The Lord’s Prayer (7) Lead us not Into Temptation (1)

​“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?