7_The Prayer of Protection
THE PRAYER OF PROTECTION
The Lord’s Prayer: Path To Inner Peace
Part 7 of 8
John Townsend
August 3-4, 2002
“And don't let us yield to temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” Matt. 6:13 (NLT)
Man’s solution to temptation is “Just stop it”
“Just Stop It” Doesn’t Work!
1. Temptation Strikes at Our Weakest Point
Temptation Does Not Play Fair
2. The Law Arouses SINFUL PASSIONS
Romans 7:5 “For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.”
The Law leads us to Jesus
a) God gives the Law
b) Sinful Passions cause disobedience
c) We realize we need Jesus
3. Willpower is OVERRATED
Willpower got broken in the fall.
We are lost, willpower will always fail.
That is why Jesus came.
Lk. 19:10 “And I, the Son of Man, have come to seek and save those like him who are lost."
We can’t overcome sin by self-discipline.
Colossians 2: 20-23
“You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the evil powers of this world. So why do you keep on following rules of the world, such as, ‘Don't handle, don't eat, don't touch.’ Such rules are mere human teaching about things that are gone as soon as we use them. These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, humility, and severe bodily discipline. But they have no effect when it comes to conquering a person's evil thoughts and desires.”
The Good News is God has a Path
Four Principles that are God’s Way.
1) We all need to reconnect to God as our SOURCE OF GRACE
The goal of Life is to Live. The ultimate temptation is to cut ourselves off from God and do it OUR way.
2) FLEE Temptation
2 Tim 2:22 “Run from anything that stimulates youthful lust.”
Temptation is stronger than you are. Run to God when you’re weak.
3) Restore our SOUL
Temptation is a diagnosis of where God wants to heal you.
4) Use PEOPLE
James 5:16 “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”
a) Regular Structured Friendships
b) 24 hour “on call” Friends
THE PRAYER OF PROTECTION
The Lord’s Prayer: Path To Inner Peace
Part 7 of 8
John Townsend
August 3-4, 2002
I want to give us some context of where we are today. This is about a prayer. If you’ve been here for several weeks you know Rick’s been doing a series this summer on The Lord’s Prayer. Because that’s how Jesus taught us to pray, to pray that prayer so we’d know what prayer’s about.
We’re in week seven. You know what this part of the prayer is about? In your outline it’s called The Prayer of Protection. The words Jesus used, Matthew 6:13, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.” How would you feel if a pastor who is a friend of yours said, “I want you to preach at my church this week. The topic: temptation.” I thought it was really weird for me. But then I started realizing Rick wanted somebody with lots of experience in the area so he got the first guy he knows who’s been around the block!
This is a topic – temptation – that really separates the sheep from the goats. If there was any day to quit church it would be today. It’s a nice day, beautiful weather and you’re going to come learn about temptation. So I know I’m with the company of the committed here. You’re really serious about your faith. How many of you in the last seven days were tempted by something? The ones who didn’t raise your hands means you were the tempters.
But The Lord’s Prayer says, “Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil.” This is a big topic. It’s one of those subjects we either don’t hear enough about it or we hear the wrong things about it. We’re going to try to talk about what the Bible says about temptation.
The definition of temptation in the original languages the definition of “tempt” is to entice or to solicit somebody to sin or to fall away. The idea you get from the original language is there is somebody over here in a trench coat standing in the shadows and you’re walking past, “Psst! You want to buy a Rolex?” That’s been our experience.
Those of you who’ve been around the faith long enough know that there’s always temptation out there at some level. There are a million temptations that we struggle with. I want to talk about some of the basic categories so we can identify with them.
There’s the obvious kind of active temptations such as the temptation to sexual immorality, affairs, emotional affairs, affairs of the heart, Internet porn. There are substance problems – temptations to drug abuse, alcohol abuse. There are temptations to overspend, to use food in the wrong way.
Then you can drop down a level from that to a deeper level of temptation which has to do with your heart and your attitudes. For example the temptation to keep the peace. The temptation to withdraw when you need to speak up because you don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings, you don’t want to cause conflict, you don’t want to rock the boat so you stay silent. Sometimes you need to speak up about something that’s a problem. It’s a really common thing we all deal with.
Then there are those temptations of having too much of a good thing like food. Then there’s some where if you have any of a bad thing like drugs. There’s all sorts of kinds of ways to look at this.
Then there’s a most serious temptation. It’s the one that’s going on as we speak right now. Many of you know about it. It’s the Nordstrum’s Anniversary Sale ending today. It strikes at the heart of all of us.
When we’re speaking about temptation I’ve got to come out with my own confession. I have much experience in this area. I was speaking at a church in LA several years ago and I live in Orange County so I just drove up there. I spoke like nine hours. It was a long day and I was really tired and depleted. I didn’t get much sleep the night before or the night before that. I was sort of in a bad mood. I finished all my talking, waved at the people in the church. It was about 5:00 on Saturday. I got in the car and like two blocks away from the church up in LA and a Marie Calendars jumps out in the street. It totally temps me. I didn’t have a choice! Have you ever seen a Marie Calendar in a trench coat? It said, “Come to me. Come to me.” Of course I didn’t have a choice. It was like a tractor beam. I went over and walked in and bought a boysenberry pie and I bought a fork. I’m driving home. I’m in the driver’s seat and my stash and my fork are in the passenger seat. Before I hit the Orange County line it was gone.
I’m not proud of myself. I repented.
We’ve all been there and we all get tempted. To understand temptation and what Jesus wants us to do about it I think we have to understand first the big picture, the big tableau. There’s a cosmic scenario going on. Big picture. Like Star Wars on steroids. Big! The major characters are huge. There’s God over here and God wants your best. He wants to love you and protect you and guide you. Then the bad guy over here named Satan is tempting and he wants to destroy us. Then we’re somewhere in the middle of this big cosmic battle which God wins, by the way. I read the rest of the Bible. He wins in the end. But we’re kind of stuck here being tempted to go one way but wanting to follow God another way.
It’s not even that simple. There’s a complicating factor here. Not only is the devil tempting us but we have a tempter inside of us. We are our own worst enemy also. Do you realize that if there were no devils today you would still be tempted? That’s what the Bible says in James 1:14. It says we’re tempted by our own evil desires. We have evil desires inside us.
I get tired of people sometimes at church going, “The devil tempted me this week.” You know what Flip Wilson said, “The devil made me do it!” Sometimes the devil makes you do it. Remember Church Lady? It’s not always Satan. Sometimes it’s Bill and Jim and Sally with our own evil desires. It’s complicated. Sometimes it’s from the external and sometimes it’s from the internal. Either way we get tempted to fall off the path.
There’s some good news about this. Any good news about your being tempted this week to do whatever I believe that temptation, if you’re struggling in some area, if the pool of sin is right here and you’re teetering and you’ve fallen in and you can’t get back out. I believe the good news is that that is a sign of life. Being tempted and struggling with temptation is a sign of life. Life means that there is a struggle within where part of you really want to follow God. You really want to be in His path and His ways and do it His way and know Him deeper and get more connected to Him. And the other part of us pulls us the other way toward the darkness. Like a seed or plant that wants to grow up and it’s struggling to break out I believe temptation is a sign of life. In fact, I believe that people who don’t struggle are in worse shape than those of us who are struggling. Because there’s death inside. If there’s no life there’s no struggle.
There’s different kinds of people I get concerned about and I think they need to be concerned. Doing what I do I have a lot of alcoholic and addictive friends. I had an alcoholic friend one time say, “Pray for me. I’m really being tempted this week.” I said, “Tell me about the temptation.” He said, “I’ve been drinking all week.” I said, “You’re not being tempted! You’re not standing over the pool trying not to fall in. You’re jumping in swimming with the fishes! That’s not temptation. You’ve already gone over. We’ve got to pull you out so you can then struggle with falling in again before we can help you.”
Some of us have given in so much to temptation that there’s no life because there’s no struggle any more. We have to be pulled out and rescued. Guess who the rescuer is. It’s what God does. He’s the rescuer.
On the other hand those people who don’t struggle at all with temptation are the super Christians. You know how you can tell if you’ve got a super Christian in your life? It’s real easy. You bring struggle to them and tell them about some failure or sin or something you’ve really messed up in. You kind of open yourself up and they say something like this: “I remember when I used to be like you, before I reached my plain of existence I’m currently at. You’re lucky you found me!” I love being around super Christians and drinking in the love. Super Christians don’t have problems. They’re beyond all this normal stuff. They’ve arrived.
It used to freak me out how they could not struggle and I was struggling until I finally figured out. I know why they’re not struggling any more. I know why they’re not tempted and I’m tempted. They’re so busy judging us and condemning us and being superior to us and discouraging us so that we never feel like we can make it in life Satan’s not going to mess with them. He’s not going to screw up a good thing. They’re doing too good a job discouraging us who actually have problems in life. He leaves them alone.
So those are the two non-struggle areas. Either you’re already in the pool or you’re kind of so busy feeling superior to other people either way you’re in trouble – biblically you’re in trouble.
If that’s the case then, those of us who live in some sort of reality understand that we have a temptation problem. And we struggle with it. We try to solve it our way. That’s man’s first solution. We try to do it our way. Then we finally give up and do it God’s way. That’s kind of the track I’m on. That’s what we do.
Man’s solution and what’s wrong with it. The theology of man’s solution to temptation is this: Stop it. It’s bad. Don’t do that. Stop it. “I never thought of that. It’s a bad thing and I need to stop it. Thank you for that revelation. It’s clear now.” That’s kind of what we do. We say, This is bad thing and I’ll stop it. If you don’t think you’re in that crowd… yo-yo diet. That’s a “stop it” thing. Or New Year’s Resolution like New Year’s Day you write down, “I will never ‘blank’ again.” Then three years later you’re “blank”ing. Or three weeks later you’re “blank”ing. Or three days later you’re “blank”ing. Or the 3x5 on the mirror. That’s one of my favorites: “Everyday I will ‘blank’.” And after three days you’re not blanking any more. You fill in the blank. That’s the just-stop-it mentality. It sounds so easy but it doesn’t work. It’s kind of an unbiblical view of sin and temptation.
I like history. This reminds me of Calvin Coolidge, the president who was a man of few words but when he said something you really listened because it meant something. One day he went to church. He came away from the service and a reporter came up to him and said, “President Coolidge! How was the service?” Coolidge goes, “Good.” “What did the preacher talk about?” Coolidge goes, “Sin.” The reporter said, “President Coolidge, what did he say about sin?” Coolidge goes, “He’s against it.”
That’s kind of our mentality. I’ll just stop doing this.
Let me give you some really bad news. This will get you a little depressed but that’s ok. You’ve got to have a Friday crucifixion before you can have a Sunday resurrection. Here’s the bad news about just-stop-it if you’re having a temptation problem:
1. Temptation strikes us at our weakest point. Temptations don’t play fair. They don’t hit you when you’re strong, when you’re victorious and you’re ready to go. Temptation hits you when you’re hurt. When you’re under stress. When you have a relationship problem that is really bugging you. When you have an emptiness inside your heart that can’t be filled. When you’ve got financial problems, medical problems, family problems. That’s when the temptations start really coming at you and cut you off at the knees.
What’s your I’m-going-to-stop-doing-that going to do for you when you’re at your weakest point? Nothing. “I’m going to stop doing that” is kind of shallow answer and temptation doesn’t play fair.
2. The second part why it doesn’t work is a little bit complicated because it has to do with the law. The law, like the don’t-do-it law is a good thing but it arouses sinful passions in us. If you’ve studied the Bible for any period of time you realize that. Romans 7:5 says, “Our sinful passions were aroused by the law.” That sounds kooky. When Moses brought down the commandments on the tablets – here’s the things you do and here’s the things you don’t – they were for their good. But one of the effects of the law was to say, “I’m going to create more envy in you, more lust in you, more wanting in you.” We wouldn’t feel these things if there wasn’t law.
Why would God do something like that? He gives you the law – your sinful passions try to break the law. You realize you can’t live and obey the law. You’ve got to go to Jesus. You’ve got to go to a place of grace where the law doesn’t control you any more. The law is a tutor to lead us to Jesus. But on the way to that tutorship the law arouses sinful passions.
Let me give you an example. My wife and I are leaving for the evening. We tell the kids “We’ll be gone for a while. Whatever you do don’t eat the cookies on the top shelf.” You can see the light coming on in the kids’ heads. Before I said that they’re thinking, “I think I’ll have an apple.” But not any more! There’s cookies on the top shelf.
That’s how we are. If the law says “You can’t do this.” What do we want to do? Do it! “You can’t have that apple in the tree.” That’s what I want to have. So the law arouses sinful passions. That’s the second part of why the just-stop-it mentality never works. One, temptation doesn’t play fair. And two, the law arouses passions within you to do the thing.
3. Willpower is overrated. I’m sure all you willpower freaks are discouraged by this but willpower is an overrated concept. It’s ok. But it doesn’t sanctify you and it doesn’t save you from temptation.
Do you realize what happened in The Fall? What happened? Lots of things got broken in The Fall. My heart got broken in the fall. Our brains, our head, our thinking got broken in the fall. So did our willpower. So it’s not a good master and if you think that being stronger and using more willpower will help you, you’re destined for futility. I believe if willpower could work we would all be attending the Church of Self Help today. But you know where we are. We’re at the church of a blood stained cross for those who cannot help themselves. That’s why He came – because willpower failed. It failed in us pulling out of the pool of temptation.
Even Jesus talked about it in Luke 19:10, talking about Himself. He says, “The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.” The word “save” in the Greek means to restore to wholeness and to rebuild back and to recreate. Our problem isn’t the temptation thing. Our problem is much more profound. We’re lost. So willpower doesn’t bring us out of that.
I often think about Christians who, they find Jesus and they spend the rest of their time trying to be more disciplined. I believe in discipline and think it’s important but it’s part of a big picture. The ones who say, “Just choose to do better,” have forgotten where they came from. They couldn’t have chosen to save themselves.
In fact, the Bible teaches that excessive self discipline leads to more temptation and sin and impulses. Colossians 2 Paul says in verse 20-23, “Since you died with Christ and the basic principles of the world why as though you still belong to it do you still submit to the rules like Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch. [Don’t get the cookies off the top shelf.] These are destined to perish even though they have an appearance of wisdom but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.” All these willpower things lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. If you want to be tempted more and sin more then try to become more willpower-ish. It just gets worse. Many people can attest to that.
That’s the depressing news. You can’t do it. What’s the good news? God has a path. God has a way. “Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil.” I’m going to talk about these things that God talks about in terms of four principles that are God’s way if you have to struggle with temptation. You’re tired of trying harder. You’re tired of self discipline not working. These four things are what God says. I was tempted to talk about ten things but I resisted the temptation.
1. We all need to connect to God as the source.
Reconnecting with Him as our source of grace. Big picture: the goal of our life is not to stop doing bad things. That’s kind of a shallow goal. When you’re 97 and asked, “How was your life?” Pretty good. I didn’t do a lot of bad things. So what?
The goal of life is to live. The goal of life is to find God and be filled with Him and go out and do something and have great relationships and do some meaningful things. That’s what life is. It’s not the absence of all the bad things. So we need a source to go to to preserve us. And that is God and His grace. He’s kind of like our life line.
Think about the devil’s strategy. Do you think the devil’s strategy is to get you to have an affair? Or you think the devil’s strategy is to get you to do drugs? Or have sexual immorality? Or overspend? Not at all! He’s much more sophisticated than that I believe. He is trying to use all these temptations we’re struggling with to get us to the ultimate temptation, the final temptation, the most severe temptation. Do you know what that is? He wants you to cut yourself off from God. He wants you to cut yourself off, to sever yourself off from the only source of grace that we can ever have. He wants us to do it our way. Isn’t that kind of the essence of all temptation? I want this and I want it now. I don’t want to wait for it. I want it the way I want it. God’s way is going to take too long. It feels too depriving to me. It’s too frustrating. All of us have to come to terms with the fact that there’s a part of us that really thinks we’re the fourth member of the trinity. It’s just the way we are. So we get tempted by the devil and our own hearts to get cut off from God. Then he’s got us. The bad guy’s got us. Now we’re cut out from the herd. Now we’re way from the flock. We’re away from protection. We’ve vulnerable. We’re helpless. We’re alone. He can do what he wants to with us if he cuts us off from the source.
So the first thing we need to do is to reconnect. Otherwise we’re cast adrift. You cannot and I cannot succeed over any temptation this week in a vacuum. There’s got to be a replacement, a refilling of something that God has. Really at its nature a temptation has something to do with something we really need that God wants to provide for us. He’s not depriving. But in His way, in His time. When we begin to go to Him and look for His grace and the fact that He’s for us and He’s on your side and He’s not condemning you and you need Him and you want His love and His guidance and His structure, good things start to happen.
I know some folks may be in a position where He doesn’t have a part of you. Maybe your hurt relationship or some habit you have or some emptiness inside or something. You may need to tell Him, “I’m giving that to You. I want You to heal this.”
For others, you may not even know what this God thing’s about. You may be here because your friends are. You may not even know that Jesus is the way to God. You may need to go through Jesus as your savior to get to the source. But either way, whatever position you’re in, you’ve got to reconnect with the source. He’s the one who fills us up with the grace we need to replace whatever the temptation is driving us to.
2. The next, after going to God as the source, sounds so simple. It’s so hard but it’s so true. It’s one word: flee.
Flee the temptation. Get out of Dodge! The temptation is bigger than you are. That’s why you’re being tempted. It’s stronger than you are. I really kind of get bugged by all these victorious people saying, “Stand there and fight that temptation!” No, you idiot! It’s bigger and stronger than you are. Flee. Go away. 2 Timothy 2:22 says that. “Flee the evil desires of your youth.” I know people in their eighties that are still fleeing the youthful desires of their youth. It’s matter of perspective.
Think about Joseph. Genesis 39. He was a slave in Potipher’s house. The Bible says that he was a handsome man. In the Hebrew it says “hunk”. He’s a good looking slave. And there’s this lady there and she’s got low character and she says, “I want you to have sex with me.” So what does he do? He gets up and runs away. She grabs his cloak on the way out. Joseph becomes the first streaker in history but he gets out.
What does he not do? He doesn’t sit down with her and say, “Sally, tell me about your dysfunctional marriage. I think I can work with you.” No! He got out of Dodge. He was being tempted. Flee! I think we all think we’re like John Wayne or something, that we’re this strong. Sometimes you just need to get out because it’s stronger than you are. That’s what humility is and that’s what reality is. Flee!
We have a weakness. And the weakness is where he’s going to get us. So run when you’re weak. Run to God.
Like the business world. I love the business world because they’re realistic about this. The credit card counseling companies – 1-800-GET OUT OF DEBT or whatever. The people bring their credit cards to the counselor. You put the cards on the desk and the counselor cuts them up. He doesn’t say, “Here’s a few more. Resist them.” He cuts them up in front of you and you get depressed and you have to have Prozak! You go through a deep grieving process of being without your credit cards. That’s a good thing. Flee.
Like the alcoholic may need to reconsider his career as a bartender. Flee!
I’ve got a buddy that has had real sexual problems outside of his marriage. It’s been a bad thing. It’s really hurt his life and his wife but they’ve stayed together. A few years ago he made the deepest commitment possible to really seeing this as a big deal and got serious about his growth and serious about God and serious about his recovery. They’re like new people. She hung in there with him. One of the things he did that I have so much respect for is he put her on 24-hour call. He said, “You can call me 24/7. Whatever business deal I’m in, whatever meeting I’m having I’ll talk with you so you will know that you are safe. I don’t want to have any more secrets from you.” He was fleeing and he made her safe. It’s worked. They have this thriving marriage now because she feels like she can finally trust this man. Because he finally said, This is bigger than me. He didn’t go, “I’m ok now. It’s all behind me.” He said, “You call me anytime you want. I’ll drop what I’m doing.” It’s revolutionized him. That’s fleeing.
We reconnect with God, we flee and the next thing we do is…
3. We restore the soul.
That sounds kind of vague. I believe that temptation is diagnostic. I believe the particular temptation that you’re struggling with – sex, drugs, food, Nordstrums, whatever it is – your temptation is a diagnosis of an area that God wants you to heal in. A particular and specific arena that you’re weak in, that you’re failing in and that you’ve got injuries in. God wants to bring you out of that. He’s screaming at us through the temptation, “This is where I want to work with you. This is where I want to help you.” For everybody it’s a different issue. Different temptations means different things about our character and our soul that need to be restored.
For example: somebody who has a substance problem – drugs or alcohol. They may have an emptiness inside where there’s no love. Or they can’t receive love, they can’t feel love, they can’t feel the presence of love from God or other people so the substances kind of medicate that. God’s saying, “You’re tempted in that area because you have an empty heart. I want to fill that up.”
Or people with a food problem. They may feel powerless. They don’t feel like they have any choices. They feel controlled by everybody else. They feel overwhelmed. They don’t have any freedom. They can’t say no to anything because they don’t have permission to. But they do have some control over the food. I’ve seen this a thousand times as a counselor. God’s saying, “You’re going to be tempted here until you have some sense of your own power. Your own choices.”
Or people with an anger problem. Anger management-rage problem. God may be saying to that person, “You need to learn what vulnerability is. You need to learn how to experience your helplessness. You need to let other people disagree with you without getting offended. You need to realize you can’t control other people to do things your way.”
Those are issues we all need to look at, growth and sanctification issues. Your temptation may be the marker. Kind of the red flag God’s saying, “Get to work on this! That’s why you struggle because I want you to heal. I don’t want to beat you up. I want you to get well so you’re not so miserable.”
Those are areas – the ones I’ve just listed – of inability. You try and try and try and you fail. Then there are areas that God marks that aren’t areas of inability. They’re areas of resistance. Sometimes we are unable. And sometimes we’re like Mikie: “I don’t want it.” We kind of shake our fist at God and say, “I want this.” That’s not a psychological brokenness issue. That’s just rebellion. We’ve got that too.
A few days go I was driving down the freeway and a lady cuts me off at 70 miles an hour in her van. I lost my sanctification! I did everything. I was like one of those reality TV guys. I honked my horn, flashed my lights, tailgated her. I was really trying to evangelize her. If you’re here tonight, I’m sorry. But I as really bad. After about thirty seconds I came to my senses thinking, “Why am I doing this?” I’m a shrink! I always analyze myself. That’s what we do for fun. I thought, I know why. I was traumatized. She triggered something that happened to me when I was in first grade. That’s it. I can remember and I can feel it right now. I was in line at the cafeteria and a guy cut me off so I couldn’t get my cookie. He cut me off just like she cut me off. And I’ve been carrying that cut-off-in-the-line wound all these years. I’m not going to let that happen any more. It was her fault!
Excuse me, psycho-babble-breath. That wasn’t an issue. That wasn’t triggered by her. Sometimes that happens to us but not in this case. I was just having a tantrum. I was revengeful and sadistic and mean. I was just bad. You have to look at what is the temptation saying. Is it an issue of brokenness, inability and hurt or is it an issue of rebellion and sin. We kind of carry both in our hearts. We have to be honest and put the spotlight on both of those. Which is it? We need to restore our souls. We need to ask God to restore our souls.
Then not only does God say reconnect, and flee and go under restoration…
4. He also says use people
Use people to help you with the temptation. I don’t believe in a person who can have victory over a temptation without people in their life. I don’t think that can happen. It’s very difficult because often it’s kind of an area we’re embarrassed about and don’t want to admit to somebody. You’ve got to pick your people well. James 5:16 says “Confess your sins to each other that you my be healed.” Healed, cured, restored. You’re going to need people, the right kind of people, to help you with the temptation because it’s going to hit.
I think we need two sorts of structures of people. I think you need both of these if you’re struggling with temptation. What you need first is your regular structured friendships. It may be a study group or a best fiend. People you meet with regularly where you talk about God and you open your hearts up, your struggles in your marriage, your dating life, your career – all that. And you talk about life. You bring yourself to them on a regular basis.
Then you’ve got your on-call friends too. Those are the 3 a.m. conversations. They save my life. I believe the most healing probably comes from them because you’re face to face with your shame and your guilt and your failures and you just kind of hate yourself and there’s somebody on the other end of the line who says, “I’ll help you. I’m with you. No condemnation here.” It brings life back to you for the grace of God. Who’s your 3 a.m., friend? Where’s your regular support?
I’ve got a bunch of guys who’ve covenanted together several years ago because we saw this problem. Our covenant was, “Twenty-four/seven. You call me if you’re at the pool or you’ve already jumped into the pool or you’re trying to get out. It doesn’t matter. You call.” It’s kind of revolutionized my life to have that kind of grace. (At the same time we’re being investigated by the wireless cellular companies because our unlimited usage is costing them a lot of money. There will be a class action lawsuit against us pretty soon!) But it’s made all the difference in the world. They’re there for me and I’m there for them.
You’ve got a built in thing here at Saddleback. It’s called Celebrate Recovery. It’s built on the Saddleback model. The idea there is there’s Jesus with skin on ready to talk to you about your temptation. If you fall and can’t get up, they’re there for you. In fact, if you’ve got a temptation that they’ve never heard of they’ll create a group for you. So be imaginative in your temptation. They don’t care. What they want to do is they want you to walk in the door and sit down with a person. Condemnation and judgment are checked in at the coat rack. There’s no place for them. And they want to give you grace. They know that’s what you need.
That’s what works. That’s how God does it. He gives us Himself, He tells us to flee where we’re weak, He tells us to start getting into restoration of whatever we’re dealing with and He brings peace. Those are the magic keys. You’re going to be tempted all the rest of your days. Especially if you’re trying to do some good things. Trying to stand up for God and follow Him. You’re going to be tempted. It’s a sign of life.
What I want to do now is go back to that passage and read it out loud as a prayer. Then I’ll close in prayer. And I just hope the best for you because it’s hard. It’s hard but it’s good. “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”
Prayer:
Father, You have not left us alone in the dark places of our heart where we are the most fragile we ask that we can feel You, we can experience You and we can know You and that You will lead us in all the right ways. In Your name we pray. Amen.