Today, we move into the second part of
the Lord’s Prayer. The first three petitions focus on God and what glorifies
Him. The second group of petitions focus on us and our needs.
The petition that we will be looking
at this morning is very plain and straightforward.
Give
us this day our daily bread. Matthew 6.11
Here, Jesus teaches that we are to ask
the Father for the things that we need. Now, Jesus frames this petition using
the word ‘bread’. But I think you know that He’s not limiting it to requesting
bread or even just food. The way the Bible teaches, a particular item can be a
stand-in for a larger category of things. So, the fifth commandment about
honoring father and mother isn’t just about one’s relationship to his parents.
It’s about authority structures. A study of the rest of the Scriptures will
show that. This petition in the Lord’s Prayer is about our needs. We are to ask
the Father to provide for our needs.
One good way of understanding what is
going on here is to take a look at how God provided manna for Israel.
Israel was on their way to the
Promised Land. We’re talking about a lot of people. Just counting the men who
were able to go to war, you have over six hundred thousand people - then add
women and children. And they’re all in a desert. So, while you will find an
oasis here and there, there are no fields to cultivate to grow food. So, how
are all these people going to eat?
God provided for that need. He provided
manna. Each morning there would be manna on the ground that the people were to
gather to eat.
Now, God could have fed His people in
any number of ways. But He decided on this way, and He did so for a reason. He
was using the situation to teach His people an important lesson. He teaching
them to depend on Him. In fact, He was teaching them that they needed to depend on Him. They needed to
learn to depend on God to provide them with food - and lots more.
It’s clear that this is what is going
on because God explained His motivation.
Then
the Lord said to Moses, ‘Behold, I
am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and
gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk
in my law or not.’ Exodus 16:4
The manna was God’s way to evaluate
His people, to put them to the test, to see if they were learning the lesson.
That, after all, is what tests are for. And, sadly, at first, they were failing
that test.
God had been clear. Each day they were
to gather food for that day’s meals. That means no leftovers. God would provide
the next day’s food on the next day. But being the rebellious people that they
were, they kept a little aside from that first day so that they could be sure
that there was food for the next day. After all, you can never be sure about
things, right? And being such a foolish people, they thought they could hide
this from an omniscient God. But God saw their sin. The leftovers bred worms
and stank.
However, bit by bit, they learned that
they had to depend on God for a basic
need, food. They learned that He would provide tomorrow all the food that they
would need tomorrow.
Now, all of that explains this fourth
petition,
Give
us this day our daily bread.
By having us pray this petition, Jesus
is teaching us to depend on the
Father. He will provide for each day. And the question implied by this is
simple. It’s the Father asking, ‘Will you trust Me? Will you trust Me to
provide all that you need when you need it?’ And just as it was for Israel, it
is a test for us. Will we give up our independent ways and depend on our
Father?
Now, there are obstacles in our way
when it comes to learning to depend on the Father. One of them has to do with
our culture, the world around us. The persistent message that we’ve all heard
in one form or another is that we need to depend on ourselves. The culture encourages
us to believe that message by telling us outright that we can depend on ourselves. It also adds the more subtle message that
there is no one else to depend on beside ourselves.
Last week I drove past one of those ‘pass
it on’ billboards. I’m sure that you’ve seen them. They have a picture of some
famous person and a very brief statement about something impressive that he or
she did. And at the bottom is printed some virtue. So, for Lincoln, it was persistence.
For a fireman who was involved in 9/11, it was courage.
The one I saw was about confidence. It
said, ‘You be you. Confidence is in you.’ And it had a picture of a very
popular and successful musician - who happens to be fourteen years old. And the
point is that you can imitate the confidence of this child. ‘Be confident in
yourself. You can do this.’
In this culture, being confident means
depending on yourself. It’s just a matter of telling yourself that you can do
this - whatever it is. There is no need to depend on anyone else. That is
unnecessary. You can do this.
That is the kind of message that you
hear, that your children hear.
And you’ve been told this same message
over and over and over, sometimes out loud, sometimes more subtly. ‘You can do
this. All you have to do is try harder. You can do whatever you put your mind
to.’ And let’s be honest. To some extent, we believe it.
So, when faced with some difficulty,
our almost automatic response is to muster our forces and have at it. Oh, we
might also pray about it. But all too often our hope for success is not in the
Father. It’s in ourselves.
It is so easy for us to believe that
we can depend on ourselves and succeed. We fall for that lie far too often.
Jesus knows this. And that’s why He is teaching us to depend on the Father and
not on ourselves. It is He who provides for our needs. It is He who brings
success.
Now, this just might prompt a question
that goes something like this. ‘Does this mean that we are to do nothing? If we
are to depend on the Father to provide for our needs, do we then just to sit
back and wait for what we need to drop from heaven? That’s what happened with
the manna. Is that how we are to live?’ That’s a good question.
Now, a terrible answer would go
something like this. ‘Well, clearly, that’s not what we should think. Let’s be
practical about this. It’s obvious that we need to work. God doesn’t want us to
be lazy, does He? So, of course there are things for us to do.’
Let me tell you why that’s a terrible
answer. There’s no Bible there. It’s as if God forgot to consider our question
so we have to dream something up based on what we consider to be common sense.
Foolishness!
It’s important to have questions when
you’re interacting with the Bible. That shows that you’re thinking. But the way
to get answers to those questions is not to appeal to human pragmatism. The
Bible has all the answers to all our questions. And this is no exception.
Let’s go back to Israel in the desert.
For all the time that they were in the desert God dropped manna from heaven.
All they had to do is gather it up. But, think about it. Did He continue to
provide manna once they entered the Promised Land? Listen to this from Joshua.
And
the manna ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land. And there
was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but they ate of the fruit of the
land of Canaan that year. Joshua 5:12
Israel enters the Promised Land, and
they eat some of the produce of the land. And that was the end of the manna.
God had brought them into Canaan just as He had promised. Now, it was time for
them to grow their own food.
But wait! What about depending on God?
Was that a lesson only for their time in the desert? Were they to depend on
themselves now?
Listen to Moses as he prepares the
people to enter Canaan.
Take
care lest you forget the Lord your
God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I
command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good
houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your
silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your
heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord
your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its
fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who
brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with
manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to
do you good in the end. Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the
might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives
you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your
fathers, as it is this day. Deuteronomy 8:11-18
Yes, Israel was to farm the land. And,
they just might become wealthy in doing that. But the word of the Lord is
clear. Even if their hard work results in great wealth, they were to still
remember that basic lesson taught in the desert. God grants wealth in the same
way He granted manna. It’s still a matter of depending on Him. The situation
has changed, but the facts remain the same. They need to depend on their God.
This leads to another question. And it’s
actually an application of a theme that runs through the Bible. It’s about the
relationship of divine sovereignty and human responsibility.
There are times when you are to pray
and then wait for God to sovereignly act. That is, there are times to wait for
manna to drop from heaven. But then, there are times when you need to take
responsibility in the situation and act. That is, there are times when you need
to do some hard work. But which is when? How do you know when to pray and wait,
and when to get busy?
This is where I talk about being able
to use your Bible. Last week I told you that Jesus didn’t just know His Bible.
He also knew how to use it. He was much more sophisticated in this than the
Pharisees. This sophistication is just another word for wisdom. There are those
who know their Bibles. They know where various doctrines taught and all the
rest. But, sad to say, only a relative few have the ability to use their Bibles
wisely when it comes to everyday living. When it comes to the question of
praying and then just waiting or praying and then going out to do something,
what is needed is wisdom.
Let me remind you of the definition of
wisdom. It’s understanding God, people, yourself and the situation. But no one
gains this wisdom in one big step. It’s something that grows slowly over time.
It’s a matter of gaining experience in understanding God, people, yourself and
the situation.
As I talk with my kids each week, our
conversations will often include issues that they are dealing with. And from
time to time I remind them that as they work through these issues they are
developing wisdom. I have also told them that they won’t have enough wisdom to
share with others until they’re about forty years old. It just takes time to
grow in this, connecting issues you’re facing with appropriate parts of the
Gospel, praying that the Father would give insight into Scripture and then
coming to a conclusion that either works or doesn’t. It’s that process of
coming to good conclusions, and learning from bad conclusions, that results in
wisdom.
So, I have no simple,
one-size-fits-all kind of answer when it comes to the question, ‘When do I wait
for God to act, and when do I get doing something?’ You need to grow in wisdom
so that you will be able to answer that question in the many different
situations that you face. So, work on developing your understanding of God,
people, yourself and the nature of the situations you find yourself in. Growing
in this wisdom is a result of knowing the Scriptures, praying to the Father,
coming to conclusions and learning from it all. How can a Christian live well
without doing this?
There is still one more element that I
want you to see in Jesus’ command to pray, ‘Give us this day our daily bread’.
Up to this point I’ve stressed that you must
depend on the Father. Anything else is foolish rebellion. Here I want to stress
that you can depend on the Father.
It makes no sense to ask the Father
for daily bread unless it is clear that He will provide daily bread. And it is
clear that that is exactly what He will do. Why else would God include the
story of the manna in the Bible? It’s a lesson for us, too. You can depend on
the Father.
We live in a culture filled with
people who are very anxious. If a person believes that it all depends on him
and him alone, anxiety is inevitable. And that’s because no one is able to
handle it all. Fear about being able to deal with tomorrow is inevitable for
people like this. This is one reason why anti-anxiety drugs are so popular
these days.
There is great comfort in knowing that
your Father will certainly provide for your needs. And that is true whether we’re
talking about praying and waiting for manna to drop from heaven, or praying and
then going out to do some work. The Father will provide for all of your needs.
All of them. The saint who believes this part of the Gospel, who believes that
his Father will provide for each day, has great peace.
Let me encourage you to take the time
to consider what this petition has to say to you as you deal with life. There
is a reason why Jesus teaches His disciples to pray this. Consider His teaching
and be blessed.