[0:00] And turn again to the Word of God, to Luke, Luke chapter 11, Matthew, Mark, Luke in the New Testament.
[0:11] Luke chapter 11, verse 1 through 4. This is the Word of God. One day Jesus was praying in a certain place.
[0:24] When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples. He said to them, when you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name.
[0:39] Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.
[0:52] Amen. Let's hear the Word of God preached. In Matthew chapter 11, the Lord Jesus says that when a sinner comes to him for salvation, they put themselves in the yoke with him, and he invites them, learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.
[1:15] And I trust you're coming to see what a wonderful privilege is ours to have Jesus as our teacher. And in this topic, that we have him to teach us how to pray.
[1:27] No one knew the heavenly Father as well as Jesus did. And no one longed more for his Father's name to be hallowed and kept honored.
[1:39] No one longed to see his kingdom come to this world and to have his will be done on earth as it is in heaven, like Jesus did.
[1:49] And the more we are made to be like Jesus, the more we will pray like Jesus did. This is the way a Christ-like heart prays.
[2:01] So it's more than just learning the right words to say. Thousands, perhaps millions today, are saying these words in church services across the world. No, it's getting our hearts more like his.
[2:16] And when we do, we'll pray from the heart like he prayed. So we're returning this morning to our study on the Lord's Prayer, in which he taught his disciples how to pray, and therefore us who are his disciples.
[2:31] And today we come to a transition in the prayer itself. Up to this point, we've been asking the Father for things for him.
[2:43] May your name be hallowed. May your kingdom come. Your will be done. So having first asked for God's name and kingdom, we now are taught to ask for things that we need, like food and forgiveness and protection from the evil one.
[3:01] I wonder if you're learning to keep first things first in prayer. God first, and then our needs.
[3:13] You see, he is to have preeminence in all things, even our praying. Well, now for today, Jesus says, when you pray, say, give us each day our daily bread.
[3:28] Or as it's recorded in Matthew 6, 11, give us this day. Our daily bread. So when was the last time you asked the Heavenly Father for enough food for today?
[3:43] For today. According to Jesus, we're to pray this every day. And that says to John Heaney, oh, how I need to have him teach me to pray.
[3:57] To bring my prayer life into conformity with his teaching. So let's examine Jesus' words here. And see how it is God's will that we daily ask him for our daily bread.
[4:12] We're going to break this prayer down first, word by word, to get at its clear meaning. And then we'll draw some further applications. And we're going to work backwards through the petition.
[4:24] So let's look at the last word first. Give us this day our daily bread. Bread. I like bread.
[4:36] I had some this morning. But is that all we are to pray for? Is that what Jesus is teaching us? No, bread here is used as a figure of speech.
[4:49] What is called synecdoche. In which a part is made to represent the whole. So if a captain of a ship sends out the announcement over the loud speaker, all hands on deck, what's he expecting?
[5:08] Not just a bunch of hands to appear from the sailors on deck, but he's after their arms, their chest, their legs, their feet, their brains.
[5:19] He's saying, I want the whole of the sailor to be on deck reporting for duty. But he says it using a synecdoche. All hands on deck.
[5:32] Now, the same could be said with bread. That's how Jesus is using bread. It was the staple, the main part of the diet. But here, bread represents the whole.
[5:45] All food. We even use this way of speaking today, don't we? We speak of the breadwinner. Who's the breadwinner in the family?
[5:55] Well, he's the one that goes out and brings back the bread. Well, I guess we use bread for money, too, don't we? As well as for food. He's the one that brings home the bacon, we say.
[6:08] Well, there's another synecdoche. Hopefully, yes, there's some bacon, but we want eggs and other things with it. You see how one part is often used for the whole.
[6:21] And so what we're to pray in this petition is give us each day our daily food. Indeed, everything that this body needs for survival.
[6:31] Now, let's not overlook the obvious before we run on to the next word. In teaching us to pray for our daily food, Jesus is telling us that our heavenly Father is concerned about our needs, our physical needs for daily bread.
[6:51] Now, we can think our physical needs are not something to bother the Lord with, but to the contrary, He created our bodies, didn't He?
[7:03] Our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made by Him. They are His workmanship that declare how glorious He is. Furthermore, He did not send His Son into the world to save our souls alone.
[7:19] No, we are body-soul creatures. That's what we are. And when He sent His Son, He sent Him to save our soul and our body, indeed all that we are.
[7:31] And furthermore, believers, your heavenly Father has made your body to be what? A temple in which His Spirit lives. And if you are to hallow God's name, and if you are to promote God's kingdom and to do His will, it will be done in your body, won't it?
[7:54] And so you are to glorify God in your body, 1 Corinthians 6.20. You are to present your body to Him as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, Romans 12.1.
[8:07] You are to present the parts of your body as instruments of righteousness to serve Him, Romans 6. In fact, so great is His concern for our bodies, that one day He's going to raise these very same bodies from the dust when Jesus comes back.
[8:26] And He's going to, they were sown in weakness, He's going to raise them in power. He's going to change them and make them as we just heard. In a moment, there's going to be a change that happens, and they'll be like our Lord's glorious body.
[8:40] And forever and ever, He will then reunite that glorified body with a perfected soul. And forever and ever, we will live with Him in a new heavens, in a new earth, a very physical, earthly place, in bodies.
[8:59] That body you're sitting there with, this body, but glorified. Yes, your body matters to God. And that's no small cause for wonder, love, and praise.
[9:15] In fact, He cares so much about it that He says, Now, you come to me whenever you have any bodily need. And you ask me. You ask me for whatever your body needs today. And you can do so knowing that I care and will supply it.
[9:31] So that's the first word, bread. It's a word that stands for all of our food and all of our physical needs of the body. So the next word coming backwards, give us each day our daily bread.
[9:46] Daily bread. So in praying for our daily bread, we're praying for God to supply our physical needs for another day. We're not asking for a week's supply of food.
[9:58] We're not asking for a month's supply. We're asking for daily. Today's bread. Now, we remember how God fed the Israelites for 40 years in the desert.
[10:10] Kids, did He give the Israelites the manna from heaven enough for one week? No. He gave them enough for one day. Day by day.
[10:23] Morning by morning. Supernaturally provided bread from heaven. And how much were they to gather? Father, only enough for the needs of the day.
[10:35] Oh, but some didn't obey. And they gathered more. Perhaps afraid that God wasn't going to give them bread the next day. And they didn't believe His word and obey Him. And what happened to that bread?
[10:48] The next day it was full of worms and stunk to high heaven. No, God gave daily bread to the Israelites.
[10:58] And they were to look to Him. That's what God was teaching them. That they were to look to Him for their daily bread. Of course, the only exception was the sixth day when He gave enough for two days as they were to give that seventh day to the Lord as a special day of rest and worship.
[11:14] So, we pray, give us what is needed for today. For this day. Let's keep backing up in the petition.
[11:24] Give us each day our daily bread. Or as in Matthew 6, give us this day our daily bread.
[11:35] So, we're to ask not once for the week, not once for the month, not just when our bank account gets low or our cupboards get bare.
[11:51] No, we're to ask each day. And it's not only daily bread we are to ask for, but we're to pray daily for our daily bread.
[12:01] You see, the word day is mentioned twice. Once it's for the amount that we're asking, the bread for today. The other time is how often we're to ask.
[12:13] Ask daily. Give us this day our daily bread. I wonder, did you pray this day for today's physical needs to be met?
[12:27] Not worrying about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about itself, Jesus says. Father in heaven, meet our physical needs that we have today.
[12:39] A daily prayer for daily food. And don't miss the heart of God in this petition. You may think your daily bread is such a small thing to bother God about.
[12:52] And he's saying, you're wrong. I want you to pray about everything, even small things like your food that you need for today.
[13:04] You know, most of life is small things, isn't it? We have big things in our life, but there are few. There's a whole lot of small things in our life. And if we separate that off from God, and we don't pray about that, well, there'll be huge tracks of our life that we never interact with God about.
[13:24] No, he's saying, I want to hear from you about everything down to your daily bread every day. If it's a care to you, it's a care to me.
[13:36] So bring it to me and never tire of asking because I will never get tired of hearing and answering you as you come to me asking. Ask me daily for your daily needs of the body.
[13:50] Notice we're backing up the second word in the prayer. Give us each day our daily bread.
[14:01] Notice the plural. Indeed, we'll see that in all three of these following petitions. It's not give me my daily bread. It's give us our daily bread.
[14:12] And that's intentional. Not for a moment implying that we're not to ask for personal blessings, my daily bread, my sins forgiven, and my protection.
[14:25] But it's to not be just for me. That's the teaching. The petition is give us, forgive us, and lead us. In other words, this is unselfish praying.
[14:38] This is what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves. We're taught to have a concern for others' physical needs, even when we are alone with God in prayer and praying about our needs.
[14:57] Give us, indeed in one sense, all men, but especially the household of faith, the family of God. For some time now, well, for two years, we've been praying for an orphanage somewhere deep in an orange grove in Myanmar.
[15:15] There's a thousand mouths needing to be fed every day. Little children, many of them orphans because of the civil war that's going on between the military and the civilians.
[15:34] A deadly, gross, destructive war with no end in sight. And so what do you do?
[15:46] With the stores bombed, the shelves empty, the roads blocked and full of fighting soldiers? Farmers unable to go out and tend the rice fields because of the war that's raging all around them?
[16:01] Well, food is growing scarce. And the supply of food is growing worse. And the cost of food is going through the ceiling. And every day, those thousand hungry mouths need rice.
[16:17] Not just for today, but again tomorrow, the next day. Each day, they need food. And so as we pray, Heavenly Father, give us each day our daily bread.
[16:31] It's with a thought for them. Yes, give to them over there and to us here our daily bread. And the wonderful thing is that for two years, God has done that for them.
[16:44] And they've never gone without their daily bread. Oh, that men would praise Him for His wonderful deeds done for the children of men as He takes care of the poor and needy.
[16:58] Give us each day our daily bread. And then lastly, consider the first word of our prayer. Give. Give us this day our daily bread.
[17:14] I want to ask you, do you thank God for your food before you eat it? When you're at home? When you're out in the restaurant? When you're at school? Do you pause and thank God for your daily bread?
[17:28] I trust you do. That's a Christ-like habit and it's taught in many places in the Bible. But that is not what this prayer is talking about. You notice, it's not thanking God for our daily bread.
[17:44] It's asking God for our daily bread. It's saying, give. Kids know the difference between saying thank you and saying give.
[17:55] Give. You say give first and then if it's given, you say thank you. This is a request, a petition to God to give.
[18:06] There's a difference. An important difference. We're praying, give us this day. And if God gives it, well then, that means it's a gift, doesn't it?
[18:17] It's a gift from God. It's not something we've earned or merited or deserved. God, I served you another day, now pay up. No, no, never. Never do we put God in our debt to where he owes us our daily bread.
[18:36] Romans 11, 35. Who has ever given to the Lord that he should repay him? No, where'd you get what you gave to him? From him.
[18:48] So we never can in debt God. So it's always a gift. Our daily bread is his. The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. Every beast of the field, every bird of the air, every fish of the sea, every grain of wheat and corn and rice.
[19:02] It's all his to give and ours to ask. Give. Give. So if we eat it all, it's because God in grace has freely given from his hand into ours.
[19:19] And that's why we're to ask. Give us this day our daily bread. So we've looked at each of the words as they appear in the prayer, the words of Jesus and what they mean individually.
[19:35] And we see them put together. And here's the main point. It's the will of God that we we daily ask him to provide for our physical needs.
[19:48] Today. And then again, I say I find in these simple and well-known words of Jesus, a need to have this word of Christ dwelling in me richly and informing and reforming my prayer life and bringing me back to the pattern.
[20:09] John, are you praying this way? John, are you praying this way every day? No, Lord. Come and teach me. I want to. Do we come like these disciples?
[20:21] Lord, teach us to pray. I trust we'll never stop asking the Lord that until we see him face to face. And then we'll thank him face to face.
[20:35] Let me then give some further observations and applications. The main point is we daily ask him for our daily food. But the first lesson I want you to notice is that these last three petitions where we ask things for us, they're not somehow unconnected with the first petitions that are God word.
[20:56] Heavenly Father, we're praying, meet our physical needs today so that we may be enabled to live this God-focused life.
[21:09] And to hallow and honor your name and to extend your kingdom and to bring it to my heart and world and to do your will. Give me today's food that I need in order to do that, to glorify your name and extend your kingdom.
[21:29] So God is still preeminent even in these requests for us. We're asking these things for what? Why do we want food? We want food so we can glorify God in our bodies and hallow his name and extend his kingdom.
[21:43] So we find this very same concern in the prayer of the wise man, Agur, in Proverbs 30 and verses 8 and 9, when he says, give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.
[21:58] Isn't that interesting? That's what Jesus is teaching us to pray. Agur was doing it in the Old Testament. Give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, who is the Lord?
[22:13] Who needs him? I've got all this money. I got all I need. Don't need him. Or I may become poor and steal and so dishonor the name of my God.
[22:26] There it is. The word there for dishonor is profane the name of the Lord my God. So why do I want my daily bread? So that I won't dishonor his name.
[22:39] I'm afraid that if I didn't have it, that I might be tempted to steal and in that way break his commands and drag his name in the dirt. So you see how his request for food is tied to those first petitions.
[22:54] Lord, I want your name hallowed. I want people to hear that you're the one that takes care of me and gives me my daily food. And I want to praise your name for it, that others might see the goodness of your kingdom to all that are your citizens.
[23:12] You see the same aim in David in the 119th Psalm, verse 175. David says, let me live that I may praise you.
[23:24] Well, we need food to live, don't we? So why do we want the food to live? Why do you pray, God, give me today this day's needs for my body that I might live?
[23:39] Well, it's to be connected to the greatest purpose on why we exist. It's to glorify God and enjoy him forever. So David says, let me live.
[23:50] And that includes everything that the protection, the food, the health, that I might praise you. Praise your name. Paul's aim was the same.
[24:00] I consider my life worth nothing to me. If only I may finish the race and complete the task that the Lord Jesus has given me. The task of testifying to the grace of God, the gospel of God's grace.
[24:12] So that now, as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death, for to me to live as Christ and to die as gain. Paul, why do you want to continue living?
[24:22] Why do you want God to meet your needs so that you can go on? That I might exalt his name in so living. Why do you want your food for today?
[24:39] Why do you want to live? Is it to hallow and exalt? Is it to come together today and praise him? Is it to go into your workplace? Is it to go into your home, into your communities, and there extend the gospel of God's kingdom and to obey his will as it's being obeyed in heaven?
[24:59] That's the first lesson. We eat to live and we live that we might honor and glorify God.
[25:12] But then daily praying for our daily bread will do several other good things for us. I want to mention a few. The first is that this prayer will teach us our utter dependence upon God.
[25:27] In this prayer, we acknowledge that God is the provider of everything we need for our physical sustenance. Now, we in the prosperous West have a problem with this petition, don't we?
[25:41] We've been to Woody's. We've been to Sam's Club. We've been to Costco and to Aldi's. And if you come to my house, you'll find the cupboards are full and maybe there's even stuff in the freezer.
[25:52] And so we have a hard time honestly coming to the Lord and saying, Lord, give me today the need that I have to sustain my life today.
[26:04] We've already got enough stash to live through a nuclear blast or another Y2K scare.
[26:15] And so you say, Pastor, we're not living in the desert where the food arrived day by day. We've got stores to buy up lots of food. And we've got houses to store it in and freezers to put it in.
[26:28] So this prayer really doesn't fit us, does it? Jesus is not asking us to pretend for the moment that we do not have enough food for today.
[26:41] But rather he's telling us that we need to come to grips with this awesome reality. That we're no less dependent upon God for the sustenance of our physical life than were the Israelites in the desert.
[26:58] Yes, God brought it down from heaven and water out of a rock to keep them alive. But we are not one whit less dependent upon God for our daily food, our health, the health of our body.
[27:16] There are thieves, you know. There are destructive storms. There's power outages. There's floods and famines and wars that could leave you with nothing. Think of Myanmar, of Ukraine.
[27:28] There's a reason to pray. Give us this day our daily bread. And also I've known people who have died with full freezers and full cupboards.
[27:43] Indeed the Bible records them for us. Kings that were wealthy and had all the food at their disposal. But God struck them with diseases such that their bodies could not take in that food and produce the energy to keep themselves alive.
[27:58] So there's a reason to pray. God, give me this day all that I need for my physical body to live on.
[28:08] You see, the reality that Jesus faces us with in this prayer is that we're dependent creatures, always and utterly dependent upon God for our physical existence.
[28:20] You know, our body not only needs food, it needs oxygen, doesn't it? And what does the Bible say? It's God himself who gives all men life and breath and everything else.
[28:31] Not only food, but breath. And how does he give breath, kids? He doesn't give you a dozen breaths. He gives you one breath at a time. Just as he gave manna one day at a time.
[28:45] Kids, I want you to do something. I want you to take a deep breath and hold your breath, okay? On three. Just hold your breath. Ready? One, two, three.
[28:58] While you're holding, I'm going to talk to you. You are right now living on the breath that God has given you. And you are right now ever so dependent upon him giving you another breath.
[29:09] If you are to live. If he gives it, well, then you live. If he doesn't give it, well, then you die. The same is true of your food.
[29:21] It's his to give. It's his to withhold. If he gives it, you live. If he doesn't, kids, you're turning blue. Go ahead and take a breath. That breath was given to you by God.
[29:32] That's what the Bible teaches us. But it also teaches us we depend upon him to give it. And we've gotten so used to him giving us not just one breath, but a whole bunch of breaths.
[29:45] Right after each other, we never even doubt the fact that we depend on him for breath. It's the same with our food. We never realize that I'm not only dependent upon God to be alive, to give the next breath.
[29:58] I'm also dependent upon him to give the next bite of food and the energy to digest it, to give me more energy to continue living on the planet. We're utterly dependent upon God for physical life.
[30:20] And this prayer is a helpful reminder to that. If you're praying every morning, Lord, give me today what I need for my body to continue to live.
[30:30] You're being reminded every day, every morning, how dependent you are upon the Lord. A car, kids, a car is a dependent creation. It's not self-sustaining.
[30:41] Not yet anyway. It needs someone to fill it with gas, to recharge the battery, to rotate and change the tires when they wear out, along with other parts.
[30:54] It's not able to do for itself all that it needs to exist. And so a car, we say, is a dependent creation. It needs help outside of itself. And you too, boys and girls and men and women, are dependent creatures.
[31:08] You also need someone to fill you with fuel or you're not going anywhere. You will die. And few things are more obvious than this.
[31:20] We fuel up sometimes three times a day and sometimes even between. We're fueling. Why? Because we need it. We need it to live. And yet we can be half-blinded to our utter dependence upon God to give us the things we need to live.
[31:40] Why are we so slow to sense this dependence upon God for our daily food? Well, because we go off to work. And we make money. And we take the money. And we go to the store.
[31:51] And we buy food. There's tons of it on the shelves. We buy it. We bring it home. We cook it. We prepare it. We sit down and eat it. And in all of that, you see, we don't see God in the process.
[32:07] No, no. It was me. But he's the one behind it all. Behind the food chain. Behind the supply chain that brings it to your table is the controlling providence of God.
[32:24] That brings every bite into your mouth. Just as much as a baby robin with its mouth wide open only gets what another brings to it.
[32:35] That's the way we live. Dependent upon God. He's the first cause behind all the second, third, fourth, and fifth causes of having daily bread.
[32:48] And so why did the Lord make us so dependent upon him? Why did he so create us that we have this desperate need for God every day just to exist and keep ourselves alive?
[33:01] That we might seek him. Early let me seek his favor. Didn't we sing? Early every day I should seek his favor.
[33:15] Give me this day what I need. Early in life while you're young. Give me what I need. You see, he did it so we'd seek him. So that we'd come to him.
[33:26] He wants to hear from us. Not once in a while. Every day. Asking. Trusting him to supply. And so this prayer does us this wonderful service of reminding us daily of our dependence upon God.
[33:43] That unseen reality. But again, secondly, daily asking God for our daily food should also increase our humble gratitude. Indeed, if we ask in the morning, give me today what I need.
[33:55] Well, then if we do that and really sense I need you, God, today to provide for me, then should not our gratitude rise every time we sit down to a table in health?
[34:08] And say, thank you, Lord. You've done what I asked. You've given it to me. But why are we so slow to really be thankful when we sit down and before the meal we thank him for our food?
[34:20] Well, in part, it's because we don't appreciate how dependent we are. That's the value of this prayer. We're reminded how much we need him. And then when he gives it, we're more thankful for him having given it to us.
[34:34] Romans 1 says of those who do not worship God as the creator and sustainer of his world that neither were they thankful. You see, they don't start the day recognizing God is the God who made me in all things and provides all that we need for life.
[34:53] And so, is it a surprise that they're not thankful when they sit down to their food? No, there's a connection here. And if we pray this petition from the heart, we'll have more gratitude when God does supply.
[35:09] But that takes humility. It takes humility to say, I need you, God. We like to do for ourselves. Listen to your kids as they hit one or one and a half and do myself.
[35:24] Do myself. Don't need you. Do myself. There's something about us in that that's healthy. Yes, we're to take care of ourselves. But there's also something not so healthy. We're made dependent creatures on God.
[35:37] We need to have a dependent spirit that says, I am poor and needy. But I have a rich and generous father who promises to give to me all that I need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus.
[35:51] So, if we would pray this petition, it would make us more humbly thankful to delight in God our giver. And then this prayer should also foster a greater contentment in our lives.
[36:08] We're not taught in this petition to ask for extravagances and luxuries that we want, but simply to ask for the bread that we need. And there's a difference between what we want and what we need.
[36:21] Paul says, if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. And so this petition should remind us God is the one who's the sovereign disperser of how much he gives to whom.
[36:33] He knows how much he can give without sinking us, making us say, well, who's the Lord? I don't need him anymore, becoming too poor to where we would rob. He knows.
[36:44] And so we ask him for the bread that we need for today. And when he gives it, and whatever he gives, it might be just more rice today, like many people in the world.
[36:56] Or it might be a steak. But whatever he gives, we will be content. We've sought it from him, our daily bread. And whatever he gives more than that, we praise him for.
[37:08] There should be a contentment if we have food and clothing. And then lastly, this prayer should foster a humble trust in God. God gave that manna to the Israelites on a daily basis rather than the whole week, that they might daily look to him in faith and trust him.
[37:25] We see this in Deuteronomy 8 as Israel was coming into the promised land after 40 years of manna provided in the desert. They're now ready to move into the promised land.
[37:39] And Moses says to them, remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these 40 years to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.
[37:52] He humbled you, causing you to hunger, and then feeding you with manna. That was his plan. Which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
[38:12] You didn't have your usual bread in the desert. You were on the move. You couldn't grow it out of the ground. But you had God. Who but speaks the word.
[38:25] And bread appears for his children. But now they're coming into the promised land and God's going to turn off the heavens.
[38:37] And there's not going to be any more manna. Why? Because the promised land was a land flowing with milk and honey. And it had vineyards and fig trees and all kinds of wheat and barley and pomegranates and olive oil, where bread will not be scarce, nor will you lack anything.
[38:56] Kind of sounds like America, doesn't it? But there's a danger to this affluence. And Moses warns them not to forget the Lord.
[39:07] For when you've come into the promised land and you've eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he's given you. You may say to yourself, Well, my power and my strength, the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.
[39:23] But remember, the Lord your God for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth. So you see, unlike the manna from heaven, they would say, Well, I planted, I watered, I weeded, I harvested.
[39:41] And they might think my hands produced this food. And Moses is saying, But remember, where did you get those hands? Who gave you the strength?
[39:54] Who gave you a mind to think, to go to work, and to do something productive that somebody would actually pay you for the hours you spend at their business? Well, that came from me.
[40:05] God is saying, Don't forget it. You are just as dependent upon me now that you're in a promised land of prosperity as you were when you were receiving daily manna and water from the rock.
[40:17] And so that's a word to us, you see, in this affluent and prosperous land. This petition is meant to remind us of how dependent we are and therefore to teach us this daily trust in God.
[40:32] It's not to be an occasional thing, just when a big trial comes up in our life. Oh, I need, oh, for grace to trust Him more. Yes, yes, then. But where do you learn that grace to trust? Every day I've been asking, Lord, give me my daily bread.
[40:47] He's been answering. That does something for my faith. That strengthens it. This is a God who hears and answers my cries. I'm going to keep asking.
[40:59] He's a good father. He does not feed His birds and starve His children. No, how much more valuable are we than they?
[41:11] And so we're taught to humbly trust our Lord in this petition. You know Jesus prayed this petition. He depended upon His Father for His daily bread as much as you depend upon your Father for your daily bread.
[41:34] And you say, but what about His divine powers to multiply bread, to create bread? Well, what we learn in the New Testament is that He never used those divine powers to provide for His own needs.
[41:49] He rather stood in your place as the perfect man dependent upon God, and He trusted in God as a man as much as you trust in God as a human being.
[42:01] That's why He needed to pray, Father, give me today my daily bread. You remember, this was the very temptation that the devil hit Him with after 40 days and nights of testing Him, tempting Him, 40 days and 40, and then at the end, we have these three temptations.
[42:22] He's already been fasting for 40 days and nights. He's hungry. And Satan says, well, you've just heard your Father say it, your baptism, this is my beloved Son, in whom I'm well pleased.
[42:36] If you are the Son of God, then make these stones to become bread. What a temptation. God can't be tempted, but a man can, and Jesus was a real man.
[42:50] He was tempted at that moment. How did He respond? It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
[43:04] I don't have bread. These are rocks. They're not edible. But I have a Father in heaven, and all He needs to do is speak the word, and I will eat.
[43:18] Speak, Lord, and my servant will be healed. Speak, Father, and I will have food to eat. You see, He trusted God in the same way that you.
[43:29] You can't say, well, but He was able to create bread out of the rocks. He didn't use it. Why? Because He was being tested for us as a man for men, and had He used His God-like abilities, it would not be a true substitution, a true representation, a true temptation that was overcome.
[43:53] And so He trusted in His Father to provide. And you know, it's that perfect obedience of our Savior that creates a righteousness that He has to give to us who are too much like the Israelites who didn't and don't trust our Father for all of our physical needs.
[44:13] Precious thing to have Jesus teach us to pray. to see our real, the real, the way things really are.
[44:24] You know, that's what the, this is reality. And the reality is, is that we need God for our next breath and our next bite.
[44:37] And He's a good Father, and He says to us, ask, and I'll give you. Seek, and you'll find. Knock, and the door will be open. And if we do that, we will find ourselves being more thankful.
[44:54] We'll find ourselves more contented. And we'll find ourselves, yes, learning to trust Him more and more as every day He answers that prayer to give us daily the needs of this day.
[45:10] If you're lost without the Savior, just like every single one of us were, this has a lesson for you as well. You know, in Acts 14, 17, Paul says this to the idol-worshiping pagans in Lystra, that the living God who made everything has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons.
[45:34] He provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy. Jesus says the same, that His heavenly Father not only feeds His friends and His children, but He feeds His enemies.
[45:45] Makes the sun rise on the just and the unjust. And His rain to fall on their fields as well as the saved person's field. And the fact that you're here today is proof that you have received your daily bread from this heavenly Father to many of us.
[46:06] He's giving. He opens His hands and satisfies the desire of every living thing. And you receive that. And you daily receive it. And you thank Him by saying, I don't want your son.
[46:22] No, He's not worthy of my life. I want to live my way, not His thank you. And you thank Him by going your way instead of His, and by being your own God rather than bowing before Him as God.
[46:36] And still He feeds you. And still He gives you your daily bread. Do you know why He does that? You see, you're on the broad road.
[46:48] Without Jesus, you're on the broad road that's leading to hell. And you're going there with your path strewn with God's gifts. He's daily heaping His gifts right in your way.
[47:01] Why does He do that? Well, He tells us, it's because I don't have any pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that they turn and live. So why will you die?
[47:12] Why not rather turn and live? And Paul says in Romans 2 that He shows you this goodness and kindness and patience and constantly doing you good for this reason, that it might lead you to repent.
[47:24] You see, you've been believing the lie of the devil that if you trust this God, He's going to be the end of your joy, your pleasure, your purposes in life. That's the lie and you're believing it.
[47:36] And He's throwing good things in your path every day to say, stop, turn, and live. It's me again. Every time you put food in your mouth, He's saying, it's me again.
[47:48] It's this good and gracious God. Turn, turn. Why will you die? Turn and live. And so may you take these words that Jesus teaches His disciples to pray and learn from it just the gracious heart of our God.
[48:03] He says, come to me and you'll find me to be a gracious Savior that turns none away. And then you can trust me as you're the one that will provide for you every day.
[48:19] Let the Lord Jesus have the closing word. So do not worry saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? for all the pagans run after all these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them but seek first His kingdom and righteousness and all these things will be added to you as well.
[48:43] Amen. Amen. Amen.