Our Father in heaven, our Lord Jesus is gracious to teach us this morning how to pray. Because Father, our greatest desire is that when we approach you, that we would do so not of our own doing, of our own making, of our own choosing, but that we would approach You as You have commanded us in Your Word. That we would learn to call upon the name of our God, not based upon what we think is the right way of coming before You, but as You have commanded in Your Word. And so, Father, we pray that as Jesus teaches us how to pray, that He would, with that prayer, fill us with a deep desire to come before the Lord our God. That we might realize that we have been given this incredible privilege to cry out to the God of the universe as Abba, Father. That we would learn what it means to praise the name of God, to confess our sins, to fill our prayers with thanksgivings, and to fill them with the needs that we have, knowing that we come to the only one who can care for all of our needs. Father, you are a good God, and we are a people who understand that We live and move and have our being in and through You only because of Your goodness. Now strengthen us, we ask, to hear and to understand Your Word, we ask. For it's in Jesus' name we pray, Amen. This morning we turn to the sixth and final petition of the Lord Jesus' teaching on how we should, or even get to, approach our Abba in prayer. And again, a key word in the prayer can be translated in one of two ways. That word is translated in our passage as temptation. But it could be translated either as a trial, as in a testing of our faith, like we saw in Israel when God led them into the wilderness to test them for 40 years to see whether they would obey Him or not. Or it could refer to a temptation, as in a seduction into sin. Now an example of the first possible translation, a testing of our faith, would be when Jesus prayed not once, not twice, but three times in the Garden of Gethsemane, asking the Father if it is possible to let this cup pass from Jesus, yet not what He wills, but what the Father wills for Him. Jesus was dependent upon His Father at every point of His life. He said, truly, truly, I say to you, the Son of God can do nothing of Himself unless it is something He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. Jesus says, I can do nothing of my own initiative. Because Jesus was dependent upon His Father, He knew He needed to go to the Father to ask Him daily to give Jesus the strength to fulfill the Father's will. Jesus' path to the cross was not as simple as sliding into first base. There were many testings and trials along the way where he received the strength to persevere through those trials that he received from the Father in the power of the Spirit. In fact, we can see that the Father did indeed sustain His Son in those darkest trials, because the Scriptures tell us that at no point did Jesus sin and betray His Father in heaven. Now, if Jesus had to go to His Father and petition Him daily for the Spirit-empowered strength to stand firm in the hours of His testing? How much more must we pray to the Father during these times of testing in our lives? We must remember that if the Father did not choose to keep us at every moment, if Jesus did not intercede on our behalf during the times of the testing of our faith, that we would be in immediate danger of falling away and apostatizing from the faith. We must therefore daily and earnestly pray to our Abba, because like Jesus, we are dependent upon Him moment by moment, because He alone possesses the power to keep us faithful to Him. Now, one of the things that we need to begin to think about as we're looking at this prayer this morning, that we're asking, Father, do not lead us into temptation. That there will be times when we will ask the Father to not lead us into a time of temptation, a time of testing. But you can see Jesus prays three times that His Father would not lead Him to this time of testing, this trial of the cross. But he understood that his will at that moment was different from the father's. And so his will must conform to the father's. And even though we could in reality see that at no point was the son's will contrary to the father. That as a human being he was being put to a test. And unlike us, Jesus' will, His will conformed fully to the Father's. That's the point of the temptation in the wilderness. When Jesus was being tested at the Garden of Gethsemane, just like He was in the time of the wilderness, He submitted his will to the will of the Father. You can also see this, for instance, in the life of Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, when Paul, like Jesus, pleads with the Lord three times, but you see that the Lord chose to keep the thorn in Paul's flesh. Even though Paul said, Lord, lead me not into this time of testing, into this trial, lead me not in temptation, nevertheless, The Father kept the thorn in Paul's flesh because the Lord was teaching him something that was far more important that he would have learned had the thorn been removed, and that was Paul needed to understand that God's grace was sufficient in Christ in his moment of weakness. Paul had to learn That when he is weak, because of Christ's grace, he is strong. And the only way to learn that was through the trial that God led him into. Now, to see the difference between what it looks like when God intervenes to keep us from falling away during these times of testing of our faith, we only need to remember the contrast between Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus, and Peter, who equally denied and therefore betrayed Jesus as well. Do you remember what the key difference was between the testing of those two men? Concerning Judas Iscariot, as well as the rest of the disciples, Jesus prayed to the Father. Now listen carefully. Jesus says, while I was with them, I was keeping them in your name, which you have given me. And I guarded them, that not one of them perished, but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled." Did you catch that? Here we can see both groups here. The only reason that the 11 disciples made it through the times of the trials and the testings, which were common to Judas. Judas and the rest of the disciples, they all experienced the same trials, the same testings, the same temptations. But what kept the 11 disciples through those trials was that Jesus kept them in His Father's name. Think about that. Jesus guarded them. He protected them from falling away and denying Jesus. The reason Judas did not remain faithful to God was because God had declared Judas, before he was ever born, that he would fulfill the role of the son of perdition so that the Scriptures would be fulfilled. Judas had a role to play in redemptive history, and Jesus would not have prayed against God's eternal purpose for Judas' life to be kept from eternal destruction. But concerning Peter, Jesus told him this, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat." Here hopefully your mind is starting to think of Job and how Satan goes up into the heavens and he's demanding that he can sift Job like wheat. But Jesus goes on to say, "...but I have prayed for you." Those words, I think as you get older, they become all the more precious. And you think about it. When I am tempted to sin, and what my response to the temptation is usually I give in. And when I deny my Lord, that's what sin is, and I walk away from Him for that ever so brief moment in my heart, like the hymn, I feel my heart wandering away from Him. The only reason that I come back, the only reason why He pulls me back, the only reason why I'm protected from falling off that edge and falling into perdition, to destruction, is because Jesus is praying for me. He says, I prayed for you. One day we're all going to stand before God, And there will be one reason you will be there. You might even have a twin in life, and that twin could care nothing about God. But you absolutely love the Lord. Oh, you sin, and you continue to find times in your life where your heart may be far from the Lord, and yet you keep coming back. You will find that the only reason why you're in heaven and all those others that you've prayed for, that you've loved, that you've shared the gospel and they didn't come is because Jesus prayed for you. He's praying for you right now. Keep them, oh Lord. Keep them in my work, in my strength. Why didn't Peter turn away ultimately? Now notice that Peter went and denied him. He didn't stay from the temptation and the fall into sin, but he kept him from falling ultimately. Jesus says, Simon, I prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. What made the difference between Judas falling away from God and Peter being kept through his unfaithfulness when both equally heinous sins were committed against God? Now notice that God didn't have to put into either Peter or Judas' heart the denial of Jesus, the rebellion against Jesus. God didn't have to insert sin into those sinful hearts. What is it that kept Peter? from ultimately falling off of the ledge, Jesus prayed. Jesus prayed to the Father and he kept Peter from ultimately and forever denying Jesus. You see, Peter too had a role to play in redemptive history, and so he was kept by faith by the very hand of God. No wonder Peter so joyfully proclaimed later in life, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed at the last time." You get all those verbs? He's caused us to obtain. He's protected us. We are guarded by a sovereign God. And that's why we ultimately will not turn away. Now we said that there are two ways to interpret the word temptation. One was a time of testing. Another is that we keep it translated as a time of temptation. Now, to see an example of the second translation, we need to first try to understand just what is being said by the word temptation. When Jesus tells us to pray to our Heavenly Father and lead us not into temptation, We know that God does not tempt us or seduce us into sinning against Him. He is not actively wooing us from within our hearts to break His commandments. The brother of our Lord said clearly, Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial. For once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God. Why? For God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. So where does the temptation come from? James says, but each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin is accomplished, it always brings forth death. James says, Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. That's why He can't tend to us. God is all good and everything He gives us is good. In fact, you can even say it more strongly, the way that you know what good is, is looking at God. He defines what good is. Every gift He gives you, every trial, every testing is good because it comes from a good God. James goes on, in the exercise of His will, He brought us forth by the word of truth. He's not going to lead us into error. He's not going to woo us into sin. He's not going to tempt us into denying His commandments. So that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures. Now James makes an important distinction between what God does and what takes place within our own sinful hearts. The translators have to be very careful here how to translate each word in this section of Scripture. Here's why. This passage is interesting because it begins by pronouncing a blessing on those who persevere under trials. But what's interesting about that word, it's the same word that not only are we using in the Lord's Prayer, and lead us not into temptations, the same word translated here is trials. But it's the exact same word in the very next verse, in verse 13, where we are told that God does not tempt us. And the translators have translated that three times as tempted. Further, it's the same word that is translated in chapter 1 verse 2 when James says, Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials. That's the same word that's being translated as temptation all the way through. The translators are having to decide whether we are to translate that word as trials or as temptation. So we could very easily translate and lead us not into trials, but we're not going to do that to a prayer that's been prayed for centuries, temptation. No translator would dare change that. Now, let me finish reading what James says in verse 2. He says, Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials. Now here's the point that we spoke of earlier. There will be times when you will pray, Lord, lead us not into temptation, or lead us not into these trials, these testings of our faith. And the Lord will answer you, not Yes, I will not lead you, but know you are going to be led. And when that happens, Not only do we learn things like what Paul says in Corinthians that no temptation is going to be so great that it's going to overwhelm you, but God with that temptation, that testing will also give you the grace. Not only do we know that those temptations are from God, that no trial, no temptation or testing of our faith is something that is apart from God, God is sending those times in our life but we are to consider it all joy. Why? Because James explains that when God does test us, when the trials do come, even though we've prayed and we've asked Him not to lead us into these times of testing, when they do come, we know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result. so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." Let me just ask you this. The times in your life when you grew exponentially in your Christian walk, when you realized how marvelous is the grace of God, When you felt in your heart a love for Jesus that burned so hotly in your heart that it was everything just to keep it in. Was it after a time of great blessing? Or was it after the deepest, darkest valley that He brought you out of? Peter says this, and he uses the exact same word again. In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials. Peter says it this way later in the epistle. Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you which comes upon you for your testing. There it is again. That's the same word for temptation. as though some strange thing were happening to you, but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ." This is what we're praying, and lead us not in temptation. Here Peter says that when they do come, they're times of sharing in the sufferings of Christ. Peter says, keep on rejoicing so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. Now what we learn from these verses of James and Peter is that even when we ask the Father to not lead us into the times of testing, to be tempted, He may do so anyway. Because there is the most important teaching that He is trying to get you to learn. And that is the grace of Jesus is sufficient. And beloved, unfortunately, there's only one way for you to learn that God's grace is sufficient. And it's not through mountaintop experiences. It's through the deepest, darkest valleys that He leads us into and He leads us out. Then we know that we can boast in our weakness. Because when we are weak, then we are strong. So you can see how difficult it is for the translators to try to interpret these verses the best way to get the right word in English for the Greek idea. But basically what we can say by examining these verses is that it's God who tests our faith using trials. But it's from within our own sinful hearts that we're tempted to sin against God. God does not have to create temptation. God doesn't have to seduce us in sin for it to occur. That occurs when the lust that resides in our hearts gives birth to sin. And once the act of sin is completed, death is always the consequence. Now let's try to get at this another way. Let's approach this from another angle. Think about what happened in the garden with Adam and Eve. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was clearly placed in the garden to serve as a testing of the faith of our original parents, a trial by ordeal of sorts. to see if they would rule as God's vice-regents according to His Word. Notice that's exactly what Satan tempts, the serpent tempts the Word of God. Or would they choose to rule according to their own autonomous authority, apart from God's rule? Well, they failed. But did they prove unfaithful because God tempted them into sin? No. God did not have to create within their hearts a lusting after what they wanted in opposition to what God told them. That temptation or seduction, while precipitated by the serpent, clearly came from within their own hearts. They lusted after what they did not possess, and when that became that they wanted that more than what God wanted, they disobeyed God. Satan only had to trigger what was already moving them away from God. John, the beloved apostle, stated it this way. Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Listen how John describes this. For all that is in the world, The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride of life. Don't you see all those residing in Adam and Eve's heart? This is what's been the problem from the very beginning. This is what's in your heart. The lust of the flesh, and that's not just sexual lust. That's the lust of anything in this world that you put in place of God alone. It's seeking not first His kingdom and His righteousness, but your kingdom. It's what Israel was doing every time they kept turning back and looking to Egypt. Oh, wasn't it better when we were back in Egypt? We had all those onions and garlics and cucumbers and leeks. We had all that blessing. But God, you brought us out here to die. It's what I hear from you every time I listen to your long list of complaints. I come and I sit down with you and I ask, well, what's the Lord doing in your life? And I hear, oh boy, pastor, if you just knew. And you give me this long list of all the complaints that you have in your life, and not one of them is describing a blessing. It's what we do when we see the world, and that's all we see, for good or for ill. The lust of the flesh. And the reason why we're so often disappointed is because we've lusted after something that God didn't let us have. Or we grasp at something that He took away because we didn't need it. And we're angry. We get depressed. We get sad. Why? Because we wanted to be God. We wanted to be able to say, this is what I determine my life will look like. And God decided otherwise. I wanted to go on vacation without a flat tire. I wanted to get to work on time without that person cutting me off. I wanted to be able to pay all the bills this month with no money running out. I, I, I! We forgot, Lord, don't lead us into that time of testing, that temptation. You know as well as I do that it doesn't take much to veer us off from the straight and narrow path which God has set us upon. Out of the three deadly foes, Satan, the world, the flesh, we all know that the most prominent malefactor is our own sinful flesh. It's of this world, worldly, and it always wants its own apart from the will of God. Now in contrast to all this, we can see a beautiful example of what it means when we could pray, do not lead us into temptation, when once Jesus was baptized, we are told that the spirit led him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. There's a beautiful summation of what the prayer is. And do not lead us into temptation. Do not lead us by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. That's a great way of looking at the verse. Here again is the same word tempted that we saw in the Lord's Prayer, which we are told to plead with God not to lead us into. In fact, it's the same word that the Septuagint in Deuteronomy 8, 2 and 16, where God leads Israel out into the wilderness to test them, to tempt them, to see if they would keep His commandments. Note that the Spirit led Jesus to be tempted by the devil. Where Israel proved unfaithful to God, Jesus proved faithful through the entire temptation. He passed God's test perfectly. But this is essentially what we are pleading with our Abba to not lead us into. While Jesus proved faithful in his time of testing, we often prove unfaithful in ours. Now, contextually, when we go back to the Lord's Prayer in Luke 11, in Jesus' teaching of us to ask the Father not to lead us into temptation, just before he mentions the forgiveness of sins. Forgive us of our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation. Notice the connection between the two. What Jesus could be saying is that we are to ask our Abba, To not bring us into a situation, to not lead us into a moment where Satan, the world, or our flesh would tempt us to sin against God and therefore make it necessary for us to ask God to forgive us our sins. We cry out to God to give us help, to provide us with spirit-empowered strength to not fall into moments of temptation. Not because our Father is the one who's leading us into temptation, but because He is the only one who can prevent us from going there that we would sin against God. See, as God's children, we must learn that the only way to avoid falling into sin is, first of all, to fear God, to follow where He leads, His Word, and then to be dependent upon Him and His protection. We have to plead with Him daily. Father, please do not lead me into a moment where I would Be tempted to sin against You, O God, and make it necessary to have to cry out to You to forgive me for that sin. We don't ask Him that because He's leading us to be tempted to sin against Him, because He's the only one who can keep us. He's the only one who can preserve us. Oh beloved, if we would just take every temptation as serious as if our eternity depended upon us turning away from it and walking away and being faithful to God. The Apostle Paul gives us some incredible hope here. Because I think one of the reasons why we look at the temptation and we go, I'm just going to have to give in, I don't have strength to withstand this temptation, is because we don't understand what power is at work in us to keep us from giving in to that temptation. But here's what Paul says. Paul says, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that... Here we're coming to the purpose clause. Paul is praying that God would enlighten our hearts. So that we will know three things. I don't have time to go into it, but number one, what is the hope of his calling? Number two, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints? And number three, this is the one I want us to focus in, what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe? These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might, when He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at the right hand in heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion in every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come." Now, here's what Paul is saying. It's one of my favorite prayers of the Apostle Paul. Paul wants God to enlighten your heart, to open up your understanding. So that among other things you may know what is the surpassing greatness of the power that's at work in you. So Paul prays for you that you would understand the incredible power that is at work in you. Why? Or what is that power? Paul wants us to know how great is the power of God at work in our life And He says that that power is that which is according to the strength of His might, the same might and power by which He raised Jesus from the dead and seated Him at His right hand. And Paul's giving here within the context is that we know that we will not fall away. And I want you to think about by what not falling away means. Sometimes I think we think of our Christian life in a little too sanitized way. We think, well, Jesus died for me 2,000 years ago, and it's all a done deal, and I'm just as good of in heaven. We don't think about that there's a whole battle, there's a whole war going on in between those two moments. Your life is always on the precipice of destruction. That's one of the good things about what Jonathan Edwards did in that sermon, Sinners in the Hands of Man. We're always on the precipice of destruction. We're always worthy of that. We're always ready to fall off into perdition. But what's holding you up, what's keeping you at every moment, What's preserving your life from not being led away is the constant warring prayer. The warring prayer. The God who is your warrior, who is fighting on your behalf, and He is constantly praying, interceding, that you would not fall away. There is a war that goes on for your soul. And it's always and only the work of Jesus 2,000 years ago, which is the power by which you are kept. But God is at work in you with that same power by which Christ has been raised from the dead and seated at the right hand. He is at work to keep you. And get this, Don't lose sight of this. And part of the means by which you are preserved is your praying, do not lead me into temptation. The prayers of the saints are the means by which God accomplishes His glorious end. Consider this. Now that we have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, so that we have become truly the children of God. God is our Abba. What an incredible privilege you've been given. One of the greatest desires that in response to God's grace in our lives will be one of thanksgiving and praise to Him. We will want to live out a life of thanksgiving to God. Very simply, like any other child, we don't want to let our father down. We want our father, for his name to be great. This means that regardless of which interpretation you decide upon, whether to translate the word testing or temptation, the point of this petition brings us all the way back to the first petition to beautifully round out the prayer. You see, our greatest concern as God's children is for the hallowing and the sanctifying of our Heavenly Father's name. Nothing makes us happier as the children of God than when the world sets our Abba's name apart as holy. So we want to live in such a way every day of our life that the name of our precious God would be sanctified as holy in the world. Further, we don't want anything to come into our lives that would lead us into a situation where something we have said, something we have done would cause someone else to curse our Father's name. Can you imagine anything more horrible? See, this is the motivation for the final petition of the prayer. We are pleading with our Father to keep us from any trial or temptation or testing that we could be led into that would put us within a situation where we would dishonor the most precious name we possess. the name of our God. There is nothing greater for us to protect with every fiber of our being than God's holy name. And there is no greater horror in our life than the thought that something I have said or done caused someone else to curse the name of our God. Boy, if there's ever a fear to live by, it's the fear that if I do this, If I say this, it could cause the name of our God to be cursed. See, this is what happened when Israel sinned against God and had gone into exile. The prophets often described their going into exile as the cause of God's holy name to be profaned by the nations. The Lord said to His people through Ezekiel, When they came to the nations where they went, they profaned My holy name, because it was said of them, Aren't these the people of the Lord? Yet they've come out of His land. but I have had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations where they went." God then explains the reason why He redeemed Israel, and it wasn't simply to give His people a place of rest or peace, but it was a far more vital concern, which was the sanctification of His name. He says, therefore say to the house of Israel, The Lord your God, it is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went. I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst." And here's the result. When God sanctifies His name, here is what happens. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight." There's nothing greater for God's holy name to be glorified, sanctified, than when He proves Himself holy in your midst. Equally, we're told by God in several places in the New Testament that the reason God has redeemed you and me is for the praise of His name, His grace, for His glory. In Ephesians 1, verses 6, 12, and 14, Paul says that three times, He predestined us to the adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace. In Romans 9, Paul exclaims, and he did so to make the riches of his glory known among vessels of mercy which he prepared beforehand for glory. Ultimately, Peter says, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of God's own possession, so that You may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Do you see why you were made? Do you see why you were created? Do you see why you've been sustained? Do you see why you were redeemed? Now, before we finish, Let's take another look at this petition from one more angle, because I'm not going to carry this over to the next week. I just want to wrap up this verse this week. And I want to say one more thing here at the end. There's a passage in Paul's letter to the Ephesians which has always plagued me as a Christian, perpetually following me around like an afternoon shadow. And it's found in Ephesians 4, verse 30. and do not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." When you hear those words, do not grieve the Holy Spirit, don't they weigh heavy on your heart? Knowing that the things that you do, the things that come out of your mouth, whether to your spouse or your children or your parents, the things that you think about during the day, the things which you know are not pleasing to God, as well as those things you should be doing, the things you should be saying. It's not only a sin to say certain things, it's a sin not to say things at the right moment. The things which you should be thinking, which are pleasing to God, if you would only do them. That either in doing them or not doing them, that you are grieving the Holy Spirit of God. Doesn't that weigh heavy on your heart? To grieve the Holy Spirit. The One who loves you so much that He has sealed you for the day of redemption. This has to be one of the most horrible consequences of our daily continuing in sin against God to know that we're grieving the Holy Spirit of God. How can we possibly do that to the one who loves us so deeply? We already know that our sin is what caused Jesus to be crucified for us. And every time we sin, it's like Jesus being crucified for us all over again. But to add insult to injury, now we know that we are grieving the Holy Spirit every time we sin against God. Every time we throw out that slight word, that snide comment to our neighbor, we grieve. God looks at us and the Holy Spirit, He grieves. And oh, we pray that God would not ever look at us like He did the world in Genesis 6 and grieve to the point where He was sorry that He made us. I've often thought that one of the greatest blessings to look forward to in our dying and finally going to heaven is the fact that I will be made perfect in Jesus and will no longer have to grieve the Holy Spirit of God. It's one of the greatest blessings about heaven to know that I'll never put a frown on God's face again. Oh, that we would learn to so love the precious name of our God so greatly, so intensely, so thoroughly. That we would plead daily with God to not lead us into any situation where it would cause the name of our Abba to be profaned. But instead, like Psalm 23, we would pray that He would lead us in the paths of righteousness for His namesake. so that we, coming to Him as to a living stone, which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, that's your whole life, as a sacrifice of praise, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Why? Because you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of God's own possession, so that you might proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. For you were once not a people, but now you are the people of God. You once had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy from God through Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, the prayer that you have taught us is a prayer that so beautifully summarizes what is the nature of the Christian life. We could look at the prayer from the very beginning when we pray, Father, to the final petition and lead us not into temptation. And we have a beautiful summary of what it looks like to live the Christian life. We can carry that with us everywhere we go. As we've memorized the prayer, we can think of this is what it means to live for the Lord. But Father, we can also see in the prayer that if we reverse all of these petitions, we can see what it looks like to sin against You. We can see what it looks like when our heart is far from You, when we do not care for the holiness of our God, and we don't want Your kingdom, we want our kingdom to come. When we don't look for Your provision of daily bread, we think as... God had to warn the Israelites that we got our daily bread because of our power. That's what worrying is. Worrying is essentially because we think we got it all this time by our strength and we're worried that our strength will fail. When the whole time you're teaching us to pray, you, Father, give us this day because you are the one who provides us with the power and the strength to bring forth daily bread on the table. Father, when we don't seek the forgiveness of sin, but instead we live in sin, we live perpetually to break your commandments, to live for our own self, And when we don't, ask you to lead in temptation as if that would be the most awful prayer because we want to go into temptation. We want to be tempted. We want to follow our own ways. But Father, help us. Help us to be the people who are known, first of all, because we have this great privilege that we've been given To call the God of the universe, Abba, Father. That's not a privilege that's been granted to everyone, but only to those who are trusting in Jesus Christ for salvation. Help us be the ones who are known as we sanctify and long to see the name of our God, our Father sanctified. We long to see your kingdom come, your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. We come to you and ask you daily for bread because we know we are completely dependent upon you for the very air we breathe as well as the food we eat. We come and we humble ourselves in your presence each day, confessing our sins and asking you to forgive us, even as we are expected to forgive the sins of those around us. And we plead with you to not lead us into temptation and times of testing that would possibly lead us away and cause your name to be profane, but instead that you would lead us in the paths of Christ. the path of His righteousness. For the namesake, for the great name of our God, that Your name would be sanctified. No wonder that the liturgists and the writers of the worship of God have added to this prayer that glorious proclamation For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.