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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.
Lead Us In Paths of Righteousness For Your Name's Sake
| Sermon ID | 22617133687 |
| Duration | 54:49 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Deuteronomy 8; Luke 11:4 |
| Language | English |
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