As you know, this Lord’s Prayer is all part of what we know as the Sermon on the Mount. Just a few verses from where we are here… Jesus says something else about prayer. In chapter 7:7-11, He says, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” Then He gives us an illustration. He says, “Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” If we, even though we’re fallen creatures… if we know how to give our kids good things when they ask… how much more so Jesus gives good things when we ask Him. Well, I don’t know how things work in your house. But I know how they work in mine. In my house, HOW you ask for something has a lot to do with whether you’re going to get it or not. And there are all kinds of things that factor into it. The mood of the one being asked has a lot to do with it. When Miranda is going through the bills is not the right time for me to tell her about this great set of theology books that are on sale. When I’m staring at a blank computer screen, trying to get up a sermon isn’t the right time for the kids to ask me for something. Thank God that He isn’t moody. Thank God that He isn’t too busy or distracted to hear our requests. Thank God that He doesn’t give us stones when we ask for bread or serpents when we really need fish. But in my house, not only does the mood of the one being asked have a lot to do with it… the attitude of the one who’s doing the asking does too. If I go in to Miranda while she’s doing the bills and tell her about this great set of books on sale… and she looks at me with that look that says, “gas and lights and groceries and kids—and now you want more books?” If she looks at me like that and I put my foot down and give her the whole, “man of the house” speech… how do you think that’s going to go over? I might get the books, but that’s about it. If I do that, my attitude in asking has really messed up our relationship. By the same token, if my kids come to me with the whole, “But Dad… all the other kids get to do it…” What is that going to do to me? You can ask them… they’ll tell you! If that is their attitude in asking, there is no way they’re going to get what they’re asking for. And then they’re mad and I’m mad. They’re pouting and I’m fuming. Our relationship is damaged. All because they didn’t consider HOW they were asking for something. As we’ve gone through this lesson that Jesus is teaching us on how to pray… this is the first time when we get to ask for something. This is our fourth week of looking at this prayer and this is the first time. And now that Jesus finally gets to the part where we get to ask for something, He gives us verse 11. “Give us this day our daily bread.” Now, we’ve all probably said that line many times. But that line tells us HOW we’re supposed to ask God for things. It tells us what our attitude is supposed to be when we approach the creator of the universe with a request. So, how do you ask God for things? This short verse—7 words in the KJV, 8 in the original… this short verse gives us four attitude checks when asking for things in prayer. Your first attitude check is to seek the supplier of your needs.
Are you ready for a little grammar lesson? In the original, the word “give” is a second person singular verb. Do you know what that means? It means that there is an understood “You” before it. And what a “You” it is. Lord, You give. If you remember who it really is you’re talking to, it will affect your attitude. It will affect the way you ask for things. That’s why Jesus has verse 9 and verse 10 before verse 11. That’s why He tells us to greet the Lord in prayer the right way in verse 9. Remember that He has a fatherly relationship with you. He longs to relate to you the way a perfect daddy relates to His children. But at the same time, He is your Father in heaven. He is no ordinary father. He is a holy and pure and perfect God and you aren’t. You can only come to Him because of His grace and mercy and love. And because of that, His name is to be hallowed. And not only does Jesus tell us to greet the Lord in prayer the right way in verse 9… in verse 10, He tells us to recognize and understand that He is the One who is in charge of everything. He is the One who rules and reigns over you personally, over this world, and over eternity. That is the “you” that you are talking to. That is the “you” that you are asking things from. That is the “you” that you are saying, “You give me.” That is the “you” Who is your supply—Who is the supplier of your needs. The God of all heaven… The God of all the universe… the God whose name is hallowed above all other names… the God who rules over His creation… the God who reigns over His eternal kingdom… That God is the One who bends His ear to hear your requests. That’s the God who Scripture pictures as leaning over to hear you call out to Him to meet your needs. Isn’t that a whole lot more impressive than some sort of heavenly Santa Claus? Isn’t that a whole lot more deserving of worship than a heavenly genie in a lamp? But all too often, those are the images we’ve reduced God to. In this age of prosperity gospel and name-it-claim-it religion, there are those that will tell you that God is sitting back waiting to make you rich. They will tell you that God is there only to meet your needs and prosper you. He’s only there to give you stuff and fill all your selfish desires. What a small god they’re peddling. What a pitiful god they’re telling us to pray to. That’s certainly not the God that Jesus told us to pray to. When you say, “God, You give me…” who is in the forefront of your mind? Is it you and your selfish desires? If it is, then you must be praying to the false gods of the prosperity gospel on TV. But when you push aside your selfish wants and desires and say, “Lord, give me…” that’s when you’re praying to the God of the universe. That’s when you’re praying to the God of all creation. That’s when you’re praying to the one who has promised to supply all of your needs according to His riches in glory. When you do that, you’ve made your first attitude check. Your first attitude check is to seek the supplier of your needs. Your second attitude check is to understand the urgency of your needs.
This is a problem for us as Americans. Many of you in here were raised poor. Some of you can remember times in your life when you might not have had very much food on the table. But that’s not the case for most of us today. As a matter of fact, it’s not the case for most Americans today. That’s why we have a problem with this. We have a problem with understanding the urgency of our needs. We have a problem understanding that we have to pray for our needs “this day.” Understanding our urgency seems to disappear when we have a pantry full of food. It seems to disappear when we have a little nest egg account in the bank. It seems to disappear when we have a steady check that comes in once a month. Do you have any idea how quickly that could all change? This economic fiasco we’ve been experiencing over the past few weeks should tell us something. It should remind us how fragile our economy really is. Of course, we’re resourceful people, right? If all the banks went belly-up, we’d all just buckle down and grow our own food. We’d cut our own wood to heat our homes and raise chickens and cows and live like we used to live. Do you suppose that’s what the people of the prophet Joel’s day thought? “Well, we can make it through the economic collapse of our time.” “All we have to do is rely on our own farms and we’ll make it.” The problem was that God sent a series of locust plagues that completely destroyed everything that grew. Here’s the problem. We have become so self-sufficient that we don’t understand how urgent our needs really are. The fact is that everything you and I rely on could be gone in an instant. It is only God’s hand of mercy and His gracious provision that keeps that from happening. Do you understand that? Yes, we store up food for the future. Yes, we save money for the future. But do we trust it? Is that what you’re trusting in to meet your needs? If it is, you need to have an attitude check. You need to have the attitude check that says, “Lord, provide for me what I need this day.” “Lord, sustain me this day.” When you quit trusting in the economy for provision… When you quit trusting in the government for provision… when you quit trusting in yourself for provision… when you understand that everything you have could all be gone by the time you get home tonight… when you understand the urgency of your needs… that’s when you’ve made your second attitude check. Your second attitude check is to understand the urgency of your needs. Your third attitude check is to figure the frequency of your needs.
What a strange thing for Jesus to tell us to pray. If you look at it, it almost seems redundant, doesn’t it? Why does Jesus tell us to pray “this day” for “daily bread”? Because as we’ve just talked about, “this day” speaks of the urgency of the moment. It speaks of the things that I need right now. It recognizes that I won’t survive, even this moment, without the sustaining power of the Lord. That’s what “this day” speaks of. But “daily” speaks of something different. “Daily” speaks of frequency. It speaks of how often we need to present our needs to God. You see, it’s not just that we need God’s provision right this instant. Yes, we need God right this instant. But we also need God just as much an instant from now. And an instant from then. We need God’s provision just as much tomorrow as we need it today. There is not a moment of your life where you can exist without God’s provision. That is what you’re praying when you pray for your “daily” bread. Go back to how things work in your house. How would you feel if the only time your kids spoke to you was when they wanted or needed something? If they went days on end without ever acknowledging your existence? And then when something came up that they felt they needed—here they come. Well, I guess during all that time, they forgot about all the things you were providing for them each day. I guess they forgot about the roof over their heads. I guess they forgot about the food on their table. I guess they forgot about the heat and lights and clothes and all the other things that were definitely needs. They were needs, but they were daily needs. They were daily needs and they had already been met. They had already been met, so they had been forgotten. Isn’t that what we do to the Lord? We’re so busy moving on to the next big request that we’ve forgotten to remember all the daily needs He already provides. What about your house? What about your car? What about your family? What about the food on your table? What about your paycheck? This word in this verse isn’t worded specifically like a “thank you” to God for those things. How it is worded is praying that God will continue to bless you with all those “daily” things. That God will continue to bless you with all of those everyday things that make up your life. Yes, we thank God for those things. Yes, we praise God for those things. But at the same time, we ask Him for them as well. Because when you ask Him for those things, it reminds you Who gave them to you in the first place. It reminds you Who continues to bless you with them today. And it reminds you Who will continue to bless you with them in the future. When you continually figure the frequency of your needs, you’ve made your third attitude check. Your third attitude check is to figure the frequency of your needs. Finally, your fourth attitude check is to know the nature of your needs.
Jesus tells us to pray that God would give us this day our daily bread. Over the years, people have come up with all kinds of things that Jesus supposedly meant by that. The craziest one I read tried to make it into some end-times prophetic thing. Well, here’s what Jesus meant when He said “bread.” He meant “bread.” Bread is a staple of life. The main part of meals in Jesus’ day was bread. And it still is in many parts of the world. Without bread, they would starve. It was a need. He didn’t say, “Give us this day our daily steak.” He wasn’t telling us to ask for our daily desires. He wasn’t telling us to come up with our best wish list and sit on God’s lap and read it to Him. Jesus was telling us to ask God to supply our needs. The question is, what are those needs? Food, family, shelter—of course we should pray about those things. But are those our deepest needs? No. Because if shelter was our deepest need, Jesus wouldn’t have told the disciples, “Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay His head.” If our families were our deepest need, the Jesus wouldn’t have said to Peter, “There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God’s sake, 30 Who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting.” So shelter and family aren’t our biggest needs. What about food? Is there anything more of a basic need than food? I mean we’re talking about bread here. Surely our biggest need is food. Well it isn’t. Because if it was, Jesus wouldn’t have gone 40 days without it. He wouldn’t have given us instructions about how we are to fast. If food would have been our biggest need, there wouldn’t be so many places where the Bible calls us to purposely do without it. Family isn’t our biggest need. Shelter isn’t our biggest need. Food isn’t even our biggest need. Yes, you are to pray for those things because they are needs. But they aren’t your biggest needs. Your biggest need is the Bread of life. Your biggest need is the food Jesus told the disciples about in John 4:31-34: “In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat? Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” Your biggest need is Jesus. He is the nature of your need. You need Him every single day. He is the frequency of your need. You can’t live even one moment without His sustaining grace and power. He is the urgency of your need. And Jesus is the only One who can fill your every need. Food can’t, shelter can’t, family can’t, money can’t, prosperity can’t. The only One who can fill your every need is Jesus. He is the supplier of your needs. Have you asked Him? Jesus, give me this day and every day to follow, the only bread I truly need. Jesus, give me you. Have you prayed that? Will you pray that tonight?
