Deliver Us From Evil ~ Matthew 6:5-13
April 5, 2015 - Easter Sunday ~ New City Church of Calgary ~ Pastor John Ferguson
Intro: Os Guinness, Unspeakable, dinner host: When I read some of these readings before Sept 11, I thought
they were far too dark. When I read them again after Sept 11, they werent nearly dark enough.
Where was God when the towers fell? reporters, and many others, were asking.
Key Question: Have you ever asked yourself, Does God really care?
Where was God this week when extremists entered a school in Kenya & murdered 147 Christian students?
Where was God when your life fell apart? Does he even care?
What if it were possible to know that God cares deeply, and that he is more committed to eradicating evil
from this world & healing all that is broken that we could possibly dare to believe?
Christianity has always maintained that the clues to answering this question are to be found in the earth shatterig historical events that occurred some 2000 years ago around a Roman Cross and a borrowed tomb.
Today, were going to wrap up our 6 week study of The Lords Prayer by looking at the last phrase of the
prayer, and combining that with the crucifixion & resurrection of Jesus, well have a sure foundation to build
lives of radical hope and even defiance in this world of darkness.
Were going to discover together that the Cross & Resurrection of Jesus forever answers this question for us.
Deliver Us From Evil ~ Matthew 6:9-13
I.
Deliver us from real evil.
1. Assumption #1: Evil is real in this world.
(1) Eastern View: (1) Evil is an illusion that is the byproduct of attachment to this world. (2) Evil is the
product of an unknowable past that has manifest itself into this world through reincarnation.
(2) Western Secular View: Evil is just the way the world is. The universe doesnt care.
(3) The Christian view of reality includes the realitythe realnessof evil. It is seen as an intruder
into Gods good world, as vandalism upon the beauty of this world.
2. Assumption #2: God cares about real evil in his world.
(1) 20th Century was the bloodiest century on record, & so far, the 21st Century is looking no better.
Hitler, Stalin, Mao + ISIS, Boko Haram, & pedophile priests.
William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, man produces evil as a bee produces honey.
(2) Jesus: When you read the headlines and shake your heads in anger, you can be sure your Father
cares even more. Thats why Im teaching you to prayer, Father, deliver us from evil.
Obj: Thats fine & good Jesus, but God needs to do something now.
II. Deliver us from personal evil.
1. The problem is not just out there, but also in here.
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Joshua Butler Ryan, Skeletons in Gods Closet. I wanted genocide out of Gods world. And as I
continued reading through the Gospels, I found that Jesus did too.
Matthew 5:21-22, You have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not murder; and
whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his
brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and
whoever says, You fool! will be liable to the hell of fire.
Joshua Butler Ryan, Skeletons in Gods Closet. I had a problem. Jesus wants genocide out of Gods
world too, only he takes it a lot more seriously than I do. I want to get rid of genocide; Jesus wants to
get rid of rage. I want to put boundaries on the wicked wildfire; he wants to snuff out the spark. And
that wicked spark is in me. I may not be a Third World dictator, a genocidal soldier, or an interrogation
torturer. But I have anger, and its most often not the righteous kind. I can be a vindictive beast. Jesus
says if you are nice to folks on the outside but rage against them in your heart, you are danger for the
fire of hell. As much as I may like to think of myself as part of the exalted solution to the worlds
issues, I'm first and foremost part of the problem.
GK Chesterton, in response to the Times of London question about what the problem with was,
simply replied with two words on a postcard, I am.
2. The question all of a sudden becomes much more serious: How can God do away with evil
without doing away with us? Thats where the Cross & the Empty Tomb come into play.
(1) The answer is found in the Cross & Resurrection
Tim Keller, The Reason for God, The Bible says that Jesus came on a rescue mission for
creation. He had to pay for our sins so that someday he can end evil and suffering without ending
us. And if this is true, though we still have no answer to the question of why he allows evil to
continue, we know he cant be doing so out of indifference or detachment. God takes our misery
and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself.
John Stott, I could never believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is
the one Nietzsche ridiculed as God on a cross. In a real world of pain, how could one worship a
God who was immune to it.
Peter Kreeft, Making Sense out of Suffering, Jesus is the tears of God.
Main Idea: When you ask yourself, Does God really care? remember what he was willing to bear.
Good Friday Statement from the Primate of Kenya: My dear Brothers and Sisters, On this Good
Friday we gather in our churches across Kenya in the shadow of a great and terrible evil. People
who deal in death have slaughtered 147 people in Garissa, most of them students, and brought
wrenching anguish to their families and a deep sadness to our nation.
These young people died because they were Kenyans and they were Christians. This attack was
a calculated manifestation of evil designed to destroy our nation and our faith, but on this Good
Friday we are reminded that the very worst evil can do is not the last word.
Through spite and blatant miscarriage of justice, Jesus dies the agonising death of the cross, but
his last words are it is finished. The cross was not a tragic accident, but the fulfilment of Gods
purpose to reconcile men and women to himself through the atoning death of his Son, a reality
gloriously confirmed by his resurrection from the dead.
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(2) The Cross & the Resurrection are Gods exclamation points in the middle of history that evil
though realwill not have the last word. Rather, love does.
Summary:
The Cross of Jesus Christ tells us that God cares about the reality of evil both in our lives & in our world.
The Resurrection of JC tells us that that evil does not have the last word, but rather love does.
John 3:16, For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him might not
perish but have eternal life.
What if when we asked ourselves, Does God really care, we remembered what he was willing to bear?
Conclusion:
Os Guinness tells the story Baroness Caroline Cox, the Mother Theresa of the war-torn poor. Asked to
describe her worst moment and best moment in all her journeys of mercy.
Worst? Entering a Dinka village after the Sudanese govt-backed soldiers had left. More than 100 corpses of
savagely murdered men, women & children. Straw huts ablaze, devastation everywhere.
Best? The few women survivors still alive instinctively began to make crosses out of sticks lying on the
ground and erected them all around. Lady Cox explained that the crosses were not for grave markers, but
symbols, acts of defiant faith. As followers of Christ, they knew that God knew their pain. They knew that God
himself bore the marks of evil. And they still staked tier lives on the conviction that there was one who knew
and cared. They were not alone. They knew that evil would not have the last word.
What if this week we crossed sticks and erect them in the soil of this world of darkness?
The Resurrection of Jesus changes everything.
NCC, may you be a people knows God really cares b/c of what he was willing to bear.
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