We come, this morning, to the final look at the text of Luke chapter 11 verses 1 through 4 in the series, "Lord, Teach Us to Pray." How important is this, huh? Heaven is full of resources waiting to be dispensed on our behalf by a gracious and loving Father and all that is required is that we ask according to His will and purpose. And the floodgates of heaven are opened for us. God is not stingy, He is generous. His grace is super-abundant when we ask.



We're learning how to pray and Jesus is our teacher. Luke 11, and when Jesus taught His disciples that day in Judea, He said to them, in verse 2, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation."



Now you remember that it was months earlier in Galilee in the Sermon on the Mount, according to Matthew 5 through 7, that Jesus also gave this model prayer and there is recorded a more full version than this, but very, very parallel. You will also remember that in Matthew's edition of this we have added in verse 2, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," so that you really have three petitions at the outset that are directed at the glory of God, "Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done," followed then by three petitions directed at our needs, "Give us our bread, forgive us our sins, and lead us not into temptation." This is how we pray. The priority is for the glory of God: first His glory, then our need. And, in fact, every element of this prayer in Luke could be directed at God Himself, He is the focus of them all. When we say "Father," we acknowledge Him as source. When we say "Hallowed be Thy name," we acknowledge Him as sacred. When we say, "Thy kingdom come," we acknowledge Him as sovereign. When we say, "Thy will be done," we acknowledge Him as superior. When we say, "Give us this day our daily bread," we acknowledge Him as supplier. When we say, "Forgive us our sins," we acknowledge Him as Savior. And finally we come to the last petition, and when we say, "Lead us not into temptation," we acknowledge Him as shelter.



He is our covering wing. He is our hiding place. He is, as we read this morning in Psalm 62, our refuge. He is the rock we run to. And so Jesus says, "When you pray say, 'And lead us not into temptation.'" And in the Matthew account, of course, Jesus also added this, Matthew 6:13 says, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," or as the New King James says, "From the evil one."



And, you know, every one of these petitions expresses the affirmation of a promise God has already made? His name will be hallowed. His kingdom will come. His will is to be done. He will supply all that we need to sustain our life physically. He will forgive our sins if we ask. And I promise you this: He will not lead us into sin.



You see, in the praying here you're simply lining up with what God has already promised. You're bringing your life into harmony with his will already expressed and revealed. This is part of what it means to follow Christ. "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself." When you came to Christ, it was the end of you. Your life was over in terms of your own agenda, your own personal ambition, goals, dreams, plans, desires. And from now on it's: "Father, Your name, Your kingdom, Your will, I want only what You promised, physical sustenance, forgiveness from my sins, and protection from temptation that could ruin me."



When you think about your future, what do you pray about? When you look at your future, when you think ahead, what do you pray about? What do you pray for the people you love the most? What do you tell God you want in the future for your kids, for your spouse, for your friends? I think probably if they don't know Christ, if they have not been regenerated and justified and set right before God and received eternal life, you're probably very concerned about praying for their salvation, right? That's probably the first thing you think of. And then right behind that is probably the idea that you're thinking, "Well, I need to pray for their physical well-being so they can stay alive long enough to come to Christ." But when somebody has become a believer, and somebody is a Christian, and you're looking down the road and wanting to sort of pray in their behalf, what do you pray for? You can't pray for some other believer that God would forgive their sins in that relational sense we talked about last time because that's conditioned on their own confession, isn't it, and their own repentance. So what do you pray about?



Typically, we pray that God will protect them and usually it's in the physical realm. Or that God will give them something that they desire, or something they want, or allow them to do this, or to do that, or be protected from some injury or whatever. But our prayers that reach into the future on behalf of each other collectively are bound up in that last petition, "Lead us not into temptation." That's what we ought to be praying for each other. And you'll notice the verb is...or the pronoun is plural here, "Lead us not into temptation," it's sort of a collective prayer here. It's like that all the way through, really: Forgive us, give us, lead us not.



What should we be praying about for each other? Materially we need bread. Spiritually we need forgiveness. Morally we need protection. And we need to pray more about that moral protection than we do about that physical protection. Yeah, we pray that people might not be ill, they might not contact some disease, that they might not have to go through a surgery, etc., etc., etc., and certainly we can bring those things before the Lord. But here we find Jesus teaching us to pray into the future with regard to where our lives are going that could become potentially ruinous, ruinous. And that's not necessarily related to illness, disease, or tragedy; because very often those are the most spiritually strengthening events that ever happen in anybody's life. What we need to pray about has to do with our moral direction.

Read more; Lead Us Not into Temptation

In-guild discussion on Eternal Security of the Believer.

Resources;
Are You Secure in the Father's Love? (Audio)
The Armour of God. (A good reminder)
Would God Actually Use Evil to Draw Us to Himself?