Title: Lead Us? Not!
Text: Matthew 6:13a (Lead us not into temptation)
FCF: Being led is contrary to our natural desires, but when we choose to follow a good leader such as Christ, we end up in a place that is better than we would be naturally.
SO:
Intro:
Winston Churchill is famous for two things. He was a keen observer of man, and he seemed to have a knack for pointing out those observations in subtle but hilarious ways. One of my favorite lines is: “Mankind occasionally stumbles over the truth, but he’s generally quite able to pick himself up and continue in spite of it.”
This morning, as we continue our series looking into the Lord’s Prayer, we come to the phrase “Lead us not into temptation.” I think that Mr. Churchill may have understood that the greatest temptation is not to be led at all.
You’ll note the title of my sermon, even as it is phrased in the vernacular of the 80’s, is perhaps the more the more natural response, “Lead us? Not!” because frankly, we naturally don’t want to be led anywhere.
But, even just as normal human beings, we know at a certain level, we need to be led if we are ever going to amount to anything. This morning, I want to spend some time focusing on what it means to be led, and next week we’ll tackle the end the rest of the verse – where we get to talk about the dreaded “T” word – temptation.
Specifically, in our abbreviated time, I want to talk about the fact that being led, by definition, is specifically something we don’t want to do, but at the same time it’s voluntary. I’ll be ending by focusing on the fact that there are good reasons for choosing to follow, because without, we’ll never get where we want to be.
*Leadership is doesn’t take us where we naturally want to go*
I need to start by saying, however, that being led means we are being taken in a direction different, perhaps, than that which we would normally choose on our own.
On the face of it, I want to point out the obvious – you don’t need to be led to do the things you want to do naturally. Very few of us, for instance, need an exhortation to eat Joanne’s cheesecake. You might be asking where it is, but trust me, you don’t need to be told twice to eat it. Real leadership is the guy at the gym who uses things like that cheesecake to motivate you to make more room for the next serving.
When we talking about Jesus’ leadership in our lives, we know that he is specifically calling us to what we don’t naturally want, but what we inwardly need. Paul gets this conflict so well, when he says, “I find this law at work within me – The good things I know I want to do, I can’t seem to do them. And the things I don’t want to do? That’s what I keep finding myself doing. Oh wretched man that I am! Thanks be to Jesus who saves me!”
You have the full text there in your bulletin, but you’re getting the gist. By default, I can’t do it. It’s easy to gratify my flesh, or spend all my time trying to make money, or abuse the generosity of those around me – but everybody knows those are short-term gains. Praise be to Jesus who has rescued me from this body of death!
When I think about how the world so easily calls me to its way of life, the image that I get is that old fairy tale about the Pied Piper of Hamlin. You remember the guy playing the flute, and leading the rats out of the city? Well, if you know the fairy tale, you know that what happens is that the town stiffs him – they won’t pay. So, this Pied Piper comes back. He plays his flute and leads away. Then, he holds them ransom til he gets his money.
It’s actually a pretty great story about how the desires of this world so easily entrap us. Thanks be to Jesus who has rescued us – who has redeemed even this body of death.
Like the sirens that Ulysses sails past in the Illiad, the world beckons and begs us to come to it. The music sounds so pleasing, who wouldn’t want to dance? And when it calls, I usually just want to follow.
I’ll tell you, when it’s really tough, I often have to quote scripture to set my mind back straight. One in particular you’ll hear me use a lot is Proverbs 14:12 – “There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death.”
Long term thinking is the only cure for bad leadership. Up front, the world wants you to make one choice. But if you aren’t regularly in the habit of seeing where things are headed, you’re going to fall into some pretty bad traps.
*Leadership is Voluntary*
Ultimately, the choice to follow has to be just that – a choice. For some situations, we have a government that spends millions to brainwash – and that’s the term the military will use – we spend millions to brainwash men to follow commands. We do it, of course, because nobody is naturally to going to walk into a battlefield naturally. But, of course, if you can’t get anybody onto the battlefield, you’ve lost.
But even in a battlefield situation, there’s always still a choice. We don’t have a draft in the U.S. anymore – men and women choose to server. And even if you were drafted, you can always choose to disobey an order. Now, if you choose to disobey, you’ll end up at Leavenworth, but you always have the right to choose.
Again, the only issue is, what are the consequences of your choices?
In the fall, we in Sunday School read The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis. His basic point was this – every choice we make down here on earth has consequences in heaven. They may even seem right, but taken to their natural ends, they can mess you up.
He has this one chapter where this one guy is talking to one of his former employees he knew while he was still alive. The employee, it turns out, had killed a man. But that employee was willing to ask for forgiveness, and so, he was coming from heaven. His boss, on the other hand, keeps repeating the line, “I’m just a honest man, I want my rights. I don’t want any bleeding charity, I just want my rights!” That man can’t give into charity.
So, how do you think he’s ever able to choose to enter heaven? We Christians know that it is precisely Jesus’ bleeding charity that is our only pass at the Pearly Gates. Sadly, in that story, he can’t accept it. He’s on his own, and that’s the way he stays.
In what is perhaps the best summary of his entire book, Lewis writes, “In the end, there are only two kinds of people. There are those who will say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom, in the end, God must say, ‘Ok. Your will be done.’”
Ultimately, being led is a choice. Every choice has a consequence, but it’s still a choice. If it weren’t, why else would God have given us the ability to choose?
*Leadership means making the Choice to be better than ourselves*
Going back to the idea of the battlefield, there’s a reason why men choose to place themselves in a position of taking commands, even at the risk their own lives. They choose to follow because they trust that they have something better than themselves to fight for.
That same Winston Churchill we mentioned earlier knew people well. He knew that nobody wanted to fight. But he knew they needed to. It wasn’t until Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia that people finally realized he’d been right all along and finally made him prime minister. Poor old Neville Chamberlain has gone down in history as a wimp who kept insisting that deep in his heart, Hitler was just a good guy who just needed just a little bit more.
Churchill once said famously, “Ultimately, you can always appease the lion by allowing yourself to be eaten!” Thankfully, Britain knew he was right. I suspect if they had not chosen to be led, I’d probably be delivering this sermon auf Deutsche.
It took a lot of pain and suffering to realize that the Nazi threat was just that – a threat. It wasn’t until bombs were falling on London that Churchill could call them, saying:
We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
And you know what? Ultimately, when people chose to follow Churchill, it really was “their finest hour.”
Jesus Christ is calling us to a battlefield today too. We fight, not against powers and principalities, but against the one they call the Ruler of the Darkness of this age [Eph 6:12]. Sin is a real thing. You may choose to ignore it, you may choose to give into it, or you can choose to fight it. It will take your blood, your toil, your sweat, your tears.
But you will win, if you’ll follow your leader, Jesus Christ.
Listen to his direction. Do what says. Be willing to be led. And follow.
It’s the best choice you’ll ever make. Would you pray with me?
Long Branch Baptist Church
Halfway, Virginia; est. 1786
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Enter to Worship
Prelude Rich Mullins
“All the way my Savior Leads Me”
Welcome & Announcements [See Right]
Morning Prayer
*Offertory Hymn #76 (Red)
“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”
Offertory Mr. Witt
*Doxology
Scripture
Sermon
The Lord’s Prayer Series
Lead Us? Not!
Invitation Hymn #456 (Red)
“Precious Lord Take My Hand”
Benediction
Congregational Response
May the grace of Christ of Savior / And the Father’s boundless love
With the Holy Spirit’s favor / Rest upon us from above. Amen.
* Congregation, please stand.
Depart To Serve
SCRIPTURE FOR MEDITATION
For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.
-Romans 7:14- 24
“To what then will I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not weep.’
-Luke 7:31-32
There is a way that seems right to a person, but the end thereof is death.
-Proverbs 14:12
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. So take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand in that evil day.
- Ephesians 6:12-13
