Hi, thanks for listening to the latest episode of the Hymn We Proclaim podcast. If you're keeping count, this is message number 12 in the Lord's Prayer Study. There's 14 in all, so just a few left to go, and kudos if you've made it this far. It's one of my favorite series.
So, the next phrase is one that kind of flies by half the time, but it should make us pause and consider. It goes, Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Some translations say, Deliver us or save us from the evil one. This topic's going to take us two messages to get through, and we have a little bit of background to set the stage on how this part of the prayer is also related to the Lord's Supper.
So, here goes part one of Righteous Prayer focuses on the deliverance of the Father. Matthew chapter 6. And specifically, we've been looking at verses 5 through 15. And so we're going to come back to it this morning, but we're just going to look at the last petition. We're on the last petition in verse 13.
But what I want to do is break this up into two parts because today I want you to see how the sixth petition, the last petition, finds its answer and fulfillment in how it's connected to the Lord's Supper. Because we're observing the Lord's Supper this morning, and I thought it would be very instructive and helpful to you to see these connections. And so, just by way of review, if you have not been here, let me quickly get you up to speed to where we are. In Matthew chapter 6... Verses 5 through 15, Jesus is contrasting two fundamentally different ways that we can pray.
And so in verses 5 through 8, he condemns unrighteous prayer. And in verses 9 through 13, which is the Lord's Prayer, which has been called the Lord's Prayer. He commends to us righteous prayer. And so last time we looked, last week at verse 12, we learned. from the fifth petition that Righteous prayer, for example, focuses on the forgiveness of the Father.
The forgiveness of the Father. The gospel announces to us that God is not our creditor. And we are not his debtors. All has been forgiven. All has been cancelled.
And so what Jesus is teaching us is that To ask to be forgiven while refusing to forgive others. It's hypocrisy. And that's exactly what he is condemning in this context: hypocrisy and religious action, religious practice. Hypocrisy in religious acts like prayer, fasting, which is what he is talking about in the context. is exactly what Jesus condemns and corrects in the Lord's Prayer.
So in Matthew chapter 6, Jesus exposes and condemns the hypocritical religious practices of the scribes and Pharisees. He shows how their religious practice, their prayer life, Is based on a wrong image of God the Father, which is a violation of the second commandment. The way that the scribes and Pharisees pray reveals their false understanding of God as Father.
So Jesus says to pray righteously, to pray rightly is to know God as Father. That means this. Genuine righteous prayer flows from the gospel because the Father is only rightly known as he is revealed through the Son. And the Gospel is all about the announcement of the work of God's Son. And so John says in John chapter 1, verse 18, No one has ever seen God.
The only God who is at the Father's side. He has made him known. the incarnate son jesus himself So the Lord's Prayer then focuses, Jesus says, on he gives us seven major themes, all of which focus on God as Father. And so these seven themes reveal to us the true character of God the Father, which is the incentive and motive and power for us to pray. And so here are the themes that we've looked at.
Righteous prayer focuses, first of all, on the grace. of the father. Our Father in heaven, you cannot call God your Father unless you have received His adoptive grace, who has made you a Son through His beloved Son. And so righteous prayer begins with the gospel. Righteous prayer focuses on the honor of the Father.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Righteous prayer focuses on the kingdom of the Father, that is, his reign and rule and blessing. in our life. Our Father in heaven, your kingdom come. Righteous prayer focuses on the will of the Father.
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's his revealed moral will that we are called to obey, not out of duty, but by grace, because we're children of the Father. Righteous prayer focuses on the provision of the Father. Our Father in heaven, give us this day our daily bread. He provides all our temporal, physical needs and blessings in this life.
Righteous prayer focuses on the forgiveness of the Father. As I said, He is not our creditor. We are not his debtors. There is no debt relationship whatsoever to God, the Father, because of his Son. And so we come to the seventh theme, which is the sixth petition in verse 13.
And the last theme is this. Look what Jesus teaches us to pray. He says, Our Father in heaven, lead us not into temptation. but deliver us from evil.
So, righteous prayer lastly focuses on the deliverance. of the father. The deliverance of the Father, like the fifth petition, the sixth petition has two parts. And the two parts are this: it is a petition, or it is an asking prayer to the Father for a deliverance. from all of our present sin.
And the second part is a petition to ask the Father for deliverance from all our. Future sin. Those are the two parts. And the second half of the petition clarifies and expounds the first half of the petition. The final petition, this last petition that Jesus teaches us in verse 13 is a prayer for deliverance.
It is a prayer requesting divine rescue. And the second half of this petition clearly expresses this. This request. For divine rescue. Jesus is teaching us in this sixth commandment.
To daily All day long Every second of our existence as believers, he is teaching us to invoke our Father's protection and preservation from all sin, present and future.
So, what we learn from this petition. Is that our lives are to be lived in continual invocation? First of all, listen, John Calvin says that just as faith is born from the gospel, faith is born from the gospel, so through it our hearts are trained to call upon God's name. That's invocation. Gospel-centered faith is a self-emptying faith, which means.
A gospel-centered faith. Trains us to look away from depending upon our own supposed strength and resources to persevere in this Christian life and not sin. And then this gospel-centered faith continually trains me to invoke. The Father for His providential care and provision and protection. to rest in his strength and in his resources.
And as I said, this has everything to do with corporate worship. And we're going to come back to it in just a moment. But the first thing I want you to see before we look at the Lord's Supper is this continual learning to live in invocation. That's how we begin every worship service in this church. And it's not because we're just trying to do something that looks kind of cool.
We are trying to teach you through the church's liturgy how to live your daily Christian life. Invocation.
So let's look at this. This is a prayer of invocation, a request for deliverance, divine rescue. What is invocation? That's what I want to show you here the first half this morning. An invocation is a cry for help.
An invocation is a petition for deliverance. Divine rescue. It's like walking over here. See the fire alarm over here? This red?
Don't pull it. It's like walking over there and saying, There is a fire in this house. We've got to pull the fire alarm because we need our rescuers to come save us. That's invocation. And it comes from international peace treaties in the Old Testament.
The Bible is a political book, not a religious book. It is situated from Genesis to Revelation and the divine unfolding plan of a great king who has made a peace treaty with his people. He is the king and we are his subjects. It's all about the kingdom. It's politics.
Prayer of invocation. Has all to do with political treaties of kings conquering and helping their subjects in their kingdom. Don't come back to that. Jesus is the king here, bringing the kingdom and teaching us about the kingdom in the Lord's Prayer. And he's teaching us to invoke, cry for help, cry for divine rescue.
Where does this come from? Remember when we went through the whole kingdom narrative from the Lord's Prayer, Lord, Father, your kingdom come? Back in Genesis chapters 1 through 3, We saw how God appointed Adam to be the federal head of the whole human race. And so when Adam broke God's covenant of works, Genesis 2, 15 through 17. Paul says in Romans 5 that when Adam did that, we fell with Adam.
And we came under the covenant's curse. We came under the curse of guilt and corruption and death. Yeah. But then God in Genesis 3, 15 makes a surprising rescue announcement promise. The first gospel in the Bible.
And in Genesis 3:15, he promises to be faithful. to maintain the offspring, the seed of Eve. And fulfill his promise to send the serpent crusher to rescue. His fallen subjects and restore them into his kingdom once again. And so the rest of redemptive history from Genesis 3:15 onward is simply an unfolding story.
of how God fulfills his promise To complete, on our behalf, a divine rescue mission in the person and work of Jesus Christ, the last Adam. And so, with the covenant of works broken. God established a covenant of grace. And this covenant of grace, Genesis 3.15 onwards, does not operate on the basis of law like the covenant of works, do this and live. It operates on the basis of promise.
Live. Therefore do this. And so what we find, listen, right after God establishes all of this divine rescue operation and Genesis 4:25, what we find is that Cain. Is removed as the older brother and heir of the family blessing. He's the offspring of Adam and Eve.
The offspring of Eve is removed.
So, how will God's promise be fulfilled?
So, in place of Abel, whom Cain murdered, God graciously provides Adam and Eve with another son, Seth. And it is through the godly line of Seth that the promised seed or offspring, the serpent crusher. promised in Genesis 3.15 would come, namely Jesus Christ, and that's what Luke says in his genealogy in Luke 3.38, where Jesus is the son of Adam.
So, in establishing this covenant of grace, listen. God Established through the godly line of Seth, his church. And his church, when he did this, guess what his church began doing in Genesis 4, verse 26? Listen to what they did. Genesis 4, 26, at that time.
People began to call upon the name of the Lord invocation. Yeah. is simply the person God has revealed himself to be. I want you to listen carefully to Michael Horton as he explains the relationship of invocation and political treaties to this invocation. He says the ancient political treaties included the provision for calling on the name of a great king.
In a time of crisis, and in this treaty, the covenant Lord gives his name to his people.
so that they may call upon him in distress. God reveals His name not to satisfy our insatiable quest for intellectual ascent into heavenly secrets, but He reveals His name to us in order to reconcile us to Himself and to each other. God gave Israel his name. And it is this name that Jesus in the Lord's Prayer calls us to say, our Father, hallowed be your name. That's the name.
And it is this name in the Lord's Prayer that Jesus calls us to invoke for divine deliverance in our time of crisis and distress. And when is that time of crisis and distress? Listen to God's law. It is every Second of my life. To teach his people the necessity of living in the invocation, that is, living upon and by God the Father's providential provision and protection and care, both physically and spiritually, for everything.
To teach his people the necessity of living like that. In the Reformation, John Calvin, who Was desperately working to reform the church's worship so that people could get the gospel. He instituted in his church Invocation. And he wanted to teach his people. Every Lord's Day in the liturgy, which began with the invocation from Psalm 124, verse 8, he never began a worship service without that invocation.
Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Our divine rescue. Our deliverance, all that we need. Is in the Father, the Lord Yahweh, the covenantal name of God who has made a promise and will always keep it. Our help is in Him.
Who made heaven and earth? And so, John Calvin commenting on Psalm 124, verse 8, listen to what he taught. He says, as I interpret the verse, he not only gives thanks to God for one benefit. But he affirms that the church cannot continue safe. Except insofar as she is protected by the hand of God.
His object, the psalmist's object, is to animate the children of God with the assured hope. that their life is in perfect safety. Under the divine guardianship. What a way to begin worship. Our help is in the name of the Lord when we pray that prayer.
That is not a liturgical throwaway to look like we're a high church. It is important for us to understand. And learn that the liturgy of the church is a powerful teacher. It is intended to instruct and to shape the way that we live our lives before God and before our neighbor. Every church has a church.
has a liturgy. Every church service is a liturgy. Everyone. Listen to what this one theologian says. He says that every church service is a liturgy.
If it has various elements and some arrangement, That is what liturgy is. Liturgical churches are churches that have thought about those elements in their proper order. It is no compliment to say that a church is a non-liturgical church. That's not a compliment. It is the same thing as saying it is a church that gives little thought to how it worships God.
The corporate worship of the church begins with invocation to teach and remind believers that in the time of your crisis, which is every day of your life. Your covenant Lord gives his name to you. and his son.
So that you can call upon him for deliverance and your distress. And he will bring divine rescue every time. How do we know this? Because the Apostle Paul in Romans 10, verse 13, as he cites Joel 2:32. He says, quote, everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.
That's the invocation. That's a fulfillment of Genesis 4, 26.
So here Jesus teaches us in the Lord's Prayer: invoke the Father's deliverance from all your sins, present and future. And recall, listen, that the fourth, fifth, and sixth command petitions. are all linked together. They're all interrelated because each petition represents and covers all of our human need. Let me give you an example.
Every area of our human life is to be lived in total complete dependence upon our Father in heaven.
So, Jesus in the fourth petition teaches us to ask our Father for our daily bread. That daily bread is this. All temporal physical needs that we need To sustain our physical lives, it goes far beyond food. You can eat all the food you want and still not have health. It includes everything.
To sustain our physical life. The fifth and sixth petitions, Jesus teaches us to invoke our Father to provide for all our spiritual needs. First of all, the forgiveness of our debt. This infinite debt that we have accumulated for violating God's law, this moral debt must be canceled. And Jesus teaches us to pray for this cancellation of all this moral debt.
That is our great need. And then, in this last petition, he says: pray for your father's deliverance, invoke it. To obtain complete victory over all temptation and the evil. Listen, Jesus is teaching us in the Lord's Prayer that to enter the kingdom of God. We need the forgiveness of our sins.
And then listen, to remain in the kingdom of God. We need the ongoing continual deliverance of the Father from all our sins, present and future. Without this continual protection to sustain us, we would not persevere in the kingdom. Without the forgiveness of sins, we cannot enter, and without the Father's divine deliverance from all present and future sin, we cannot remain in. You see, this is what happens.
Once we are granted entrance into the Father's kingdom, do you know what happens? Jesus tells you in Matthew 5. Blessed are you when you're persecuted. Listen, when you enter the Father's kingdom, a great spiritual battle ensues against the unyielding temptations of the world. Your own flesh.
and the devil himself. 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 11. Listen to what Peter says. To those who are in the kingdom, beloved, that is you and I in the church, beloved. I urge you, as sojourners and exiles, to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
Throughout our journey of faith, we contend against enemies that are too powerful for us to prevail over. We cannot prevail over the devil. We cannot prevail over our flesh. We cannot prevail over the world system that is fallen in Adam. Can't do it.
We are constantly battling against the temptations of the world, the inordinate desires of our own fallen flesh, the debilitating accusations of the enemy of our faith. But you see, you need to understand what Jesus teaches here and what the Bible teaches from Genesis to Revelation. Christianity is not. In by grace. But stay in by your own effort and strength.
That's not the Christian faith. We stay in, listen, because God the Father made a promise all the way back in Genesis 3.15, fulfilled it in his Son, and we stay in because the Father is faithful. We read that to you this morning in the call to worship. Why do we worship God? Because he is good and his steadfast love endures forever.
His steadfast love is simply he made a promise and he'll always keep it regardless of your behavior. And he's faithful to all generations. That's why you stay in, because he keeps you in by grace. He mercifully, through his son, has canceled all your debt. You didn't pay that debt because you can't.
And because you continue to sin as a Christian, you every day, through sins of omission and commission, amount more debt. But now you have an advocate before the Father. People talk about the death of Jesus in the past tense, 2,000 years ago. He died for my sin and saved me. Wonderful good news.
Hear me clearly. Amen. What is he doing now? We talk as if he did something in the past. What is Jesus doing now?
He only died once. He ascended 40 days later, to the Father's right hand, where he ever lives, to make intercession for you and me who sin every day, and to throw that debt over his back and say, Father, don't hold it against them because you held it against me. They're forgiven. He is our advocate before the Father, and the Father mercifully confirms and powerfully preserves us to the end by grace. No, it's true that the weakness of our flesh cannot succeed against the power of our Father in heaven.
We will win. But it is also true that believers are not always so influenced and moved by the gospel and the Holy Spirit that they cannot fall back and do what's called backslide. They can we can listen. We can be seduced by the lusts of our flesh and obey them. And so Jesus says, because of that reality, invoke your Father's deliverance continually.
We know this because of King David from 2 Samuel 11. He had a terrible fall. We know this from Peter later in the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew 26, who denied Christ three times. That's a horrible fall. And so Jesus teaches us in the sixth petition to continually invoke the Father to deliver us from all our present and future sin.
Matthew 26, verse 41, Jesus says, Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. And so it is not our strength. It is not our resources. It is not our resolve.
That keeps us. Persevering to the end. It is the Father's covenant promise. Fulfilled in his Son and continually applied by the Holy Spirit that perseveres me to the end. It is only the Father through Jesus Christ our Lord by the Holy Spirit, Jude says, that he is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy.
He's able. And so since we're observing the Lord's Supper this morning, it'll be helpful to see just very quickly, just take a second, how this final petition is connected and answered in the Lord's Prayer. Because the Lord's Prayer is always associated with the Lord's Supper. Do you know what we have in the Lord's table here, the Lord's Supper? In the Lord's Supper, the Lord's Prayer is a table prayer.
And we are petitioning the Father that in this sacramental meal we might receive all that we need to support us in our physical and spiritual life. That's what this is. The Lord's Prayer, Jesus teaches us to ask for the Father's continual sustaining deliverance and protection. And in the Lord's Supper, the Father gives us the answer in His Son through this meal. The Holy Spirit graciously gives us, through this visible gospel, the sustaining strength that we need to keep us going forward in our difficult journey of faith in this present evil age.
As I said, the spiritual conflict that we encounter is a given when we enter the kingdom of God. It is a given. And as we journey through this present evil age, we get assailed by the world, assailed by our flesh, assailed by the devil. And so we need the Father's deliverance to bring us safely to Himself in the consummation of the age to come. That's what this table says.
This is the answer to that. We need the Father's protection. We need His preservation. We need His sustaining grace because of the weakness of our faith. We lack sometimes assurance that has a crippling effect upon our life.
Our unbelief leads to fear and doubt. And fear and doubt can take hold of us in many areas of our life and cripple us. in our walk of faith. And we can and we often do become weak and weary. We fell in the spiritual war.
This unending spiritual conflict just wears away our spiritual vitality.
So where do we go? To find the answer to the Lord's Prayer. at the Lord's table. It is in the Lord's Supper that we are giving sustaining grace as a gift because the Lord's Supper is the sacrament. of covenant renewal.
You know what that simply means? We come to this visible gospel. Where the Father and the Son by the Holy Spirit Assures us that he is faithful. to continually give to us his covenant promise of divine rescue from Genesis 3.15. Your prayer of invocation is answered at this table.
It is strong. strength for the journey home. It is the grace that you need to keep persevering because at this table. At this sacrament that Christ instituted, The purpose of it is to nourish and confirm and strengthen and assure your faith. That your father will deliver you every time you call.
That he's faithful to keep his promise because of his son. It is a living, signifying seal to us. Listen, that our lives are continuing safe under the divine protection of our Father in heaven. And so when we pray, Father, deliver us from all our evil. We find that answered for us right here in the Lord's Supper.
Isn't that good news? Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. and lead us not into temptation. but deliver us from the evil one. John Fawnville sends his thanks for listening today. And before you hit the next episode, Can I tell you about an encouraging book you might want to get soon?
It's called Hope and Holiness: How the Gospel Enables and Empowers Sexual Purity. You're not alone if you've tried to conquer sexual temptations and tried all the methods available, only to find yourself feeling defeated again. This book may be just what you're looking for. In His Shepherding Heart, John shows that the gospel, not practical steps or more self-discipline, is God's provision for the power to live a life of sexual purity. and it's available to every Christian.
What I like is the book is available in three convenient ways, paperback, audiobook, or Kindle. Please look for the links that I put in the description and get a copy today. Does anyone come to mind who may like this episode? Please share with them and listen again to the Humid Proclaim podcast.
