Beware Of Practicing Your Righteousness Before Men #7

So this morning, we're going to be continuing our study in the Lord's Prayer in Matthew chapter 6. And this week, we're going to be focusing on the second half of the Lord's Prayer. And in this half, Jesus teaches us some very simple but important lessons. There's three of them, three petitions. We're only going to focus on two of them today, and we'll pick up the third one next week. And so the two petitions that we're going to cover today regard provision and protection. Next week, we'll talk about forgiveness. And so my hope is that God will use our time this morning to help us see the ways in which we've been unwilling to accept or discontent with God's provision and his protection, and that he would bring us to repentance. It's one thing to see our failures, and God is merciful enough to show us our failures sometimes, but even that we shouldn't be content with. We shouldn't be content simply to see our failures, but rather push beyond that and be led to repentance for them.

You know, to look in the mirror and to see what our weaknesses are is of no benefit if we don't turn away from them, because we'll simply forget about them again. Our text is Matthew chapter 6, verses 9 to 15. Would you please stand as we read the word of the Lord? This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. Pray then in this way. Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. For if you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.

Now what I said at the very beginning, the first thing we're going to do is we're going to cover two petitions. The first is give us this day our daily bread. And the second will be lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. We'll leave forgiveness for next week. And so we start with give us this day our daily bread. And I said that this has to do with the Lord's provision. And it really points to our dependence on God. We depend on God for our daily provision. Do you remember just a few years ago when shelves were empty? of the things you were accustomed to having? Do you remember when lumber was the thing, well, toilet paper and lumber were the two things that were talked about. Everything was more expensive. But a two-by-four had cost almost four times as much as it had previously, just for one of them, and that, not a good one. Do you remember when plywood was $80 to $100 a sheet? And do you remember when you could only buy so much of what you wanted, no matter how bad you wanted it, whether it was toilet paper or whatever?

you went and they said, this is as many as you can have and no more. And do you remember the feeling inside of you at that moment when you go, but I need, I need that thing. Now, it is true that none of us went in the end without the things that we needed. But we had some small picture when those shelves were empty, when the supply chains were disrupted, that our provision was not guaranteed. It was not something we could just presume we would have, but that actually it was. given to us for our consumption and that we depended on it daily. There are those, I suppose, who would see these things coming. We might call them doomsdayers who would store up in their basement years and years of food. But to do so is to deny what Jesus teaches us to do here, which is to pray for our daily bread. It says, no, I won't pray for my daily bread. I'll do as the Israelites tried to do with the manna, which is to pick up more than a day's worth or a year's worth and squirrel it away in the basement.

When the day comes when I don't have the things I need. You see, we live in a difficult time in this world. It's not particularly difficult to us. In fact, our time is actually, historically speaking, much easier. And so when we had some little glimpse into our dependence on God's provision, we all got scared. Our lives were disrupted in a way that we had never experienced before. If you've been born and grown up in America, you've... Never experienced this, I can't get what I want, when I want it, and have multiple ones to choose from. You remember trying to buy things online, and it would say out of stock. And you'd want to know when it was coming back into stock, and their answer was, we don't know. You had your orders canceled. You'd make the order, and you'd say, well, I need it so bad, I'm just going to order it. And then two weeks later, a month later, or six weeks later, they would just cancel your order. Why would they cancel your order? Well,

Because they still wasn't available. And prices had gone up. And so now you could place a new order at the new price and continue to wait. These were hard times. Hard by our standards. By history standards, not hard times. But by our standards, very hard times. We've grown very accustomed to having bread without ever having to ask for it. And what that means for us is that we've grown very accustomed to living and believing this lie that we are independent. When in fact, we are very dependent on God to provide for us the things that we need. And it doesn't take much. It doesn't take much at all for us to see our dependence and to be scared by it. And so when Jesus teaches us to pray, give us this day our daily bread, before two or three years ago, we may have said, well, that's a nice thing. Yes, we should and we do that. But I don't know that we had experienced any level of dependence, not the way that we have now.

There is scarcely anyone who goes hungry in our day except by their own choice. They can choose not to go get free food. They can choose not to go sleep under a roof. But our ability to get or to be given the things that we need on a daily basis goes by without us even considering it. And so Jesus tells us, pray in this way. Give us this day our daily bread. And what he's teaching us here is that we are dependent on God. We depend on him. We might think through, you know, as I'm talking about the shelves being empty and the prices, you may want to say, well, that was the result of supply chains, and that was the result of logistics, and that was the result of COVID, and that was the result of the government. But you'd be foolish to say so. Many, many times when God is disrupting the order of things, He uses what we would consider very natural means to do it. And yet it is still him that's disrupting the natural order of things. Did God send us COVID? Yes. Are we sure why yet? Not entirely. Not mostly. And the reason is because of our inability to grasp the mind of God and also our presumption that the things that we need and have were owed and they will just be there and be available for us.

And so when that gets disrupted, we don't see God's hand behind it. We see governments and we see supply chains and we see China. We see big pharma. We see the love of money. But we would do well as Christians to see that it was God behind all of those things, teaching us to depend on him. That's one lesson that we should have learned from these last couple of years, is that we have to depend on God. and when he teaches us to pray give us this day our daily bread he's not teaching us to pray for all of our comforts or for our luxuries he's actually not teaching us to pray to be able to maintain our standard of living that's not actually what's contained in this prayer our standard of living and what we've grown accustomed to is far above our daily bread and when we saw that start to shake a little bit we all got scared but for the christian i can understand an unbeliever

Having that fear. But pretty quickly, Christians should remember these words from our Lord Jesus Christ. Give us this day our daily bread and be comforted. Comforted by these words. Why? Well, because King David said in his time, he said that he never saw the righteous go without bread. He never saw God's people without the things they needed. And so the danger for us is that we will fill in daily bread here for our way of living right now. And the way that we live right now, is as good as anybody throughout history has ever lived. The poorest among us lives better than the kings of not too long ago. We would look at our lives and we would say, it's a strange thing for us not to have two vehicles where you don't even have to leave our continent to find places where they don't even have one. We would look on people not saving for retirement as being bad stewards. When this teaches us,

Ask God daily for your food and for the things you need to survive. We've come a long way and are far above understanding what daily bread is and what the provision of God is. And that's God's kindness to us. To say that we have more than what we are bare minimum is a testimony to God's kindness in providing it to us. His mercy and his love. He could provide very meagerly, but he's not chosen to. He's chosen to be merciful. and to be abundant and to lavish on us all kinds of good gifts. And so the question is, will we then take those good gifts and presume that we got them by the strength of our own hands and cling on to them only to be discontented and frustrated and scared when they move away from us in some small way? Or will we pray the way Jesus taught us to pray? Give us this day our daily bread. Help us to be content with the things that we have. We can talk about our standards of living.

and about what to do with discretionary income. But that whole conversation is far above our daily bread. We can talk about where our food comes from and whether it's good food or whether it's bad food, whether it's healthy food or whether it's unhealthy food. But the only reason we can have those discussions is because there's an abundance of so many different types of things. You can eat pretty much whatever we want and spend pretty much whatever we're willing to to get it. You know, every society with regard to food has sort of their staple. If I were to ask, you know, of Asians, what is their staple? And you all would know it's rice. And if I was to ask of, you know, Hispanic culture, what is their staple? Luis, what's their staple? Depends on where they're at, but, huh? Beans, rice, yucca, plant, some sort of root vegetable, some sort of thing that grows in abundance, right? Some real basic starch, right? If you were to ask, what is a, you know,

Western America, you know, European, what's sort of their staple thing that they eat? Probably would say potatoes, corn, right? Again, some basic stuff. What? No, you're getting ahead of me, Levi. We cook our potatoes that way now, yes. But you understand, there was some, now how many of you went, like if you came home and your wife was like, we're having rice for dinner. You'd be like, yes. We're going to have roasted potatoes. And that's it. That's just, that's it. We cook not with all the butter and the bacon and the sour cream, just potatoes mashed up with nothing in them, maybe a little salt. How many of you would be excited about that? I'm going to be excited. What is the staple of Americans? I would say it's meat. It's meat. However we prepare it, it's meat. Eric jokingly says, he's like, I don't consider it a meal unless there's meat in it. And I laugh at him. I understand. But you understand, that's our society.

We're like, well, that's just normal. We would have meat. And so our staple is one of the most expensive things. It would be considered a luxury in any other time and in any other place. It's our staple. We're just like, well, I need to have meat. And not just once a day, but I might want to have meat two or maybe even three times a day. My wife met a lady from Ethiopia, well, from Eritrea. I don't know if I'm saying it right. And Eritrea is near Ethiopia. And so she met her, and she's talking to her, and Vanessa said, you know, well, we did this thing. We had a coffee ceremony with this woman from Ethiopia, and we had some Angira. You guys know what Angira is? It's just Ethiopian bread. It's a fermented dough. If you're not accustomed to it, you probably will not like it. Americans don't tend to like fermented things, but this is what they eat with everything. They don't use silverware. They just make this really cheap.

fermented bread, and that's just what they use to pick up their rice and sauce and whatever. That's just how they eat. And so that's their staple, because that's what they can make, is this bread. And they eat it with everything. They eat it all the time, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This is their staple. This is their daily bread. But Americans, our daily bread is beef and bacon, maybe chicken. I mean, if you're like, well, red meat's bad for you, you might be snobbish enough to think that, no, chicken's healthier, but... We're going to have chicken. So this idea that we would live depending on God, it's really a foreign concept to us when our daily bread is an abundance of meat. How do we ever pray and ask God to give us our daily bread? What do we think our daily bread is? Much more than manna coming down out of heaven, much more than fermented bread, much more than baked potatoes and rice with maybe some sauce on them. But I ask you, what do we have that we haven't received?

And having received it, why do we boast as though we didn't receive it from the hand of God? We've become very accustomed to having whatever we want. And it's killed our prayer life. It's made us very entitled, presumptuous, and inclined toward bitterness and grumbling. Do you ever get the small group menu and see what the main dish is and go, that's just your pride. That's just my pride. And so is it any surprise that we don't pray for our daily bread? We don't pray for it because we presume that we are entitled to it, that it should come to us, and it should come to us in just the way that we like it. Bread also in this passage is a stand-in for everything else that we need to survive. I think that this is a very encouraging thing for God to tell us to pray for. In the beginning of this prayer, we're to pray to our Father who's in heaven, that his name would be hallowed, his kingdom would come, and his will would be done. These are all spiritual things. You can't get a hold of them.

And as soon as he turns to us, the first thing he teaches us to pray is that we would have what we need to live. That the Lord and giver of life teaches us to pray to sustain our life, to give us the things that he desires to give us the things that we need to live. And if he didn't spare his own son from the suffering of the cross and the death and the shame, but gave his son up for all of us, this is what Romans 8.32 says, how will he not also freely give us all of the other things that we need to survive?

Of course he will. Of course he does. Of course he has. But we're blinded to it because our appetite for comfort and luxury has caused us to become fat and entitled. And so we've made this agreement in our minds that God's provision is supposed to align with our desire. That's actually not what we're taught to pray here. Jesus doesn't teach us, give us this day the things we want. He doesn't teach us to pray, give us this day the things we're accustomed to. He doesn't teach us to pray, give us this day the things that other people have. He teaches us to ask for our daily bread. And so if our expectations and our desires don't align with humility, the humility of daily bread, then we will often be very frustrated and discontent with the Lord's provision, even to the point of accusing him of not providing. And so we fall into grumbling and complaining.

to accusing God and to bitterness because we haven't disciplined our hearts to be grateful for what he has given us. You know, when we look around at life, we only ever look up socially, financially. We only ever look up. We only ever look at people who have more than us and say, well, I should have more. And somehow, for some reason, you tell me why, we never look at the people who have less than us and say, God's been good to me. Maybe we do sometimes. And maybe we even feel bad about it a little bit. But for the most part, we look up and say, when am I going to get what he has, what she has? Don't I deserve it? You want to know where stealing comes from and coveting? That's where it comes from. You see it in your children. Why does he get that? You have Christmas. They count presents. Do your kids count presents? How many gifts did they get? How aware are you as parents that you better make sure that everybody has the same number and the same overall quality?

as long as they are, once they become aware of it and they care about it. You see, we facilitate this idea of entitlement, even in our young children. And when they say, well, Johnny only got two presents, but Susie got four, we say, well, poor Johnny. Go get Johnny some more presents. Johnny is owed something. Johnny's convinced he owes something, but Johnny's a three-year-old. And yet how often do we act like that same three-year-old? And so when we ask God to give us our daily bread, it is a discipline to our hearts. to ask for the things that we need and to content ourselves with the things that we need. Then we can be grateful for the abundance that God's given to each of us and to put it to good use. Instead of always and forever trying to build up bigger barns, to the one who takes food and worries and squirrels it away in his basement, he's the same as the man who's come into great wealth and says, what shall I do with all my great wealth? I know what I'll do. I'll build bigger barns. I'll store up for myself more for the future.

We'll go from six months of provision to nine months of provision. But the Scripture doesn't commend that man or that thinking to us. It doesn't say, and here's how you should handle the things God's given to you. We should realize that there's a danger that comes with the abundance that we've been provided, and that danger is that we'll walk away from God. That those things, those comforts, and those luxuries will be the shepherds that guide our souls away from heaven. Are you saying we should all just be as poor as possible? I'm not saying you should all be as poor as possible. I'm saying you should thank God for what you have and ask him to provide for you the things you need and then thank him for doing it because he has. He has given you the things you need. And when you feel like he hasn't, you're wrong. Plain and simple, you're wrong. If you'll understand these things and believe them and practice them, then you'll pray that God would give you your daily bread and you'll be thankful for the things that he has given to you.

He also tells us to pray, do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And this petition, while the other that we've mentioned is kind of hard, we think, well, this is a good petition. This is one I would like to pray. I would like to not be led into temptation. If you think about your life and your general perspective on it, doesn't it all amount simply to you wanting to say, I wish all of the hardships would just go away? I wish I could wake up in the morning and have all of the difficulties disappear. I think many of us would. Maybe as we're going to sleep at night, we wish that our kids would sleep through the whole night. I just want the burdens to go away, the responsibilities to go away, the temptations to go away. And so here we find a passage that says that we're to pray to God and ask him not to lead us into temptation, and we feel like we've gotten some ground to stand on and say, God, please make my life easy.

Please take away the hardships, the burdens, the trials, the responsibilities, the things that add up to me falling into sin. We also have James telling us that God doesn't tempt anyone. James 1.13, it says, And so we're left with this temptation as a concept, as a reality in life, that God's not the one who... gives it to us directly. He doesn't say, I want you to sin, I'm going to tempt you in the way that, say, Satan does. But he is the one who leads us. And so we pray and we petition him, don't lead me into temptation. And this idea of leading, I went looking and I'm like, does it really mean lead or does it mean cast into or hold me back from it? And that's not really what it means. It means that you're on a journey and you have a guide and your guide is going to choose the path over the mountain.

And what you're doing is you're asking the guy, don't pick the hard path. But here's the thing. Have you ever climbed a mountain? Is there an easy path up to the top of a mountain, Abram? There's no easy path up to the top of the mountain. There are paths that you'll die on. There are safer paths, right? But the perception of the person climbing the mountain will inevitably be, this is a hard path. I wish it wasn't so hard. Never do they think, okay, but if I'm going to get to the top of the mountain, how is it that I think I'm going to get there?

Other than with these two legs. And so when we ask God not to lead us into temptation, we're not asking him to remove all of our temptations. To magically somehow just teleport us to the top of the mountain. To teleport us into glory. To teleport us into perfection. Where there are no trials, there are no hardships, there are no difficulties along the way. There are many, many different types of temptations that we face in this life. There are temptations that result from God withholding his mercy. and allowing wicked men to gain power over us. There are temptations that arise from being required to do something difficult, like Abraham with his son. There are temptations that arise from God allowing bodily affliction, like with Job. There are temptations that arise from within our own hearts. We think, foolishly, that if God would remove all of our temptations, that we would not make a mess of it again. And the fact is, if all external temptations were removed,

we would still face temptations from within. And there's also temptations that arise from Satan's work in our life, throwing stumbling blocks out and giving us things to stumble over. So here's a question. Are temptations helpful? I think temptations are helpful. I'm convinced that God allows temptations into our lives and leads us along the path that is fraught with temptations for our good. God uses temptations to purify us. to make us more like Christ. And so to desire no temptations, to live a life where there are no temptations, is to desire spiritual atrophy. If there was a mountain to climb and you just said, I just don't want to climb the mountain. I'm just not going to do it. I'm just going to sit here at the bottom of the mountain. What would happen to your strength? You'd lose it. Whatever strength you had, you would lose it. You would get worse. You would get weaker. Men do all kinds of things.

Women do all kinds of things to push themselves physically, to strengthen their body, to see things, to accomplish things. And what they do is they push themselves into difficult, increasingly more difficult, hard, arduous tasks. And they gather to themselves coaches and teammates and... Friends who want to do the same thing and they exhort one another and encourage one another along the hard path. Keep going. Let's go. Come on. You can do it. Let's make it. One more lap. Whatever it is. Why do we think that the Christian life is not anything like that? But rather that it should just be a simple, easy coasting on through to glory. I'm convinced God uses temptations in the same way that he uses coaches to strengthen us where we're weak. And so there's a certain utility to temptations.

that produces a spiritual strength and resolve and perseverance in us that we can gain by no other means. And so when we pray, don't lead us into temptation. We're not asking to be free from all temptation, but we're asking the Lord not to lead us on a path that leads to our spiritual destruction, to not lead us on a path that will in the end overwhelm us. Now, it's worth noting here when I say overwhelmed, I bet there's no one in this room that can say, I've felt overwhelmed by my life. or by my responsibilities, or by just the never-ending mountain of work. It's overwhelming. I haven't slept in weeks. We've been sick for months. My body's failing me. I'm becoming forgetful. And the demands never cease. It's worth us noting and remembering well that our perception of what we can handle and God's knowledge of what we can handle are not the same. They are not the same. If you've ever done something competitively, sports, music, you name it,

What you've had somewhere along the way is somebody who pushed you beyond what you thought you could do. And you fought with them inside. Maybe you fought with them out loud. But most likely, you fought with them in your head and in your heart. And you were so angry and frustrated with them because they'd tell you to do this and do this thing and you couldn't quit and you had to do it again and practice some more and you're still not doing it right and keep on. And you're like, I can't. But they knew you could. And so they pushed you and pushed you and pushed you until you did the thing that they knew that you could do. They got out of you what was in you and what you didn't want to give. And a lot of what passes for us being overwhelmed in our lives, I'm convinced, in the end is this. We don't feel it this way, but the reality is it's that we don't want to give or are afraid to give the thing that we still have to give. Have you ever run until you've thrown up? Really nice terminology, right?

Did you have some sense before that where you're like, I need to stop. I'm going to die. What happens after you throw up? You feel a lot better. Actually, having been the one, I know, it's a lot of fun. Amos used to be a runner, right? Michael, you said yes. I'd love to know the story about that someday, but not now. We've all been pushed beyond what we thought we could do. We thought, I'm going to fail. I'm going to keel over and die. Except we know we're not going to die. We're just done with the hard. We're really, really, really done with the hard. But the truth is we have more to give. And if our coaches can push us to give more, to run faster and to run longer, why would we expect our God who loves us with a perfect love not to push us to produce what he's created us to produce? And why should we expect that that wouldn't be excruciatingly painful? I found in my own life that when I feel overwhelmed and I sort of, I don't know if you guys feel this way, but I,

You have some awareness of yourself and you can just feel when you're digging in your heels and you're just like, I will not entertain the idea of doing more than what I'm going to do. I'm going to draw a line and I'm going to say that's the end of it and I'm not doing more than that. Whatever it is. And we just draw that line about where we feel like drawing that line. That line's not drawn where our ability ends. That line's just drawn where our comfort ends or somewhere just past it. And we say that's just as far as I'm going to go. I'm not going to do more than that. I think it's God's mercy that he ignores that line and pushes us past it so that we'll grow. And so my exhortation to you is that you would not trust your sense of what you can handle, but that you would simply submit that to the Lord and you would submit that, the way that that actually works itself out is you would submit that to the people who keep watch over you. Your wives to your husbands, your children to your parents, your employees to your employers, your congregants to your elders.

that you simply would let other people tell you what you're capable of. You think of what kids submit themselves to and what parents put their kids into and subject them to with regard to sports. We should do the same with our souls and simply say, if you think I can do it, then I'm going to try. However I feel about it in the moment, I'm going to try. What you'll find is a lot less stress, a lot less pain, a lot less unrest in your spirit. If you simply will let the Lord direct your steps. Many are the plans of a man's heart, but the Lord directs his steps. Many are the plans. That's my line right there. I'm not doing more. No. The answer is no. I said the answer is no. And the Lord says, no, no, the answer is yes. And you're going to keep going. And you can kick and scream. Or you can come along willingly. But the answer is yes. And so when we pray and ask God not to lead us into temptation, we're asking him only to be faithful.

to care for us as a father who will not tempt us beyond what we can bear. That's probably, I think, one of the most frustrating verses in Scripture with regard to temptation. In 1 Corinthians 10.13, it says, no temptation has overtaken you except that which is common to man. And that's offensive out of the gate. Like, my temptations are common? No, they're very special and unique. In fact, nobody understands my temptations. But the Bible says, no, you're not special. Sorry, you're not. Like, you're just not. No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man, to the race of man. You're not the first person to walk this path, and many have faithfully walked it before you, is what he's getting at here. No temptation has taken you, except that which is common to man. And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide a way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. Our hearts can well up inside of us and say,

I tried believing that and I tried doing that and you know what? There was no way of escape. And I think that one of the ways Satan works in our lives is very often to take our lives and to shut off to us the ways of escape because we judged them to be too difficult. It's not that we couldn't do it, it's that we wouldn't do it. And because we wouldn't do it, we said that God didn't provide a way for us to do it. But it's not true. In that moment, are you going to trust your own perceptions or are you going to trust what God has said?

That really is the question to you. God has promised that he will not tempt you beyond what you're able. But with the temptation that he allows, he will provide a way of escape, which means that as you climb the mountain and you're hanging on by a thread and you feel as though you're about to fall, that actually God in his mercy and love will never allow you to fall. Now, you will feel like you fall many times when God doesn't allow you to fall. you'll feel like you've made such a mess of it and ruined it and broken it so badly that it's beyond repair and all hope is lost. And yet, it's not. Have you ever thought in your life, we'll never recover from this? Lots of people are feeling that way about the stock market right now. We'll never recover from this. They're wrong. They're just wrong. There's decades and decades and decades and decades and decades of evidence that says they're wrong. And yet, they still feel that way. And they still make real-life decisions based on it.

Because this time is different. That's always what goes along with it. But this time it's different. Inevitably, the particulars of a situation are always going to be different than the ones that came before them. And yet, the truth still remains. They will recover. That you will recover. That you can recover. That you can come back from the fall. The difficulty. The thing that got broken and you despaired over and thought, this can never be mended. You know, if we look at those people, some of the people we mentioned earlier, Abraham and Job, or you consider Elijah, or the Apostle Peter denying Jesus, or Paul holding the cloaks while they stoned Stephen. These are catastrophic failures, like events. Kill your son. Your whole family and all of your wealth burned up. Denying your Lord Jesus after saying you wouldn't. Being party to and encouraging.

The slaughter of the first martyr. These are things you don't think you can come back from. It's all gone at that point. But isn't it true that each one of those men, in God's kindness, did come back from those things? That God, in his right time, provided for Abraham a ram to sacrifice. And that God, in his wisdom, after Job was humbled, did provide for him wealth and family. And Peter, the Holy Spirit, such that he could preach at Pentecost. And Paul, faith and repentance. so that he could end up being the primary author of the New Testament. Those men came back from things that anyone would look at and say, it's gone, it's broken beyond repair, we might as well just die. And the choice you have before you then is, go do what Peter did, or go do what Judas did. Don't choose what Judas did. Don't quit. Even when you feel like all hope is lost and there's nothing else to be done. And so when we pray, do not lead us into temptation.

We're asking God to not abandon us or to forsake us, to not leave us to our own devices, but to bear us through. And it takes faith to ask this because in the end, when difficulties come, we have to cling to the fact that God will sustain us through even the most terrible burdens and trials that we will face. And attached to this request to not be led into temptation is to deliver us from evil. This is an either or. Don't do this, Lord, but please do this. Don't lead me into temptation. Don't allow me to be cast out, but deliver me from evil. Now, some of you guys who are theological nuts would like to talk about whether it's the evil or the evil one. I think it's evil, okay? And that's all the more I'll say about it. I think it's evil and not the evil one. But we need to be delivered from evil. We need God to step into our lives and to attend to us each day, delivering us from evil, untying the bonds of sin in our life.

And so sometimes we make this request to be delivered from evil, and it's an immediate request. Right now, I need to be delivered from evil. When you're tempted, you should ask God, deliver me from evil. Don't lead me into temptation, but deliver me from evil. And this is why we often ask you if you've prayed when you confess sin to us. Did you pray and ask God to help you? And it seems like sometimes you get these weird looks. People look and they're like, why are you asking me that? I'm like, well, because that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to pray and ask God to deliver us from these things that you just fell into. Did you ask God to deliver you? Well, I have and it didn't work. And I say, did you keep asking until you were delivered? Well, no. Did you want to be free from it? It's also a perpetual request that we be delivered from evil. In this life, we'll have trouble. Jesus said in John 16,

These things I've spoken to you so that you may have peace. In this world, you will have tribulation, but take courage. I've overcome the world. In this life, you're going to have trouble and you're going to have to pray each day for God to deliver you day by day from the troubles of this world and the trials that you face. Each day until you die. We need to constantly be reminded that the Christian life is difficult. Though it's not only the Christian life that's difficult. You could go ask unbelievers and their testimony would be the same. Life is difficult. The difference is they have no hope.

of a life to come. This life will be filled with trials and with hardships. And so as we live our days and our years and our decades before the Lord, we need him to continually deliver us from the power of sin and Satan. As God does this, your sins will actually become less attractive. The sins of your youth, I can tell you as a 40-year-old man, the sins of 20-year-old Dave are less attractive to me than they were when I was 20. There are new sins. There are different sins that you deal with when you're 40 that you didn't deal with when you're 20 or when you're 50. But the sins that used to entangle you become less attractive. The shine comes off of them and you see them more and more for what they are. And that's God's providence and kindness. That's him delivering you from evil. Because I've met men who are 40 and 50 years old who still struggle with the sins of 20-year-old men. And it's shameful because they haven't been delivered.

And so as you see God making sin less attractive to you, maybe not all sin, but some sins that used to be more attractive to you, as they become less attractive to you, you should credit that to God delivering you from evil. Because that doesn't just happen by the passage of time. I'll end with this. To pray what Jesus tells us to pray here requires faith. You can say the words, but you'll know if you actually want them to come true. If you want them to be realized in your life or in the lives of the people around you. We ought to want them to become reality, to become content with things that we're not content with right now. It's the farthest thing from plausible in our minds to be discontent with something and ask God to make us content with it. Because we're like, well, that's just not possible. I'm not content. It is possible. It is possible for you to become content with things by the power and the work of the Holy Spirit that you are not content with right now.

I've watched it happen in my own life. I've watched it happen in the lives of people I love. I've watched it happen in your lives. It's possible. And so it takes faith to pray. And it takes humility to take the things that you have in your life that you're like, well, I don't know that I want that to change. I don't know that I'm willing for this to be adjusted around. It takes faith for you to submit your life to the work of the Holy Spirit. Inevitably, he will change things around. And it'll be painful for them to be changed around. But in the end, In years to come, you'll say, praise God. Praise God for that pain and praise God for that hardship because look what he produced out of it. Look what he made. And so these things that we pray and the things that I'm telling you will happen, you only see them and have that perspective if you're a Christian and if you have faith. It's easy to look at the trials of life and say that God has abandoned me. It's not true, but it is natural. But Christians, we don't evaluate things naturally.

We don't look at things and say, oh, well, it's just the way it is and it's just hard and it's just what it's going to be and there's no hope. That's not a Christian's perspective. That's not how faith talks. That's not what faith expects. Saul got scared when Samuel told him to wait. He was going to sacrifice. He says, you know, go there, wait for me for seven days. I'm going to come and I'm going to make the sacrifices. Saul wouldn't wait. Saul said, oh, it was the people's fault. They were getting scared and this and that. Saul was rejected. Saul was not a faithful man. Saul didn't do what he should have done.

He should have waited. If you were to compare him to men like Daniel, who were like, well, I'm not going to do what you're telling me. Well, we're going to throw you in there. He says, well, then you're going to do that, but I'm not going to do it. And Daniel was delivered. That's faith. He looked at the situation completely differently and said, well, God will deliver me or God won't deliver me, but whether he does this or whether he does that, I'm going to serve the Lord. And that's the cry of the Christian in their heart is, whatever the Lord brings into my path, I'm going to do.

what I know to be true and right and good in his sight. And I'm going to trust him to use it however he sees fit. Let's pray.