A Template for Trusting

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A Template for Trusting Travis Fleming | March 9, 2014 | Matthew 6:11, 13 The Upside-down Kingdom Series, Lessons Learned from the Sermon on the Mount, Part 21 It is a delight to travel around to the different Village Bible Church campuses and to be here today. My name is Travis Fleming. I’ve been part of the Aurora Campus for about five years. My wife Melissa and I have four kids: Eliana who is 11, Moriah who’s seven, Elijah who is four and Josiah who is four months. I love being a dad. I find myself inadequate at times but I do love to teach my kids. I love teaching them silly things, serious things, fun things and faith things. I like to pass on to my kids the legacy of faith that’s been entrusted to me. It’s fun to teach our kids and give them life templates. The other we had a big snow so I took my kids sledding. It was fun to show them how to sled, teach them new things and watch their faces as they learned. I like teaching my kids different things. Some of the things that I teach our kids drive my wife crazy: like how to eat McDonald’s French fries. Over the years I’ve learned that the proper way of eating them isn’t dipping them in the ketchup and then putting them in my mouth. I like to get rid of the middleman—I tear open the ketchup, squirt it in my mouth and then shove in the fries. Yes, it’s a bit disgusting but don’t knock it until you try it. I’ve taught my kids how to do that and it drives my wife crazy. I just get very impatient at times. I also do that with toothpaste. Why put it on the toothbrush? It’s just going in my mouth anyways. It also prevents anyone from ever touching our toothpaste again. I like to leave these templates to my kids. I like to show them silly things and teach them different things about how to live. My oldest daughter is eleven. We just finished her first season as a middle school basketball player. I played basketball when I was a teenager—about 75 pounds ago. So my daughter came to me and said, “Daddy, I want to learn how to play basketball.” She had never played before, so I said, “Okay, let’s go over to the gym and I’ll show you some different things.” So I started showing her how to shoot, how to do a layup and how to play defense but she began to get really bored with all of the drills. So I said, “Honey, I’m giving you a template for how to play the

game. This is the foundation. I’m showing you the things that are important for when you get into the game.” Then she played a game and all of those drills suddenly made sense. I wanted her to understand that I was giving her a template for how to play the game. I was giving her an example so that when she got into the thick of things, she could remember what was vitally important. As we’ve been going through our series “Upside-down Kingdom” and gotten into this part of the Lord’s Prayer, we are seeing that God has given us a template for how to trust Him. He’s given us an example to follow. Jesus has blazed a trail for how to commune with our Almighty God. He is showing us the foundation for prayer. We might go on to different things but we always have to come back to the fundamentals—this template He has given us. Then we can see what God has for us. He has made us for Himself and He desires to show us how to commune with Him. We’re going look at the template of the Lord’s Prayer with a focus on verses 11-13. After we read the Scripture, we will talk generally about prayer and I want to set a direction for us. As we do this, I want us to keep some questions in mind: 1. In Whom do I really trust? We have a tendency to say we trust in God when we really don’t. We’re a bit like driving instructors. When teenagers get into the driver’s seat to learn how to drive, the instructor sits in the passenger side with an accelerator, a brake and a steering wheel. If the teenaged driver starts to do something the instructor doesn’t like he can take control. Many of us are like that with God. We say, “God, I’m going to let You drive my life.” But the reality is we want a fail-safe to be there for us so in case of an emergency we can take control because we really don’t trust in God. 2. How do I pray? How is your prayer life? Is it a drive-thru prayer all the time? Or do you have long, concentrated times with God? I’m not saying you always have to spend four hours on your face. Sometimes we do need those drive-thru or impromptu prayers. We see that in Scripture. There are moments when people quickly pray to God. But we can’t live on that. We can’t have a drive-thru faith. 3. What happens if I don’t pray? Let’s keep those questions in our minds as we go to our text. Let’s read Matthew 6:9-15 and then I’m going to pray. The Holy Spirit through Matthew says this: 9

Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10

Your kingdom come

your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11

Give us this day our daily bread,

12

and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil. 14

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you,

15

but if you

do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Let’s pray. Father, we come into Your presence humbly, thirsting for You to speak to us. Open wide our hearts. Peel back the layers of unbelief and sin so that we can see You. Lay us on the table for a spiritual cat-scan so that You can show us the reality of our hearts before You. Help us to see and truly understand the treasure trove You have given unto us with this wonderful tool of prayer. Speak to us. We long for You. We need You. Glorify Your name in us today. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. As we really truly look into this prayer template we need to make sure that we have the switch flipped. Here’s what I mean. When you get on an airplane one of the first things they tell you is to turn off your phone or switch it to airplane mode. If you’re not familiar with airplane mode, it means that you get all the benefits of the phone without the communication. If we’re honest with ourselves, many of us only want the airplane mode in our Christian walks. We want all the benefits of the Christian life from God but we don’t want Him to speak into our lives because we are afraid He will do something in us that we won’t like. God is showing us in His Word that He wants us to flip the switch because He longs to communicate with us.

1. We Need to be Offering Our Petitions God delights in communicating with us. Verse 11 says, “Give us this day our daily bread.” What is God telling us here? God is saying that He delights in us offering our petitions. We need to understand that the template of the Lord’s Prayer encourages us to be offering our petitions. God delights in us speaking to Him. He delights in us coming to Him and seeing His face. Verses 9-11 say, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.” Daily bread means the daily necessities of life. God cares about some of the smallest and seemingly the most insignificant details of our lives. We have a tendency to think that our requests are not big enough for God. God can open the Red Sea. He can make mountains crumble. He can cause the deaf to hear and the lame to walk. Your request is always small in the sight of God. If God is so big that He can make the universe and everything in it and He can put the biggest stars into place without ever asking your permission, then your request is not a big deal in the sight of God. So there are no minor requests because even though they seem minor to us, they are all minor to Him. Yet He cares about the small or “minor” requests that we have. So they are not minor to Him because He cares for us. So we need to be offering our petitions.

This Requires Believing Whole-heartedly I want to look at prayer generally before we go any further into the Lord’s Prayer. In order to offer our petitions effectively, we must believe whole-heartedly. Did you know that we cannot seek God without faith? The Bible is very clear on this. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” What happens if we don’t have faith? We can’t approach God.

Hebrews 11:6 says, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” Do you believe in God? Do you believe that He will answer you? Do you believe that the God of the universe longs to talk to you? God delights in us coming to Him but we must believe whole-heartedly. Jesus said in Matthew 21:21-22 what happens if we have faith: And Jesus answered them, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree [He’s referring to the fig tree that withered when He cursed it], but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” What is faith? It is the assurance of things hoped for as mentioned already. But what does that mean? Faith is not merely an intellectual assent nor is it a conjuring up of belief as much as it is a passionate pursuit with an expected outcome. It’s a belief that motivates us to movement. That’s what faith is. The idea of casting a mountain into the sea was a Jewish idiom. It was a way of describing the impossible. When we have faith God will do the impossible. He will bring new life where there is death, make streams in the desert places and replace stone hearts with fleshly ones. Faith is like climbing a ladder to see and know God. Each rung carries a greater belief that there is something truly wonderful at the end and that is God Himself.

This Requires Approaching Boldly In Whom is our faith? In America we have this idea of an American God that we appeal to all the time. I hear, “God bless America” all the time. We think that there is this God Who just answers all of our prayers. No. God answers our prayers but it’s not just God, it’s God revealing Himself in and through Christ. It is because of Christ that we have access to God. There is a story from the Civil War era that illustrates this well. There was a soldier in the Union Army whose brothers had been killed. Because of this, he needed to go back and work the family farm or they were going to lose it. So went to Washington D.C. to try and petition President Abraham Lincoln to be removed from military service so he could go home and take care of his ailing mother and the farm. When he arrived at the White House he found that he could not get access to the President. They said, “I’m sorry, you cannot come in; you don’t have an appointment. You can’t just come in and see the President.” He was very dejected because he’d come quite a long way. He sat down at a bench next to a boy who had heard the entire interaction. The boy said, “Tell me your story. Why are you here?” The soldier told the boy his story and then the boy said, “Come with me.” Surprised, the soldier began to follow the boy who led them both straight past the security guards. As the boy continued to lead the soldier into the White House, no one stopped them. The boy led them all the way to the Oval Office and walked right in to President Abraham Lincoln. The soldier was stunned. Then Abraham Lincoln looked up and said, “Hey Tad. Who do you have there?” The boy was his son, Tad Lincoln.

We have access to God through Jesus the Son and therefore we can approach the throne of God boldly. Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” We need to believe whole-heartedly and approach the throne of God boldly. I’m reminded of the story of the great Protestant reformer Martin Luther. He was known to have an amazing prayer life. A.W. Tozer once wrote of Martin Luther’s prayer life and said, “Contemporaries relate that hearing Martin Luther prayer was an experience in theology.” He would pray for three or four hours at a time. He had disciplined himself to really pray and seek God. It was said upon hearing this reformer pray, people pitied him because he prayed with such humility. People would hear him and say, “Poor Martin! Come on, it’s not that bad, Brother. You can pray a little bit better than that. It’s okay.” But then he would transition from humbling himself in the sight of God to approaching God boldly. He was so bold before God that others feared for him. Instead of coming alongside him and patting him on the back, they moved away because they were afraid they would be singed by the judgment that was sure to come. Martin Luther understood the concept of approaching God boldly.

This Requires Asking Specifically Do you pray to God and ask specifically? What do you ask for? Do you go to God with a litany or a giant list of prayer requests? I used to do this. I would write down initials in my prayer journal and go through page after page. After a while I wasn’t praying any longer; I was just copying. That’s the danger of any type of prayer. We have to mix it up a little bit. Instead of just listing out our prayer requests, we need to have a conversation with God. It’s like that with my wife. When I have a conversation with my wife, I don’t want her to tell me everything that’s wrong or that needs to be fixed in the house because we’ll never communicate. In fact, we might fight quite a bit if she just has a list of everything that needs to be done. There are times when I say, “Honey, can we just communicate first? Let’s talk. Let’s connect. I want to hear your heart. What’s happening?” She wants to hear mine too. Then we get into those requests. So what then do we ask? Many of us have asked for things and not received them. Then we are tempted to say, “Prayer is bogus. It doesn’t mean anything. I asked for this and God didn’t give it.” But we have to make sure we’re praying according to the will of God. What is the will of God? The will of God is revealed in the Word of God. There are certain things we can see immediately that are in line with God’s will according to the Word of God. What are some things that are the will of God? It’s the will of God that we’d be sanctified. It’s the will of God that we do not indulge in sexual immorality. It is the will of God that we serve one another. It is the will of God that we be faithful. It is the will of God to glorify God.

Now you might say, “But those are so general.” Yes, but they can be guide rails that keep us on track with God. If we’re to truly understand what God wants from us, then we must pray God’s will in our lives. What are some of the things He wills for us? It is that in which He delights. What do I mean by that? God delights in sending workers into His harvest field. God delights in having people worship Him in spirit and in truth. God delights in transforming sinners. God delights in glorifying His name. Now does that mean we can’t pray for our desires? Does it mean we can’t pray for a spouse? No. God made man and woman. Genesis 2:24 tells us the two shall leave their parents and become one flesh. God delights in that. Marriage is a wonderful thing. It’s not wrong to pray for a spouse. It’s not wrong to pray for our children. It’s not wrong to pray for our jobs. These things aren’t wrong; they are good things to pray for provided we are glorifying God in the midst of them. We need to make sure that we are asking God specifically. Sometimes we beat around the bush. The one thing I truly enjoy about prayer is that I ask God for His power and presence and what I get is God’s perspective. When we go into the throne room of God with our requests God begins revealing Himself to us. Oswald Chambers said, “To say that ‘prayer changes things’ is not as close to the truth as saying, ‘Prayer changes me and then I change things.’” Sometimes prayer changes things on its own but I get Chambers’ point. When we go before God, He reveals the sin in our lives. God reveals how our perspectives are wrong. There are times when I’m lamenting to my wife something that’s happening and she just looks at me and says, “Your perspective is wrong. You need to rethink it to get an understanding of what God is truly saying.” When we go into God’s presence, He has a tendency to change us, hone us and begin to transform us.

This Requires Waiting Expectantly We’re not very good at waiting. My kids are a good example of this. When they’re playing a game on a cell phone, they say, “Ah, it’s taking forever!” Or they say, “Oh, I have to watch this show right now.” I tell them, “You can watch it later. Put it on pause and watch it later.” I remember when I was a kid and my parents or grandparents would say, “When I was a kid…” According to them, they had to walk barefoot 20 miles to school and back in the middle of winter uphill both ways. As a kid, I never thought I would do that as an adult. I said to myself, “I’m never going to say that.” I find myself doing it now and I love to watch my kids’ reactions. I tell them, “When I was a kid, we had to stand up to turn on the TV. We had to pull the knob and wait for it to warm up. Then we had two knobs: VHF and UHF. If you missed your show you were out of luck because it was done—forever.”

Today, kids don’t wait for anything. But it’s not just the kids; we don’t know how to wait either. It’s endemic in our culture. How many of you are patient at 7:30 AM Monday morning on the expressway? God gives us expressways for our sanctification. We might be late but He’s making us holy. We have to wait patiently and expectantly. One of the greatest examples of patience while waiting expectantly is found in the life of Elijah. I love Elijah. We named our son after him because he was such an amazing man of God. James 5:17-18 tells us Elijah had a nature just like ours. He was a regular man. He prayed that it would not rain and it didn’t rain for three and half years. Then he prayed that it would rain and it did. That passage focuses on the power of prayer but doesn’t get the full flavor of what happened in 1 Kings. Elijah defeated the 450 prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel and then turned to prayer. He didn’t just pray; he prayed expectantly. Let’s look at 1 Kings 18:42-45: And Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel. And he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” And he went up and looked and said, “There is nothing.” And he said, “Go again,” seven times. And at the seventh time he said, “Behold, a little cloud like a man's hand is rising from the sea.” And he said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you.’” And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. We see that Elijah kept praying and sending his servant back. We don’t know what the servant was thinking. God has not told us what his perspective was in the midst of all this. I can’t imagine what he thought every time he had to go back. Elijah sent him to check for rain. So he ran off and then came back—out of breath—to report there was no rain. Then Elijah said, “Go again.” So the servant ran back and again returned to tell Elijah, “Sorry, no rain.” Elijah said, “Go back again.” The servant is probably thinking, “I’ve already been there twice,” but he went again. He came back a third time, then a fourth time, then a fifth time and then a sixth time. I’m sure he was getting really annoyed. He probably thought, “Come on, Elijah. It’s not happening.” Then Elijah said, “Go again.” So the servant went for the seventh time and saw a cloud in the distance. Can you imagine the disbelief, shock and wonder of that moment? He ran back to Elijah and said, “It’s coming. It’s small but it’s coming.” Elijah knew there was a storm coming. Elijah is a great example of waiting expectantly. He didn’t take no for an answer. Another example is when Jacob wrestled with God. He didn’t let go until God blessed him. He had a sense of expectancy. We are supposed to pray with a sense of expectancy. A professor at Moody Theological Seminary named Bill Thrasher wrote a book called A Journey to Victorious Praying. He said this regarding a person’s prayer life, “When you pray with no expectancy, it has died!” It’s very true.

Do you pray with expectancy? If we are honest, many of us are more surprised when God answers our requests than when He doesn’t. Shame on us. We need to pray with a sense of expectancy—a dogged determination that won’t let go. I’m reminded of the story of Dorothea Clap. She was an older woman in New Jersey who was led by God to pray for the high school down the street. She prayed faithfully day-by-day week-by-week, month-by-month and year-by-year. Several years went by and she kept praying that God would save them and then send them to the ends of the earth. After 12 years she encountered a mischievous young man for whom she decided to pray. She sent him the Gospel of John and prayed for three more years. Finally God saved and transformed the heart of that young man. That one student went on to lead 200 other students to Christ. Three of those students went to college at Moody Bible Institute and began to meet daily for prayer and street evangelism. They spent summer vacations taking mission trips to spread the gospel in other countries. Three years later they took youth on trips to Spain. Two years later they had their first multi-national evangelistic campaign in Europe. Three years later they went to India. Years later they’re still going out and evangelizing on ships all over the world. This is the story of George Verwer and Operation Mobilization. They have reached thousands for Christ. If you go to their website there is a timeline on the history page and it says “1955-One woman prays.” That’s it. She kept praying with a sense of expectancy. Consider the example of a man most of us have probably never heard of before: George McClusky. When George McClusky had children, he decided to invest one hour a day in prayer because he wanted his kids to follow Jesus. After a time he expanded his prayers to include his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Every day between 11 A.M. and 12 P.M. he prayed for the next three generations. As the years went by his two daughters committed their lives to Christ and married men who went into the full-time ministry. These two couples had four girls and one boy. Each of the girls married a minster and the boy became a pastor. The first two great-grandchildren were both boys. Upon graduating high school, these two cousins went to the same college and became roommates. As sophomores one boy decided to go into ministry and the other didn’t. He undoubtedly felt some pressure to continue the family legacy, but he chose instead to pursue his interest in psychology. He went on to earn his doctorate and eventually wrote books for parents that became bestsellers. He started a radio program heard on more than 1,000 stations each day. This is the story of James Dobson. That all happened because someone prayed and waited with a sense of expectancy. We need to pray with a sense of expectancy. We must wait on God to answer. God does answer but He doesn’t always answer in the way that we want. Prayer is like a stop light: sometimes God says, “Yes,” sometimes He says, “Wait,” and sometimes he says, “No.” Imagine if God answered all of the frivolous prayers we pray in our lives! Garth Brooks sang a song several years ago called”Unanswered Prayers.” He said, “Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers.” The song talks about being at the hometown football game with his wife when he sees the girl he dated in high school. He thinks back to the time when he dated her and remembers

praying that she would become his wife. Then he’s so thankful that God didn’t answer that prayer but gave him his wife instead. He’s thankful for the gifts God gave him now. I would like to point out to Garth that God did answer that prayer; He just said, “No.” Our prayers aren’t unanswered; they just aren’t always answered in the way that we want. We must understand that. We must wait on God to answer. He does answer and He does care. He cares about all of our needs—both great and small.

2. Seeking His Provision Let’s get back into Matthew 6. I want to break this down. We’ve looked at prayer generally and now we’re going to look at the Lord’s Prayer specifically. Verse 11 says, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Why is this included in the Lord’s Prayer? Some of the early church fathers and theologians wrote commentaries on this passage. They had a very hard time with it because they thought it was saying something so general that it couldn’t possibly be true. Why would we ask for our daily bread? They thought, “Well, it must be something very spiritual. Jesus is the Bread of Life. He must be saying that we need Him all the time.” That’s not what Jesus is saying. Yes, we need Jesus every day. Yes, He is the Bread of Life. But this prayer shows an understanding that God cares about our daily needs. He cares about everything we are facing. It’s a picture of the time the Israelites spent wandering in the wilderness in the Old Testament. During that time God brought manna from heaven. How often did He bring it? Every day. How much were you to gather? Enough for the week or the month? No. It was to be a daily provision—except on the day before the Sabbath when they gathered enough for two days and then rested on the Sabbath. When some of them tried to gather bread for more than one day, God caused it to rot and become worthless. God was saying, “I want you to depend on Me for your daily needs.” What does that mean? Does that mean we’re not supposed to plan? No, Proverbs says we are to plan. It means that we are to seek His provision and acknowledge His Lordship over our lives. We need to recognize that He has given us the ability to have and make wealth (Deuteronomy 8:18). God has given us the ability to understand, think and process which is amazing! God caused us to be born at this certain point in time, in this era. He has given us the ability to understand what’s happening. I didn’t give myself that ability; God did. God has given us all of our abilities. We need to make sure that we recognize that. He is the One Who ultimately gives us our food, provides our needs and gives us the ability to have and make wealth.

He Provides for Our Necessities, Not luxuries Now I want to clarify something—He provides our necessities not our luxuries. It’s our daily bread, not a Cadillac. I’m amazed how many preachers out there say God wants you to be rich. They are those “health and wealth” preachers. They preach that God wants you to be wealthy. People buy into it left and right.

I’ve had the privilege of studying, traveling and seeing churches in many different nations. It amazes me how the health and wealth gospel is everywhere. It’s in Africa, Asia, America and South America. People think if they bring their money to the altar God, is going to bless it and double it. They’re giving everything they have in order to get more: a nicer house, greater health benefits and more. The health and wealth preachers have a tendency to make faith itself the object rather than God. God delights in giving us His good gifts. He desires that we pray but sometimes we use prayer as an excuse. Did you realize that? We should present our needs and petitions to Him but we shouldn’t use prayer as an excuse. What do I mean by that? Turn to the Book of 2 Thessalonians. The Apostle Paul is writing to the church of Thessalonica because many of them had quit their jobs and stopped working because they had heard that Christ was coming at any moment. By the Spirit, Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 3:11-12, “For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.”

This Does Not Deny Our Responsibility, but Recognizes God’s Sovereignty Paul was saying that if you are need of a job you need to pray and look. Some people say, “You just need to pray.” There are some times when that’s all we can do. But there are other times when God says, “I want you to be praying and doing the work.” Seeking God’s provision in our lives does not deny our responsibility but rather recognizes God’s sovereignty. When we say to God, “Give us this daily bread” we also need to be going out and looking. Even the nation of Israel had to go out to get the bread that was there. We need to be praying but we also need to understand that God is sovereign over the process. We can’t just sit there, twiddle our thumbs and then expect Him to answer. He has called us to go out. It’s the same way with evangelism. God has ordained the results but He’s also ordained the means. People say, “I just pray for them; I never tell them.” Then you’re violating Scripture. Matthew 28:19-20 says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…teaching them…” We’re called to pray for the hearts of individuals to be transformed. We’re called to pray that God would grant them the repentance that leads to life. But we are also called to be talking to, teaching, persuading and pursuing them. This is what it means to recognize God’s sovereignty without denying our responsibility. God works through prayer but He does so in conjunction with His Word. He is the One Who provides for us and protects us.

3. Looking to Him for Protection Let’s look back at verse 13, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” God wants us to be looking to Him for protection. Our culture is obsessed with protection in many ways. We are very safetyconscious. So much so that I’m amazed any of us ever made it to where we are today. Here’s what I mean. I grew up in a generation that was not so safety-conscious. I went to a school that had asbestos. I rode a bike without a helmet. I drank water from a hose. Now we freak out and say, “Germs everywhere!” We do everything to protect our children and ourselves. There are some parents who are so bad that I just want to hand them a bunch of bubble wrap and say, “Just make clothes out of it. Wrap them up and send them outside.” We think if we can keep them from pain then they’ll have a better time growing up. I used to be a youth pastor in Chicago. I had one student who was a young Romanian. He was a great kid but his mother was obsessed with keeping him away from germs. Any time they traveled he wasn’t allowed to use the bathroom at the gas station until his mother went inside and sterilized it—no matter where they went. This is a true story. She had wipes and spray and she would sterilize everything. Now the boy has grown up and he gets sick all the time. Why? Because he never had any exposure to germs as a kid. Now I’m not saying you should not be safety-conscious. I’m saying you need to make sure you’re ultimately looking to God for His protection. We are to be responsible but also recognize God’s sovereignty. God knows us better than we know ourselves. When He says, “Lead us not into temptation,” He’s referring to not being led to a place where we would sin against God. We have a tendency to get overconfident and have a misplaced understanding of our own strength. Each of us has what I call a “den of disobedience”—certain proclivities to certain sins. But we can be tempted to think, “God saved me so I don’t have to worry about that sin ever again.” No! You still have a sinful nature! You might think, “I’ve struggled with drinking in my past. I’ve been a drunk. But I can just hang out at the bar and I’ll be great.” Don’t be stupid! Yes, Jesus hung out with sinners. But you’re putting yourself in a position of huge temptation right now because that’s your den of disobedience. When I was an undergraduate student I was talking with a professor about a certain sin with which I was struggling. The professor said, “Just get it in your mind that you won’t do that sin ever again.” I said, “You are a very smart man but that was very stupid advice.” That advice means I’m relying on my own will. When I pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” I’m acknowledging that I have a sinful nature in my life and I know I am great at deceiving myself. Satan is a great deceiver but we’re not too bad either. We are great at deceiving ourselves. We rationalize sin all the time. We rationalize that we can handle certain things. But when we say, “Lead us not into

temptation,” we are acknowledging that we have proclivities to certain sins and we’re asking God, “Don’t lead us into situations where I’m going to sin against You.” We have a very, very low opinion of sin and a very high opinion of ourselves. We think sin isn’t that bad. We minimize sin in ourselves and magnify it in others. But all sin is deadly. What brought about the fall of man? Was it murder? No. Pedophilia? No. Rape? No. It was one bite of one fruit. One act of disobedience brought about the fall of the entire human race. Sin is very serious and God has shown His judgment toward sin on the cross with Christ. Maybe you still don’t think sin is a big deal. Think of it like this: take a little rat poison and put it in your coffee tomorrow morning. Just a little bit. It’s suddenly serious now, isn’t it? You don’t want to drink that coffee because it’s deadly. That’s how deadly sin is. You can’t minimize its effects. It’s very, very powerful.

Protection from the Devil’s Design When we look to God for His protection we are praying for two things, one of which is the devil’s designs. Let’s look back at our text. Verse 13 says, “But deliver us from evil.” The Greek (ponēros) actually says, “But deliver us from the evil one.” First Peter 5:8 says, “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” We have to be on guard against the devil’s designs. He desires to keep you spiritually apathetic. He desires that you don’t pray. He will make you so busy that you can’t pray. He will do anything in his power to get you not to rely on God. He will try to make you rely on yourself. He has the playbook for your life. He’s been around for a long time and He knows the Word of God better than you do. Think about it. Satan had the gall to quote the Bible to Jesus. Jesus is the Author of the Word of God. So Satan was quoting Scripture to the Author and trying to get Him to sin. He will distort the Word of God. He will do anything to bring you down.

Protection from Our Deadly Desires Satan has the playbook for your life, so he knows your desires. He’s a fisherman. He goes fishing for souls using the hook of the world and the bait of your flesh. Each of us has our own deadly desire. We not only need to guard against the devil’s designs but also against our own deadly desires. Satan is always refreshing that bait. For one person it is alcohol or drugs. For another person it is gluttony. For another person it is gossip. For another person it is some type of pornography, sexual immorality, homosexuality, bestiality or pedophilia. He knows your life and he is going to do everything in his power to get you to sin. He’s going to use the hook of the world and the bait of your flesh to pull you down. James 1:13-15 gives us a picture of our deadly desires. James says, “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. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” We have to be on guard against our own deadly desires. We have to recognize that the heart is deceptive. In order to justify his affair with his stepdaughter, Woody Allen said, “The heart wants what it wants.” Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Our hearts deceive us. We must be on guard against them. “But deliver us from evil.” This is a prayer to God saying, “I recognize that I have a sinful nature. Lead me not into places where I will sin against You. If I find myself in the midst of temptation, please deliver me!” We can claim the promise of 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape.” That doesn’t mean you intentionally put yourself in temptation’s way. We still must guard against it and say, “I can’t go there.” I have my own den of disobedience. Mine has always been lust—specifically pornography. I have had to learn to guard against it. I take Scripture very seriously when Ephesians 5:3 says, “But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.” For me this means let there not even be a click; I can’t even click the headline. That’s what headlines on the internet are designed to do: get you to read. They want to make it sound like you are missing something. I’ve learned by God’s grace to say, “No.” If I click, that’s sin for me. I’m not even going to the other sites. I’m guarding against my own sinful nature because I know that I can deceive myself. By God’s grace, He has given me victory and I keep on in it day after day. Daily I continue learning to take up my cross, put to death the misdeeds of my flesh, consider myself crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. I understand that the resurrection of life is to come through me but that I can deceive myself. So I make sure to stay away from those places. I’ve learned to bounce my eyes away and guard against those headlines. I know the devil’s schemes and that he’s trying to bring me down.

As we conclude, I have a challenge for you. When you are tempted, pray for the next generation. Sometimes you just need to run. But if you find yourself thinking about it say, “No. I’m going to pray for someone else at this time. I’m going to pray for my children, my grandchildren and my friends.” Turn that moment of temptation into a moment of inspiration for the next generation. That’s what I want you to do. Here are some points to ponder: 1. In Whom or am I trusting? Prayer is all about trust. Truly ask yourself what you are trusting. Why aren’t you praying? Why are you always on the spiritual airplane mode? Why do you want the blessings of God but not the communication? In what are you truly trusting? Are you trusting in yourself or are you truly trusting in God? Are you afraid of what He might do? Most of the time when we aren’t praying it’s because we believe in ourselves more than God. I don’t know about you but I don’t think I should trust myself very much. 2. What template are you following when you pray? How do you approach God? Have you looked at the Lord’s Prayer as a template? Martin Luther said, “A Christian has prayed abundantly who has rightly prayed the Lord’s Prayer.” He wasn’t talking about mindless repetition; He meant

understanding that it is a fundamental template for us to use to spring off into other forms of prayer. But are we truly following that template? Are we approaching God, acknowledging that His name is hallowed? Are we acknowledging that He is Father? Do we truly want His kingdom to come and His will to be done in our lives? 3. What happens if we don’t pray? We become prey because then we are susceptible to temptation all the time. You have no ability to say no. God can’t get through. When your spiritual life is on airplane mode, God’s calling but you can’t hear the phone. Flip it on and turn to Him. Take time today and set it aside right now in your mind. Don’t wait until later this week. Set a time and place in your mind right now. Where are you going to go? What time of day will it be? Many of us have great intentions but we never act on them. 

Decide when, “I’m going to do it tomorrow morning at 5:30 AM,” then set your clock tonight.

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Decide where, “I’m going to go in my basement to my desk.”

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Determine a goal, “I’m going to read two chapters of the New Testament, then I’m going to stop and pray beginning with the Lord’s Prayer.”

Do this. It’s a template for trusting in Him. Let’s all do this. Let’s pray. Father, we come before You thankful for what You have done and are doing in our lives and in our church. Please help us to truly pray and seek Your face. We long for You to show Yourself as God in our lives and in our church. Transform hearts and minds. Draw us unto Yourself and use us to bring Your name great glory. Help us to truly follow this template that we might look to You for our provision and protection, knowing that You are the Lord of our life. You are the One Who gave Your Son for us that we may have new life in You. Let us experience the joy of knowing Who You are. Thank You for giving us this wonderful tool and opportunity to come to You in prayer. Thank You that You are a God Who is not far-off but is close by, Who longs to hear our requests, struggles, sins, sicknesses and all the situations we face. Please use us for your glory. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. Village Bible Church

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847 North State Route 47, Sugar Grove, IL 60554

grove/resources/sermons All Scriptures quoted directly from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted. Note: This transcription has been provided by Sermon Transcribers

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(630) 466-7198

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http://www.villagebible.org/sugar-