Following Jesus in Prayer - Part Five: Lead Us Not Into Temptation
by James Lincoln on February 12, 2006
When asked how to pray Jesus gave His disciples an outline or a framework on which they could attach their hopes, dreams and the concerns of their lives before God in prayer. Now, I've listened to a lot of prayers and I have a question. Why is it that when Christians pray, as a rule, we choose not to follow His pattern? I don't mean a slavish commitment to these words and these words only. He didn't say, "Pray these words." However, He did said, "This is how you should pray." But why is it that the content of Jesus' teaching is so often missing in our prayers? I don't really know the answer. I imagine that it's because we have come to think that spontaneous thoughts are somehow more authentic and spiritual than planned thoughts. It is true that we don't want to be repeating prayers from rote memory that don't reflect the aspirations of our hearts. However, is prayer less genuine or spiritual if we order them after the teachings of Jesus? What I'm asking is, "Do we follow Jesus' teachings about how to pray? Do you pray like this?"
When you pray do you acknowledge that God rules the earth from heaven. When the nations devise a vain thing and take their stand against the Lord and His Anointed do you say that He sits in heaven and laughs at schemes? That perspective (reality) might just calm an anxious soul. When you pray do you hear yourself praying that God would set apart His name in your heart as the name that is above all names and worthy to be prized and treasured above every other name and every other claim on your life? Do you pray, "God, You have promised that Your name will be great among the nations, make it so, Lord, make it so! Lord, Hallowed be your name, set apart the goodness, mercy and truth of your name in Darfur, Iraq, China, India and Wilsonville. And make your kingdom to rule in my heart the way it rules in heaven where angels yield to you now willingly and joyfully and completely." Do we ask Him to forgive our sins when we don't give to Him what is due him? Do you pray the way Jesus taught Christians to pray?
This morning we come to the sixth petition of His prayer. Jesus said to pray this way. "Father...lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil..."
I have often felt like the man who said that he could resist everything but... temptation. I know what it is like to fail so many times in the face of temptation that you just feel like giving up. I can say with David that my sins are more numerous than the hairs on my head. It would be a monumental break with reality for me to say otherwise. In fact, if you knew me in my worst moments there's a good chance that none of you would be here.
But I am convinced that God in His faithfulness has given us everything we need for life and godliness (2Pe.1:3). So the problem is not that God has held back His abundant resources. Peter adds that God's provision comes to us
"...through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence for by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature..."
So, success in temptation is not automatic. Instead it's directly connected to the true knowledge of God and faith in His precious and magnificent promises. So, even if you have failed a thousand times and more in your battles please know that God's mercies are new every morning and His compassion is new every day and His help is there if you will hear His truth and trust in His promises.
When you pray, do you pray like this, "Lord, Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil?" When was the last time you asked God not to lead you into temptation? You know Jesus did say, "You have not because you ask not." Do you ask God to lead you away from temptation and deliver you from evil?"
"I'm confused..."
Now some find the request mystifying. "Pastor, doesn't James say, "Let no one say when he is tempted I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil and He himself does not tempt anyone. " (James 1:14) Why then does Jesus call us to pray for something that God doesn't do anyway? That's a good question. Look, surely Jesus doesn't mean that God desires to seduce us into sin and that we must pray to keep Him from doing that. Our prayer must not arise out of the doubt about God's intentions to lead us to do good. It's not possible for God to entice us to do evil. Instead, our prayer should arise out of an acknowledgment of how desperate we are without His good leading. Jesus is calling us to ask God to lead us not where we might be prone to go without His presence and without His grace. "Don't lead us, God, into temptation or the kind of testing we so easily get ourselves into without your presence and grace."
It reminds me of Moses' prayer following the golden calf incident. He said to God, "If your presence (Your good leading & shepherding) does not go with us do not lead us up from here. It's the same prayer. Moses then added, "Is it not by Your going with us that we may be distinguished from all the other people who are upon the face of the earth?" In other words,
"If You don't go with us and if You don't empower us, keep us, shepherd us, strengthen us, take us by Your hand and Spirit... if Your grace doesn't take hold of us, keep us close to You, we'll be just like everyone else and we we'll fall down and worship other gods just like we did with the golden calf. God, You must go with us (lead us) or we are doomed to fail over and over again. If You don't go with us, don't lead us up from here."
Just like Moses Jesus said to pray, "Lead us not into temptation." So, Jesus is not asking us to change God's intentions toward us as if He might lead us or seduce us to sin. He's calling us to call upon God to lead us, keep us, direct us, to make the rough places plain and the crooked straight in paths of righteousness, not in the way we would end up without Him. It's an admission of how needy we are without Him. However, do you pray the prayer?
Why Pray?
But some will ask, "If God promises to lead us why should we pray for Him to lead us?" Look, often God has us pray because our prayers are the means through which He brings about His promises to us. Paul assures us that God "will supply all our needs". Yet, Jesus says to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." There's no contradiction here. Our faith isn't one dimensional. God desires a loving relationship with His people. He's omnipotent. He can give you everything you need without you praying at all. But He's after a loving and trusting relationship with us. Isn't that what you want for you own children? Do you want to simply provide everything they need or do you want them to know you and your love for them, your God and your faith. Don't you want them to know that which is most satisfying, beautiful, wise, and lovely? Don't you want them to know the way of peace and great joy? Of course you do. They'll never know these things if there is no relationship. This is the way it is with God. Prayer is most often the means through which God brings His promises home to us. It's how we lay hold of them by cultivating a relationship with Him, listening, talking to Him, crying out to Him, thanking Him and rehearsing His holy love for us.
So, Jesus says, 'Here's what you do. Pray like Moses. Cry out to God to shepherd us away from those temptations that we would let destroy us, compromise our beliefs, hurt our souls, hurt others and mar the reputation of Christ. Pray, "Lead us not..." Notice that Jesus says, "us" to include me, the church and your children in this prayer as well.
What Jesus is teaching us about God
Now you must know that Jesus is telling us something here about God. And here's the message you want to take home: that GOD IS FAITHFUL. But listen...we're not. And because we're not, we tend to project our own character weaknesses onto God. And then we become afraid that He might treat us the way we treat others.
Beloved, God is absolutely trustworthy. He cannot fail His covenant promises. As Peter says, they are precious and magnificent. God is a lawful being which is only to say that God always does what He says. Always. Always. This is one of His attributes that makes Him so beautiful. And the beauty of His holiness is profoundly practical. What could be more practical at the moment of temptation than for you to know that the weight of the One who created and sustains the universe, that God's power, presence and enablement is with you to overcome your temptations? I can only think of one thing more powerful: the power of His grace to make us to want it, cherish it, treasure it and believe that it's in our best interest and greatest joy to obey Him implicitly. I think that is where the battle is. It is a battle for the heart. Do I really believe that obeying God is in my best interest or do I believe that I will miss out on something if I don't sin.
"Deliver Us from evil..."
Also, our prayer shouldn't arise out of doubt about God's intention to deliver us. In fact we know that He already has.
"When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.Col 2:13-15
"For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."Col 1:13-14
This is already true for all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. But, again, our calling is to walk with God, to cry out to him, to know Him in the seasons of rest and the seasons of testing. We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers. So we need His defending and protecting grace every moment. Paul says that we work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Not that we work for our salvation but we work it out through fellowship with God in prayer as we cry out to Him to deliver us from every kind of evil.
Listen to how trustworthy God is.
"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. 1Cor. 10:13
The Condition of the Fallen World
If you don't believe that God is trustworthy the words of this prayer will simply fall to the ground. Again Jesus is telling us something about God here. He's also telling us something about the condition of a fallen world. The vast majority of mankind doesn't know why it is so hard to get along with God. In fact it is impossibly hard to get along with God if you don't trust Him and His word. And many people don't trust Him or His word. The ultimate form of contempt is unbelief. People say, "Why should I believe in God; He doesn't fit my agenda or my concept."
This mistrust began a long time ago. God's word says that we are made in the image and likeness of God. From the beginning God said that there is one creature on the face of the earth that is so much like God that God Himself can occupy his nature. And that's man. We were made to walk with God, to know Him, enjoy Him and to trust Him.
When God created man He put him on the earth for a purpose. And that purpose was to glorify Himself. To have His beauty, dominion, wisdom, goodness, wonder, love, creativity, to be seen and known and spread out over the earth. Mankind was supposed to fill the earth and subdue it. And with that purpose came a sobering promise. In Ge.2:16-17. God said, "I want you to multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and you may eat of every tree in the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall surely not eat of it for the day you eat of it you will die."
The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a test of man's continued submission and obedience to God. It was the instrument by which God would form man into a moral being... to eat of that tree was to break trust with God. God, of course, knew that man would break trust so he gave a second promise. It was in the context of God's judgment after Eve had been beguiled by the serpent to eat the fruit and Adam went along with her. He said, to the serpent, "because you have done this I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall crush your head and you shall bruise His heel."
Someday, there would be recovery. Recovery from what? From the evil of our fallen natures that were corrupted by sin. Beloved, to know that the world is fallen is almost as important as to know that the world is. To say that it is fallen is to say that it is not now as it was made to be. A change has occurred and that change is for the worst. You know the statement, "There are two thing in life you can't avoid: death and taxes." That's true but there are a whole lot of other things you can't avoid either. A fallen world is both frustrating and terrible.
Why do we think better than we live? Why do things fail to live up to their promise? Why do our expectations outpace our performance? When surveyed 75% of the people think they are above average. Think about that.
We are remarkably capable of deceiving ourselves making a mess of everything. In fact, in the face of evil we have managed to restrain some of the consequences but we have not managed the renewal of the heart and the mind. Hard lessons of history have shown us that idealism (the absence of true awareness of our sinful hearts) led to the slaughter of millions and millions of people under utopian philosophies such as Naziism and Communisim. Any view of the world and life that doesn't account for the presence of sin and wickedness is an idealism that distorts reality as it is. When Jesus said to pray, "Deliver us from evil." He meant it. There is evil. And we need delivering from it every day.
Some have decided to deal with the problem of evil by renaming it good. And then they soon find that they're driven to rename "good" evil. If it's good that you have access to unlimited self indulgence of all your appetites then it must be evil to practice self restraint. We now have an economy that depends upon the consistent self indulgence of the consumer to keep the engines of commerce running. So to save is problematic. To spend, even into debt, is desirable. What was evil is now good what was good is now evil.
This is not a new idea. The prophets said,
"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil who put darkness for light and light for darkness, bitter for sweet, sweet for bitter...woe to those who are wise in their own sight and shrew. Clever able to work it out for themselves according to their own principals they have determined are good without reference to God or His law or His holiness or His purposes."
And so, Planned Parenthood of America tells the people of the world and our own children to abort and kill your babies and do not multiply and fill the earth. They have a better plan than God. What was good is now evil what was evil is now good.
It's naive to think we are immune to the seduction of the reversal of these values. God made two promises to Adam and Eve in the garden. One before and one after the fall. The first was the promise of catastrophic punishment. When Satan deceived Eve so that she tempted herself about the fruit, he did so by telling a lie not about the fruit but about God. He said, "Surely you won't die. God won't carry through with what He said." He enticed her to doubt God's word. But God kept His word. He always does. He is faithful and true.
Please notice that when sin entered, mankind's trust in God died. That's what died. It shattered the unity between God and man. It shattered the spontaneous trust and communion and fellowship they shared. In fact, what did Adam do when God arrived after they ate? He ran and hid behind the bushes. With shame they hid and they shrank back to avoid His gaze but more than that... they blamed each other and lied. They said, "Not my fault ..your fault." Ultimately, they said that it was God's fault; after all he made the serpent and God gave the test. Adam said, "The woman You gave me..." It was an attack on God. We smile at this excuse. But only to cope with the profound insult and contempt Adam had for God. However, it's not funny. It's insanity.
They are now separated from reality. They can no longer judge things with accuracy. What does it take for the mind to lie to God?!! It's insane. Have you ever tried to pretend that God couldn't see you? That's insane. God's promised judgment fell instantly. They broke faith with God and each other and nothing is more difficult to establish and maintain in a fallen world than trust. How can you trust someone who lies? Remember Jesus' description of Satan. He is the father of lies. Deceit is at the heart of all sin, we lie to ourselves. We lie to one another. And we lie to God.
Each knew that they had lied. Now what are they going to do? Blame each other, God and kick the serpent. Neither stepped up to God and said, "You know what, I'm to blame here. I'm at fault." I wonder how long it took for them to trust each other. It's important to do what you say. How do you rebuild trust?
Good News of Grace
Fortunately God's good and gracious plans didn't stop there. After Adam and Eve sinned God came and stood before them. And when He did He brought them a new promise. Someday, He said, a child of the woman would be born and He would crush the head of the serpent. He came to them and said, "I give you hope. I extend mercy. Do not despair." That child, of course, is Jesus. You celebrated the crushing of the serpent's head and the bruising of the Son's heal last Sunday during the Lord's Table, when you ate the bread and drank the cup.
Beloved, we can now be led by God's tender mercies out of the insanity and hurt of temptation (that place we would all go without Christ) and we can be delivered from evil and the evil one because the One who loves us more than you can ever imagine went into the very maw of evil and wasn't delivered.
"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Cor 5:21
He bore the full blow of God's justice and punishment for our sins so that all we would have to bear are the blows of His mercy and grace. He crushed the serpent's head. He brings recovery from the fall and for our fallen hearts. He is the good shepherd. And you should know that the word good (kalos) means beautiful. This is what is most beautiful. He is the good and beautiful Shepherd who leads His sheep into green pastures. He says,
"If anyone enters through Me he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and to destroy; I come that they might have life and might have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. And I will lose none that the Father has given me."
No one can ever love you like Jesus. If you believe Jesus and believe in Jesus He will be the good shepherd over you life. But you must know that unbelief is the highest form of contempt. Don't insult the Lord. Don't go to hell for that contempt. Believe in Jesus and live forever with Him in the beauty of His holiness. Believe His word that God is faithful to you in this matter of temptation. Cry out to him to lead us not into the temptation that could so easily overtake us without His grace. If you want to live a life free of evil, then cry out to the Lord to deliver you from evil. Make this part of your discipline of prayer. And then look for the way of escape that He promises to provide. He is faithful...He cannot break His word. Beloved Trust Him. Trust Him and live.