Matthew 6:13
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Athletes are some of the most superstitious people on earth.
Every November in Hockey. Playoff teams don’t shave for over a month…which is the most sanitary of their superstitions
Unwashed socks and other delicacies for a month must have some magic.
Other superstitions include live seafood, chicken sacrifices, you name it people will try anything
There is one thing though that crosses all sports as a common superstition
I did it thousands of times myself
Praying the Lords Prayer before the game
Rapid fire chanting like it was a Harry Potter incantation for good luck
What a tragedy
We have no idea what we do
This prayer is not a good luck charm
There is no good vibes alarm that goes off in heaven when we airmail these words
At the heart of this prayer is the heart of a follower of Christ
We are going to see this prayer like I never had before and look at 4 things
Know your surroundings
Unavoidable testing
Unimaginable Deliverance
Temptation and Deliverance in Real Life
Lets read this incredible prayer that exposes our hearts deepest longings and dive in to verse 13 in particular
Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
1. Know your surroundings
1. Know your surroundings
There is a commercial that plays a-lot right now
No I am not talking about the fancy like Applebees commercial
It is a T Mobile cell phone commercial.
It is a play on bad cell phone service where the call breaks up and the person only hears a part that is incorrect
One lady ends up in a halloween costume for a business dinner...
As ridiculous as that is we are too often dangerously close to the same thing when it comes to our bible
A verse like 13 is an example that needs the whole conversation to get right ...
We have to zoom out to see the whole forest so we don’t base our theology off of one tree
Verse 13 says : 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Sounds like God tempts us at first glance doesn’t it?
Does God lead us to fail?
First, lets see the whole forest.
This is called letting scripture interpret scripture.
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
Second the idea of God testing his people is a biblical one…and not necesarily a bad thing
Jesus was tempted and tried in the wilderness in Matthew 4:1
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Abraham was tested and tried by God in Genesis 22:1
After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.”
The main idea is this...
God loves us and refines us with our fallen world at times that serve as trials to deepen our need and love of him…if we can hold on in the darkest of nights
The prayer set in the whole of the bible is that the testing of the human experience for the believer will not lead to falling away from the gospel
We can see more about this tree from another part of the forest…the sermon on the mount itself
This prayer is part of the Sermon on the Mount
It was given to his new disciples with the crowd leaning in to hear
This model for prayer is for Christ followers as is the whole sermon
The sermon sounds like a bunch of rules no one can keep
But the Sermon is not a list of self improvement rule keepers guide or standard we can’t live up to so we know how bad we are
It is a call to a new way of life for those few who will follow
The Context of the prayer is this :
The path to the flourishing you long for is right here
The path is this standard for the Christian Life ...
John Stott says here “So Jesus confronts us with himself sets before us the radical choice between obedience and disobedience, and calls us to an unconditional commitment of mind, will and life”
This sermon is the cry of Jesus “WILL YOU FOLLOW”
That all informs this passage because in the sermon it is like Jesus shatters the sound barrier and everything starts working backwards
“This is a prayer for the desperate, who recognize that this world is not as it should be and that only God can set things straight—for the broken to whom Jesus promises the blessings of the kingdom (5:3–12).” - Craig Keener
All of that forest picture zooms in on this :
Will you follow? Down to how you pray
You want to follow ?
Step 1 know how desperately needy needy you are.
This prayer is a cry of desperation.
God let me remember who you are.
Don’t let me get over the scandal of calling the one true god my dad.
Oh lord let me never forget i need you to provide all of my physical need down to my bread!!!
i am not even able to breath of you don’t give breath.
God i am needy in my relationships to forgive and work for flourishing in every life.
Finally we are here crying how needy we are because in our wilderness between our exodus from death to our reunion with.Christ the human experience will give my Flesh 20 million reasons to doubt the character of God…to turn away…to get off on an exit ramp when the dark night of the soul is suffocating
This prayer is the desperate cry of needy people
The path to the good life begins with the Sermon on the Mount shouting it is God who will comfort, give an inheritance, satisfy, show mercy and Love with a love we all long for
That is when you can truly follow because trial is unavoidable
2. Unavoidable Temptation - (13a)
2. Unavoidable Temptation - (13a)
Matthew 6:13 (ESV)
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
We now see the person praying is praying in desperation that the universal suffering of the human experience will not break them
That on the days in our wilderness as Christ followers in this world that we would not become adulterous and unfaithful
That is what Israel did in their wilderness
Freed from death in slavery
Led into the wilderness as infants in their relationship with God to learn how to love him
So they could be a holy people as a light to the world and enter the rest of the promised land
They failed....in the test of the wilderness they exited off the road of Gods people
Think of this
God provided for a whole people through forty years of landless wandering and unemployment
Yet the test comes for us all…
It was the character of God attacked in the Garden by satan
It was the character of God attacked in Jesus’ wilderness temptation by Satan
It is the character of God attacked in our wilderness temptation by Satan and our hearts prone to wander
A prayer suggesting that we could avoid tests is not biblical (Gen 22:1; Deut 13:3; 1 Cor 10:13) and isn’t the model of Jesus (Mt 4:1).
We are unavoidably tempted to infidelity in a million ways
Think of the trial of pleasure
Sin is most often making a good thing an ultimate thing
We long to be known and loved
We were made too
We are impatient and don’t see the Lord as good enough to provide my best so we give into hook up culture
This prayer is for the needy who know the painful reality that comes from hitting the exit ramp of your faith
when we succumb to sin in the face of the human experience trial …we believe the lie that flourishing is found a apart from God
Why do we plead with God in verse 13 to keep us from falling away?
Because God is our final good, our maker, and savior, the one in whom alone our restless hearts come to rest. To rebel against God is to saw off the branch that supports us” - Cornelius Plantinga
Do you see what this is saying better now?
This is not some prayer “Keep me lord from going to the gas station and getting some miller light some lotto tickets and a vape pen”
It is deeper.
Your doubt in the good all loving character of God to do you ultimate good in the face of trying days, trying kids, trying parents, lust, cancer, covid, funerals, is the issue we desperately cannot keep ourselves form
It is a prayer of desperation that he keep us when we don’t want to be kept because sin breaks us not just God’s law
If we are followers of Christ we are wise to know we didn’t make ourselves, we cannot keep ourselves, we cannot keep the promise to never do that one thing again
In the wilderness of the life of a follower of Jesus we are taught to pray that God keep us from infidelity because we have hearts prone to wander
And an enemy who wants to destroy us
Our MGroup book Side By Side last week dealt with this very reality
In Side by Side Ed Welch said:
“When suffering knocks on someone’s door, Satan too comes knocking. Life is a war zone, and Satan is the enemy strategist. He waits for those times when people are in the wilderness—vulnerable, desperate, and God seemingly far away or absent altogether. That’s when Satan’s questions about God’s character, which might seem silly during the good times, suddenly make sense....Satan progresses from temptation to accusation” - Ed Welch
This prayer shows a sense of our own vulnerable frailty
And believe it or not that is wisdom
Remember this is in the context of the whole bible and the sermon on the mount
Proverbs 9:10 (ESV)
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
Jesus ends the sermon showing that in this teaching is that Wisdom
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
To pray with this need and heart is wisdom…it is the path to flourishing
Wisdom is the knowledge of God’s world , how it functions, why he made it, what my place is in it, and then running after that with all you have
In the wilderness of life we are tempted to forsake that wisdom
Paul says in Romans 1:21-22
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
Our core problem is unbelief.
Failing to trust in our Father, we live with anxiety, restless, always trying to find security and placing our flourishing on created things or people that cannot hold the weight
In this prayer we have hope and the God of our rescue and deliverance responds in unimaginable ways to this prayer of His children
3. Unimaginable Deliverance - (13b)
3. Unimaginable Deliverance - (13b)
13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
I LOVE THE LANGUAGE OF THIS SO MUCH
Look at this in the context we are working in
God I am needy..I am prone to wander
Now look at the turn…I am desperate for rescue
God please help becaue there are worst case scenario’s where i fall in the trial
That is the heart of evil
It is the outcome of our infidelity to God
Satan is there in our suffering and there in our falling
He accuses God and then accuses us when we act on his lies and the lies our flesh wants over God
Satan is someone who tempts us then accuses us of being weak and trash for succumbing to the test
Here is what is mind blowing about our God
Not only is god concerned with our fidelity to Him he grieves and hates the damage it does to us when we do
God hates what Sin has done
God hates that we are so deeply harmed by it
In John 11 Jesus confronts the greatest evil, the greatest vandalized of His good , Death
His response shows us his heart to deliver from evil for those who are His
Mary is in the wilderness and hit with grief. A trial of pain where questions about Christ surely came
She doesn’t fall in the trial and instead through tears trusts
She knows ultimate deliverance will come at the resurrection but there is more she will see
She sees the deliverer already conquering evil
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept.
The english translation in our bibles is horrible here
The language for deeply moved and troubled is the language for a horse enraged and snorting
It means outrage and snarled anger and wrath
And weeping with those who weep
Jesus hates the evil of sin to the point of outrage and wrath
He doesn’t step away from our pain even for 10 minutes he enters in as our deliverer
Like he did with Mary and Martha he does with all of his children
That is why he took in hell itself and rose victorious
The one telling us to pray for DELIVERANCE from evil… was nailed on a tree to purchase that very DELIVERANCE
Our deliverance has a name and it is Jesus
Listen brother or sister i know deliverance seems non existent never coming delayed or too weak to combat the dark,,,,
But you can see The one who came to deliver here in this passage committed to your deliverance.
It is coming
It has already begun
Pray as he has shown our hearts are to pray because our unimaginable deliverance is sure
Evil is that which seeks to harm
God be our deliverance
This is the heart that knows not only do we wander but our infidelity vandalizes what God made good
Sin destroys you
It is corrosive
It is a parasite
“Good is original, independent, and constructive, evil is derivative, dependent, and destructive. To be successful, evil needs what it hijacks from goodness…to prevail evil must leech not only power from goodness but its credibility…to do its worst evil has to look its best..evil has to spend a-lot on makeup” - Cornelius Plantinga
The model prayer of Jesus doesn’t give us an incantation to ward off evil spirits
It is the look into the heart of those who follow and how we should be desperate for the lord to guard us from infidelity and to deliver us when the worst case scenario plays out
In the enemies lies and our failing we vandalize the good believing ultimate good is found away from God
That is evil
We do it
And it is done to us
Look at the beauty of his call to those who will follow
The one commanding us to pray for deliverance is in his flesh going to pay the price for that deliverance for all time
He lived it out
SIn entered in to the world in a garden.
Jesus was tempted and overcame where we fail in a garden cursed, a barren wilderness, now he when he seems most vulnerable…in a garden…our deliverer unleashed his greatest weapon against evil
All of this prayer comes to fruition in the garden of Gethsemane
4. Temptation and Deliverance in Real Life (Mark 14)
4. Temptation and Deliverance in Real Life (Mark 14)
Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane from Mark 14:32-38
And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
This is a real life case study of all we see in this verse
Look where these disciples are
Verse 37- 40 says they couldn’t stay awake. Jesus found them sleeping
They weren’t asleep because they were sleepy
Luke details they were in a state of body shut down depression, grief, fear, anxiety
Their bodies were shutting down from the stress
This is the wilderness
The enemy came knocking along with the suffering
They were in this wilderness of grief because their world and hope was burning to the ground around them
They had bet their life on the Truth of who Jesus was
All their hopes and dreams and lives were counting on Jesus being the promised Deliverer of Israel
Jesus went to Jerusalem when they said not to. Desecrated the temple sacrificial system, rode in town on a donkey not a conquering army
Now it looks like all their hopes are gone as he is handing himself to the ones who will kill him
AND NO CLEAR EXPLANATION FOR ANY OF IT
Not only that but they see the one they believe is God overwhelmed in this Garden in despair himself
The trial was on them and their only hope to not fall in the wilderness of pain was to hold fast in prayer
Lead us not into temptation- hold us fast God when our world is crumbling and it looks like our hope in you was a mistake
These guys are in the place of this verse we are studying
So Jesus says our verse to them in Verse 38
38 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.
Pray to God when you feel abandoned by God, when you feel your hopes are dashed and confused by it
Pray the agony…Christ was praying the agony too
It is assumed that they had agreed to stay awake and pray but failed multiple times
They failed in the trial we fail when this trial of the wilderness comes…and evil was all around
Where they would fail to remain prepared in the garden he alone prayed
Behold the Son of God
Behold our deliverance from Evil
Jesus was suffering in agony at His trial
Jesus began to be greatly distressed and troubled. 34 And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.
God incarnate saw unveiled the furnace of wrath he would have to endure
Jesus the Son of God saw it and the language says he finally saw the hell of what he had to do and he was astounded by it to the point of death
Horrified....led to this point of trial
A trial we cannot imagine and the choice was to remain faithful but at unimaginable cost
He was faithful where his followers fell
Jesus faithfulness in trial is not a model we need to try hard to be like. Jesus fidelity is the reason we can be faithful. He is not a model he is the cause of new life
Lonely, anguished, afraid, he prayed to not be cut off from God and fulfill Matthew 6:13
Faithful in the trial when the enemy shouted to just walk away
How?
Because for the Joy set before him..just on the other side of the hell he saw he would endure was Glory...
And not just glory but you and me and all who would get life in exchange for our failures
He asked one last time if there was any other way to be delivered from the evil....
It was like in return he heard
If you don’t take it. They all die. If you take it you will experience something no one can imagine.
To deliver us from evil he had to drink it all into himself
WHAT LOVE FOR YOU!!!!
WHAT LOVE FOR ME!!!!
As the Hymn says : “How deep the fathers love for us how vast beyond all measure that he would give his only son to make a wretch his treasure”
Look at this a get it
You can come in prayer in the valley of the shadow of death and know the creator of the universe is there working your deliverance
You will get heavens attention because He got Hell
How , Why?
The one who alone was faithful when tempted to take the exit. The only one ever to be faithful when led into testing…was not delivered from evil but was handed over to an evil we cannot imagine so that in Him we may live.
Because he did we can pray
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for yours in the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever and ever amen
Because one Greater than us stood in our place …
CLOSING:
If you are in a wilderness or suffering cry out that the Lord be the protector of your heart
If you have fallen the Gospel is our Hope. Pray that in Christ you can know ultimate Deliverance in Following Christ