June 22, 2008
(with thanks to Darrell Johnson)
[Gabriel’s Oboe by Ennio Morricone]
Dear God, Almighty God, Father God, Savior God, Compassionate God, Just God. Help me to preach your Word this morning. Help all of us to receive your Word. Give us eyes to see that your church is part of the answer to thy kingdom come, thy will be done. We are to be the embodiment, the sign, the agent, the witness of your kingdom where we live, work & play. Don’t let us miss what you have for us today. Amen.
1. this is our 8th & final sermon on the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus takes just 52 words for the Lord’s Prayer (57 in the Greek). He makes every word count.
2. 1st I want to say something about the boldness & the ending of the prayer. Then zero in on the last phrase left to be unpacked – lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.
boldness
1. the Lord’s Prayer teaches us to be bold in our praying. There are 6 verbs in the prayer. The 1st 3 have to do with God –
® hallow (name)
® come (kingdom)
® be (will)
The next 3 have to do with us –
® give (bread)
® forgive (sin)
® deliver (evil)
2. hallow come be give forgive deliver. Get this - all 6 verbs are in the imperative mood. They are commands! Jesus teaches us to command God in prayer. To command God to do what only God can do.
3. our Father who art in heaven –
only you can hallow your name, so do it!
only you can cause your kingdom to come, so do it
only you can make your will to be done, so do it
only you can provide us with daily bread, so do it
only you can provide forgiveness of sins, so do it
only you can keep us from the evil one, so do it!
4. Notice, Jesus did not teach us to pray like this.
Our Father who art in heaven –
we can hallow your name
we can bring in your kingdom
we can do your will
we can provide bread
we can forgive sins
we can deliver from the evil one
5. we need to let this one sink in. The Lord’s Prayer majors on the God-part of living the Christian life. The Lord’s Prayer teaches us a sky-scraping view of God. God is all powerful, all mighty. He is the King of the universe. This is anything but a cute little prayer. This is a God-infested, God-intoxicated, God-saturated, God-infused prayer.
6. a prayer where we can be so bold to pray – hallow your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, give us bread, forgive our sins, deliver us from evil.
the ending
1. for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. This ending was added later, after Matthew wrote his gospel. It is not found in the earliest manuscripts.
2. this ending appears to be from I Chronicles 29:11. King David’s prayer at the crowing of his son Solomon as king –
Yours, O Lord, is the greatness & the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven & earth is yours.
Yours, 0 Lord, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.
3. why this ending? This is a statement of why God can be trusted to answer prayer. Kingdoms, power & glory are his. His forever. This ending exalts the Father of Jesus as the King of the universe. He can accomplish what Jesus commands us to pray.
temptation & the evil one
1. James 1:13 – When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone. God does not tempt us.
2. but then Jesus teaches us to pray our Father, lead us not into temptation.
3. how do we resolve this seemingly contradiction? Darrell Johnson points to the way in his book on the Lord’s Prayer.
4. the word translated temptation – pei/ras/mos – has 2 different meanings. One is test & the other is temptation. A test is something meant to prove & improve a person’s character. A temptation is meant to entice a person to sin, to bring a person down in some way.
5. which meaning does Jesus have in mind?
6. we need to keep reading. But deliver us from the evil one. This little word but ties the 2 clauses together. The 2nd clause is meant to interpret the 1st. Deliver us from the evil one interprets lead us not into temptation.
7. so here it is – the evil one seeks to turn tests into temptations. Satan wants to take what God means for good & turn it into bad.
8. it works like this. Stuff happens to us. God our Father intends to use it to prove & improve our character, to strengthen our faith. Satan comes along. He tries to put a spin on the stuff that happens to us. His intention is to destroy our character & faith.
9. I have faced a number of tests in my adulthood that could have easily become temptations in the hand of the evil one to weaken my faith & trust in God:
® 1982 – my sister’s stroke that left her totally disabled to this day, the best & the brightest of us 5 kids
® 1985-1990 – dealing with 5 years of infertility
® 2000-01 – my nervous breakdown, emotional crash, anxiety, depression
® 2004-06 – time of staff confusion & conflict
® 2005 – church fire
10. I can’t tell you how blessed I am to be on the other side of those experiences. Still on my feet. My faith still in tact. Still in love with God & the church. Full of faith, hope, vision for the future.
11. Father, do not let the test of my depression cause me to doubt your goodness or your sovereignty over my life. Help my faith to grow strong in the darkness. Deliver me from the evil one who intends to shipwreck my life & ministry through this.
12. Father, do not let this test of our church fire cause us to lose faith in your protection & goodness. Deliver us from the evil one who wants to use this fire to shipwreck our church & shatter our trust in your goodness.
13. what the Father of Jesus means as a test, the evil one seeks to turn into a temptation (Darrell Johnson).
bringing it home
1. in one sense all of life is a test. What are we going to do with it? Will it turn us to God? Or turn us away from him?
2. what tests are you facing this morning?
where are you walking the thin line between test & temptation?
what has you teetering between faith & distrust?
3. our Father who art in heaven, do not let the this test which you’ve allowed for the proving & improving of my character & faith fall into the hands of the evil one. Deliver me from the evil one. Preserve me for growth & perseverance.
4. true story from Darrell Johnson & his wife Sharon. 4 days before Christmas of 2000, their 18 year old son Alex was almost killed. They adopted Alex 6 years earlier from an orphanage in Moscow. Alex was hiking with a group of friends in the mountains north of Los Angeles. Alex slipped on some loose rock & slid over a 120-foot cliff.
When the rescue team finally got to him they thought he was dead – he’d lost do much blood from his head. They found a pulse. Rushed him to the trauma center in Pasadena. By the time Darrell & Sharon got to him he was in a coma & on life-support. Neurosurgeons could not say if he would live or not.
2 nights later Darrell drove home late after spending the day in ICU. He heard the following words from his Father which he wrote in his journal –
Things are not as they seem. In your life. In your son’s life. In your wife’s life. In the lives of your other children. In the lives of other patients in ICU. Things are not as they seem. There is more going on than meets the un-aided senses. There is a God. A Living God. A good God. A faithful God. A powerful God. A reigning God. An ever-present God. There is never a time when this God is not good. There is never a time when this God is not faithful. There is never a time when this God is not powerful. There is never a time when the God of the Bible is not on the throne of the universe. There is never a time when the God we meet in Jesus is not present. It is a promise: I will never leave you nor forsake you.
Things are not as they seem. In one of the most frightening experiences of our lives, our heavenly Father rescued us from the evil one’s attempt to destroy our faith.
Alex lived, made a remarkable recovery & still loves God his Father!
5. what did for Darrell & Sharon Johnson, he can do for you.
Music i listened to while sermonizing – u2; caedmon’s call; jon buller; bruce springsteen; ennio morricone; chris tomlin; charlie hall, david crowder band; eva cassidy;
Books i read & studied while sermonizing – a passion for God: the spiritual journey of a.w. tozer by lyle dorsett; fifty-seven words that change the world: a journey through the Lord’s prayer by darrell johnson; a step from death by larry woiwode; big russ & me by tim russert; it is finished: meditations on the death of Jesus by darrell johnson;
Sermons, podcasts I listened to while sermonizing – dwelling through the text by mark driscoll
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