Good morning and welcome to worship this morning. Our call to worship comes from Psalm 122. I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together, whether the tribes go up the tribes of the Lord unto the testimony of Israel to give thanks unto the name of the Lord. For there are set thrones of judgment and thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, that they prosper, that love thee. Peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions' sake, I will now say, peace be within thee. Because of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek thy good. Let's turn in our Bibles to our Scripture reading, which can be found in the General Epistle of James. We'll be reading chapter 1, the entire chapter. James 1. Hear the word of our Lord. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, Greetings. My brethren, count it all joy that ye fall into divers' temptations, knowing this, that the trine of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith nothing wavering, for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. Let the brother of low decree rejoice in that he is exalted, but the rich, in that he is made low because of the flower of the grass, he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth. So also shall the rich man fade away in his ways. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brother, and every good gift of every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begot he us with the word of truth that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass. For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God endures forever. When we look at the Christian life, we quickly discover, as we're living the Christian life, that it's not an easy life. Sometimes when we first become believers, we're prone to think that because we're now converted, because we've now been born again, now become Christians, that the road ahead is going to be an easy one. a road in which we will sail easily through any difficulties we encounter, a road in which we will constantly be on an upward trajectory until we reach heaven. And then what we quickly come to realize is that, yes, the Christian life is a blessed life, it's a joyful life, But it certainly is not an easy life. Scripture tells us that we have a race to run. We have a good fight to fight. We have a war to battle in. And in this life, we will face trials. And we will face an enemy who goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. A roaring lion seeking to destroy us. We will face this world which is aligned with the devil. And we will face the consistent weary fight, the consistent weary battle of warring against our own flesh. This is a war This is a race, this is a life in which if we battle on our own, if we battle without Christ, we will lose. There are too many enemies. Enemies that are strong, enemies that are experienced, enemies that know us better even than we know ourselves. You know, if you look in old history books, you can see maps of wars. You can see where all the different armies were, what the strengths were of the armies. And if we could look at this war, if we could look at a map of this war, and if we were to line up our resources, our own personal resources, and we're to line up the resources of the enemy, If we were to look at our position and we were to look at our enemy's position, our only conclusion could be that we're facing a losing battle. A battle in which we will be wiped out and destroyed. And all this is true if we are fighting this battle on our own, if we're fighting this war outside of Christ. depending only on our personal resources. But thanks be to God, we are not on our own. We have an amazing general, an all-powerful king, ruler of a glorious kingdom who aids us, who empowers us, his subjects, in our fight against temptation and sin. And here, in the Lord's Prayer, Our King calls us. Calls us, His soldiers, His subjects, to pray to Him. To ask Him for aid in our fight against sin and temptation. And Jesus shows us in this text how to pray this. He says, Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen. Our Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 52, addresses this last petition of the Lord's Supper as well. And the final doxology of the Lord's, I'm sorry, of the Lord's Prayer as well. And we can find it on page 18 in the back of our Psalters. Question and answer 127 through 129. Question 127. Which is the sixth petition? And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. That is, since we are so weak in ourselves that we cannot stand a moment, and besides this, since our mortal enemies, the devil, the world, and our own flesh cease not to assault us, do thou therefore preserve and strengthen us by the power of thy Holy Spirit, that we may not be overcome in this spiritual warfare, but constantly and strenuously may resist our foes till at last we obtain a complete victory. Question 128. How dost thou conclude thy prayer? For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. That is all these we ask of thee, because thou, being our King and Almighty, art willing and able to give us all good. and all this we pray for that thereby not we but thy holy name may be glorified forever. Question 129, what doth the word amen signify? Amen signifies it shall truly and certainly be for my prayer is more assuredly heard of God that I feel in my heart that I desire these things for him. Our sermon this morning is titled, The Christian's Response to Temptation. And we'll be looking at three things. First, identifying temptation's danger. Two, trusting God in temptation. And three, fighting against temptation. Christ teaches His disciples this petition from the Lord's Prayer towards the beginning. of his ministry. He's not only teaching them the fundamentals of prayer here when he teaches them the Lord's Prayer, but he's actually equipping his disciples, he's equipping the saints to engage, equipping them to engage in spiritual warfare. And we know that these disciples, they will be strongly attacked. Not only from their old nature, but by the master tempter himself. We heard about this last week. Peter had just confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God. And then he was tempted. He didn't want a suffering and crucified Savior. but he wanted one that was honored and accepted by the world. He was tempted to reject the way of salvation for the way of ease and worldly honor. And this is why Jesus told Peter, get thee behind me, Satan. Jesus recognized that this was a temptation from Satan, a temptation for Peter, but also even for Jesus himself. But the tempter would continue to tempt the disciples. We see that Peter and the other disciples will face incredible trials and temptations both as disciples and later as apostles. And they would find themselves, as our catechism states, so weak in themselves that they could not, they cannot stand a moment. But we know, looking back, that they did stand. And this wasn't because these disciples were strong in themselves, but because they found their strength in their Lord. They realized how serious sin was. They realized how serious temptation was. And so as we face trials and temptations ourselves, in ourselves we too are weak against our mortal enemies, the devil, the world. and our own flesh. And perhaps we look at the temptations we face and we begin to despair because we question if in fact we are able to endure. If we're able to resist temptation. We even see prominent Christians fall into gross sins or entirely fall away from the faith itself and we think if they could stand or if they couldn't stand How can I? Or perhaps we constantly find ourselves falling to temptation. It grieves us. But yet, when we face this temptation again, we again fall into sin and we question, will we ever be able to overcome the sin in my life? We are fickle creatures tossed to and fro, tossed and turned by the allure of the world, prone to strain because of the selfishness, the pride, and the unbelief that remains within us. I'm paying entirely too much attention to the lies of the world and the lies of Satan. We have a three-headed enemy, Satan who goes about as a roaring lion, the world which is under His influence, plying us with its deadly charm, and our old nature striving to indulge in that which is contrary to our new nature. All these enemies in our lives are there seeking to legitimize sin, to soften its seriousness, to downplay its consequences, and time and time again we find ourselves buying into this lie. Indulging in what we shouldn't. And consequently deadening the joy of Christ in our hearts. We need to stop taking sin lightly. We need to learn that sin is wicked and it's deadly. Yes, if you're a Christian, if you're a believer, it may no longer condemn you. It may no longer keep you out of glory. But it still will destroy your life here. It will dishonor your God. It will harm those around you. and it will make void your witness. We don't have to look far to see the havoc that sin causes in even believers' lives. We must, of course, consider the first sin that Adam committed. Look at the immeasurable corruption and evil that sin brought upon the world. And then look at the devastating effects that the sins of Eli, of Samson, of David, of Solomon, and of Peter, the effects those sins had. And even if we look here in our own hearts, in our own lives, or even in this church, we see the effects of sin upon us, how it greatly dishonors God, how it minimizes our witness, but it also shatters families. It destroys marriages. It wrecks friendships. And overall, it makes us miserable Christians. I was speaking with one of my seminary professors a few years ago following the downfall of a prominent Christian pastor And he said this, he said, now, my hope and prayer is not that I would become famous or even well known. My hope isn't that I would pastor a huge church or have a huge following. My hope is that I do not fall, that I endure until the end, that I am faithful to my Lord, And then when I meet Him in glory, He says, Well done, thou good and faithful servant. And so this should be our goal as Christians. Not to finish the race faithfully. Not looking to the side. Not getting distracted by the world. Not being deceived by the fatal attraction of sin. but loving, honoring, and serving our great God and Savior who gave Himself for us so that we might enjoy Him in this life and forever. Yes, we face a strong enemy, but He's a beaten enemy, an enemy that can no longer lay claim to us, an enemy whose power is minute in comparison to our Lord's. But yet an enemy who still will do all he can to get us to fall into sin. An enemy who will do all he can to get us to deny our Lord. He cannot overthrow God and His kingdom. And therefore, he turns to God's people and he attacks them. So what do we do in this great fight? Do we lay down our arms and vainly hope that our three-headed enemy somehow leaves us alone? Do we give up and only half-heartedly follow Christ because we know that if we're a believer, we're going to glory anyways? Do we resign ourselves to lukewarmness? No. We take up arms. We put on the full armor of God, and by and through His grace, we run the race that is set before us. We fight the good fight, and as we fight this fight, as we face temptation, we do so not by trusting in ourselves, but by trusting God to lead us not into temptation, but to deliver us from evil. Though this battle seems dauntless, the comfort here is that we can endure. We can endure as long as our hope and our trust and our foundation is in Jesus Christ. We must arm Himself with His righteousness, with His strength, and use the means that He gives us to resist temptation. And right here, in this petition from the Lord's Prayer, He's given us means. He's given us a weapon. He's given us the weapon of prayer to fight this battle. And He shows us an example of what this prayer looks like. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. This is the sixth and final petition of the Lord's Prayer in which we're requesting the Lord to not bring us into situations in which we are tempted, Some would argue that this is a petition in which we're only requesting the Lord not to bring us into temptation greater than we could bear, to not place us under temptation that is impossible for us to resist. I would argue with this, though. I would argue that this is a general request, that this remains a general request to the Lord, that we not be tempted at all. For the Lord not to lead us into temptation of any kind, especially of course including those temptations that are difficult to fight. Temptation is not pleasant to any Christian. No Christian desires to face it. And just as we pray for the Lord to help us, just as we prayed for the Lord to deliver us from unpleasant circumstances, to deliver us from unpleasant trials, so we can pray that the Lord would deliver us from all temptation. We know, just like the Lord doesn't deliver us from all trials, so He will not deliver us from all temptation. We know that God in His sovereignty directs it so that we face trials for His sake, so that we face hardship for His sake, that He directs persecution and ridicule upon us, that He directs illness and trouble upon us. As He directs those things upon us, so He also allows us to be tempted. But when we are faced with temptation, we need not despair, because we know that this temptation is under the sovereign control of our good God. We know that although the enemy in this fight, our three-headed enemy, intends us to fall, we can trust that the Lord is using this temptation to test us, to try us, to teach us, and to build up our faith. And one thing that must be made clear, that though the Lord directs trials, though the Lord directs temptations to come our way, though He has full control over everything that's happening, one thing must be made clear, the Lord has never, He will never, and He cannot tempt us with evil. James 1 verse 13 plainly says, But God can use these temptations. He can use these evil temptations that come our way for our own good. We, of course, remember Joseph. What Joseph went through, the evil things that Joseph went through, but yet God used for good, and Joseph recognized that. Joseph said, but as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. And we know Romans 8.28, all things work together for good for those who love God. Even the temptations that we face. Sometimes we may think that God is being cold and calculating. He's using these things in a cold and calculating way to accomplish His purpose in our lives, to build up our faith. And even though when we're in the middle of temptation and we wonder, why isn't God delivering us from this? Why do I have to endure this? We have to remember that our Lord is a good God. He is a God that does not leave us at the mercy of Satan and his minions, nor does He give the world unrestricted access to tempt us. He does give us the grace of the Holy Spirit to drive back our old nature, preventing it from having unrestrained influence in our lives. We must remember, too, we only see and experience those temptations that the Lord has allowed to come our way. Have you ever considered the countless times that the Lord has prevented us from temptation? Have you ever considered, and only eternity will reveal the thousands of times He has protected us protected us and prevented evil from befalling us. We only see those times when He allows temptation to come through so that He can use it for good. In addition, we must consider we have a Savior who is praying for us at the mercy seat of God. We see Jesus already doing this in the New Testament. When Peter was being tempted. And Jesus said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not." Therefore, as we face temptation, we know we can run to our Savior. We know we can run to Him when we are tempted. We know that we need not face temptation alone, but we can rely on the One who has sovereign control Overall, we can rely on Him to deliver us from evil. He gives us this prayer, this petition to cry out to Him when we are tempted to sin. He gives us this prayer to cry out to Him for protection, to protect us from going down the path of evil, to keep us from falling into the devil's snares. And we know that our great God can and will strengthen us by the power of His Holy Spirit so that we are able to resist temptation. He tells us in 1 John 4, verse 4, that greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. We are not on our own in our fight against sin and temptation, for the Lord has placed His Holy Spirit within you, dear believer. And because of Him, you through His power can successfully defeat sin and evil. And this is only possible because Jesus Himself, Jesus Himself was greatly tempted by Satan and He overcome. He overcame these great temptations. And His Spirit, the Holy Spirit that proceedeth from Him, now dwells within you, enabling you to resist temptation. Jesus gives us this prayer. He gives us this petition to pray so that When tempted, we would direct our eyes to Him so that in our temptation we would find the strength to resist. For our eyes would be focused on our great Savior and what He has done. So that we would focus on Him and that we would be motivated through His strength to resist all evil. Therefore, tempted believer, Therefore, backslidden Christian, you who are tired of succumbing and giving in to temptation, you who are tired of your sin, and possibly you're sitting here right now and Satan is whispering to you, he's pointing to the sin in your life, he's accusing you, and he's wishing for you to despair and turn away from the Lord. His desire is that you would keep looking at yourself, that you would keep looking at your sin, and that you would keep falling into that sin. But now, right now, look up. Look up to your Savior. Look at what He has done. Look at the promises He has set before you. Consider how He resisted temptation for your sake. Consider that He suffered and died on the cross so that you no longer need sin. Forsake the sin that is so easily besetting you. Dust off your armor. And by the power of God's Holy Spirit, go and fight the good fight. This is what all of us should be doing. Every day, fighting the good fight. We need to be fighting against the sin and temptation in our lives. It may seem that it's a losing battle, sometimes. But temptation will harass us. And we will continue to be tempted in this life. But we must know, we must believe that we can, by God's grace, deal deadly blows to the sin in our lives. James 4 verse 7 makes it clear where it says, resist the devil and he will flee from you. And I would say our foremost weapon against temptation, there's many practical things, I'm going to mention some of them in a little bit, but our foremost weapon against temptation, against sin, is to have our eyes fixed upon Jesus. Hebrews 12 urges us to run the race which is set before us. It tells us to look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. having our hearts, having our minds focused on our Lord is the key to overcoming temptation. If we are focused on who our Lord is, if we are focused on what He's done for us, if we believe the Gospel and believe what He says about our new identity, how we are found in Him, that He has given Himself for us, If we believe what He says about Himself in Scripture, that we've been made into new creatures, and we will, as Paul says, reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. I can think of no greater remedy against temptation and to love our Lord with our whole heart, to delight in Him, to live in communion with Him, to be captivated by our God's person. On this petition in the Lord's Prayer, this is This helps us to do this. It focuses us on our Lord. It makes us realize that He is the key to us overcoming temptation. It is He who has the entire situation in His hands. It is He who will lead us out of temptation. It is He who delivers us or snatches us from evil. We see this with Joseph when he faced temptation. No doubt his mind, his heart was focused on the Lord for he said, how can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? He was thinking of God's goodness and mercy to him. Thinking of, but also thinking about how amazing, how Awesome God is for Joseph also feared God He had a reverent awe for his God and he would not dare sin against him So likewise the fear of God ought to motivate us it ought to Spur us on to resist temptation. We must have in our minds the glory the power of God and You must see His hatred for sin, and this should make us flee from sin. It should make us also hate sin. Seeing God's infinite hatred for sin should make us realize how evil and how treacherous it really is, and how we should not dare go anywhere near it. Now, there are, of course, some other things we can do, some more practical things that we can do that will help us in our fight against temptation. I'm going to talk just about a couple of them here briefly. When you're tempted, open your Bibles and begin reading. Begin reading about the Lord. Read about Jesus being tempted and ask Him for the power to imitate Him. When you're tempted, pray. If you do not know what to pray, pray this very petition we're looking at today. O Lord, lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil. We know God delights to hear our prayers. We know God answers our prayers. He will deliver us from evil. When you're tempted, sing. Drive away the temptation. by lifting up God's name in prayer or in praise. Be watchful. Richard Baxter says, be thoroughly acquainted with your temptations and the things that may corrupt you and watch against them all day long. You should watch especially the most dangerous of the things that corrupt and those temptations that either your company or business will unavoidably lay before you. Know what sins you are prone to. And if you see that the temptation is too great, flee. Again, Joseph, we see this happening in his life. When he's being coerced to sin with Potiphar's wife, he left his garment in her hand and he fled. And so, When we face temptation, that seems too great. Immediately remove yourself from that situation. Go to a different place. Find a godly, find godly company. Call a godly friend and pray with them. Turn off your computer. Pick up your Bible. And concentrate on good things. We must be determined and motivated in fighting sin. We're not passive in this. We know that there is no temptation that taketh you, but such is common to man. We know that we're not tempted above that we're able to resist. Let's be determined and motivated to fight against sin. The Lord is faithful. He provides a way of escape. So be encouraged knowing that with the Lord by your side you can withstand temptation. You through the power of the Holy Spirit can successfully fight sin. Overcome besetting sin and walk more closely with your Lord. Looking back at the disciples who were first taught this petition from the Lord's Prayer. We see that they did endure. They successfully ran the race. They were powerful witnesses of the Lord to their countrymen and to the nations. The Lord preserved them and kept them from falling. I did, no doubt, regret those sins that they committed. James and John no doubt spent the rest of their lives regretting their pride and wanting to sit at Jesus's right and left hand Peter For the rest of his life mourned the fact that he denied Jesus and no doubt Thomas Bemoaned the fact that he doubted Jesus Yet They were wonderfully preserved through their lives, through difficult temptations, through hardship and through persecution. And were greeted in glory with, Well done, thou good and faithful servant. But one disciple did fall, didn't he? Judas sought to stand on his own. He sought to go his own way. And he fell to temptation. He became a tool in Satan's hand in his attempt to destroy Jesus. He wasn't a believer. He didn't have the Holy Spirit and His grace to fight against Satan. And he easily gave in to his own sinful desires to advance himself. And consequently, he fell And he betrayed Jesus. Judas stood on his own. He thought he was strong enough. He had no need for the gospel that he continuously heard. He no doubt thought he could stand on his own. That he could fight any temptations that came his way. He thought himself, no doubt, a moral man. Able to fight against sin and evil. Satan led him along and Judas cooperated with Satan. And his evil purposes. This led Judas ultimately to despair. This led Judas ultimately to his death. And now eternity in hell. Some of you here tonight, like Judas, you too have no need for the gospel. You do not have the foundation of God's grace and His Spirit to successfully withstand temptation. Perhaps you know you are not saved, or perhaps you think you are, but are deceiving yourself. Either way you stand entirely alone facing the enemy. An enemy who is content often to let you continue on the way that you are going. Continue on your way to destruction. You stand alone facing the world and you continue on ensnared in your own sin. You may think you can stand and fight this enemy, but the Bible is plain when it says, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. For if you continue on your own way, depending on your own righteousness, depending on your own strength, depending on a foundation other than Jesus Christ, The day will come when this great spiritual war ends. And you will find that you were actually fighting on the wrong side. And actually that you lost this war. And then you will go to be with Satan in eternal destruction. I pray this does not happen to one person here. I pray that each of us would repent of our sins. That each of us would believe the gospel. That we would run to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that we, all of us here, would live the rest of our lives loving the Lord. knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, that we would live the rest of our lives as comrades in arms with all having on the full armor of God, all of us fighting on His side and fighting for His glory. And I pray that as all of us, I pray that this prayer is fulfilled and that all of us will We'll fight as we praise God with the doxology at the end of the Lord's Prayer. Praising God, saying, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. This doxology, as we continue in our fight, is our comfort as well. It reminds us again that our God, the God whom we are depending on to lead us through temptation, That this is the God who will lead us through temptation. That this is the God who delivers us from evil. That He is the omnipotent God of all creation. He rules over all. He rules over Satan and his devils. He has defeated sin and its effects. And right now He is purging sin from our hearts. We can rejoice with this doxology, glorifying our great God for His preserving grace, leaning on His power as we fight the good fight each day. The fight is hard, but we know the day is coming when all of our tears will be wiped away, when we will no longer be tempted, when we will no longer sin. for our Savior, our Great General, our Great King is coming back. He will declare His victory and He will bring us to be with Him in glory where we will spend eternity forever joyously proclaiming Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Our faithful Lord in heaven, we thank Thee, O Lord, for this prayer, that we can pray this prayer knowing that Thou will help us to fight temptation. So, Lord, in this week, in this day, we pray that each of us here would be... would fight against sin, that each of us here Seek to glorify thy name for all eternity that we would see the seriousness of sin How destructive it is and that we would? Turn to thee for our strength and our hope that we would take up the full armor of god And fight against temptation So lord lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil And we pray this in jesus name amen