perfect upon conversion. There is not enough time to explore the entire issue. Let me give two of the reasons why he doesn’t eradicate sin. First, when God acts to eradicate sin from this world it is going to be a thorough and complete eradication. He restrains himself now from exercising his full wrath against sin so that “all may come to repentance” as he says in 2 Peter. Wrath is being stored up against all sin. Judgment is coming. He is reserving his power to eradicate sin for that final day. It is on that day when he will change us in such a way that we will not be able to sin anymore, but that day is yet to come. Second, by not eradicating our sin nature when we are converted God displays the glory of his mercy and power in far greater ways. I watched a movie one time about a businessman who was kidnapped while living in a South American country by terrorists. His wife hired a guy to come and rescue him. The courage, compassion, intelligence and strength that this man displayed in rescuing the kidnapped man who was guarded by scores of armed men, could not walk due to a broken leg and was hidden in the remote jungles was amazing. Imagine that the wife, instead of hiring this one man with his small team of comrades was able to hire the US Army to send in the 3 rd Infantry Division. Instead of five men with small arms, the terrorist camp was attacked by Apache helicopters, tanks, airplanes and thousands of troops. In addition, just prior to the attack the army was able to give the man a complete suit of armor that was impervious to everything except nuclear weapons and didn’t require any effort on his part to operate it. With this armor on he could walk through and past all of the terrorists while they shot at him and could not be harmed by their bullets. Would we be as impressed with the general who ran that operation as we were with the individual who rescued him out of his prison while fighting off the enemy and carrying the kidnapped man to safety on his back? Our prayers to be kept from sin and God’s rescuing us through Christ, by the Holy Spirit keeping us safe in Christ to the day we die, through many temptations and trials shows forth his glory in far greater ways than if he had somehow made us impervious to temptation and overcame Satan and all his forces with overwhelming power. We must ask God to keep us from temptation and deliver us from Satan because…
III. Satan is a powerful and cunning enemy Jesus, by adding, “and deliver us from the evil one” is not suggesting that the 1970’s comedian Flip Wilson was right when he would say, “The devil made me do it.” Just as God does not ever tempt us, so Satan never makes us sin. This petition to be kept from temptation and rescued from the devil is based upon the fact that we are weak and prone to sin. The reason that Jesus tells us to ask God to rescue us from the evil one is because Satan is the one who stands behind all temptation. Paul, in 1 Thess. 3:5 calls him “the tempter”. In 1 John he is the one who gives power to sin to sinners and we are told, the whole world is under his power. In 2 Timothy we are told that individuals need to be rescued from Satan’s traps. Satan’s power against us is to get us to sin. Sin exposes people to the wrath of God. Satan is out to ruin God’s good name and spoil his creation and so he is out to get us to believe that sin and its pleasures are better than God and the eternal pleasures he offers to all who trust in him. What we should fear from Satan is not that he will possess us and turn us into raving lunatics or make us sick. Rather, what we are to fear from him is that he will deceive us and so we will sin and inherit death rather than life. Let me say that again: the reason to fear Satan is not because he might put a spirit in us or our children that will make us sick or act weird or give us a bad feeling. We should fear Satan because he is a master at making sin and false teaching appear more attractive than truth and righteousness. He has two primary weapons that he uses against us, to get us to sin. First, he uses lies and false teaching. He persuades us that the pleasures of sin are better than the pleasures of God. He sends out false teachers to lead us into believing false things about God and his world and so we end up worshipping a false god. His other weapon is hardship or trials such as persecution, sickness, accidents, disobedient children, financial ruin, hunger, destruction of property by natural disaster, etc. His goal in sending the hardship is to get us to call into question the goodness and power of God and so deny Christ (1 Thessalonians 3:5, 1 Peter 5:8-9). Just as I have shown you dozens of times that God is the one who sends hardship into our life for many good purposes, so Satan, at the same time sends the same hardships for evil purposes. His goal is to destroy our faith in this good and powerful God so that we will be sent to hell for our unbelief and anger towards God. What we are asking God to do when we ask him to rescue us from the evil one is to enable us to understand the truth of his word and to believe what we understand. We are asking God to give us a living faith in his word. The only way that Satan can harm us is to get us to believe a lie either through false ideas, false teaching or sending trials to destroy our faith. There is a very important statement by Jesus in Matthew 24:24. He says, “For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible.” Satan we are told in 1 Timothy 4:1-2 and 1 John 4:1-4 is the one who sends false teachers. He aims to deceive the elect. However, notice that Jesus says that the elect cannot be ultimately deceived. One of the means that God uses to preserves the faith of the elect in the face of this overwhelming barrage of false teaching is through our asking him to deliver us from the evil one. God answers us by assuring us of the truthfulness of his word and by enabling us to trust and love what he promises more than we trust and love the promises of sin and of a trouble free life. Every day we are in a war against sin. Every day we are in a fight to believe that God and his promises are a more certain path to joy than the promises of sin and the promises of the myriad of false prophets and teachers that are loose in the world. I know that I am weak and prone to believe what is false. Therefore, every day I must ask my Father in heaven to not lead me into temptation and to rescue me from the devil and his schemes. We must ask God to keep us from temptation and deliver us from Satan because…
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2004 John Swanson. |