“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” (Mt 6:13)
Review We’ve been talking about the Lord’s prayer. Last Sunday, we talked about the meaning of the prayer asking not to fall into temptation. While living in the world, we face all kinds of temptations. They don’t come from God because God doesn’t tempt anyone. We’re tempted when we’re dragged away by our own evil desires. What we’re tempted by is closely related to our desires because we’re moved to do things that we desire. The problem is that we don’t have only good desires. When we were first created in the image of God, He put good desires in our hearts. We were created to love God and other beings in our relationship with Him. But then Satan came to Eve and gave her another desire. Satan told her that she herself could be like God if she ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Then she looked at the tree and it looked different because now she had a desire that she hadn’t had before. With this desire, she was tempted to eat from the tree and she did so. That was the first sin. After that, sin spread all over the world. With their sinful nature, human beings came to desire more evil things. Now, we see a lot of evil desires working in the world. But, every evil desire comes from the same sinful root, the desire to be like God. As Paul said, “They did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.” (Rom 1:28-31) What’s worse, the result of falling into these temptations is death. God told Adam and Eve that they would die if they ate from the tree and it happened as He had said. Because of their sin, their relationship with God was severed and they could no longer have eternal life that only God had. And this result came to all human beings since “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23) The apostle James puts it this way: “Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (Jms 1:15) This is what happens when we give ourselves over to temptation. If we don’t resist temptations when they come to us but let them grow, we’ll end up falling into temptation and disobeying God, which will result in death. So, it’s very important to know how to resist temptations when they come to us. But it’s impossible for us to overcome temptations on our own because, like I said earlier, temptations come from our desires, which we like to follow. In many cases, we do certain things not because they are right but because we like to do them even though we know they are not right. So, it’s hard to resist temptation on our own. But the good news is that Jesus came to the world to set us free from our evil desires, temptations, and thus our sins and their result, death. We see the perfect example of how to resist and overcome temptation in Jesus’ life. He was tempted to teach us how to deal with temptations so that we may be victorious over them and follow in His footsteps. In fact, the Bible says that that’s one of the reasons for the incarnation of Jesus Christ, which refers to the Word becoming flesh. Hebrews 2 says, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity… he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Heb 2:14, 18) Even though He was God in His very nature, Jesus made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a human so that He could be tempted the way we are tempted, understand us, and help us in our times of need. Jesus is able to empathize with our weaknesses because He Himself experienced weakness when He was tempted in every way, just as we are. Yet, He did not sin, which means that He didn’t give Himself over to His temptations but overcame them. The Temptations of Jesus Christ Then, in what sense does the Bible say that He was tempted just as we are? First of all, it doesn’t necessarily mean that He was tempted exactly the same way as we are. As James clarifies, each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desires. We’re enticed to do certain things out of our sinful desires or desires of the flesh. But Jesus didn’t have such evil desires because He was sinless and innocent, which means that Jesus couldn’t be tempted by the things that tempt us. For example, sometimes, we’re tempted to hate others in our hearts or through our words and actions, but Jesus wasn’t tempted that way because He doesn’t have hatred in His heart. Only love motivated Jesus. Everything He did came out of His love for us. Likewise, it seems that Jesus didn’t undergo temptations that we often undergo in our daily lives such as cheating, indulgence, pride, corrupt sexuality, and more. So, some people might say that He can’t really understand us because He didn’t undergo such temptations. That’s reasonable. But, we can think about it this way. Jesus wants to identify with us to the greatest degree possible for our good. Jesus wants to be identified with us, so He came to the world in human form but He didn’t go beyond that. He didn’t want to be identified with us to the point of sharing our sinful nature. He was perfectly human, but He was different from us in that He was sinless. And that’s for our own good. If Jesus identified with us to the point of sharing our sinfulness, He couldn’t serve as our eternal High Priest who offered Himself for the sin of the world. He couldn’t bear our sins in His body as the lamb of God because in the Old Testament, only animals without any blemish or defect could be used as atonement sacrifices for sins. So, in order to make perfect atonement for our sins, Jesus had to be different from us. He had to have no sin at all. He couldn’t be our Savior if He shared in our sin. If Christ had joined us in our sinfulness, He might have undergone the exact same temptations as we do, but He could no longer save us from our sins through death. That can’t be good news at all. That’s why we can say that Jesus identified with us to the greatest degree possible. He was like us in the sense that He came to the world in human form so that He could understand us. But at the same time, He was different from us in the sense that He was sinless. And He had to be sinless to bear all our sins and pay the ransom for them on the cross. Then, how can we understand the meaning of the verse, “we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are?” (Heb 4:15). Again, it doesn’t mean that Jesus was tempted the exact same way we are tempted in our daily lives. But still, Jesus could understand us because He was tempted, I would say, in every area or category of our lives. That’s what we see from how Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. The Bible says that after being baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. The wilderness is a lonely and desolate place with no food or comfortable place to lie down. It’s very hot during the day and very cold at night. No one would want to live in the wilderness. But that was where Jesus stayed for 40 days. And, when Jesus fasted forty days and became very hungry, Satan came to Him and tempted Him, saying, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” (Mt 4:3). Of course, turning stones into bread is not sinful by itself. But, what Satan really tempted Jesus to do was to use His Messianic power given to Him to save people just to avoid suffering and meet His physical needs. And, Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Mt 4:4) Jesus refused to turn stones into bread because He knew that His fasting and pain was in accordance with God’s will. Even though He could have used His power to avoid His physical pain and satisfy His hunger, He chose not to. Instead, Jesus chose to be obedient to God’s will even though it would cause Him pain and suffering. By doing so, Jesus taught us a very important lesson that all God’s people must know. He taught us to rely on God’s word and His provision rather than worldly things. Jesus never denied the importance of eating food. What Jesus shows us here is that following God’s will must be the priority of our lives even when it requires us to be hungry, thirsty, or tired. This principle can be applied in our lives as well. Even though we don’t have the power to turn stones into bread, we can still decide where to use our time, money, and abilities. We can use them for our own satisfaction and pleasure or for God’s righteousness and kingdom according to His will. We’re often tempted to think that all the things we have are ours and forget the One who gave them to us. So we’re tempted to use them only to meet our needs, while neglecting God’s will for us to love and serve others with what we have. The reason we can’t give is because we don’t trust in God’s provision. So we need to learn to live on every word that comes from the mouth of God, not on what we have. That will allow us to overcome the temptation to prioritize our own wills over God’s will and what pleases us over what pleases God. After the first temptation, the devil took Jesus to the holy city and had Him stand on the highest point of the temple. Then, the devil challenged Jesus, saying, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone’” (Mt 4:6). What’s interesting about this second temptation is that the devil referred to Psalm chapter 91 to challenge Jesus. But the devil artfully changed the meaning of the passage. The basic meaning of Psalm 91 is that God protects His faithful people in all their ways. But, Satan distorted the meaning and tempted Jesus to use the passage to prove that He is the Son of God. Even though God can protect His people from all kinds of dangerous situations, we can’t use God’s word to prove who we are because it’s the same thing as testing God. Our attitude toward God’s word must be to obey it, not to test it. So, Jesus answered the devil, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” (Mt 4:7). Again, Jesus refused to use His power or authority to prove Himself. If Jesus had thrown Himself from the temple and other people had seen God miraculously rescue Jesus through His angels, Jesus would’ve received fame and great renown. But, Jesus wasn’t interested in proving Himself before others. He didn’t seek earthly glory or honor because His only interest was to follow God’s will. So, Jesus only used His power or authority when it was in accordance with God’s will. The devil used God’s word for his own purpose to test Jesus, but Jesus used it for God’s purpose. In other words, the devil put himself above God’s word, but Jesus always humbled Himself under the word of God and obeyed it. By doing so, Jesus lifted up God, rather than lifting up Himself. He wasn’t interested in proving Himself because He was captured by the desire to prove who God is and glorify Him through His life. That was the desire that the apostle Paul also had. He said, “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Php 1:20-21) That’s the desire we need to have to avoid temptations from the world. A lot of people are moved by the desire to make their names in the world, to be famous, and to have more followers. They think the number of people who follow them on social media shows what kind of people they are. But we should be different as Christians. Rather than trying to prove who we are and lifting ourselves up in the world, we need to lift up God through our lives by humbling ourselves before Him and obeying His word. Then, He will lift us up. As James said, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” (Jms 4:10) After the second temptation, Satan took Jesus to a very tall mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in all their splendor. Then, Satan said to Jesus, “All this I will give you, if you will bow down and worship me.” (Mt 4:9). Satan’s third temptation was related to wealth and fame. He promised to give Jesus all the kingdoms and their splendor if He worshiped him. In this passage, we can find the key point of all of Satan’s temptations—whether we worship God and follow His will or worship Satan and follow the ways of the world. There are no other options. Our only two options are to worship God, obey Him, and walk in the light or to worship Satan and remain in sin and death. If we choose the latter, we might enjoy this life and be satisfied by earthly things while we live here on earth, but they will ultimately lead us to eternal death. But, if we choose to worship God alone, we may have to sacrifice what we have on earth to follow His will, but it will lead us to eternal life. And Jesus was able to easily overcome Satan’s temptation of fame, glory, and wealth in the world because He focused on eternal values in God, not on worldly things, which are temporary. So, Jesus answered, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” (Mt 4:10) Rather than worshiping Satan and enjoying the things of the world, Jesus chose to worship God alone, suffer for Him, and even lay down His life to follow God’s will because He knew how blessed it is to worship God and serve Him. And, as Jesus’ disciples, we should make our decisions the way Jesus did. There are many things to enjoy in the world. There are many worldly things that give us momentary satisfaction and pleasure. Those who belong to this world seek what the world offers—success, wealth, fame, power, influence, and so on. These are really tempting to us because we live in this world where those things are highly valued. But, if we run after them, we will end up losing eternal treasures in the kingdom of God. So, we’ve talked about how Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness and overcame the temptations by relying on God’s word. And what I’ve found from Jesus’ temptations is that they cover every area or category of our lives. Abraham Maslow, who was an American psychologist, said that human beings have five different needs or desires. They are physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. He said that when these needs are not satisfied, we’re motivated to do things to meet them. We find these 5 different kinds of human needs in the temptations of Jesus. When Jesus lived in the wilderness and fasted for forty days, His physiological needs, safety needs, and belonging needs were tempted. He likely wasn’t able to sleep well in the wilderness. It’s very hot during the day and cold during the night in the desert, and with dangerous animals around, it wasn’t safe for Him to sleep deeply. Jesus was alone in the wilderness, so He couldn’t have had any relationships with others during that time. Nevertheless, Jesus wasn’t overcome by those strong physiological and emotional needs because He put God’s will first and trusted in Him. During the second temptation, Satan told Jesus to jump from the temple in order to prove who He is, and during the third temptation, Satan told Jesus that he would give Him everything in the world if He worshiped him. These two temptations are related to the fourth and fifth needs—esteem and self-actualization. As humans, it’s our natural desire to be respected by others and to prove ourselves to the world. But, Jesus refused to follow those desires and overcame the temptation to lift Himself up and prove Himself because He prioritized God’s will in His life. So, we can say Jesus was tempted in every way as we are because He was physically, emotionally, and spiritually tempted in the wilderness. He knows what we need and desire as human beings because He Himself was perfectly human like us. And, because He was tempted like us, He is able to understand us and help us in our times of need. Even though we can’t overcome temptation on our own, when we go to the throne of grace, where Jesus Christ sits as our eternal High Priest, we will receive mercy and find grace to help us overcome our temptations. That’s what we need to remember whenever we pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Mt 6:13) Let’s pray. [Closing prayer] Heavenly Father, thank you for teaching us the meaning of the Lord’s prayer and how we should pray today. While living on earth we face a lot of temptations but don’t have the power to overcome them. So we put our hope in You because we believe that You are able to empathize with our weaknesses, understand us, and help us when we’re overwhelmed by our temptations. Thank You for laying Yourself down and becoming like us. Thank You for being tempted so that You can understand our temptations and help us overcome them. We thank You for taking all our sins along with our weaknesses and deficiencies in Your body and giving us Your righteousness and holiness instead. And we thank You for showing us great examples of how to follow Your will in the midst of temptations. Please open our eyes, minds, and hearts to Your word of truth. Let us be strengthened by it and live by it so that we can please You, lift You up, and glorify You through our lives. We thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ precious name, we pray. Amen. [Reflection Questions] 1. What are some common features you see between Jesus’ temptations and your temptations? 2. Have you experienced Jesus helping you overcome temptations? Please share your experiences if you have any. 3. Not falling into temptations is critical in Christian life, but we can’t stop temptations from coming to us. What are some practical things you can do to overcome temptations? “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” (Mt 6:13)
Review We’ve been talking about the Lord’s prayer. Last Sunday, we talked about the meaning of the prayer asking for forgiveness. Jesus taught us to pray, “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Mt 6:12). Forgiveness plays a significant role in our lives. We were created in the image of God out of the loving relationship between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit in order to have that kind of relationship with God, with others, and with other creatures. So, as human beings created in the image of God, we’re in constant relationships with other beings. But, at the same time, we often suffer because of relationships. In fact, most of the problems we experience on earth come from relationships. That’s the reason we need forgiveness because without it we can’t have the true relationships that God intended us to have when He created us. Forgiveness serves as a medicine in our relationships because it allows us to recover our broken relationships and build proper relationships with others. But, despite its significance and great advantages, it’s not easy for us to forgive others because it’s against our nature. But, the Bible says that Christians can and must forgive others. We can forgive others because we experienced true forgiveness in Jesus Christ. In this sense, forgiveness is a great blessing given to Christians. And we must forgive others. Forgiveness is something that we must choose because we came to have the responsibility to forgive others when the enormous debts of our sins were forgiven on the cross. If we refuse to forgive others as those whose wages of sins were freely canceled by the grace of God, God will also refuse to forgive us, which we need every day. In this sense, forgiveness is a command to follow. That’s what we see from the parable of the servant who owed 10,000 talents. The reason the servant was judged for not forgiving a hundred denarii lies on the fact that he had already been forgiven a much greater amount of money—10,000 talents—by the king. We should be able to forgive those who hurt us not because it’s not a big deal to us but because we were already forgiven much greater debts by our King and He wants us to forgive others. So, we’re to continue to be devoted to praying for forgiveness through the Lord’s prayer because it reminds us of the great price He has paid to forgive our sins along with the responsibility to forgive as His people. Lead Us Not into Temptation Now, let’s move on to the next part of the Lord’s prayer. Jesus teaches us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” (Mt 6:13) While living in the world, we face all kinds of temptations that try to prevent us from reaching out to God and having a close relationship with Him. The Bible says that there are evil spiritual beings that keep trying to weaken our faith in Jesus and turn our eyes from Him. So, it’s very important for us to know how to defend ourselves from and fight against temptations because that makes a strong impact on our relationship with God. The first thing I want to make clear is that it’s not God who leads us into temptation. God doesn’t tempt us. As James said, “When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed” (Jms 1:13-14) According to the dictionary, “temptation” is “the wish to do or have something that you know you should not do or have.” So, temptation can be defined as something that we want to do even though we know it’s not right, which shows that temptation is closely related to desire. For example, let’s say that someone dropped a wallet filled with money on the street. Some people might be tempted to pick it up and take it, which shows that they value money more than their conscience. But not everyone who sees the wallet would take it. Some people would pick up the wallet and try to give it back to the owner, which shows that they value other things such as goodness and righteousness more than money. So, what we’re tempted by shows what we really desire because the temptations reflect our values. If you look closely at what you’re tempted by the most, you will know what kinds of desires you have. Not everyone is tempted by the same things because they are tempted by the things they desire. We see the first case of temptation in the garden of Eden. One day, the serpent came to Eve and deceived her by saying, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” You will not certainly die… when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:1, 4-5) Here, we see what strategy Satan used to make Eve fall. There were many kinds of fruit in the garden of Eden, but there was a tree whose fruit was forbidden for Adam and Eve to eat—the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God told Adam and Eve that they would certainly die if they ate from the tree. Not eating from the tree was the only command given to the first human beings. But, strangely, the Bible says that God put the very dangerous tree in the middle of the garden, where it could be easily seen. If it was really dangerous and could lead them to death, God should’ve hidden it somewhere in the corner of the garden, not at the center of it. But despite its risk, God intentionally put the tree in the middle of the garden, which means that He actually put the tree there so they could see it. Why would God do that? That’s because God wanted them to choose to love Him and obey His command out of their free will. God wanted them to see the tree, but choose not to eat from it. So, what the tree of knowledge of good and evil represents is the free will of human beings. Not eating from the tree meant that they surrendered their wills under God’s sovereignty. That was how they could have a proper relationship with God by acknowledging His lordship over them and following His will. By not eating from the tree, they valued God’s will more than their desires. But, Satan came and started to tempt the woman. What he really did was make her desire things that she had never desired before. She might not have even thought about making herself like God but Satan deceived her into thinking that she herself could be like God. That’s the new desire that Satan put in the woman’s heart. So when she saw the tree with the new desire to be like God, she was tempted. It looked different. She had seen the tree many times before, but she’d never wanted to eat from the tree so much. But, when this desire settled in her mind, she couldn’t resist it. She ended up eating from the tree and gave some to her husband, Adam, who also ate it. That was how the first temptation worked. Temptation gave birth to disobedience, and their disobedience severed their relationship with God. Now, they had to die in their sins. That was the purpose of Satan tempting God’s people. And he still uses the same strategy. He keeps us from focusing on God and puts false desires in our hearts so that we seek not what we’re created to desire, but the desires of the flesh, distorted by sin. By turning our value systems to worldly things, Satan makes us value not what we’re created to value, but other things. I believe that’s how the devil tempts us even now. He tempts us using the false desires he distorted and put in our minds so that we desire and seek them more, regardless of God’s will. But, what I also want to make clear here is that temptation itself is not sin. We can’t avoid temptations while living in the world because the value systems we have now are not the same as the ones that God first gave to human beings. Now, we have values that are distorted by sin and mixed with worldly things. And, when these desires meet certain conditions, we’re heavily tempted. The first thing we feel when we are tempted might be guilt. We may feel guilty about the fact that we have desires to do something that’s against God’s will. But we don’t have to feel a sense of guilt when we’re tempted because it’s not sin. It’s very natural to be tempted as weak human beings who have sinful natures. In fact, there’s no one in the world who is not tempted by anything. So, what we really need to be careful about is not whether we are tempted or not, but how we respond to temptation. We can’t stop temptations from coming to us, but we can decide how to handle them. It’s easy for us just to follow temptation because it’s what we want to do, but we shouldn’t let temptation grow inside us. Rather, when we’re tempted, we should try to avoid it and reject it and decide to move in the opposite direction from it. James said, “each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire…Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (Jms 1:14-15) Here, James differentiates temptations and evil desires from sin. Again, temptations that come from our evil desires themselves can’t be considered sin. But they can still have very negative effects in our lives because they could lead us to actual sins if we allow them to grow. Temptation itself is not sin, but it becomes sin when we yield to it. And its result is by no means light—the result is death. We see this chain reaction from temptation to sin and sin to death in King David’s life. When David saw a beautiful woman bathing, his evil desire met a condition that could satisfy it, and strong temptation came to him. But he didn’t avoid or resist it. Rather, David allowed his evil desire to grow and eventually put it into practice. Even though he heard that the woman was the wife of one of his faithful soldiers, Uriah, he sent messengers to get her and spent the night with her. The temptation from his evil desire gave birth to sin. And, David’s sin of adultery resulted in more serious sins. In order to hide his sin, David had Uriah killed in the front line of the battlefield. This all happened because David didn’t resist temptation when it first came but willingly gave into it. He could’ve resisted it. He could’ve prayed to God about it. He could’ve called the prophet Nathan and asked for advice. But he didn’t do any of that because he didn’t want to. Then, the temptation became an actual sin that led to terrible consequences. Families and relationships were destroyed and not only Uriah but many others died because of his sin, including the son he had with Bathsheba. Needless to say, David’s relationship with God was broken. Those are the terrible results we could also experience if we let temptation grow into sin. That’s what happens when we give ourselves over to temptation. We’ll disobey God and our relationship with Him will be severed, which will lead to death. So, it’s very important to know how to resist temptation when it comes to us through our evil desires. And we see the perfect example of overcoming temptation in Jesus’ life. When Jesus was tempted, He resisted the devil three times by praying to God and using the authority of God’s word. Jesus’ life was firmly built on the truth of God’s word and on His close relationship with God through prayer, which allowed Him to overcome every temptation. Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet he did not sin” (Heb 4:15). Jesus was tempted in every way but He didn’t let temptation become sin. He resisted it and overcame it. By doing so, He showed us that it’s possible for us to suppress our temptations. Not only that, Jesus is still with us, helping us not be defeated by our temptations. Hebrews 2:18 says, “Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Heb 2:18). We should remember that Jesus set a great example for us to follow by overcoming all kinds of temptations and that He is able to empathize with our weaknesses and help us when we’re tempted. Even though we don’t have the power within us to overcome our evil desires and temptations in the world, we can still overcome them and be victorious in the One who is with us and willingly helps us whenever we cry out to him. So, it’s important for us to pray, “lead us not into temptation.” It’s not to pray that we’re not tempted by anything. We’ll certainly be tempted while living in this world full of all kinds of temptations. We should admit that we’re weak and vulnerable to them. But, when we realize that it’s impossible for us to resist temptations on our own, we’ll find another power that’s working in us—the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus Christ gives us. That’s what we should rely on in order not to yield to temptation but to overcome it. I think that’s what the prayer we’re talking about today reminds us. What Jesus is teaching us is to pray that we may be protected by God’s grace when we find ourselves faced with situations and temptations that would drag us away from our faith in Him so that we can continue to keep our faith before Him and remain holy in His sight. Even now, Jesus is praying for us. And He has the power to save us from all kinds of temptations. The only thing we need to do is pray not to fall into temptation, relying on our heavenly Father who understands us and always graciously takes care of us. As I said a little earlier, temptations are essentially related to what we desire. And since it’s hard to triumph over ourselves on our own, we should ask God to help us not to fall into temptation but to overcome it with His power and strength. Jesus said, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation…” (Mt 26:41) Paul also said, “If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!… When you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it” (1Co 10: 13). The Bible doesn’t say that we can control temptations ourselves. Because we can’t do this, we should watch and pray, humbly asking God to provide a way out and to give us strength to stand firmly on His truth so that we can overcome them. So, let us continue to go before God, asking Him to give us the power and strength to overcome temptations. Then, He will protect and guard our hearts and change our values according to His goodness so that you can be more inclined to seek His will, not the ways of the world. I hope and pray that all of us here today can stay spiritually awake in our prayers so that we can all remain blameless and pure children of God without fault in this world tainted by sin. Let’s pray. <Closing prayer> Heavenly Father, thank you for teaching us the meaning of the Lord’s prayer and how we should pray today. We confess our weaknesses and sinful nature. We’re so weak and vulnerable to sin and temptation that we often find ourselves losing sight of You and following the ways of the world instead of Your will. We confess that we don’t have the power within us to resist temptation and the evil one. So we rely on You, Lord. We depend on Jesus who was tempted in every way just as we are but overcame all temptations with Your word. Please help us stand strong in Your grace so that we won’t fall into temptation when it comes our way and so that we can resist the evil one with the help of Jesus Christ, Your Son, who already overcame Satan and death with His death and resurrection. Help us become Your blameless children in this world who reflect Your character. We thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ precious name, we pray. Amen. [Reflection Questions] 1. Why do you think it’s important to resist temptations as God’s people? Is it easy or hard? If it’s hard, what makes it hard for you? 2. When or in what specific situations do you feel tempted most? Why do you think they cause temptation? What are some practical things you can do to not fall into temptation when it comes your way? “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Mt 6:12)
Review We’ve been talking about the Lord’s prayer. Last Sunday, we talked about the meaning of the prayer, “Give us today our daily bread” (Mt 6:11). Even though we might not really feel the need to ask for our daily bread, it’s important to keep asking God to give us what we need on a daily basis because it reminds me of the truth that He is the One who sustains our lives and that everything that helps us maintain our lives actually comes from Him. That’s what the Israelites learned from their experience in the wilderness. In order to survive in the wilderness, they had to go out and gather manna every day. But, God set certain principles about gathering manna. They had to gather the bread every day. Therefore, they had to gather only enough food for each day. Manna was edible only on the day they gathered it because it became rotten the next day. By doing so, God made them humble and taught them the truth that their survival was solely dependent on His provision, not anything else. God wanted them to learn that what really sustained their lives was not the food they were eating, but God who gave them food to eat everyday. In order words, they learned that “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Dt 8:3). That’s what we must also know as God’s people. Even though we don’t lack food, and therefore it’s easy for us to rely on our own power, possessions, and abilities more than God, we should know that the One who really maintains our lives and gives us life and breath every day is God. That’s what the prayer for daily bread reminds us. By being devoted to this prayer we learn to live on every word from God, not on what we have. This prayer is also important in Christian life because we also need spiritual food to grow spiritually. As God’s children, we should always crave spiritual food and be nourished by the truth of God’s word in order to grow to become more like Jesus. We should seek God every single day just as we eat food every day. And we can’t have the spiritual food on our own because God gives it to us. No matter how many times we’ve read the Bible, if we don’t try to listen to God, we will gain nothing for our souls. We may have some knowledge, but nothing will happen in our relationship with God. Jesus said that He is the bread of life coming from heaven. Those who eat the bread will remain in Him and live forever. Jesus is the Word of God who became flesh. He is the ultimate and final revelation of who God is and the culmination and fulfillment of His word. We find true food that makes us alive, change, and grow in Jesus. That’s the spiritual food we should always be nourished by every single day. We can’t live today with the grace we received yesterday. We need today’s grace to live today in God’s will because our sinful nature is renewed every day. Because he knew this, Paul said, “I face death every day” (1Co 15:31). Jesus also told His followers, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” (Lk 9:23) To truly live as God’s people, we must first acknowledge that we can’t live out our faith without being nourished by His truth every day. That recognition will make us humble before Him and more eager for His word and grace. And I believe it can happen when we’re more devoted to this prayer: “Give us today our daily bread.” Forgive Us Our Debts Now, let’s move on to the next part in the Lord’s prayer. Jesus continues, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Mt 6:11). Here, we encounter one of the most important subjects we should know about as Christians—forgiveness. We always need forgiveness because we live in constant relationships with other beings. The Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, “Man is by nature a social animal.” What Aristotle emphasizes here is that one of the things that differentiates human beings from other animals is their reliance on social relationships. As human beings, we can’t live alone or in isolation. We need relationships and we need each other to fulfill those needs. I think that’s because God created us in His image. When creating the first human beings, God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness” (Gen 1:26). Here, the word ‘our’ implies relationship. The triune God created human beings out of the relationship between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. We’re created to have a relationship with God, with others, and with God’s other creatures. It means that relationships are one of the unique characteristics of human beings. We can say that we’re created out of relationship, for relationship. So, relationships play a significant role in being human. But, we also know from experience that what causes the most problems in our lives is relationships. We can’t live without relationships, but at the same time, we often suffer because of them. That’s because the world we’re living in now is different from the world that God originally created. Sin came to the world through the first humans’ disobedience and it soon came to influence every part of our lives, including our relationships. Rather than loving one another, we easily judge and hate others. Rather than being selfless, we’re selfish by nature. Rather than taking care of others, we became indifferent to them. The Bible says that that’s the consequence of sin. From the moment sin separated us from God, we lost our natural inclination to love others more than ourselves. I think that’s the reason we need forgiveness. Having relationships with others is essential in human life. But we can’t avoid hurting each other in the process of establishing relationships with others because of our sinful nature. It’s inevitable. It’s impossible to have relationships with others without hurting and being hurt. Then, what should we do? At this point, I believe forgiveness plays a very important role in our lives because it allows us to recover our broken relationships and build more constructive and proper relationships with others. In other words, forgiveness serves as a medicine in our social health. When we’re hurt by others’ words and actions, the wounds remain in our hearts. The pain doesn’t just go away. If we don’t treat our wounds, they will become bitter roots in our hearts and grow. What’s worse, the wounds affect the other relationships we have. For example, I talked to a woman a few months ago who is Korean. She said she chose not to go any place where there are Koreans because of a wound that she got from a Korean before. She hadn’t gone to church for more than 10 years—not because she didn’t want to go, but because she didn’t want to meet other Koreans there. Her wound from a Korean affected her relationships with other Koreans and even her faith. We can easily find more examples in this matter. That’s what happens when forgiveness doesn’t work in our lives. When we’re hurt, we might want to continue to hate the person who hurt us. We might even want to take revenge. I once read a sentence somewhere that said “the best forgiveness is revenge.” That’s how people normally respond to their wounds. But we know revenge doesn’t really solve our problems. It actually makes situations worse. It makes our hearts more hardened toward others. So, even though it’s very hard to forgive those who hurt us, we should learn to forgive. It’s good not only for them, but for us. I personally believe forgiveness is one of the greatest blessings given to God’s people because it cures wounds in our hearts and restores our relationships with others so that we can live a happy and abundant life in our relationships. The reason I said forgiveness is a blessing is because it’s actually a gift from God. I think one of the reasons it’s hard for us to forgive is because we consider forgiveness a command. Of course, we find a lot of commands in the Bible related to forgiveness. But, forgiveness is more like a blessing and gift for me because God doesn’t only command us to forgive, but also gives us the power to do so. Those who haven’t experienced forgiveness can’t forgive others. Forgiveness is not something that we can do naturally because it’s actually against our nature. In this sense, we’re blessed because we see the greatest example of forgiveness in Jesus Christ, our Lord, and experience it every day. We’ve all experienced the power, love, mercy, and grace needed to forgive others in Jesus Christ. He has shown us what true forgiveness is and how to forgive through His sacrifice on the cross to give us the gift of forgiveness. So, even though it may still be very challenging, we can and should forgive others not with our own love and generosity, but with the amazing love and forgiveness He showed on the cross. The prayer we’re talking about today consists of two parts. In the first part, we ask that God would forgive our debts. And, in the second part, we profess that we have forgiven others. We’re taught to pray, “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Mt 6:12) But that doesn’t mean that forgiving others is the condition for God to forgive our sins. As Paul said, Jesus came to the world to forgive our sins when we were still sinners who didn’t deserve His forgiveness. The forgiveness given to sinners is solely dependent on God’s grace, not our merit. But, I think the forgiveness given to God’s people, who have already experienced God’s great love and forgiveness, is different. God doesn’t require ‘sinners’ who haven’t yet received His love and forgiveness to forgive others in order to be forgiven by Him. It’s given by God’s grace alone. But, God does require His people to forgive others in order to be forgiven by Him. Now, it’s a responsibility and a command that we should follow. And I think it’s very important to distinguish between these two types of forgiveness. Otherwise, it would be hard for us to understand the meaning of this passage. This is what Jesus said right after He taught how to pray. “If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Mt 6:14-15). This passage has been controversial because it sounds like Jesus is saying that our forgiveness toward others is the essential condition of God’s forgiveness toward us, which makes it hard for many Christians to understand the concept of God’s forgiveness because we’ve learned that it’s freely given to us by His grace through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. And, both are true in light of the Scriptures. When we’re sinners, we were freely forgiven when we hadn’t done anything to earn it. But I would say that for God’s people, who have already experienced the forgiveness that came by Christ, forgiveness isn’t given freely. We’re to forgive others in order to be forgiven by God. That’s what we learn from the parable of the servant who owed 10,000 talents. You may be familiar with this parable. In the parable, a servant owed the king ten thousand talents. Here, a talent was worth about 20 years of a day laborer’s wages at that time. So, ten thousand talents was a massive amount of money, equivalent to 200,000 years of wages. Of course, the servant couldn’t pay his debt to the king. So, the king ordered him to sell all his possessions to pay it. Then, the servant fell on his knees before the king, and begged, “Be patient with me, and I will pay back everything” (Mt 18:26). Hearing this, the king took pity on him, freely canceled the debt and let him go. The king didn’t require him to do anything. But, when the servant saw his fellow servant who owed him a hundred denarii, he grabbed him and began to choke him, saying, “Pay back what you owe me!” (Mt 18:28). Here, denarii is the plural form of a denarius, which was the usual daily wage of a day laborer. So, a hundred denarii is equivalent to three months wages. That’s not a small amount of money. It’s about $10,000 today. The fellow servant who owed a hundred denarii did the same thing to the servant. He fell to his knees and begged him, saying, “Be patient with me, and I will pay it back” (Mt 18:29). But even though the servant just had an enormous debt canceled, he refused to forgive his fellow servant’s debt which was very small compared to what he was forgiven. Rather, he had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. Seeing this, the other servants became outraged and went to the master to tell him everything that had happened. Then, the master called the servant again and said, “You wicked servant. I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” (Mt 18:32-33). Then, the master also put him into prison. After telling this parable, Jesus concluded, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” (Mt 18:35) There are a few lessons we can learn from this parable. First, we know that the price of sin we owed to God is unpayable. The king in the parable refers to God. The servant owed him 10,000 talents which he could never pay on his own. This refers to the wage of sin we are to pay. The price of sin is priceless because its result is death. The Bible says, “the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough” (Ps 49:8), “For the wages of sin is death” (Rm 6:23). And, the Bible says that the wage of sin is so costly that we can’t ever pay for it. But, very thankfully, the king had pity on the servant and forgave him without any conditions. You might think that it was easy for the king to write off the servant’s debt, but it wasn’t because 10,000 talents was a big amount to the king as well, which means that for the king to forgive the debt freely, he had to take a serious loss. Likewise, in order to forgive our sins, God had to pay an enormous price. We know what He paid for the ransom for our sins. He sacrificed His one and only Son to redeem us. From this we see God’s great, unimaginable, and unconditional love, compassion, and forgiveness for us. These are important lessons we can learn from the parable, but there’s another lesson I want us to focus on today, which is the responsibility of forgiveness. The servant whose enormous debt was canceled by the king now came to have the responsibility to forgive others’ debt. Even though the king had mercy on the servant and wrote off his debt, the servant didn’t have mercy on his fellow servant. He refused to cancel a hundred denarii and instead put him in jail. The servant didn’t have the responsibility to forgive the debt before he was forgiven. But, because his enormous debt was forgiven freely, he now had to forgive his fellow servant’s relatively small amount of debt. The reason the servant was judged for not forgiving a hundred denarii lies on the fact that he had already been forgiven a much greater amount of money. In other words, because he was forgiven by mercy, he came to have the responsibility to forgive others’ debts as well. That’s the responsibility we also have toward others. While living on earth, we may encounter people who cause damage in our lives as much as a hundred denarii. We may be hurt and attacked on a false charge. It may seem like a big deal to us. But, what Jesus is teaching us is that we should forgive them not because the injury they inflict upon us is not a big deal. A hundred denarii is a big deal. It is worth $10,000. Nevertheless, Christians should and are actually able to forgive those who harm us because we know that we were already forgiven 10,000 talents—much more than a 100 denarii. Because we were forgiven by God’s great mercy and Jesus’ amazing sacrifice, we can now forgive others no matter the amount of damage they’ve done in our lives. That’s what we should focus on. If we only focus on our wounds, we can’t forgive. But if we look up and focus on the great grace and love God has given us to forgive us and what Jesus sacrificed to save us from our sin and death, we’ll know that there’s no sin that we can’t forgive while living on earth. The reason it’s hard for us to forgive others is because we easily forget the fact that we were forgiven 10,000 talents. That’s what we should continue to remind ourselves of. So, it’s important to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Mt 6:11) because it reminds us of God’s great love, sacrifice, and forgiveness. It is deeply based on the confidence that God will forgive our sins no matter how big they are. But that’s not the end. This prayer also reminds us of our responsibility and ability to forgive others. We have a responsibility to forgive others because we were forgiven much greater debts. And, we have the ability to forgive others because we have experienced God’s amazing love and forgiveness. So, for us to forgive others is not actually a command. Rather, it’s more like a blessing that cures our hearts and makes us move forward beyond our wounds. Now, let’s read Colossians 3:12-13 before we wrap up. “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Col 3:12-13) This is the kind of life we’re to pursue as Christians. God has chosen us with His great love and forgiven all our sins through the redemption that came by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Then, it’s our responsibility to bear with each other and forgive one another just as Christ forgave us. In fact, that’s the one of the strongest pieces of evidence that we’re forgiven and saved. How can we say we’re forgiven without trying to forgive others? And, how can we say we’re deeply loved without trying to love others? So, let’s be devoted to praying, “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Mt 6:12), so that we may be continuously filled with God’s love and forgiveness and so that we can forgive others with His love and mercy. Let’s pray. <Closing prayer> Heavenly Father, thank you for teaching us about Your forgiveness and how we can forgive others. We thank You for forgiving our sins and giving us the power and blessing of forgiving others. We confess that we don’t have the love and power within us to love or forgive others as You have done to us. So we ask for Your mercy. Please let us realize what great forgiveness You’ve given us through Jesus Christ and fill us with Your unconditional, everlasting love so that we can stand strong on the firm foundation of the truth and reflect Your great character through our lives. We pray that only your name be lifted up and hallowed through our lives. In Jesus’ precious name, we pray. Amen. [Reflection Questions] 1. Have you experienced the power of forgiveness in your life? Please share your experiences if you have any. 2. What do you think is the biggest obstacle that prevents us from forgiving others as Christians? 3. Even after believing in Jesus and experiencing His blood cleansing our sins, we still need forgiveness every day. Then, is forgiving others necessary to be forgiven by God as Christians? Why or why not? |