Transcript
A (0:03)
Each year we make a special free resource available during the season of lent for the 40 days from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday. Gospel and Life would like to send you a daily devotional. Sign up to receive this daily email@gospelandlife.com Lent now, here's Dr. Keller with today's teaching.
B (0:26)
The passage, which is pretty familiar, I think, to most and yet. Let's read it. It's printed in your bulletin. It's Matthew 6, 9, 13. This then says, jesus 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, forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. And this is God's word. Now. Years ago, I read an interview that really stayed with me a long time. Every so often I refer to it because it has multiple applications. It's pretty easy to see. Today I remember reading an interview with a man who was in prison for life and he had an interview with a reporter. The reason he was in there was that some years before that, he had been traveling too fast at night on a dark road and he'd run over a little boy. And as soon as he realized what he'd done, he put his foot on the. On the gas and he sped off. And the little boy died in the dark because, as many people said, because nobody stopped. In other words, if he'd stopped, there was a good chance that the boy had gotten quick attention, he might have lived, but he died in the dark. Well, that man, the hit and run driver, was found. The evidence was there, and they discovered the evidence and they led. They followed the evidence and the clues and they found him. He did not turn himself in. He was discovered, he was arrested, he was tried, he was convicted, he was prosecuted quite justly, I think, to the fullest extent of the law. And he was living the rest of his life virtually in a jail, and his life was ruined. And to the reporter, he said he had been thinking about this. And he gave this insight. He said years before, when he was a fairly young boy, his father had a watch that he kept in the top drawer of his bureau, that he was a prized possession that he never really took out, hardly. And this boy, when he was a little boy, he went in and he pulled the watch out, got it out of a handkerchief, and as he was playing with it, he dropped it and broke it, put it back in the handkerchief, put it back in the bureau, put it back in the drawer, went away, said nothing. Later, the father found it was broken. And he came out and he brought his children together. I guess there were a number of them. And he says, I want to know who did it. I want to know who did it. And the little boy never said a thing. And he told the reporter, from then on, whenever he got in a tight place, he just refused to face the music. He learned the best way to deal. At least he learned. He thought the best way to deal with situations like this, where he'd have to swallow his pride or face the music or admit he was wrong or pay the price, was to hide, was to lie, was to not face the music. And he said to the reporter, I failed all those little tests. Until one day, the big test came, the big examination, and I fell. Because, you see, at that point, deep down, his lack of integrity and his cowardice had become instinctive. And when he saw what he had done, he immediately tried to leave. He left, he hid, and his life was ruined. Jesus Christ knows that life is filled with tests like that, little ones and huge ones. And he says, the only way that you're going to come through them is if you seek God, if you go to God, and if you regularly say, lord God, deliver me from evil in the tests of life. I'm going to come into these tests. I ask that they may not eat me. I ask that I might not go right into the mouth. Don't let me go all the way in. Don't let them devour me. Deliver me from them this word. And of course, you know it's translated here. Temptation. Lead us not into temptation. The Greek word that is used here since the New Testament. The Bible was written in Greek. It's a hard word to translate because it's a very full word. It's the Greek word pirasmon, which sometimes is translated test, and sometimes is translated trap. And it's a hard word to translate, because here's why. A good test can also be a trap. It depends on you. A real good test can also be a temptation. It depends on you. I remember some years ago, there was a. I took a course. And at the very beginning of the course, the professor said, I know how most of you people work. You kind of slough off for half or even three quarters of the course, and then you cram it at the end. I want you to know that you will not master this material like that. It can only be mastered incrementally. And therefore I am not going to tell you when the four tests that I'm going to give you this semester will be administered. He didn't do it. He gave pop major quizzes. And it was his way of saying, I'm not going to tell you it could happen anytime. That first of all, that means that you better come to class every time. And secondly, you better keep up. And, you know, on the one hand, it meant that if you did keep up, well, the tests were wonderful in a sense, because they kept you honest and they showed you when you were making progress and where you still needed to work, and they held you accountable and they really kept you going. But if you were letting it slide and if you were trying to bluff, those tests were traps. They revealed you. You see. See, a test shows you what you really are. And if you are in denial, the tests are devastating. You know, you may think, I'm being real good with my eating, and then you get on the scale, see the test. What is a test? A test shows you what's really in you. It shows you where you are. And if you are out of touch with reality, tests can be devastating. Tests show you what's in you. And if you're dropping the ball, if you're nurturing wrongdoing and evil, tests are traps. What Jesus says is, go to God and say, lord God, don't let my tests, the inevitable tests of life, become traps. Don't let my tests be traps. Deliver me from evil. In the tests of life. They're going to come, but I pray that they may not eat me. I pray that I might not be sucked all the way in. Lead me not into them, you see, don't let me be devoured by them. Deliver me from evil. Think about it. How are you doing right now? Are you right now going through and failing the little tests? And are you setting yourself up for some failure of some big one in the future? How can you be delivered from evil in the tests of life? Well, Jesus tells you, and as he tells you what to do about them, if we break it down, we'll see some very, very practical ways in which we also can be ready for the tests of life. Let me show you what they are. Let me just give you four, four very practical ways of dealing with the tests of life. They're all here. Look. First of all, number one, the first way to be sure that you can handle the tests of life is to expect them. The first, and this is a brief point, but it's very practical. One of the reasons Christians are never to be surprised by tests, Christians are Never to be shocked by. By the fiery trials that come upon you. Never. Jesus puts this in the Lord's Prayer. What does that mean? The Lord's Prayer is a model for how you're supposed to pray all the time. Jesus, I don't think, is saying that every time you pray, you have to recite the Lord's Prayer. Jesus is saying is, whenever you pray, this is the structure. And therefore Jesus is trying to condition us to see trials, to see tests all the time. A test is a circumstance which draws out what's in you. He says, I expect you to be constantly praying about them and always seeing them. A Christian is someone who learns to expect them. See, there's two ways, in a sense, to expect little tests. We miss little tests because we don't even see them as tests. The Lord's Prayer is a way of getting us to focus and look at our lives and realize these things are there. We think they're irritations. We think, why in the world do I have a boss like that? Why is my spouse going through the season? He or she is going through? We see them as irritations. Jesus says, no, look at them. They're tests. They're ways for you to respond with honesty, to respond with courage, to respond with compassion. You think they're irritations? No, they're tests. You're supposed to expect them. We're supposed to see them. We're supposed to see them for what they are. Ways of keeping us honest, ways of moving us along, ways of mastering the material of life. But Christians are also not only supposed to see the little tests and not be blind to them, but Christians are supposed to expect the big ones. It says in First Peter, chapter four, do not be surprised. This is a command from the Bible. Do not be surprised when the fiery trial comes upon you. A fiery trial, the big trial. Christians are not surprised, are never shocked. I tell you that a lot of the discouragement you go through in the face of the troubles that come upon you, sometimes 50, sometimes 75, sometimes 90% of the trouble you're having is surprise over the fact you're having trouble. It's not the trouble, it's your surprise about it. How could this be happening to me? You say, how could this be? Why is it happening to me? And a lot of the reason why you're down in the dust about it is not the trouble itself, but your reaction to the trouble. Christians are not shocked. Do not be surprised when the fiery trial comes upon you. Here you are at work and somebody comes up to you and Says, I want you to keep a lid on what you know. Do not tell the truth, or you will not only lose this job, but I will see to it that you never work again in this town. It's a fiery trial. In fact, you're surprised because you find yourself wanting to cave in. You're disappointed in yourself. It's a fiery trial. What are you going to do? One thing is you're not going to do is you're not going to be surprised. You're not going to say, how could this happen to me? Let's just say you help somebody out financially in a pretty big way. A person who you think is a stellar person, a person of character, a person of, you know, a person who keeps his or her promise. And that person takes you to the cleaner, to. Fiery trial. You're amazed at how violent your thoughts are. You're amazed at how you start to withdraw from people, how you don't want to help anybody anymore. It's a fiery trial, see? It's testing you. It's bringing out the worst in you. It's giving you an opportunity to come through and to change and to grow. Or else it'll be a trap. But it's a fiery trial. Why does this happen to me? Christians don't do that. Not if they've got their theology down, see? Or let's say you have this aspiration for a career and it takes some kind of physical dexterity. Maybe you want to be an athlete. Maybe, maybe it's you're a performer in some way. It takes physical dexterity and you come up lame and your career is over. Fiery trial. You're amazed at how bitter you are. You're amazed at the suicidal thoughts. Fiery trial. Christians are not shocked. Most people are. And here's why. I think there's something pretty amazing about this. You know, you have very, very conservative people. Conservative, moral, very religious, sometimes people. And over here you've got very, very liberal people. Free lifestyle, you know, do your own thing. As different as they are, the one thing I have found as a pastor is they're absolutely united on this fact. They have a naive understanding of life. And it goes like this. Good people who live good lives will have nice lives. Bad people who live bad lives will have difficult lives. That's the way it should be. That's the way things really are. And they're amazed when they find that good people often have bad lives and bad people have good lives. As different as those people are, they're absolutely bent out of shape when it comes to this because they're naive. They're simplistic. Christians are not. Why not? Because Christians look at the love of their life, the only man who really, truly was a good man, Jesus Christ, and they see him living a life of alienation and of rejection, a victim of injustice and oppression who dies a horrible death. See, Christians are fixed on Jesus. And when they look at the very best person living one of the most difficult lives ever, they realize that the cross now is the fundamental structure of life. Things aren't that simple in the hands of God. Deaths lead to resurrection and seeds die. But they come up flowers and mighty oaks, and coal goes under and comes under pressure, but becomes a diamond. And ore goes into the fire but becomes pure gold. And we know that that's what the cross tells us, that the way to resurrection is through death and the way to redemption is through sacrifice. And we know that. Here's Jesus saying, servants are not above their master. Christians are not shocked. Lead us not into temptation. Deliver us from evil. We pray that all the time. We expect it. We're making ourselves ready for it. We're preparing for it. And I. It's very practical. Do not be shocked. If you are shocked, you still don't see the cross. You don't understand the cross. You don't understand. The cross is the fundamental structure of the way life goes in this world. As long as history comes, continues. Jesus Christ, the best, had the hardest life. Follow me. He says Christians aren't shocked. All right, second thing. The second thing we learn here is not only are we supposed to expect tests, but secondly, we're told that in tests, the real enemy is evil, not pain. Look at the petition. This is the second thing you've got to keep in mind when you get into the test of life, your enemy is not the circumstances. It's not the discomfort. It's not the suffering. It's the. It's not the pain. That's not the enemy. That's not the thing you're praying about. It's evil. Now, you know, there's a couple ways of translating this. You'll see that the translation we have in front of you says, deliver us from the evil one. The Greek word is in such a form that it could be translated from evil or from the evil one. It doesn't matter. It either means, deliver me from doing evil or deliver me from doing what the evil one would have me do, which of course is evil. So it's the same thing. You notice if you only had the first half, if you only had the first Petition. Lead us not into temptation. If that's all Jesus said for us to say, you could get the impression that he's saying, get me out of here. Don't ever let me be tested. Get rid of the circumstances. Never let me be in trouble. However, the second half is a restatement. Lead us not into temptation, but rather it's another way of saying it. It's a positive way to say it, but it's the same. Look, deliver me from evil. That's what it means to escape temptation. That's what it means to pass the test. Jesus is saying, recognize this.