Morgan Teruel: Hey. Thanks so much for listening to Sandals Church. Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, God, and others. We hope you enjoy this message.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: One of the first Christian books I ever read actually became a favorite of mine, and it was written by the great CS Lewis. He wrote a book called Screwtape Letters. I don't know how many of you guys are familiar with it. And in this book, there's a character named Screwtape. He is a older kind of seasoned, mature devil, if there ever was such a thing.
And Screwtape is Screwtape is writing to his nephew, Wormwood. And in this book, he trains him in the art of tempting people, tempting Christians. And in this masterful work, CS Lewis has in his introduction a timely word that is relevant for us today. In his introduction, he says that when it comes to you and I understanding the powers that are at work in the world today, the evil that we face, spiritual warfare as we come to know it, he says there's 2 equal heirs that we fall into. The first is to just disbelieve in devils and demons altogether.
The second error is to believe in them so much that you have this unhealthy, excessive infatuation with the demonic. You often will find people who would rather spend more time talking about Satan than they do Jesus. That's a sign of unhealth. But I would imagine for many of us as Americans, we struggle to just believe in them at all. There's a general disbelief that has settled on all of us.
In fact, I read a stat recently that said it's more common for us as Americans, and I think generally people in the West, to believe in God, but to not so much believe that there is a devil or evil. And that's in part because we're so sophisticated today. We're advanced, we're educated, we live in the modern world. My phone has technological magic called the iPhone. Right?
We drive Teslas. You've been in a Tesla? We got DoorDash. We own air fryers where many of us are eating guilt free chicken nuggets and fries. Right?
All that to say we live and enjoy the comforts of a sophisticated modern world to the degree that it's left us suspicious of evil forces. We're just too advanced for that. We know better now today. But all that to say though, Jesus in teaching us how to pray because that's the series we're in ends with this statement, the evil one. The very last important thing Jesus says, evil one, is usually the first thing we tend to neglect when we face our own troubles.
You see the the thing that I think which is why we need this word so much is that we face our troubles, we face our struggles, but we only view them in terms of physical problems, emotional problems, relational problems. But what you and I need to be reminded of here today is that behind those issues are powers at work, forces at work, evil at work. Things are not always as they seem. The forces of darkness, these these powers attach themselves to people and to structures that seek to divide us, that seek to isolate us from Jesus and isolate us from each other. And so we need to hear this word today.
And as Jesus teaches us how to pray, he's going to help us understand that yes, as we step into our day, we face a power we cannot deal with on our own, but he leads us to another way. And so we are going to read as we have been all summer long the lord's prayer. Now hopefully through the end of the series as we're going through it, someone has learned how to pray, hopefully. But we're going to do that today. And so, I'm gonna ask that if you are willing and able that you would stand with me as we read the Lord's prayer.
So whether you're watching at a campus or at home, would you just stand as we read together? And listen, as I read the prayer, I'm gonna ask that we all would say this prayer together From Matthew's gospel, this then is how you should pray. Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today 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. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together. Heavenly father, as we have gathered today as your church, we are grateful that you Jesus have taught us to pray.
And so we ask now that your holy spirit would give us ears to hear so that we might learn, we might be changed. Give us eyes to see. And God would you help us to find within you a power so that we might be delivered from the evil one. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen. Thank you. You can be seated. Now this most famous teaching on how to pray was the result of the disciples, Jesus' first followers asking him a question. Lord, teach us to pray.
Now when you think about all all the things that they could have asked him to do, it's this one, because they saw Jesus do a lot of crazy things. I mean the man walked on water. That's great to know how to do. He turned water to wine, which for some of us, we can get into a Jesus like that. We would like to know how to turn water into wine.
On one occasion, when it's time for him to pay his taxes, he tells his disciples, well, go fish and you'll find a tax coin in the mouth of the fish. Now come tax season, that's an amazing thing to know how to do. Imagine all of us with all the confidence and faith in God to tell the IRS, go fishing. Alright. Go fishing, you'll find it out there.
What a gift. But they ask him, would you teach us how to pray? And Jesus begins in his response by saying our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Jesus wants us first and foremost to be reminded today that God is tender and compassionate. He is a father.
There's intimacy here that we are invited into to experience. Do you know God as father? Many of us know God as the taskmaster. We know God as the distant creator of all things who made those NASA pictures look so amazing last week. But do you know God as father, tender and compassionate?
Hallowed be your name. In other words, he's communicating that, yes, he is a father but he is also a consuming fire. God is holy. Well which one is he? Is he tender, compassionate or holy?
The answer is yes. Yes. He then goes on to say, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That is to say Jesus teaches us to pray for justice and righteousness. In other words, in heaven, it is just.
In heaven, it is perfect. In heaven, it is right. And so what he is teaching us to say is in the same way that it is in heaven, would you make it here on earth today too? We are to make space for that. We not only pray for righteousness but we participate in the work of it.
God, if it's merciful in heaven, would it be merciful on earth? God, if there is love in heaven, would there be love on earth? Lord, if there are Laker championships in heaven, would there be Laker championships on earth? The spirit is moving in some of you, in some of you. As it as it is in heaven, would it be on earth?
Then he moves from this cosmic statement of man, kingdom coming. How big is that to something as so simple as give us each day our daily bread. God, yes, the kingdom is coming, but also I need a sandwich today. I need a sandwich. Would you feed me?
Jesus teaches us that if we're going to learn how to pray, we need to learn how to ask. We all have daily needs. And whether we are willing to admit it or not, you are a needy person. Regardless of your education, how well you feel put together today, your social status, your ethnicity, your age, you are more of a needy person than you are probably comfortable admitting. And here's the good news, Jesus loves to provide for needy people.
He loves to do it which is why he teaches us to pray. Give us our daily bread. Daily bread. Not weekly, not monthly. This is not a Costco statement, right?
We're not bulk shopping. Daily bread. You come every day. God, here are my needs. Would you meet them?
And then he says as we covered last week, probably the most difficult part of the prayer, forgive us as we forgive our debtors. Forgiveness. My goodness, if Christianity is anything, it's a message of forgiveness that God is displaying his love through giving his son to live, die and be raised from the dead as a demonstration that he loves us and that he's offered us life. What is Christianity if it's not a message of forgiveness? And though it's difficult to pray, you and I can't imagine loving God if it doesn't also transform the way we love neighbor.
In fact, I think a careful reading of Jesus in the gospels is to see that the the best proof, the receipts as we say today, the receipts that you love God is that you love your neighbor and that you work for their good. Forgiveness is an important part of that. Now I know the the journey of forgiveness is long. The the weight of it is heavy. We talked about that last week.
And so let me just offer this, if you are still struggling to forgive, say these words, Lord, I am not ready to forgive this person, but help me to want to forgive this person. Make that your prayer over and over and over. And then now he ends with the statement that we will 0 in on our time. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. The first thing I want us to see from the statement is this, Jesus teaches us to pray so that we can see our real enemy.
We need to see who our actual enemy is, the evil one. That's our real enemy. And you see, I think the greatest scheme and strategy of the evil one is to try to convince us that he's not our greatest enemy, but that we are. But there is a power at work in our world and in our day through our workplaces, through our relationships, through our social medias that is working to shape us and convince us that we are our greatest enemies to each other and that's just not the case. There is a real enemy out there and he loves to twist you, to deceive.
He's called the father of lies, but masquerades as an angel of light. Jesus in teaching us to pray wants us to see that there was a real enemy at work. Paul also picks us up in Ephesians 6. Listen to these words. For our struggle, listen, struggle is not against flesh and blood.
Our struggle is not against each other but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood. Now it's interesting to me that as as I kinda just sit back and observe our current cultural moment, I'm starting to see patterns as we wrestle with the the ills that face our day that also causes such great conflict and hostility with each other. The the the disordered and fractured sexual revolution today, why is it so hard to talk about that? The toxic and ugly conversation of politics.
I mean you can't go 30 seconds into a conversation without it bothering you. They hurt you. What they say sounds so dumb. They seem so narrow minded. They sound like they're just repeating what they heard on Fox News or CNN.
Probably the conversation of historical racism in the West. Right? Why is it that these topics, they generate such quick hostility? Because there are forces at work behind all of them. And so if we're going to be anything different as the church, I think it looks like you and I, as we work through and have conversations around hard topics, we start our conversations like this.
Listen, what you say might bother me, what you say might anger me, what you have said already hurt me, but I want you to know this, I am not your enemy. You are not my enemy. There is a real enemy. We need to name that enemy for who and what he is and what he's trying to do. If we're gonna make any difference, if we're going to look different as a community, we need to name our real enemy.
It's not us. I think of one theologian who said, man, we are so quick to engage in human warfare because we are so slow to engage in spiritual warfare. You see we are quick to pillage our neighbors because we're slow to pillage the enemy. We'll just take it out on each other. That makes this conversation all the more challenging.
And then you throw in the word temptation, what is what is Jesus after in this in this prayer? Because many have pointed out this is kind of a confusing statement, lead us not into temptation. What does Jesus mean by this? For a lot of us here in the West, temptation already sounds kind of archaic. Because again, I mean if if temptation is anything but I'm told in America that I can have anything as my right, what really is a temptation anymore?
You see, there is a, an assumption that I wanna just address for some of us today because maybe you're you're here, you're watching, and and you're you feel like you're on the outside looking in and you're just not convinced of Jesus. Man, I'm grateful that you're with us, and I wanna just offer this this thought to you. There is a cultural assumption that says this, if I cannot have what I want, then I can't be happy. And I just wanna say that that is a narrow view of life, and it's a narrow view of yourself. In other words, happiness will never be caught by chasing happiness.
Happiness is the result of first chasing something else. Psalm 1 doesn't say happy is the person who chases happiness. The psalmist has got a radically different vision for life and flourishing. And so I I would just offer that to you, that there is another route for you and that temptation is a very real thing, even in a world that tells you you can have whatever you want because you deserve to be happy. Now this word temptation is a strange one for sure but listen, temptation itself is not a new thing, it's an ancient problem.
Adam and Eve, the whole world spun into chaos because of the temptation. The greatest king in Israel failed in temptation, David. Jesus himself, as we listen to in Matthew 4 hear this word, then Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness to what? Be tempted by the devil. Notice the connection here, led by the spirit to be tempted by the devil.
That is bizarre. But I I think it's also just that's everyday life, isn't it? Like I just wanna say this and hopefully this brings you some kind of, like, just relief. It's not a bad thing to be tempted. Right?
In other words, there's nothing wrong with you when you are being tempted. You You know what that's a sign of? It's a sign that you're a human being. Jesus was tempted. Now this word though is difficult to translate because some have said, well, it can mean test, but others have said, well, no, it can also mean trap or enticement.
And I think the the solution probably is it means both I think. Jesus is being led by the spirit to be tested but Satan wants to use that as an opportunity to tempt him. The same happens in our lives. Right? What God uses as a test, Satan uses as a temptation.
This is how he works. Tests are needed, man. You and I don't become like that version of yourself who you would love to be one day, you will not get there unless you know how to work through a test. We need tests. Tests both show our character and they shape our character.
We need tests. God in his love loves to test us. We gotta receive that. And at the same time, Satan in his hatred and destructive ways loves to use tests as a form of temptation. But what Jesus, I think, is teaching us to say is this, Lord, please don't test me today.
To pray lead me not into temptation is to say, God, I I don't wanna be tested because I know I'm gonna fail. I know I'm gonna fail. It reminds me when I used to be a high school teacher, I would assign reading on Fridays because I just love my students. So they'd have to read Friday night and then Monday I'd give them a pop quiz. And then I would get surprised like, wow, they're all doing good on this pop quiz.
And then it struck me, well duh, they they knew a quiz was coming Monday because I gave them homework Friday. So what I did, I moved the pop quiz off Monday and I didn't tell them when it's coming. So they come in Tuesday. Oh, pop quiz time for what you read on Friday. Oh, mister Ramos.
Some of them would get so defeated. They're like, I'm gonna fail already. So what they would do is they would pull out a sheet of paper, write their name on the top, and then put 0 out of 5. They would already grade their paper and they would hand it in because they knew I I'm not gonna pass this test. I'm not gonna make it.
Because what that quiz would do, that quiz would inform me and them what was actually in them and what wasn't. We need tests. Tests both show us our character and they shape it. And what happens is there's a temptation just to cram Monday morning because you know the quiz is coming. But the goal of a test is to humble us, to help us embrace our limitations, to know that God in his wisdom and love is going to lead you through something now.
He's testing you. One one writer I was reading this week, it was kinda dark to to read and kinda sad. He just said all of life is a test. That was his reflection on this passage. Like, well, great.
That's helpful. God is testing us. Maybe God's testing some of you right now. You're working through something. How does he wanna show you who you are, but in his grace also shape you in who you could be in Jesus?
Embrace the test. Secondly though, Jesus also wants us to see this. He is teaching us that we should pray our weaknesses. Lead me not into temptation is a way to say Lord I am weak. How many of us are comfortable acknowledging our weaknesses?
I'm weak. This is hard to confess because many of us are really good at concealing them, especially to people. People are the last ones that we wanna show our weaknesses to. Add to that, we live in a world that says, show us your power, show us your strength, tell the world who you actually are. Admitting weakness is not a natural thing for any one of us to do, but Jesus is creating space and teaching us how to pray.
He wants us to learn to name our weaknesses. Where are you weak today? What is hard to say in prayer because you struggle with it? Name those things. Even in the face when a world says show us your power.
And we're good at that. Right? I mean, you go into a job interview. We all know the questions coming. I love to ask it when I interview people.
Well, tell me about your weakness. Now if we were all honest, no one was getting hired. Like, well, listen. I might show up late. I'm gonna take the paper clips.
I'm gonna print stuff for home at work. Right? If you give me busy work at the desk, I'm gonna binge watch 10 lasso while you're not looking. Like, none of us will get a job, but this is what we do. So when we say you know, when they ask us, well, tell me about your weakness, we'll say, you know what?
I try really hard. That's how we frame our weaknesses. I'm just you know, I'm kind of a perfectionist, and so I don't stop until that job is done. That's what I struggle with. We're never gonna say I can't receive feedback, I'm not a good team player, like, we need to make progress in life by concealing weakness.
Jesus says the only way to make progress in prayer and with me is to reveal your weakness, to name it, to state what you're struggling with. He gives us permission to do this. It reminds me of the hymn where the, the writer says, prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love. Lead me not into temptation is a way to say God, I am weak and I know that it's so easy for me to relapse today. It's so easy for me to relapse back into negative thinking.
It's so easy for me to relapse back into my addictions, spending, social media, pornography. God, you know that I can so easily relapse back into substance abuse and the ongoing battle of just trying to survive thinking that we can use these things to do that. I can so quickly relapse into thinking I need attention from people to feel worth. This is freedom in prayer to say, God, I am weak and you know it. Help me.
Help me. I I think of the words from, Hebrews 4 where the author says, we don't have a high priest, listen now, who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses. Some of you and all of us actually need to be reminded today that Jesus knows what it's like. Listen what he says. Unable to empathize.
We don't have one who's unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are. Yet he did not sin. What good news today. This means you and I have a savior today. What we were unable to do through our temptation, Jesus has done for us through his temptation.
This is profound. He goes on to say then, let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence. This is a paradox. Admitting my weakness doesn't make me cower in doubt, it makes me confident. The more you admit that you are weak, the stronger you actually get.
This doesn't make sense. There's confidence for us. So that we may receive look what you get. Look what you get. Grace, mercy, and we can find grace to help us in our time of need.
I'm getting so excited I'm misquoting the verse. We may receive mercy and find grace to help us. There is more that God wants to give us if we're willing to give him our weaknesses. So much more. And you know what this is like, man?
This is like when you and I realize that the people who we say yes to hanging out with, especially during summertime, we wanna say yes to those kinds of people because they're people who get us. I love you because you get me. Like you we just we know each other well. They empathize with you and that's life giving. Your time together is so life giving.
This is what the author of Hebrew is saying, your time with Jesus in prayer will be life giving because he gets you, he knows you well. And then add to that, there's this important phrase there in the prayer, but, but deliver us from the evil one. Lastly, not only does Jesus teach us to pray our weaknesses, listen now, Jesus teaches us to pray for his power, his power. We need more than just willpower to get through our day. We need more than just an inspiring Google commercial on Super Bowl Sunday to help us know that we can get through our lives.
We need a power that is not available to us naturally. We need to be delivered today. Some of you today, you need to be delivered from what you are caught up in. This word deliver that Jesus uses means to to snatch, to drag out, to pull away from. It's as if Jesus is painting this picture in which the evil one always, all the time, through anything he can, is trying to allure you in, draw you in, bait you in, entice you in, and God in his loving hand snatches you out.
I like a God like that. I love a God like that who's gonna snatch Fredo out. He's gonna drag he's gonna drag me out. I'll take a God like that. He's probably gonna hurt, I'll probably be a little offended.
Come on God, my freedom, my rights, drag me out God. You know better. I need to be dragged out. I'm thinking about, just as Ashley and I walk our kids on a regular basis, we take them through walks, in the neighborhood, and, no matter how much we say it, you guys, we come to the end of the sidewalk. My wife's better at me than, saying this than I am.
She'll she'll say, Eli, Ella, look both ways. Before you step, look both ways. I mean we have said this countless times. Our neighbors probably know what we're gonna say as we walk by, look both ways because she says it so much. And without fail they just walk.
And we have to snap we have to yell at them, we have to deliver them with our words and with our bodies, get out of the way. And cars aren't even coming. And we still have to say, get back. We gotta snatch them back because they constantly don't know how to look both ways. Jesus in teaching us to pray this way, he's coming to Fredo.
He said, Fredo, you don't look both ways. And here's the thing about the enemy, you'll look down the street, you won't see anything coming. That's the whole point. The forces are invisible. The forces are attached to people and structures.
We so quickly write off demonic powers and forces because we're convinced we cannot see them yet. But they are always at work. And and the more frustrated people get in our conversations about what the real issues are in life, the more just angry we get. The fumes that come is probably a sign that we're actually getting closer to naming the evil for what it is because it's there and we need to be snatched back. Now as we close, let me just speak practically, how do we experience this power?
We're taught to pray for this power. Here's how I think it comes. Number 1, we need to remember what Christ has already done for us. You see the worry that some of us might be sitting in is, well, how am I ever getting away from this power? That's the wrong question.
The power has already been defeated. The power has been defeated. Jesus, man, He overcame His enemies, not by destroying them. This is the wonder of God's kingdom. This is the upside down nature of how God works because every time he healed somebody, he overcame the powers.
Every time Jesus casted out a demon, he overcame powers. Every time he spoke a word of forgiveness, he overcame powers. Every time he served the poor, he was overcoming powers. Every time he welcomed in the deemed sinner, he was overcoming powers. And when he was dying on the cross, he wasn't just dying to forgive us.
He wasn't just dying to make us right with God. On the cross, Jesus was overcoming the powers. Paul says in Colossians 2, having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them. Who do we know in the world that can do this? That as they're dying, they're mocking death.
As they're dying, they're mocking the powers that are killing them. Jesus mocked the very thing that killed him because he knew it would not hold him down forever. This is wild, you guys. And so our invitation in experiencing power is to first remember what he's already done. And then by faith, to practice in word and deed the good news that Jesus has overcome powers.
Remember what he's done for you. Remember the new life that you live in him. The Lord's prayer is yes, a prayer that we can pray but it's also a framework for us to see the world. It's like a pair of glasses and it gives us a framework for seeing how God works in the world. He invites us to experience power as we remember what he's already done for us.
Secondly, and lastly, we need to not just remember, we need to remain in Christ, remain in. The more I read the Bible you guys, the more I'm convinced that it's not the big words that help me, it's the tiny little ones. It's the ins, It's the buts. It's the ons. Listen to Paul from Ephesians 6.
Finally be strong in the Lord And in his mighty power, put on the full armor of God. To the degree that we remain in him, that we're strong in him, that we stay close to him. This word is one of union and closeness to the degree that we remain in Jesus will be to the degree that we experience his power against the forces of darkness in our lives. And how this works practically, because Paul goes on to say so that you can take your stand against the enemy's schemes, against the devil's schemes. What does this look like every day?
Well listen to this. Every time you make a decision to do a spiritual discipline, you are pushing back the powers. You're remaining in Jesus. Every time you pause from your busy day to pray, do you know what you're doing? You're experiencing power and you're pushing back darkness.
Every time you make a decision to rest in your work week, to Sabbath, to come to church, to sing, oh man, what are we doing when we're singing but receiving power from on high and pushing back the powers of darkness? We sing truth because we need to push back the power of lies in our life. All week long we are fed lie after lie after lie trying to deform us. Singing and gathering is a way to reform us, to reshape us, and to push back those powers. Every time you make a decision to serve somebody, to listen to somebody's story, to read scripture and allow your soul to swim in God's word, you're experiencing power and you're pushing back the work of the enemy.
My favorite words to hear from my wife as we part ways are, is this little phrase, don't forget your armor. Don't forget your armor. Now oftentimes the conversation usually goes at the end of the night as we reflect on the day, I forgot the armor. Forgot the armor. It's such a simple statement, put on.
As a reminder, in the same way that we put on clothes to function as regular human beings in society today, Put on the armor. Put on the armor. Remain in him. Remain in him. There stands an invitation for all of us today to do this, to find ourselves in Jesus.
Are you in Christ? If you're not, what do you think you need to be delivered from today? What's gripped you? What lie are you convinced of in your life right now? What is the enemy stealing from you?
Destroying in your life? How is the enemy slowly killing you? Because that's what Jesus says in John 10, the well known passage. The the the thief has come to steal, kill, and destroy. But here's here's what's crazy to think about, just because he came to do that doesn't mean he actually can do that, because Jesus says he came too.
He came that we would have life today, Life abundant, full life to pray, lead me not into temptation is to say, god lead me to life today. Deliver me from the evil one is to say, bring me to life. I want life today in the face of structural pain and world powers and just difficulty and hurt and loss. God, I want to, I want to have life today because you came to bring life. We can have that today.
As we go to prayer, first some of us, we need to pray that we would receive that life for the first time, that God would snatch us out of what we've been trapped in. And for the rest of us, I think there's also an invitation to name those things. What does God need to drag you out of today? And maybe over the next season of your life, you make this your prayer, God drag me out of this, fill in the blank. Rip me out of this kind of gossip, toxic way of speaking to people and speaking about people.
Deliver me. God, deliver Sandals Church so that we might have life. Let's pray now. Jesus, we are grateful that you teach us how to pray. And in so doing you invite us to experience your power at work.
And so right now in this moment, god, we open ourselves to that power. We name our weaknesses and god would you deliver us, deliver us because you came so we can have life. We pray these things in your name. Amen.