“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? “This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread.” (Mt 6:9-11)
Review We’ve been talking about the Lord’s prayer, one of the teachings written in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. In the last two sermons, we explored the meaning of the prayer “Your kingdom come.” The importance of understanding what the kingdom of God truly refers to can’t be emphasized enough because it affects every area of our lives as Christians. We started to explore the prayer with a common misunderstanding about the kingdom of God. Even though the Bible widely uses the term ‘the kingdom of God,’ it is also called ‘the kingdom of heaven’ in the gospel of Matthew, which has caused some people to consider the kingdom of God as only a spiritual place where our souls will go after death. But, we know that that view of the kingdom of God is wrong based on many passages in the Scriptures. Jesus, who first proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom of God, often used the verb ‘come’ rather than ‘go’ when He taught about the kingdom. He said, ℗ “The kingdom of God has come near.” (Mk 1:15) ℗ “…The kingdom of God is in your midst.” (Lk 17:20-21) So, one of the important characteristics of the kingdom of God we should know is that it’s not a place we will ‘go’ because it already started to come on earth with the first coming of Jesus Christ, is coming now through His disciples who are devoted to following His will, and will perfectly come true on earth when He comes back, which means that we can and should experience the presence of the kingdom of God here in this world. Then, what is the kingdom of God? We can find its definition in the Lord’s prayer. Jesus taught us to pray, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt 6:10). Here, we find the most important element of the kingdom of God, which is ‘God’s will.’ The kingdom of God can be simply defined as the realm where God’s will is done through His people. The Greek word for kingdom is℗ βασιλεία (basileia), which basically means royal power, kingship, or sovereign authority. The kingdom God wants to build on earth is the kingdom where His will is achieved through His people. I said that that’s what the entire Bible story is about. God created human beings in His image not only to have a relationship with them but for them to rule over all the creatures He had made. In other words, the garden of Eden was God’s kingdom where He reigned through His people. But, they ended up failing because they refused God as their King and tried to make themselves like God by disobeying the command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, even though they failed, God didn’t give up on building His kingdom on earth. At this point, God’s mission goes in two directions. The first direction is to solve the problem of sin. And the second is to continue to rule over the world through His people that He set apart. That’s what we read about in the Old Testament. God ruled over the world through the people He had chosen, set apart, and consecrated: Israel. However, even though there were some great leaders in the Old Testament, the people of Israel ended up failing to achieve God’s plan. So God sent His one and only Son to the world, Jesus Christ. He proclaimed the coming of the kingdom of God. In fact, the majority of His teachings are related to it. Now, the kingdom of God started in earnest with the coming of Jesus. And it will perfectly come true on earth when He comes back in glory and reigns over the whole world with the authority given by God. On that day, all those who believe in Him will join in His reign. “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord, and he will reign for ever and ever.” (Rv 11:15) And “[we] will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him…” (Rv 20:6) This is the ending of the Bible. That’s the day we should be looking forward to as Christians. We should know that our salvation isn’t irrelevant to God’s greater plan to build His kingdom on earth. God saved us not only because He loves us but also because He wants to build His kingdom on earth where His message is preached, His will is achieved, and His reign is proclaimed. We’re chosen and set apart for this specific purpose. So we should be very careful not to allow our faith and salvation to become individualized. That’s the reason we’re to be devoted to praying, “Your kingdom come, you will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Give Us Today Our Daily Bread Now, let’s move on to the next part of the Lord’s prayer—"Give us today our daily bread” (Mt 6:11). It’s easy for us to overlook the importance of this prayer for a few reasons. First of all, we may feel that this prayer is less important than the ones for God’s name to be hallowed, for his kingdom to come, and for his will to be done. Compared to these great prayers, we may think that the prayer for daily food isn’t that spiritual and thus doesn’t really matter. Second, we may not feel the need to ask for our daily bread simply because we don’t really feel a lack of food in our lives. We live in one of the richest countries in the world. We may lack a few things, but none of us starve simply because we don’t have enough food to eat. So, we may not feel the need to pray for our daily food. Nevertheless, I think it is still important for us to pray for our daily bread because it makes us understand and acknowledge our absolute need for God and thus rely on Him more. Manna Bread serves as a powerful symbol of God's provision for His people in the Old Testament. When Jesus taught to pray for daily bread, the audience would have immediately recalled how God fed their ancestors and helped them survive in the wilderness for forty years. It was impossible for a massive number of people to live in the wilderness where there’s nothing to drink or eat for such a long period of time. They would not have lasted even a week in the wilderness without God's help. Because life in the wilderness was so hard, the people of Israel began to complain about all their difficulties and uncomfortable circumstances. They even said that it would be better for them to go back to Egypt where they had been slaves, because they at least had food to eat. This is what the people of Israel said to Moses. “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” (Ex 16:3) They forgot how hard it was to live in Egypt, and only recalled the good parts. So, rather than being thankful to God for His great deliverance from slavery in Egypt, they complained about what they didn’t have anymore which they had had there. That’s what happens when we only see the difficult aspects of faith. If we only focus on what we should sacrifice and carry out as Christians, and not what we’ve received and will ultimately receive from God, we will easily become tired and exhausted, stumble in little trials, and lose gratitude toward God. Rather than giving thanks to God for the spiritual blessings we came to have in Christ, we will complain about the suffering and hardships we may face as Christians. The people of Israel lost this perspective. Rather than remembering what great deliverance God had given them and relying on Him, they complained about relatively small matters without trusting in Him. In response to these complaints, God promised Moses that He would give the people bread to eat every day. But He set a certain rule about this. God said, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.” (Ex 16:4). The rule was that the people of Israel had to gather only enough food for each day. If they gathered more than they needed for the day and spared the rest until the next day, it would be rotten. The Israelites called the daily bread manna. While wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, God sent them manna everyday so that the Israelites could survive there without planting and harvesting. It means that the people’s survival was solely dependent on God’s provision. Why did God make this complicated rule? He could’ve just given them enough food for a week or a month so that they didn’t have to go out to gather the bread every day. It might have been easier for both God and the people of Israel. But still, God wanted them to follow this rule strictly. It meant that giving them bread to eat for survival wasn’t God’s only purpose in sending manna every day. There was a specific reason for this. We can find the reason God set the specific rule about manna in Deuteronomy 8:3. Moses said to the people, “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.” (Dt 8:3-4) Here, we find the reason, the special purpose in God having the people of Israel gather manna every day. By doing so, God wanted to teach them an important principle of life they had to know as His people. God wanted them to know that their lives were actually dependent on Him, not their own ability or power. If God had given them all the manna they could eat for forty years at once and they had just stored it in a barn and taken it whenever they needed it, they wouldn’t have relied on God every day for their food. They might have given thanks to God for the bread at first, but they would’ve quickly forgotten His grace and started to rely on what they’d stored in the barn more than on God for their survival. So, what God really wanted them to learn by letting them go out to gather manna every single day was the fact that what really maintained their lives was God’s provision, not anything else. They had to know from experience that they could only survive in the wilderness because of God’s grace, guidance, and faithfulness so that they could rely on every word of God more than bread. That’s what they learned when they gathered manna every day. They experienced God’s faithfulness and provision every single day by seeing God give them manna each day and gathering it. Thus, they came to acknowledge that what really allowed them to live was not the bread itself, but the One who faithfully guided them and provided them with everything they needed. And this principle applies to our faith lives as well. Even though we don’t go out to gather manna every day, we still need to know that what really enables us to live each day is not the food, money, or other things we have, but God. What God teaches us through this story is not that material things don’t matter. God knows what we need because He is the One who designed and created us. But, what God really wants us to realize is that “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” We can see the importance of knowing this principle and applying it in our lives by seeing how Jesus Himself was tested by the devil in the wilderness. When Jesus stayed in the wilderness for forty days, He fasted and was very hungry. And the tempter came to Jesus and told Him to turn stones into bread. But Jesus told him, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4) That Jesus was tempted in this way means that we face the same kind of temptation while living on earth. Jesus was tested so that He could understand us and help us overcome temptations and trials from the world and the evil one. So, the story of manna and the principle behind it should serve as a model for all God’s people’s lives. Because we’re not short of many things, we are very vulnerable to the temptation to think that what sustains our lives is our own power, possessions, and abilities. We often feel a sense of stability in what we’ve achieved and stored. It seems that many people, even Christians, go after money, love it, and even worship it because they think that’s what really enables them to do the things they want to do. In other words, money has replaced God. There’s nothing wrong with making and saving money itself, but we should always be careful not to rely on money more than God. What Scripture clearly teaches us is that the true reason we can maintain our lives is not because we have saved a lot, but because God sustains our lives every single day, gives us the power to live, and provides us with all the things we need for our lives. That’s why it’s important for us to continue to pray, “Give us today our daily bread” (Mt 6:11), because this prayer allows us to humble ourselves before God and reminds us of the truth that what really maintains our lives is God’s faithfulness and grace that He gives us every single day. So, this part of the Lord's prayer teaches us to come to God with humility, asking him to provide what we need and to sustain us day by day. And, this prayer is firmly based on the truth that God loves us, cares for us, and provides us with all we need with his faithfulness and grace. Spiritual Food But, this prayer isn’t only about physical food. This prayer has a spiritual aspect as well. Just as we need food for our physical survival, we also need spiritual food to be healthy and grow spiritually. The apostle Peter said, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation” (1 Pt 2:2). Paul also encourages us to be “nourished on the truths of the faith and of the good teaching” (1 Tm 4:6b) so that we can “be a good minister of Christ Jesus” (1 Tm 4:6a). Moreover, Jesus also introduced Himself as spiritual bread for the world. He said, “I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” (Jn 6:48-51) Here, Jesus compares manna, the physical bread that the Israelites ate in the wilderness, with the spiritual, living bread coming down from heaven, which refers to Himself. Physical bread is important in our lives because it helps us live a healthy life here on earth. But spiritual food, the living bread, is way more important than the physical kind because it is related to eternal life. Jesus said that the purpose of Him coming into the world was to give us this spiritual bread so that we can eat it, grow from it, and live forever. We should know that we have not only physical needs, but also spiritual ones. And, our spiritual needs are designed to be met only in our relationship with the heavenly Father, since He alone is eternal. But, tragedy occurs when we try to fill our spiritual needs with something else, which never works. How can finite things fill the desire for eternity that God has set in our hearts? So, as Christians, we’re to be fed spiritually by God every day. Just as the people of Israel went out to gather their manna every day, we should continually go before God’s presence every single day to receive His grace given through His word. Only the presence of God and His word can nourish our spirits and give us strength to live each day without stumbling. That’s the spiritual food we should seek every day. And, only those who desperately feel the hunger and thirst in their souls will try to find it every day. So, again, it’s important for us to continue to be devoted to praying for our daily bread because this prayer allows us to know our absolute need for God’s presence and His word and makes us seek Him more desperately. Going to church and listening to a sermon once a week can never be enough for our spiritual growth. If we only listen to God’s word one day a week and leave ourselves in the world for six days, we won’t be able to keep our faith and we will drift away from Jesus without even noticing it. God’s people need to be nourished by His word every single day. That’s how we work on our salvation and faith with trembling and fear. Remember that after one day, the manna God gave the Israelites started to decay, which means that the grace we received yesterday can’t feed us spiritually today. We always need grace every day. God wants to give us his spiritual food every single day. He wants us to eat it and grow spiritually. So, we should pray this prayer every day, asking God to fill us with His living bread and give us His voice every day in our lives. That’s how we can maintain a close relationship with our heavenly Father. I hope that all of us here realize the deep meaning of the prayer “give us today our daily bread” so that we can always be humble before God and rely on Him more than anything. And I pray that we can see our spiritual needs that only God can satisfy so that we can be more desperate in seeking His word, and be nourished and strengthened by it every single day. Let’s pray. [Closing prayer] Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us this precious time to learn what we should pray for through the Lord’s prayer. As weak human beings, we easily forget that You alone are the true Provider of our lives. We tend to think that what we have is from our own ability without realizing that even our ability is from You. In fact, there’s nothing we have that doesn’t come from You. Even our breath comes from Your grace that You give us each day. So Lord, please open our hearts and help us see You working in our lives so that we can humbly proclaim that all we have is from You and that we can’t live a day without You. Oh Lord, we ask that You would fill us with spiritual food every day. Please see the deep desperation of our spirits and fill them with Your living bread. Give us the desire to love Your word and let us listen to Your voice through it so that we can seek You and be nourished by Your word of truth every day. We thank you for Your faithfulness and all Your provisions for us. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen. [Reflection Questions] 1. Why do you think it is important for Christians to pray for daily bread? Why do you think it is essential for Christians to go before God’s presence on a daily basis? 2. What does daily bread represent to you personally? What are some practical things you can do to have it every day? |