Our Daily Bread Series

1 Our Daily Bread

Lord’s Prayer series, Week 7

Matthew 6:11

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t one of our favorite topics of conversation, food? Who has the best pizza? Mineo’s? Aiello’s? Vincent’s?

We talk about our favorite spaghetti sauce recipes and compare ingredients for marinades and we love to talk about our favorite restaurants.

And when it comes to eating dinner, do you let your food comingle or do you do it the right way and not let any of 1 thing touch anything else? Those compartmentalized plates were the best thing that’s ever been invented!

How about the order of how you eat things? A bite or two of each thing as you make your way around the plate or do you eat one thing at a time before moving on to the next?

All of us have kitchen stories and dinnertime rules, like this one dad who had 9 sons. The rule of the kitchen was simple. Dad gets the last piece of chicken and if he doesn’t want it, then the fastest fork wins.

One night, as all 10 eyed the last piece on the plate, a thunderstorm caused the power to go out. There was a scream in the dark, and when the lights came back on, the dad’s hand was on the platter with 9 forks sticking in it.

Everybody has kitchen stories because everybody has a history in the kitchen regardless if you’re cooking, eating, or cleaning up.

For the past several weeks we’ve been taking a look at the model prayer of Jesus. And so far, it’s kind of like an archaeological dig. The more we explore, the more we’ve found to uncover.

We started with how God embraces us as his children and is building heaven to house us for all eternity. And as we’ve progressed, we see how God reveals himself through the model prayer of Jesus, which elicits our praise and reverence, and it changes the way we look at the world around us. No longer do we view the world through selfish lenses. We’re learning to look at things the way God sees them. So, then, our will becomes secondary to his.

Now as Jesus moves on, the model prayer’s “next 3 petitions encompass all of the concerns of our life. ’This daily bread’ addresses the present. ‘Forgive our sins’ addresses the past. ‘Lead us not into temptation’ speaks to the future.” (Max Lucado, Great House of God, pg. 100)

“Our daily bread,” is a part of the prayer that asks for God’s provision.

2 I. THE PRAYER FOR GOD’S PROVISION

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

In this prayer for daily “bread,” bread stands for more than just food. It stands for all of our physical needs. “Martin Luther defined bread as ‘Everything necessary for the preservation of this life, including food, a healthy body, house, home, wife, and children.” (Lucado, pg. 100)

So what Jesus is getting at, is for us to talk to God about the necessities of life.

It suggests our absolute dependence on God for everything. And if you think about it, God made us with needs so that we would have to look to Him to supply them. And he wants to, just like any loving parent wants to, provide for their kids.

To pray this prayer for “our daily bread,” expresses a conviction and a belief that God is able to not only hear our prayers, but meet our needs. He’s been doing it ever since Adam and Eve first appeared and has never stopped.

3 Listen to how Psalm 37 describes it. “Trust in the Lord and do good. Live in the land and feed on truth. Enjoy serving the Lord and he will give you what you want. Depend on the Lord; trust him and he will take care of you. (Psalm 37: 3-4)

So God is committed to taking care of us. “Paul tells us that a man who won’t feed his family is worse that an unbeliever (1Tim. 5:8). How much more will a holy God care for his children?” (Lucado, pg. 100-101)

So we’re not praying to overcome God’s unwillingness or to overcome his reluctance. We’re praying to take hold of God’s willingness to give.

Why? Because he wants us to learn to trust him for what we need. When God provided manna in the wilderness for the Israelites, they were commanded to gather only enough food for each day (Exodus 16:16). If they gathered more than they needed it would spoil overnight (Exodus 16:20).

God wanted them to believe that they must trust Him to provide for their needs every day. And by the same token, He’s committed to providing us with what we need but he also wants us, by faith, to believe it.