Prayer for Gloria So thankful for her life and testimony. Thankful for her confidence in you Prayer for the family Building Update If you were here two weeks ago, you may remember the building update we gave then. We felt like everything was stagnated. As much as we had tried, we just could not get things to move forward. People were not responding to us. And so we just applied the Lord's prayer to our situation. Lord, may your kingdom come, your will be done. You lead the way. Well, he has done exactly that. Through a series of events that is absolutely providential we have become aware of an opportunity that seems almost too good to be true. Sunday after church we were
contacted by a person in our body who has connections to the leadership at New Heights Church on Ustick between Five Mile and Maple Grove and let us know that their facility was going to soon be listed on the market. Their church has been going through some tough times and they are over their heads on the mortgage and need to sell. Their congregation has slowly diminished and now there is just too much building for them to maintain. So I was put in touch with the interim pastor and we immediately felt a connection. He filled me in on their story and what they were trying to accomplish. We prayed together. We both submitted the whole thing to the Lord. The elders toured the building on Monday and quite honestly, it's amazing. It's really everything we could have dreamed (and much
more) at a fraction of the price it would cost to build it new. The campus is 28,000 sqft with a total lot size of approximately five acres (compare that to our 12,000sqft facility on 3 acres. The sanctuary is currently for more than double what we have here and can seat even more than that. It has huge classrooms with connected bathrooms, a large spacious foyer, plenty of parking, a full commercial kitchen, and an outdoor patio. And if that weren't enough, it could not be more central to our church in terms of location. Here's a pin map of where you guys all live. That big red dot in the center is the new church. They are asking 3M dollars for the facility. After running the numbers as conservatively as we could, if giving remained constant,
we could very comfortably afford the facility with a positive cash flow of $4k a month. So we wouldn't need to raise funds to purchase it and anything we did raise could be use to offset our mortgage cost and help with move in expenses. Also, there is a Russian church that meets in the afternoons that if they were to stay would potentially be an additional 2k/month. So we are just thrilled at the way in which the Lord appears to be leading us. The land on Overland that we have been pursuing has got us in position to be ready to respond to this opportunity. We have been surveying every piece of real estate that has come to market in the last 12 months. We've looked at every building. We've got our financing in order. Nothing has appeared that is even half as good as this (and I'm not exaggerating). So we have perspective on what's out there and are able to recognize this as a unique opportunity that perfectly corresponds to our need. That is truly awesome and we are so so thankful to be in a position to respond. Once an offer is accepted we'll setup a time for you all to visit the building but until then just hang tight on that piece. From two weeks ago to today, nothing has changed. We continue to pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. That's what we want. It's so exciting, so exciting. If you have any feedback, please let us know. Let's pray. Introduction I once remember a while backing reading an article about an
experiment that intrigued me. The experiment was called the Standford Marshmallow experiment. The experiment was basically setup where a 4 year old child was told to sat at a table and stare at a marshmallow. And he was told that if he waited 15 minutes he would get something like 3 marshmallows. But if he wanted, he could eat it now. So it was kind of an experiment in delayed gratification. The researcher would then leave the room and the child was left all alone staring at the marshmallow. When I first heard that I thought, that has to land somewhere are the spectrum of child abuse. So this poor kid is sitting there and thinking, "Man I really love marshmallows. I want to eat that, like right now. But if I wait, I'll get more. What's better? And he just agonizes over the choice. And of course half the kids or more scarfed them down." Well those kids were followed and studied over the course of the next 30 years of their life. And almost without fail, the kids who were able to resist the temptation to eat the marshmallow at a young age were the ones who ended up being successful later in life. They were able to resist the temptation of short term gratification in order to secure a longer term payout. Now I want to use this experiment to talk about the nuances of temptation. Because temptation is not a simple concept. We are going to read in the Lord's prayer in a few moments where Jesus teaches us to say, "Lead me not into temptation." What Jesus is referencing there is certainly more significant than deliverance from the temptation of Marshmallows though that may apply. He's talking about something more serious. The word temptation is an interesting word in the Bible. It's actually
kind of hard to translate. It's a very full word. It's the Greek word πειρασμός which sometimes has the idea of test and sometimes has the idea of tempt. When it's translated test it has the idea of testing something to see what it's made of. You might test a piece of memory at Micron to see if it operates properly. You might test a sample of water to make sure it's not contaminated. You might test your batteries to see if they are full charged. In all those cases, your testing something to see what it's like. Is it what it appears to be? There's something invisible beneath the surface that only the test can reveal. And just like water, or batteries or memory you can test a man's character. You can test what's beneath the surface. There are certain situations, certain things that
you can introduce that can reveal what you can't see. This is the idea in James 1. It's the idea of saying consider The trial tests the man's faith. It tests his character. Prior to the test you didn't know. Was the guy just claiming to be a Christian because it was expedient, because he was conforming to social protocols, because being a Christian was a lever so that he could get something he wanted. You really don't know until you apply the test. You take away the comforts, apply some irritants to his life, add a little suffering and you'll know pretty quickly what the guy is really made of. The word testing in James 1 is that Greek word πειρασμός. But there is another way the word is used that has a totally different meaning. It has more the idea of temptation. This is where you attempt to entice someone into doing something wrong. It's used of
Satan when he tried to tempt the Lord in the wilderness. Satan was trying to entice Jesus to do something wrong. When we think of the word temptation we think of that force that comes either externally or internally that entices us to sin against God in some way. So we have this word πειρασμός that can be translated in either of these senses. Test or tempt? Temptation seeks to decieve you. Testing seeks to undecieve. Temptatation comes from Satan or the world. Testing comes from God. Temptation leads you away from Christ. Testing leads you toward Christ. They really are very different concepts and yet it's the same word. So how do you determine which one's which? Now I want to illustrate how difficult this is. Let's pretend for a moment that you are Bible translators. Now here you are. Your staring down the barrel of this verse and you have to decide to a translate it temptation or test. That's the semantic range of the word. Those are your options. So here's the verse. Knowing Greek gives you zero help this is a pure context related issue. This is the section of Luke where Jesus is giving the parable of the seeds. And he says in that section there was a farmer who sowed his seeds. And some fell on the path, and some fell on thorny ground and then he gets to the ones that fell on rocky ground.
What do you think? You are responsible for accurately translating the word of God. Don't mislead anyone. An entire nation of people depend on you to translate this accurately. Did the temptation cause them to fall away or did the testing call them to fall away? The ESV translates testing, NAS translates it temptation, NIV translates it tempting, KJV translates it temptation. So the translations are divided. How do you know which is which? The word is intended to be nebulous because whether or not it is a test or a temptation depends on the person who is being tested or tempted. What I'm trying to show here is that the concept of temptation and testing is actually a neutral concept. It's neither good nor bad. It's just there. The question is always, what do you do when it comes your way. It's kind of like a dollar bill. Is a dollar bill bad or good? It
depends. You can do bad things with it and you can do good things with it. But it's just there. We've talked about this same concept in other passages as it relates to the Greek word for lust and desire; those are different words in English but it's the same Greek word epithumia; and here you have the exact same concept. The desire is just there. It's neither good nor bad. The question is will you submit it. If you submitted, we translate it desire. If it's unsubmitted we translate it lust. Depending on what you do with that desire determines what category we are in. And that's the exact idea here. Depending on how you handle trials determines whether or not its a test or a temptation. Depending on how you respond to these hard situations that come your way, lets you know whether or not its a trial or a trap, whether it's a temptation or test. You could say it simply this way: succumbing to temptation is merely failing the test. Imagine a test where you were challenged to go 5 days without food. That would not be comfortable. Is that challenge more like a temptation or more like a test? If you cave in and eat, well it was like temptation. If you were able to withstand, it was more like a test. This by the way is what Paul meant in
God doesn't say, let me challenge you to go 300 days without food. That would be more than we could handle. It would crush us. That would be a test that would exceed our ability. God always provides tests such that we can pass them. All good tests are passable. But all good tests are also failable. They are revealing in this manner. Those who pass the test and prove themselves full of character will not be tempted and those who fail the test and prove themselves lacking character will will fall into temptation. As I was thinking about this this week, I guess the Lord brought this to mind, something I had not made right. I was at Lowes with my son Caleb and we bought some stuff and we were driving home and one way or another we ended up walking out of the store and not paying for something. And he said, "Hey dad, I think we didn't pay for that." And he was right. And we were pretty close to home."
What do you do there? There I was in the moment. Is that a test or a temptation? Well, it was both. It was a test of my character, but also a temptation to just ignore. So I said, "Well, next time we go to Lowes let's make it right. Well, guess what, that immediately flew out of my mind. I've been to Lowes a dozen times since then and haven't even thought of it once which reveals something doesn't it. It was a test and there was failure so it ended up being a temptation. So I went back to Lowes this week and bought a little item and then walked back in the store and put it on the shelf. So my conscious is clean but unfortunately I get no reward in heaven because I just told all of you the story. Bummer. But at least it's made right. Now that's a silly little thing. But what about the real tests in your life. That's just a little marshmallow test. It's a small thing, but how is going to translate to the big things? What about the thousand opportunities that come your way each day to test your character. The thousand things that come your way to reveal who you really are. What about opportunity to flirt with that person in the office? Will it be a temptation to commit adultery in the heart or a test revealing your character? What about that opportunity when you are in front of the computer alone and you are certain nobody is around? Will it be a temptation to sin with the eyes and heart or a test revealing your character? What about that opportunity you have to use a weekend for your own selfish use or serve another family? Will it be a temptation to be selfish or a test revealing your character? Do you see now the difference between a test and a temptation?
Now all that was setup so we can hear this portion of the prayer properly. Let's pray it together: Amen. Now hopefully you can hear this portion of the Lord's prayer with different ears. What exactly are we praying? If situations are just situations. If every situation is simply a test that if your character is weak turns into a temptation, if every temptation is just a failed test, then what are we really praying for when we say, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil? For years I've read this part of the prayer with confusion. I'd always be so curious what that meant - Lead me not into temptation? Whose leading? God? Am I supposed to pray for an easy life free of
temptation and tests? That doesn't sound right. So I was confused. I think the interpretive key is the phrase, 'deliver us from evil.' That gives us the best hint as to what we are really praying. Our prayer in saying lead us not into temptation is acknowledging that if we are going to be successful in that, we are going to need to be delivered from evil. And I think there are two forms of evil we need to be delivered from - external and internal. Let's start with the first: External evil. 1. Deliver us from the evil outside This is prayer to be saved from forces that are stronger than us. Jesus told the disciples in the garden
In other words, our flesh is weak. There are situations that could so easily break us. Satan could introduce a trial that in one second would crush us. At any minute he could throw a bus on top of you and say, Okay buddy, here' a test, see if you can stand up underneath this! That would snap our fragile character. Do you remember Job? I think about this all the time. Sometimes I feel spiritually bulletproof. I think, man, I love God. I feel like right now, I could endure anything. I have such a clear perspective. But then I just catch myself. Man, it wouldn't take much would it. I can almost hear Satan talking to God. "Does Jason fear you for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land?" (Job 1:9-10). A little bit of tragedy. Lose my house, my car, my job, my kids, my
wife. Wow, what would that do? I can almost hear Satan talking to God, "Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face." (Job 2:4-5)" All that happened to Job and the Bible says, "In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong" (Job 1:22). That was a test for job and he passed. But what about you? Do you think you could stand a direct assult of Satan like this? That is a sobering thought. It frightens me. Yes, I am weak. I am terribly weak. A thousand times more terribly weak than Job. Of course I would crumble. If I crumble at a tiny little test like Lowes. If I crack and throw little fits when things don't go my way, of course I would crumble. I need deliverance from the evil of Satan. But I also need deliverance from the evil of other people. There are certain people, certain situations that can come together, that I must confess are outside my ability to control. They would just crush me. They would crack me. I couldn't handle them. If I were a man of stronger character I might be able, but Lord you know my frame. You know what I can handle. To pray deliver us from evil in this sense is to pray back to God David's words in Psalm 103.
We are weak Lord. Help us in our weakness. But there is a second sense in which we must pray deliver us from evil.
2. Deliver us from evil within. So in this sense we are praying, "Lead us not into temptation by delivering us from the evil that is inside us that turns a test into a temptation!" As it relates to temptation, the kind of evil we are referring to is the evil of wanting the wrong things. This is one of the most fundamental problems with us isn't it? We don't love the right things. There is evil in our hearts which causes us to love the wrong things and to love the right things in the wrong order. That causes us to be tempted. Probably my favorite vs to illustrate this point is I love 1 Timothy 6:9 in this regard. God says through Paul,
Do you see the problem here? Do you see the connection between desiring the wrong things and temptation. In the case of money when we desire to be rich, we fall into temptation. So to remove temptation we need to remove the evil of desire. Do you see that connection? There are hundreds of evil desires that lead to temptation. An evil desire for sex. An evil desire for power. An evil desire for respect. An evil desire for property. An evil desire for revenge. The problem is not money. The problem is the desire to be rich. They want the wrong thing. The Bible is saying it's wrong to want to be rich. Now don't get me wrong. If you are rich, that's not wrong. It's just wrong to desire it. It's just the idea of wanting something God hasn't given you. It's the same concept of being blonde or brunette; tall or short. How has God made you? It's fine to be tall but it's not not okay to want to be tall if God made you short. So we are praying that God remove these unhealthy desires within us. That's one of the things we mean when we say "deliver us from evil." Now don't let that pass over too quickly. I want you to really come to terms with what we are asking God to do when we say deliver us from the evil within. I remember one time I purchased a lot of items from an auction and
in that lot was a one ounce gold bar. And I looked up on the Internet and the picture matched perfectly and I saw the price of once ounce of gold $1500 and I thought wow that's sweet. But I wonder if it's real. He looked at it and said, "I don't think it's real." And I said, well how can we know for sure? And he said, "Well, I can put some on acid on it if you really want to test it. But if it's not real, I just want to warn you, it will ruin your bar." Well I didn't care. I wanted to see the experiment. So we took it outside an he dropped two drops of acid on it and it started bubbling and fizzing and sure enough, in about 10 seconds the gold plating had sizzled away and a dark brown metal emerged underneath. It was ruined. What's the only way that gold bar could have passed the test? If it was gold and not something else. The acid just revealed what was there. It was a test and the fake gold bar failed. So if we are praying, God help me to pass the test. Save me from temptation, make the things that comes my way a test not a temptation, what's the only way that can happen? By changing us. He's got to make us into the real thing. To say deliver us from evil, to say lead me not into temptation is really to say change my desires. Change what I want. Change what I care about. Fundamentally change me so when that acid hits me I resist it not because I am strong or powerful, but because I'm fundamentally, chemically something that does not react with it. I've been modified at my root such that my material composition allows me to pass the test. Listen, if you pray, "Lord lead me not into temptation" and you mean by that deliver me from every hard situation you've missed the point. That would be the worst prayer for God to answer. Why? Because nothing has changed. Back to our gold analogy. Does removing the
test, make the fake gold real? NO! Does removing pressure from your life and trials and suffering all of the sudden turn you into a godly person? By no means. Instead, we need to pray lead me not into temptation BY delivering us from the evil within and spare me from tests I can't handle in the meantime. Change me at a DNA level. Cause me to morph into new creatures. One of the best ways of doing this (besides of course praying this prayer often) is by focusing on the cross. The Cross and Sanctification That's what we want to do for a moment here. Today is communion Sunday and communion has always been termed by theologians as means of grace. What they mean by that is that God gives us certain means that are available to us that will help us change. So if I say, by what means are you going to build that couch? You might say with a nail gun and glue and a hammer. They are tools of power you need in order to build it. Or I could say, by what means are you going to get to India? By United Airlines or Delta or something like that. You can't actually do it without these things, but you do have to make a decision to utilize them. And communion is God's means
Every time we remember Christ and his work on the cross for us, it draws us in so that we participate in his death. We remember it. It changes our affections. It delivers us further from the evil within. It steers our feet away from the evil outside of us. So I want to take a moment and lead us through a time of confession and reflection as we approach communion this morning.