Lead Us Not Into Temptation, Part II

The last time I was here, a couple weeks ago, you remember we began talking through a very familiar set of scriptures in Matthew 6, verses 10-13, I think it is. The world calls out the Lord's Prayer. It's really the model prayer that Jesus Christ gave us when he was speaking to his disciples. He said, in this manner, pray. We were digging down, drilling down into those verses you will to see.

What did Christ mean? Because when he gives words, it has a lot more meaning than just the words that are there. Sometimes verses and phrases and whatever can become so familiar with us, we've lost the meaning of it. We have to take the time to go back and study those words and see what was Christ's intent.

What was he saying? We all want our prayers to come up before God as fine incense, beaten small, something that God will listen to and pray. He tells us, I will hear your prayer, I will answer, but we have to approach God in the way that he tells us to. Christ gave us that model prayer, if you will, that manner that we should pray, if you will.

We began to go through it last time and we went through several of the phrases that were in there. We talked about, just as Jesus Christ, every word that he spoke in that prayer has meaning to us. He started off with our Father. He didn't say, my Father, your Father, our Father.

He's our brother. We're all part of the same family. We all look to the same Father. That God has bind us together in that. When he calls us and we commit to him and we're baptized and we receive his Holy Spirit, he's our Father. All of us have the same Father. And that Father does all the things that we would expect the Father to do. That we would expect our physical Father to do, but God does so much more.

Literally, we look to him for everything. There isn't anything in life that you can think of that God doesn't provide. He provides physically and spiritually. He is our Creator. He is our provider. He is our sustainer. He is our Savior. We look to him for everything. He is so interested in every single one of us. What he wants is that we will all be in his kingdom. He sees you and me and everyone that follows him as his children. He takes a keen interest in all of us, just like we take a keen interest in our children.

We want our children to grow up to be productive members of society following God. God takes that interest in us and he wants us to be there with him when Jesus Christ returns and establishes his kingdom on earth. He provides all those things to us. We talked about him being in heaven. What the atmosphere in heaven is like. It's a joyous, happy place in heaven.

It's not like what we have on earth where there's division and strife and concern. They're all focused in heaven on one thing that is part of the plan of God right now. That's the return of Jesus Christ. The people here below that are sons and daughters of Christ being ready for that return and getting themselves ready as we use God's Spirit, and as we use his Spirit and his strength to become more and more like Jesus Christ as we deny self and yield to him. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. We talked about what does that mean because probably the only time we use the word hallowed is when we think about that phrase.

But it means keep your name. May your name be kept holy. That's not God's responsibility. That's not Jesus Christ's responsibility. It's our responsibility to keep his name holy. It's the way we do things in our everyday life. It's the way we think. It's the way we react. It's the way we live in our 24-hour day, 7-day life a week. When people see us, do they look at it and say, there's something different about them. I can trust them. They're always happy. They're always cooperative. They're always whatever the word is. They're always honest. And they reflect well their Father's name. May your name be kept holy.

That's your and my responsibility. And as we come before God in prayer, he looks at us. We talked about what are the attitudes. Are the people living? Living the things that I have taught them. Or are they just words to them? And so God looks at our motives and he looks at our hearts as we come before him in prayer, as well as our words. Hallowed be thy name. And the last thing we talked about last time was thy kingdom come. And we talked about, you know, those are words we say that we probably say every day. Excuse me. That we say every day.

But do we really mean those words? Because when we say, thy kingdom come, do we understand what we're saying? Because when they pray in heaven or when they say, thy kingdom come in heaven, they know what that means. They know what happens between today and the return of Jesus Christ when his kingdom will come to earth. Do we pray it in the same way? Is it something that, yes, it's a nice thing to think about Jesus Christ coming? Do we feel it? Is it in our hearts? Is it something that we pray that God looks at us and says, yes, they really are praying for my kingdom come.

They're not just giving me lip service. They're not just repeating something that they've heard. But they actually do want my kingdom to come because they understand how much better it will be for all of mankind.

And like God and like Jesus Christ, they love mankind so much that they want them to experience the goodness and the greatness of God that you and I have the benefit of experiencing today. And that's where we finish. But let's continue in that prayer. You can turn to Matthew 6 if you would like and look at the next phrase.

The first part of the prayer there is really, as you look at it, the attitudes that we come before God in. You know, we don't come before Him in prayer and, you know, our Father in heaven and then just start reciting to Him all of our needs. We want this. We want that. Do this. Do that. But we come to Him with an attitude of reverence and awe, recognizing who He is, what He is, what He wants for us, and that we are totally, totally dependent on Him and reliant on Him.

So in verse 10 of Matthew 6, we talked about your kingdom come. Let's talk about your will be done. Your will be done. And this would be the attitude, again, that we come before Him. That we wouldn't just say these words every day before God because He says just don't do the vain repetition like the heathens do in so many of the churches.

Just not say the words. Understand the motive. Understand the attitude. Your will be done. Again, that's a phrase that we use all the time. I think there's probably not a day that goes by that I don't pray. Your will be done. But we have to think about what we're saying.

What is His will? How do we stop and think, what is God's will? When we say those words, are we cognizant of it? Let's go back and look at a few verses here in the Bible because it tells us what God's will is. Let's look at 2 Peter 3. 2 Peter 3 and verse 9. A familiar verse. In the end of it, it says exactly what God's will is for you and me and for all of mankind. 2 Peter 3 verse 9. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise.

As some count slackness. But He's long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. That's His will. That all will come to repentance. And notice the verse doesn't say, He's not willing that any should perish, but that He can give everyone eternal life. That is what His will is, but the first part of that is repentance. Turning from our way, recognizing Him, learning to accept His will, learning to pray for His will, learning to do His will. And that's a monumental mind shift when we come out of the world. And as we live the life that God has called us to, to be mindful of what His will is versus what our will is.

And through the rest of our lives, we learn that more and more. He's not willing that any should perish.

He didn't create man so that a good portion of them will die a second death, an eternal death. He created them because He wanted them to live. But they have to accept His will. We have to accept His will. We have to learn His will, and we have to practice it in our lives and deny self. Let's go back to 1 Timothy 2. 1 Timothy 2 and verse 3.

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved, who desires all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. That's what His will is. And in His plan, we know that God has made it possible that every man and woman and child who ever have lived and will live will come to the knowledge of His truth.

They will be exposed to it. Your day and my day is today. Today is the day that God has chosen to open our minds. For the rest of humanity, it's at a later time. And we'll talk about that at the Feast of Tabernacles and on the last great day. But God will say that everyone has a chance to accept Him. The same opportunity that God gives us today to follow Him, to know Him, to come to the knowledge and live our lives in respect and awe and reverence of Him, all mankind will have. That's what His desire is. And His plan includes every single man, woman, and child who has ever lived. You know, when you look at the truth of God, there's no other church except the church of God that is teaching that on the face of earth today. No one else teaches that. But a loving God who says that He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, a loving God includes all of mankind, but just not all today, but in the time that He has established. So we see a few things here that what God's will is. Go back a couple books to 1 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians 4.

And pick it up in verse 3.

Paul writes, For this is the will of God, your sanctification. He has set you apart. He wants you apart from the world. He has made you a body, His own special people, His own treasure on earth.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you should abstain from sexual immorality. And he uses a sin that was so common in the Gentile world and among the churches, the people that were coming in at that time, fill in any of the sins there. His will is that you should abstain from sexual immorality or whatever it is, you know, that our sin that does so easily beset us is. That each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor. That we live our lives and we defer to God and we respect Him and we allow His Holy Spirit to teach us and guide us into how to live our lives in honor of Him. Not in passion of lust like the Gentiles who don't know God, that no one should take care, take advantage of and defraud his brother in this manner because the Lord is the Avenger. Of all such as we forewarned you and testified, God does not call us to unclean this, but in holiness. That's what His will is. And He makes it possible without Him, without His Holy Spirit, it's impossible for us to be that. Verse 8, you know, He finishes the thought. He says, therefore, He who rejects this does not reject man but God who has given us His Holy Spirit. God's will is this and He gives us His Holy Spirit so that that can become us. Chapter 5 and verse 16. First Thessalonians.

Rejoice always, Paul writes. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Be thankful. Be grateful. Remember God. And when we go about our lives, when we look at the world around us, when we eat the food we eat, be thankful. Don't dwell in all I don't have. Dwell in what God has given us. And be thankful and appreciate what He's done. And our lives will go much better if we always are in a sense of appreciation. As Paul says throughout his epistles, in everything give thanks. When you give your supplication to God, let it be in thankfulness. Be in that attitude. No matter how bad things are going in our life, still be thankful for what we have and what the calling that He has given us, and the opportunity to learn. Because even in those bad times, we learn faith in God and He has us go through some tough times in life so that we become more faithful to Him. Finally, let's look. And there's a lot more verses you can go through, you know, the concordance and find where God's will is. But let's look at John 9. Here, John 9 and verse 31.

As we pray, thy will be done. And the attitude that we would have when we come before Him in prayer, John says this, he says, now we know that God does not hear sinners.

But if anyone is a worshipper of God, notice that word, if, if anyone is a worshipper of God, that's your and my responsibility when we see the word, if, but if anyone is a worshipper of God and does his will, God hears him. So for our prayers to be heard, God looks at our words, what we say. He looks at, you know, we come before Him. He's also looking at the attitudes we have and what are we doing with our lives. Do we really come before Him and live the prayer and live these words that He says to come before Him in? So thy will be done. When we pray that, those are good words to say, our lives should mirror thy will be done. The choices we make each day, the things that we resist doing in our lives each day as we deny self and follow Him, all those things matter. God's will be done. You know, there's another part of it as well. If we turn back to Matthew, Matthew 16. You know, the Apostle Peter, he was a disciple here in Matthew 16. In Matthew 16, God has revealed to Peter that Jesus was the Son of God.

And Christ said, you know, blessed are you. You know, Simon Bar-Giono, for flesh and blood hasn't given you this knowledge, but my Father who is in heaven.

So God revealed to him. And in the very same chapter, Peter gets a rebuke. He learns a lesson, if you will. And you know, sometimes as humans, probably all the time as humans, we look at rebukes as, you know, they hurt. We might get mad. Rebukes can come as an opportunity to learn, and we should look at them that way. When Peter got this rebuke for something that maybe most of us in this room might have said the very same thing Peter did, you know, we might have gotten mad and think, you know, well, man, I didn't mean that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and mumble and grumble.

But Peter didn't take it that way. Peter took it to heart, and he learned. In verse 21 in Matthew 16 says, From that time Jesus began to show to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. Well, Peter and the disciples are hearing this, and they think, what? You're going to be killed? They didn't understand the resurrection after three days, but you're going to be killed? And of course, none of us, if any one of us came in and said, you know, I'm going to die in three days.

Someone's going to kill me in three days. We say, no, no, no, no, no. What can we do to prevent that? How can we help you in whatever? Are you in danger in whatever? So Peter did the same thing. What do you mean by this? He says, Peter took him aside and began to rebuke Christ, saying, far be it from you, Lord.

This won't happen to you. I don't want you to die. I don't want you to hurt. We love you. We, you are our friend. You're our mentor. You're our guide. You're the Son of God. This can't happen to you. And we know where his heart was coming from that time. He didn't want it to happen, but notice what Jesus Christ said to him. But he turned and said to Peter, Get behind me, Satan. You are an offense to me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.

Peter, I understand your sentiment, but you're resisting the will of God. The will of God is that, Jesus Christ said, the will of God, the plan of God is that I will die and I will be resurrected in three days. That's the will and the plan of God. It has to happen.

Don't fight against it. Don't resist it. Understand the plan of God. And when you pray, thy will be done, it means let your plan be done. And God gives us an awfully lot of his plan in the Bible. And a lot of his plan includes some not so pleasant times for the people of God. When you read what Jesus Christ said about how people will turn against us and even families will turn against each other and even brethren will turn against each other in the end time, it's not a pleasant thing. We can pray for strength. We can pray that God will see us through those things. It will be close to him that we won't be one of those who cause those problems, but it's his will.

It must happen for Jesus Christ to return. And when we pray, your will be done, your will be done, we have to be mindful of those things and play that God's will is done and his plan is done the way he says.

Peter learned a lesson that day. You know, he didn't run from it and he didn't say, I don't want to hear that and you know what, you misunderstood me and da-da-da-da-da-da. He understood. And what did Peter do the rest of his life? He accepted God's will. Even though he went through some tough times and his manner of death, you know, if the stories are correct, a very difficult time, but he learned to pray, your will be done.

And you and I, when we pray, your will be done. Yes, in our lives and the way we order ourselves and discipline ourselves and follow God, but also when we pray, your will be done, we're praying.

Your will be done. Everything that you have said, everything you have taught us, give us the strength, we can say, to go through it. Help us to understand it.

But have the attitude. Have the attitude, your will be done. Let's go back to Isaiah. Isaiah 55.

I failed to mention in the announcements that we, you know, we do have a potluck after services and a Bible study and I hope everyone will stay for that. You know, we'll be talking about a part of the Feast of Trump that's coming up. We're going to look at it in a little different way. I want to set the tone for what we talk about in the Bible study. And these verses here in Isaiah 55.8 and 9, we'll set that tone and I'll reference those later as we get into the Bible study along with your will be done. Isaiah 55 verse 8, God says, My thoughts are not your thoughts. I think differently than you. My ways are not your ways, says the Eternal. You know, my way is the right way. You have a human way of doing things, but my ways are not your ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher and my thoughts than your thoughts. God sees things differently. He looks at the whole picture and as humans, we look at things in a very limited physical sense at times. And that's just what we do and we have to remember as we go through some things in life, God's got the big picture in mind and we need to keep the big picture in mind of what he's working with us, what he's doing, what are we doing here today, what are we doing with our lives, what is he doing? It's more than just about what we have today, what we have to eat, where we work, the things that we have. It is an eternal, eternal process that God is working with us in. So when we pray, your will be done, Christ would say when you come before God in prayer and you pray, your will be done. Think about that attitude that we should have. Think about what we're saying and that our life is ordered along those lines.

Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Now we know that Jesus Christ is returning to earth and he will bring his kingdom to earth.

And in that day, he will establish his kingdom, his government, and as we'll read at the feast, and we probably read last week as well, or the last time I was here, Isaiah 2, people will be flocking to Jerusalem. Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord. He will teach us his ways. We will walk in his paths. Far different atmosphere than we have today. His government will come. People will want to learn his ways. You and I need to learn those ways today. Jesus Christ will come and his will will be done and his kingdom will come to earth as it is in heaven.

Now remember what his kingdom is like in heaven. We talked about heaven isn't just a place where people sit around and, you know, sip martinis or whatever it is. They sip as they sit on a couch and just kind of gaze into space. It's a place where work is done. The angels in heaven, God, Jesus Christ, the 24 elders, the living beings that are up there, they have a job to do and they do it. And you know what? They're happy and they're all working together toward one purpose. And for people, when Christ comes to earth, the whole world will be focused on his purpose and living and learning his way. That's later and you can mark down some verses. You know where the verses are, but let me give you Zechariah 14, 1-4. And you can read those where it talks about Jesus Christ coming to earth, his feet sitting on the Mount of Olives. And in verse 5 of that, Zechariah 14, it says, And your saints with you. That's you and me. That's you and me when it says, and your saints with you. Because as we read in 1 Thessalonians 4 and Revelation 19, when Christ returns to earth, his saints, his first fruits, his bride will be there with him.

Not you and me, if. If we follow. If we yield. If we adopt the mindset of God. If we yield ourselves to him. Our thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. But you know for you and me, we don't wait until the return of Jesus Christ to be living the way of his kingdom.

That's not for us to wait until Jesus Christ returns, and we think, oh, that's the way.

Today is our day. Today is our day that we should be living the kingdom. Let's go to Colossians. Colossians 1. Let's pick it up in verse 19. Colossians 1. Verse 19. Oh, let me see. Nope, I don't want verse 19. Verse 9. Colossians 1. Verse 9.

For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, don't cease to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. When Paul prayed for the churches, he prayed that God's will would be done. This is part of what his will is. That you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, for all patience and long suffering with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. That you and me, partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light, verse 13, he has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of his love. Today we should be living the kingdom of God. In our homes, in our lives, it's this Bible, this Word that should govern us. It's God's Spirit that should yield us or that should lead us and guide us. Yes, we live in the world. Yes, we go to work in the world. We go to school in the world. We deal with the people in our neighborhood and other people we come in contact with. God has delivered us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.

So today, his laws, his purpose, his will should live among us.

You know, Peter says, judgment is now on the house of God. It's now, it's us, it's up to us with his spirit to be doing the things that he called us to do. To do on earth, on earth, as it is in heaven.

We talked about being citizens in heaven, and that's where our citizenship is. We obey the laws of the land, we live in the land, we respect the leaders of the land, we obey God first.

Because we're citizens in heaven, and that's the kingdom that should be reigning in our house, and in our lives today. So as we finish this first part of the prayer of Jesus Christ, when he says, in this manner, not pray these words, but in this manner, pray, you can see the introductory part, the attitude that he wants us to come before God with. We can recount all those things, but you can go back through your notes and think about all the things that God, you know, says that Jesus Christ has built into that prayer, those words that he said there, that we come before God before we ever get to asking him anything. It doesn't mean that we have to repeat those words every day, but God knows what's in our heart by what we live. And when we come before him and we begin our prayer, does this person reflect those words in his life? When he comes before me, is he coming with a proper attitude? Is he coming with the attitude that I can see, yes, he's living my way of life? Yes, he wants the kingdom. Yes, he wants all these things. Yes, that's in his heart, and he is allowing the spirit to guide and lead him. And then in Matthew 6, we'll go back there. Matthew 6.

After all that, in verse 11, we get into the point where we ask God for what our needs are.

Give us this day our daily bread.

So then Christ says, you know, it's right. It's right to ask God for the things you need.

Yes, we need to come before him with reverence and attitude and awe, but then it's okay. You should ask God what you need, and there's a reason that we ask. You know, right here in the same Sermon on the Mount, you know, Christ says, ask and it'll be given to you. Knock and it'll be opened. Seek and you will find. Scott is saying, I'll give it to you, but I want to know you want it. You have to take the time. You ask. You seek. You knock. In Matthew 21, if you want to turn there, you can, but it says, whatever you ask in prayer, whatever you ask in prayer, believing you will receive. Whatever you ask in prayer, believing you will receive.

And yet in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 6, Christ says, your father knows what you need before you even ask. He knows what you need even before you ask. So he might say, then why do we need to ask if God knows we need the clothes we wear, the food we have, the jobs that we have, the healing that we need? Why ask? We ask because there's an attitude that goes with asking. An attitude of humility and dependence.

You know, all too often in America, and I look back on the time when our kids were growing up, we knew what their needs were. We knew what they wanted, and all too often we just gave it before they asked. And I think in America today, a lot of parents just give what the kids want. They don't make them ask, they don't make them earn some money or do some chores to do it. It's just like we want to give them everything. We want them to have a great life, and so many times we think it's all the things that we can give them that make their lives great, and so we just give and give and give.

But there is something to asking. We should make our children ask, even though we know what their needs are, so that they understand it's coming from mom and dad, and set that mindset in them. We need to ask God. We need to ask God. Let's look at a few verses on asking. Let's go to James 5. James 5. Very familiar verse here for those among us that are sick. James 5.14. One thing for all of us to remember.

It says, Is anyone among you sick? God knows when we're sick. He knows he can heal. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. Let them call. You know, so many times, so many times, I'll hear someone sick, and I want to go over, and I want to anoint.

And so many times, I'm not asked. I want to offer, and sometimes I do offer. I can come over, but you know, God says, you ask. You need to know from once your healing comes, you ask God for it. You ask for it to be done. I could offer every single time.

There were calls I got this week from not just this church, other churches, and I think, you know what? No one asked. Or no, I shouldn't say no one. Several never asked. We need to remember we want God to heal. We need to ask. We need to ask. It's my job to do it, and I will do it, and I'll go anywhere to do it, but it's your job to remember it's God, and we need to come before Him and recognize and ask for it to be done.

Let's go back to James 1. James 1. James is a very instructive book in so many things in our Christian life. James 1, verse 5, if any of you lacks wisdom, and sometimes we can think, you know, man, I just don't know how to do that. I need to look in the Bible. What would God have me do here? And sometimes when we're working with someone and counseling someone, we think, I need more wisdom. If any of you lacks wisdom, let Him ask of God. God knows what we need. He knows you need to understand those scriptures more. You need to be able to articulate those better.

You need to be able to make them apply today as you're asked for help. If you need it, ask. He knows we need it. We have to recognize it's Him who gives it. If any of you lacks wisdom, let Him ask of God who gives to all liberally and without reproach. And when we ask in the right attitude, it'll be given to Him. He qualifies it in verse 6, without any doubt having faith in God. I've asked. I'm living my life. I've got the right attitude towards God. And even asking God, are my attitudes right? Are my motives right? Search my heart, as David would say. Is this what God, you know, am I doing things the way you want?

And show me if I'm not, let Him ask. And so we come before God. You know, we all need our daily bread, physically. We all need our daily bread, spiritually. Ask, God says. Finally, let's look at...

Now, let me mark... I'll just give you Luke 11 verses 5 through 10. The other place where Jesus Christ mentions in the manner that you pray is when the disciples come to Him and say, teach us how to pray. Teach us how to pray. And, you know, they must have seen Jesus Christ praying and thought, you have a relationship with God. We want that. And Jesus Christ repeats the same words to them in Luke 11 that He does in Matthew 6. And when you look at the verses immediately succeeding, the manner of prayer, you see that it's all about asking. That's the example He gives. Which one of you, which one of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him something different?

And He talks the next five or six verses about asking. Ask God. Ask God for what you need. He loves you. He wants to give it to you.

But He wants. He wants us. He wants us to ask. And to learn that humility and that dependence that comes with it, that we are dependent on God from everything, for everything. You know, we live our lives and so many times we think we can do it all. And we think we have to do it all. We live in a society where we have to, have to, have to do all this. God wants us to learn you still do it.

But you got to be dependent on Him and let Him, let Him do these things. So He says, asks, give us this day our daily bread. Now let's focus on that word daily for a minute.

It didn't say just give us our bread, give us our daily bread. Every day, do we ask God to provide what we need. And, and you know, let's turn to Deuteronomy 8.3. So I cover the physical and spiritual aspect of this because we all need food. We all need the jobs that we have to earn what we have. We all look to God to provide what it is that we have, every aspect of our physical lives. And He says He'll do it. Certainly the example of physical Israel was that He provided everything that they needed. Everything that they needed. In verses 1 and 2 of Deuteronomy 8, He says that in verse 3, you know, Moses says, so God humbled you. God humbled you.

He allowed you to hunger. He fed you with man, which you didn't know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. Physically and spiritually. So when I talk about daily bread, we know we've talked about that before. We've been through the days of unleavened bread. We understand that we eat our daily bread, the staff of life. We need the spiritual bread, even more importantly than the physical bread and food we have. But everything we need, we ask God, and He'll give. He'll give when we have the right attitude and we remember to ask.

You know, every day with physical Israel, God, as it says here in verse 3, gave them the manna.

He could have simply said, you know, on that first day of the week, I'm going to give you enough, go out and gather it. It'll last you for six days or seven days and whatever, and it won't spoil. He could have said that. Just one time a week, you go out and you ration it out and you have enough bread for the seven days. He could have said that, but he didn't say that. What he said is every single day you go out and gather it. And if you think you're going to be smart and save some over for the second day and not have to go out on the second day, surprise, surprise, you will go out and you will gather it the second day because what you saved over from the first day doesn't count anymore. It spoils. Every day, go out and gather that bread. Christ said, give us this day our daily bread. Ask. Remind ourselves that we're dependent on God. Remind ourselves that He's the one who provides the things that we need.

You know, when Elijah was there, remember he was by the brook, Kidron, or whatever the word is there. The ravens came and fed him. Remember God supernaturally sent the ravens and they brought bread to Elijah, not just one time a week, every single day. And Elijah came to understand God provides every single day.

Every single day, do we remind ourselves it's God who provides and recognize Him, recognize Him for what He does and the humility that comes along with that.

Let's turn to Psalm 37. Psalm 37.

Psalm 37 verse 25.

Psalm 37 verse 25. I have been young, I have been young, and now am old, David writes, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread.

That's a comforting verse for God's people. Notice the word that David uses. I have not seen the righteous forsaken. What is the definition of righteous? Those who are living God's way, those who have yielded to Him, those who see Him as provider, sustainer, Savior, everything that we look to Him for as we yield to Him and let Him guide us, and as we allow our minds to be changed and transformed into what He wants us to become. I haven't seen the righteous forsaken God provides, nor his descendants begging bread. A comforting verse from God, if we have our lives so ordered. You know, you go through, and even in the Sermon on the Mount, when Christ is talking, what is one of the first Beatitudes that He writes? Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Where is their mindset? Where is their attitude? Are they hungering after righteousness, or is it just lip service? Are they thirsting after righteousness, or is it just lip service? Is it just something that rolls off their lips, or is it something that they really, really, really are living, and that I see it in their heart and I see it in their minds?

That's what God wants us to become. He just doesn't want us to memorize words and memorize a formula.

He wants us to live it and come before Him.

Give us this day our daily bread, and we can fill in the blank for what our needs are as well during that, not just our bread. And then the next verse is, and forgive us our trespasses.

Forgive us our trespasses.

You know, I wonder if any of us, and I included this, do we ask God to forgive our trespasses daily? Or do we think, I haven't done anything wrong. I haven't done anything wrong. I'm living my life the way that God wants me to. I can't come up with anything, but He says, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses. Of course, trespasses is kind of an easy word. Forgive us our sins. Forgive us our attitudes. Forgive us our way of thinking.

Because God's will for us is that we become perfect, right? We become blameless. That's what His will is. That's what He'll lead us to as we allow Him to guide us. Ever cognizant that we are weak, that we are sinful, and that we are prone to that, and we need to remind ourselves daily, it's God who forgives, Jesus Christ who died, that our sins could be forgiven, and claim that and recognize who we are. There's humility that comes with remembering that. Anytime we think that we're really good, and that we've really been living our lives really well with nothing to worry about, you know, we might remember the words in 1 John 1, somewhere in 8, 9, and 10, and those verses there that says, if anyone doesn't think he's a sinner, he doesn't know God. He doesn't know God. We still all are there. We still mess up. We still fall. We still fail. We still do things that we need to ask forgiveness for. And we're reminded when we ask for forgiveness, there's that word ask again.

Ask for forgiveness. God wants to forgive. That's what his will is, but we have to ask for it of his mercy. He didn't have to forgive any of us. He could have said, forget mankind. They're an abomination to me. They're a disappointment to me. Just let them all die off. He still loves us, but we still have to ask, and he still wants us. He still wants us to be part of his kingdom. Luke 9.

Luke 9, verse 23.

It says in verse 23, Christ said to them all, if anyone desires to come after me, if anyone is saying, your will be done, your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Every single day, being mindful of who we are, what we're doing, the choices we're making. And at the end of the day, or when the spirit, when we feel that we have grieved the spirit, going back and repenting to God, asking him, what is it that I've done? I just don't feel right about something.

Something is bothering me. And sometimes you don't even know what it is. But when you go to God in prayer and he sees that, yes, there is something, he will reveal to you what that attitude is, what those words you said that were wrong or hurtful to someone are. We have to ask because he wants to train us. He wants us to become perfect. But we have to remember it's him who gives the mercy, and it's him that we need to go to to ask for that forgiveness.

Let me turn to Isaiah 59 and verse 2.

You know the verse, but let's remind ourselves, because I'll reference it here in the next section, is 2. Isaiah 59 verse 2, Your iniquities, your sins, have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear. There's one way for those sins to be forgiven. Ask. Ask for those sins to be forgiven. We have to remember to do that. God wants to do it. He won't do it automatically. We must humble ourselves and remember to ask and recognize it is him. It is him who forgives. And finally, let's look at Psalm 66 in this section. Psalm 66 verse 18.

If I regard iniquity in my heart, if I'm making a place for sin in my heart, if I'm allowing me to have excuses about what I will do and what I won't do, and it's like, you know, because we can all come up with excuses, right? We can all come up with excuses why we don't do this or we don't do that. If I regard iniquity in my heart, if I make a place for it, the Lord will not hear.

We might do well when we think about excuses on, okay, this is the reason I don't have to do this or I don't have to be there and whatever. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear. We want God to pay attention to our prayer, ask for forgiveness, ask for forgiveness.

The next part of that manner in praying is ask for the sins to be forgiven as we forgive others, as we forgive those who trespass against us. We have to ask for forgiveness. We want God to forgive. We have to be willing to forgive others.

We all make mistakes. We all say words. We might do an oversight. I might be guilty of an oversight.

Forgive others. Don't let the little mishaps of life, don't let the words of life, the imagined, sometimes, offenses of life put a separation between you and your brother.

If sin separates us from God, sin, unforgiven and unrepentant sin can keep us, can separate us from each other as well. And we've seen it happen. We've seen it happen where someone gets upset about something. They never talk about it. They get mad about something and all of a sudden they're gone. All of a sudden they won't talk. All of a sudden they won't talk and they're separated from their brother. They're separated from their family and they're separated from God because they're not following this precept in prayer. Ask for forgiveness as we forgive those who trespass against us. Ephesians 4, 32 tells us, you must forgive. If we're going to have the unity that God wants us to have, we must be willing to forgive. And I've said it before and I'll say it again. I can't imagine anything you would do to me, and I hope nothing that I would ever do to you or that you would do to each other, that ever rises above what Jesus Christ said to those who are putting the nails in his wrists and in his feet when he said, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. If he could say that, what is it among us that we can't ask forgiveness and that we wouldn't be willing to forgive? That's what God has called us to. Satan will use all number of things to separate us from God, separate us from each other. God says, I won't forgive unless you are willing to forgive others. It must be part of what we are. There's a humility in that. There's a superiority in saying, I'm not going to forgive you. What you've done is just something egregious. I'm not going to do that. That attitude of superiority doesn't belong anywhere in the Church of God or the family of God. It's the humility of asking forgiveness and giving forgiveness. Remember at the end of Job when Job had good reason? I mean, his friends, as he was going through a miserable time in his life, nothing that you and I have ever gone through in our lives, that when he was going through it, when the trial was over, God said, Job, I'll restore to you what you had and more. When?

When? When Job prayed for his friends. Forgive them. Forgive them. Let's turn to Hebrews 12.

Verse 14. The concept we should all remember as we go through life, and those little offenses will come up. They may bug us. They may stand in our way between each other. Christ gives the remedy for that. Matthew 18 says, Go and talk to your brother about it. Don't just harbor grudges against it. Go and talk about it. If you have to, get the Church involved, too. We're here for the same purpose that all that God's will would be done, and that is that everyone here would come to repentance and receive eternal life. Hebrews 12.14. Pursue peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the Lord. There you go. That's a big one. Pursue peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Looking carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled. Not just a few, but many. Let this hamper them. Let many let this interrupt their walk with God. Don't let it happen to you when you come before God. Forgive my sins. I forgive those who trespass against me. And be willing to go to one another and talk about it and receive it. Receive anything you receive and hear about yourself in the same manner that Peter did. Not there to hurt, not there to upset people, but there to help. Help us become what God wants us to become. You know, we talked a few weeks back about the concept of fellowship, body, family, koinonia. Remember koinonia? Koinonia is all over the Bible and in the Greek words, koinonia with God, koinonia with one another. This verse goes to that. Jesus Christ is saying, I want you to be one. I want you to be one family. I want you to be together. Don't let the things that can come about humanly separate you from what you've been called to, and that is to be one with one another. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And then the next phrase that Jesus Christ says in that prayer is an interesting one. If we go back to Matthew 6.

Matthew 6 and verse 13, he says, And do not lead us into temptation. Don't lead us into temptation, God. Now, if we stop and think about that phrase, what is Jesus Christ telling us in that verse? What is he saying? Don't lead us into temptation.

James 1.13 says, God doesn't tempt anyone. So if God doesn't tempt anyone, why would we ask him not to lead us into temptation? What could he mean by that?

Now, you can look at that, and sometimes the Greek words are tricky in their translations, and you can look at the various translations that are on the Bible. And there are some different ones. Some of them will say, you know, don't let us fall into temptation. The onus, though, in all those verses is, God, you do something. God, you do it. God, don't lead us into temptation.

God, don't let us fall for temptation. God this, God that. Well, God's will is that we wouldn't fall into temptation. God's will is that we would resist temptations. But the Bible already says, God doesn't tempt. It's Satan who tempts. Don't lead us into temptation. You know, if we look at Mark 14 verse 38, it says, watch and pray that you don't fall into temptation. Watch and pray that you don't fall into temptation. Well, we have to be close to God. We have to understand what he's saying there, that we don't fall into temptation.

Now, it's interesting when you read through James, James 1, 12 through 15, there's a word temptation in there. There's a word trial in there. And the word trial comes throughout the New Testament. And it's the same Greek word for temptation, the same Greek word for trial. And the translators, you know, in some places use tempt, some places use trial or try.

And we know that God tries us. We know that things happen in our lives. You know, we might have health issues. We might have financial issues. We might have relationship issues. We might have whatever issues they are that come up. And he tries us. What is the reason God tries us? He's looking to strengthen us, right? He's looking to strengthen us. He doesn't throw this little booby trap into our lives because it's like, let's see if they can pass this one. And gleefully thinking, well, we'll see if I can trip him up this time. No, he doesn't do that. He's looking to strengthen us. So when those things come our way, they're designed to build our faith so that we can succeed with his spirit, that we learn and develop the character to resist those things and what we might naturally do.

We might naturally be prone to when something comes our way, okay, I'm going to take matters into my own hands. I'm going to do XYZ. This is how I handle these things. Maybe that's not what God wants us to do XYZ, but we learn to do ABC, what he says. And over the course of time, we learn do it God's way. Do it God's way. My way hasn't worked all these times, and it isn't, if I look in the Bible and I ask God, that's not the way I read in the Bible. I need to learn ABC. And every time a trial comes, I learn order my steps the way God would have us be. Don't lead me into temptation. I understand when trials come, they're there to make me stronger because your will is that I will be in your kingdom. Now, on the other hand, when temptations come, what is the mission or the purpose of a temptation? When Satan gives us a temptation, is he looking to make us stronger? No. He's looking to trip us up. He wants us to fail.

He wants us, you know, when we, whatever that temptation is, and it could be anything because the world is full of temptations based on what our own backgrounds are, about what our own problems are, it could be anything. It could be anything, a temptation that leads us away from God to do our will or what Satan would have us do. You know, Jesus Christ, in here in Matthew 7, I guess it is, maybe it's Matthew 6, he talks about, you know, if something offends you, if something, if you see a problem in your life, remember the verse, I've got it written down here someplace, Matthew 5, actually, Matthew 5 verses 29 and 30. He says, if you're right, I causes you to sin. If you're tempted by what you're looking at, if you're on the internet and you're looking at all these websites or these things come up, if your eye and eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. Now, no one would advocate doing that today, but what the principal is saying is, you know what? You have got to learn to resist temptation. If indeed it's your eye that's leading you into temptation and you find yourself over and over again falling for the same thing, whether it be internet, pornography, alcohol, drugs, anger, language that you use that's faulty, whatever it might be. If you keep falling for it time and time and time again, cut that out of your life.

If it's the TV that causes you to sin, get rid of it. If it's the people you're hanging out with, hopefully not people in church, but your friends that are leading you toward that, get rid of them.

Cut it off. Find the things that God wants you to have that will build your character. And we'll in the Bible study will have a verse that talks toward that very same thing built right in the middle of 1 Corinthians 15 there. Do the things and cut it off. Because temptation is there that comes from Satan. It can be turned around as an opportunity to develop character. When temptation comes, and I see this happening in my life, you stop and you pray and you recognize what God's will is. Not to lead us into temptation, but to strengthen us. So God let me have the character to say no. I need your spirit to say no to this thing. And God will give it. When we ask, when we recognize it's his power and not ours that's going to deliver us the next phrase there from evil, he'll do it. Lead us not into temptation. He's not there. These things don't happen to us that he wants us to slip up. He wants us to be strong. Turn it around and use it as an occasion to develop strength. And remember when the temptation comes, that's coming from Satan. Don't yield to it. If you're right, I cause you to sin. Pluck it out. He says on verse 29, for it's more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell or the grave. He says don't let it happen. Don't let it happen. Don't let it be done that way. So when we look at that verse, you know, I don't know, I think some of the things in the Bible we're going to have to ask Jesus Christ with new terms. Tell us exactly what you meant when we pray that. And I find myself asking God, what do you mean by that? I want to understand, lead me not into temptation. But when temptations come, I know we seek God first. We turn them into opportunities to grow and opportunities to be strong. And remember, and maybe just maybe, Jesus Christ put those words in there that we remember, that temptations will come our way, trials will come our way, choose God, deny self, deny self. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the New King James says the evil one. The original Greek just says deliver us from the evil. Deliver us from the evil. Well, Satan certainly is the evil one. Satan will influence and he will guide us and, you know, he will guide us right into oblivion and death.

That's what his purpose is. Jesus Christ already died and qualified to replace Satan as the God of this world when he returns to earth. So he's delivered us and when we have his Holy Spirit, you know, we use that strength that he has to overcome self, overcome Satan. But, you know, evil, when you read about evil in the Bible, it's more than just Satan because, you know, even when we're baptized, and I remind people when I'm counseling them, when we're baptized, we don't become perfect overnight. You know, immersing us in water, God washes away our sins when he sees our heart and what we've done. Our sins are forgiven and we come out of the water of baptism and in our eyes, in his eyes, he says we are a new being, a new creation. And we pray that his Spirit is put in us and then we grow through the rest of our lives to become the person that he needs to be. But we don't become perfect beings today. We're baptism, brand new creations, brand new creatures in his sight, but we spend the rest of our lives letting God weed out the old thoughts and the old ways and the old things that can trip us up and that are wrong. They just don't disappear. They're still evil in us. You can read through Romans 6 and 7 where Paul, you know, none of us could compare ourselves to Paul and the work that he did and the sacrifice that he made of his life. He realized what God had done for him and he spent the rest of his life doing what God's will was. And even him, you know, he said, I wrestle in Romans 6 and 7. I wrestle with my body even though I want to do the things of God. I still yield to the flesh. And he finally concludes in Romans 7, you know, who will deliver me from this body of death if I yield to my body, if I yield to my flesh, if I yield to my old ways, if I yield to my mindsets that have been developed. And all the time I was before the church, whether we grew up in the church or not, okay, whether we grew up in the church or not, we still have mindsets that have to be overcome and thoughts that have to be corrected and we still need the purging and the cleansing of God's Holy Spirit to become like he wants us to become. That we have to, you know, that we still are in a body of death and if we yield to it and if we don't make the conscious choice to resist temptation and to put out of our lives the things that are keeping us from God, then we are missing the boat. We're missing the boat. And Paul said, who will deliver me from this body of death? He said, thank God that Jesus Christ, our Lord, did it by his strength, by his sacrifice, by his Holy Spirit. I can overcome and achieve what Paul wanted. I hope what we all want and think more clearly of it and do that. But through the Bible, you know, we're still evil people. God calls us evil people. Jesus Christ in Matthew 7 there, when he was talking to the Jews of that day, he said, an evil generation seeks after a sign.

And he sat right there and he called the Jews an evil generation.

He looks at us, you know, and we're still, you know, evil if there's evil in us, if there's sin in us, we're still not perfect. We're still not what God wants us to be. Let's go to Attorney Jeremiah 17.9. I'll remind you of a couple of verses you've turned there.

You know, Galatians 1, he says, this is an evil world we live in. We know it's an evil world we live in. All we have to do is turn on the TV, turn on the Internet, and we see, or just work with the people we work with. And we see it's an evil world. It's not doing God's will, not even close to it. Ephesians 5, 16 says the days are evil. What we go through day in and day out, it's an evil world. We're always in a battle, as Paul says in Ephesians 6, against the days of evil.

Jeremiah 17 verse 9 says, the heart, not you're in my heart, you know, before we were baptized, yes, but even after we're baptized, that heart is still there, and it can lead us astray if we let it. The heart is deceitful above all things, and it's desperately wicked. Who can know it?

That's why God says, I, in verse 10, I search the heart. I test the mind. I don't do it to trip you up. I don't do it because I want you to fail. I do it because I want you to succeed. I want you to be in the kingdom. I want you to become perfect. I will show you what you need to change, but you have to be willing to do it, and you have to be willing to ask for the strength to do it. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart. I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.

And sometimes God will let us to continue in our sins, in our ways of life, in our choices, and the things that we do to see the end result of it, that we can see our way doesn't work.

His way works. His will works. We can have all the rationale and all the logic in the world and say, this is what I do, and da-da-da-da, and it might in our minds be very, very right. But it's missing something if we keep doing it and we have the same result. If we have the same result, and it's never what God's will is, we might want to examine our way and ask God, what am I doing that isn't in accordance with your will? Search my mind. Search my heart. Help me to learn that I can come before you with the attitudes and the purpose and prayer that you expect, because God has called, mercifully, all of us. God has called merc- mercifully all of us before him, because he wants us to be in his kingdom. And one of the things that we do, well, let me just conclude here in what the rest of the prayer is, and I won't elaborate on this, but you know, Jesus Christ says, conclude your prayer this way, for yours is the kingdom. You know, no matter what we do, we do what God's will is, but it's always God's kingdom. That's what we yearn for. Yours is the kingdom. Yours is the power.

Zechariah 4-6 is not going to be by our might or our power that we overcome or that will be in the kingdom. It's by God's power. Yours is the kingdom. Yours is the power. Yours is the glory.

It's always going to be to you. Never us, not one of us on our own, would ever be able to achieve what God wants us to achieve, and never ever ever should we think of ourselves more highly than we think, as Paul warns us. But always remember, yours is the kingdom. Yours is the power. Yours is the glory. So we pray through this prayer, and even in concluding, we remember that it's God who gives it to us in His mercy and because of what His will is. So we come before God, and when we pray and when we are living the life that Jesus Christ describes in that manner of praying, He'll answer our prayer. He'll answer our prayers. But we have to be ready to do the things we say and ask Him to do. So as we go in our prayer lives, let us remember, as Jesus Christ said, in this manner, in this manner, pray.