The Battle Within
Overcoming Evil With the Power of The Holy Spirit
This past Sunday in worship, we heard the last message of our Lord’s Prayer sermon series. The sermon was based on the second half of Matthew 6:13, “Rescue us from the evil one.” Many of us relate well to what the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 7:15, 19, and 21 “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. For I do not do the good I want but the evil I do not want is what I do. So, I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.” How many of us have set out at the beginning of a new year with a list of resolutions only to drop them before the end of January? It can sometimes feel like we are powerless over the habits, behaviors, and practices we wish we did not engage in. The good news is there is a power and freedom God gives those who are in Christ Jesus to overcome those things which pull us away from God.
Key points:
- Evil is that which thwarts the God’s intentions to bless creation.
- Sin is our participation in evil.
- The Evil One is the father of lives, the deceiver, who tempts us into sin by twisting the good gifts of God into something which is a fake copy of what God wants us to embrace.
- Jesus teaches that we can pray to be rescued from the Evil One. By praying this, we can be assured that by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are enabled to resist temptation and be delivered from the Evil One.
Romans 8:9 reminds us that the Spirit of God dwells within us. And in Romans 8:11 we are told, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.”
May we rely on the Spirit’s power this week as we face various temptations. May we pray to be rescued from the Evil One and find the strength we need to overcome evil and live the life God is calling us into.