One of the most controversial elements of this winter’s Olympics has been Canada’s "Own the Podium" program. Not being content with record amounts of medals, the Canadian Olympic officials sought to have the most medals of any country. Was it greedy?
When we consider what we have, why should we ask God for what we already have in such abundance? Why, when many of us need to consume less food than we do, ask God to supply our daily bread? What would be a completely understandable request of a Christian in Ethiopia or Cambodia, seems irrelevant on the lips of a well-fed North American. But this part of the Disciples’ Prayer, like every other part, extends beyond the first century to all believers, in every age and in every situation.
In the prayer which we have been studying Jesus taught his disciples to begin to pray for God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will—“Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done”—but having prayed for these things and thus having established a correct set of priorities they were then to pray for human interests also. The last petitions say, “Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” These are requests for physical needs, forgiveness of sins, and spiritual victories. The prayer ends with a new acknowledgement of God’s glory (Boice, J. M. (2002). The Sermon on the Mount : An expositional commentary (189). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books.).
These three petitions cover all our physical and spiritual needs.
Quote: On this point Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones has accurately written, “Our whole life is found there in those three petitions, and that is what makes this prayer so utterly amazing. In such a small compass our Lord has covered the whole life of the believer in every respect. Our physical needs, our mental needs and, of course, our spiritual needs are included. The body is remembered, the soul is remembered, the spirit is remembered. And that is the whole of man.”( D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1967), vol. 2, 67–68)
When we ask for God to "Give us this day, our daily bread, we can see five key elements in this request for God’s provision: 1) the substance, 2) the source, 3) the supplication, 4) the seekers, and 5) the schedule.
1) The Substance: Bread
The first of the petitions for the disciples’ own needs concerns material provision (cf. Prov 30:8, “feed me with the bread I need”). In vv. 25–33 we will be told that part of what it means to recognize God as our heavenly Father is to be prepared to trust him for food and drink and clothing, and this petition expresses that trust in its simplest form. Even bread, the most basic of survival rations, comes by God’s daily provision (cf. Ps 104:14–15, 27–28), and is thus a proper subject for prayer rather than to be taken for granted. If this is true even for bread, how much more for all our other physical needs. Bread not only represents food but is symbolic of all of our physical needs (France, R. T. (2007). The Gospel of Matthew. The New International Commentary on the New Testament (247). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publication Co.).
Please turn to Proverbs 30
Quote: John Stott has observed that to Martin Luther, “everything necessary for the preservation of this life is bread, including food, a healthy body, good weather, house, home, wife, children, good government, and peace” (Christian Counter-Culture: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1978], p. 149).
• Christ’s disciples must ask for bread, not for luxuries.
Proverbs 30:8-9 [8]Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, [9]lest I be full and deny you and say, "Who is the LORD?" or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God. (ESV)
Likewise:
Philippians 4:19 [19]And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. (ESV)
• It does not say that God shall supply all your wants.
It is marvelous to understand that the God who created the entire universe, who is the God of all space and time and eternity, who is infinitely holy and completely self-sufficient, should care about supplying our physical needs-and should be concerned that we receive enough food to eat, clothes to wear, and a place to rest. God obligates Himself to supply our needs.
The prayer makes request for our needs and not our greed.
James 4:3 [3]You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. (ESV)
This part of the prayer is in the form of a petition, but it is also an affirmation-which is why it is as appropriate for those who are well-fed as for those who have little to eat. Above all it is an affirmation that every good thing we have comes from the gracious hand of God.
James 1:17 [17]Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (ESV)
In the Lord’s Supper, a privileged remembrance feast for Christ’s followers, physical bread symbolizes the spiritual bread of the kingdom. It is a foretaste for us of the coming kingdom in all its fullness, when we will sit with one another with Jesus at the head of the table. The bread of Communion is real bread. It has the taste of the past when our blessed Lord’s body was broken for us on the cross. But it also has the taste of tomorrow, when we will enjoy him forever (Hughes, R. K. (2001). The sermon on the mount : The message of the kingdom. Preaching the Word (185). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.).
Poem "Prayers Make a Difference"
Away in foreign fields they wondered how, Their simple words had power—
At home the Christians, two or three had met, To pray an hour;
Yes, we are always wondering, wondering how—
Because we do not see
Someone—perhaps unknown and far away—
On bended knee. (Anonymous)
In requesting God’s provision, we have seen: 1)) the substance, and now:
2) The Source
That leads us to the source, who is God. The Father is the one addressed throughout the prayer, the One who is praised and petitioned.
When all our needs are met and all is going well in our lives, we are inclined to think we are carrying our own load. We earn our own money, buy our own food and clothes, pay for our own houses. Yet even the hardest-working person owes all that he or she earns to God’s provision (see Deut. 8:18). Our life, breath, health, possessions, talents, and opportunities all originate from resources that God has created and made available to humanity (see Acts 17:24–28). After scientists have made all their observations and calculations, there remains the unexplained element of the design, origin, and operation of the universe. It is unexplained, that is, apart from God, who holds it all together (Heb. 1:2–3).
Please turn to 1 Timothy 4
God provided for humanity even before He created humanity. Man was God’s final creation, and after He made and blessed Adam and Eve He said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you” (Gen. 1:29). Since that time God has continued to provide an abundance of food for humanity, in almost unlimited variety.
1 Timothy 4:1-5 [4:1]Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, [2]through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, [3]who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. [4]For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, [5]for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. (ESV)
• The Word of God sanctifies it by way of creation, and we sanctify it when we receive it with grateful prayer.
Every physical thing we have comes from God’s provision through the earth. It is therefore the sin of indifference and ingratitude not to daily recognize His gifts in thankful prayer.
Illustration: ("You’re Not a Hog, are You?)
A farmer visited a large city. In a restaurant before eating, the man bowed his head in a prayer of thanksgiving. Seeing this, a young man sneeringly asked, “Say, old man, back where you come from does everyone pray before he eats?” The farmer quietly replied, “The hogs don’t.” (Hobbs, H. H. (1990). My favorite illustrations (202–203). Nashville, TN: Broadman Press.)
In requesting God’s provision, we have seen: a) the substance, b) the source, and now:
3) The Supplication: Give
Supplication is expressed in the word give. That is the heart of the petition, because it recognizes need. Even though God may already have provided it, we ask Him for it in recognition of His past and present provision as well as in trust for His future provision.
• “Give.” also emphases God’s mercy and not our merit. We beg of God to give it us, not sell it us, nor lend it us, but give it. We are indebted to the mercy of God for what God has given us.
Please turn to Psalm 37
The only thing that could make Jesus’ instruction and our petitions valid is the promise of God. We could not expect God to give what He has not promised. We can pray confidently because God has promised abundantly.
Psalm 37:1-11 [37:1]Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! [2]For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. [3]Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. [4]Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. [5]Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act. [6]He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. [7]Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices! [8]Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. [9]For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the LORD shall inherit the land. [10]In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. [11]But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.
• God does not bind Himself to meet the physical needs of everyone, but only of those who trust in Him.
• In Psalm 37 David is speaking to believers who “trust in the Lord” (v. 3), “delight … in the Lord” (v. 4), “commit [their] way to the Lord” (v. 5), “rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him” (v. 7), “cease from anger,” and “do not fret” (v. 8). He says, “I have been young, and now I am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, or his descendants begging bread” (v. 25).
Illustration: ("Take Your Troubles One By One")
In 480 B.C. the outmanned army of Sparta’s King Leonidas held off the Persian troops of Xerxes by fighting them one at a time as they came through a narrow mountain pass. Commenting on this strategy, C. H. Spurgeon said, “Suppose Leonidas and his handful of men had gone out into the wide-open plain and attacked the Persians—why, they would have died at once, even though they might have fought like lions.”
Spurgeon continued by saying that Christians stand in the narrow pass of today. If they choose to battle every difficulty at once, they’re sure to suffer defeat. But if they trust God and take their troubles one by one, they will find that their strength is sufficient (Galaxie Software. (2002; 2002). 10,000 Sermon Illustrations. Biblical Studies Press.).
In requesting God’s provision, we have seen: 1) the substance, 2) the source, 3) the supplication, and now:
4) The Seekers: Us
The us of Jesus’ model prayer are those who belong to Him. Jesus said:
Luke 18:29-30 [29]And he said to them, "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, [30]who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life." (ESV)
• God irrevocably commits Himself to meet the essential needs of His own.
The greatest cause of famine and its attendant diseases in the world is not poor agricultural practices or poor economic and political policies. Nor is the root problem lack of scientific and technological resources or even overpopulation. Those problems only aggravate the basic problem, which is spiritual. Only some fifteen percent of the arable land in the world is used for agriculture, and that for only half of the year. There is no major area of the world that with proper technology is not capable of supporting its own population and more.
Those parts of the world that have no Christian roots invariably place a low value on human life. The poverty in India, for example, may be laid at the feet of Hinduism, the pagan religion that spawned a host of other religions. To the Hindu, man is but the incarnation of a soul on its way to moksha, a kind of “final emancipation,” during which trip he goes through countless, perhaps unending, cycles of reincarnation in both animal and human form. He works his way up to higher forms by good deeds and regresses to lower forms by sinning. Poverty, disease, and starvation are therefore seen as divine punishments for which the persons involved must do penance in order to be born into a higher form. To help a person in poverty or sickness is to interfere with his karma and therefore do him spiritual harm. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, Macropaedia, vol. 8, pp. 888–908. Eerdman’s Handbook to World Religions [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982].)
All animals are considered to be incarnations either of men or deities. Cows are held to be especially sacred because they are believed to be incarnated deities-of which Hinduism has some 330 million. Cows not only are not to be eaten but add to the food problem by consuming 20 percent of India’s total food supply. Even rats and mice, which eat 15 percent of the food supply, are not killed because they might be one’s reincarnated relatives.
Just as paganism is the great plague of India, Africa, and many other parts of the world, Christianity has been the blessing of the West. Europe and North America, though never fully Christian in any biblical sense, have been immeasurably blessed because of the Christian influence on political, social, and economic philosophy and policy.
The great concerns for human rights, care for the poor, orphanages, hospitals, prison reform, racial and slave reform, and a host of other concerns did not come from paganism or humanism but from biblical Christianity. On the other hand, the current degraded view of human life reflected in the low view of the family and growing legal and social approval of abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia are the legacy of humanism and practical atheism.
Without a proper view of God there cannot be a proper view of man. Those who have a right view of God and also a right relationship to Him through Jesus Christ are promised the provision of their heavenly Father. As we have studied before “For this reason,” Jesus says, “I say to you, do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, as to what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body than clothing? … For all these things the Gentiles eagerly seek; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you” (Matt. 6:25, 32–33).
Please turn to Psalm 104
God has sometimes provided for His children through miraculous means, but His primary way of provision is through work, for which He has given life, energy, resources, and opportunity. We are to ask for our bread; that teaches us honesty and industry: we do not ask for the bread out of other people’s mouths, not the bread of deceit (Prov. 20:17), not the brad of idleness (Prov. 31:27), but the bread honestly gotten (Henry, M. (1996). Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible : Complete and unabridged in one volume. Peabody: Hendrickson.).
• It is to be obtained not by theft, nor by taking by force or fraud what belongs to another, but by our personal labor and industry (Pink, A. W. (2005). The Lord’s Prayer. Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.).
Notice the interplay of God’s actions and our responsibilities: First, speaking of God’s actions:
Psalm 104:14-15 [14]You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth [15]and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart. (ESV)
(Keep your place in Psalm 104)
Likewise, Paul said:
2 Corinthians 9:10-11[10]He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. [11]You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. (ESV)
The primary way to care for those who cannot work is through the generosity of those who are able to work. Whether he does so directly or indirectly, God is always the source of our physical well-being. He makes the earth to produce what we need, and He gives us the ability to procure it.
In Romans 15:30 Paul urged the believers to “strive together with me in your prayers to God for me.” The phrase strive together is a translation of a Greek word that referred to the teamwork of athletes in the Greek games.
We should agonize in prayer alongside others as God’s team in the contest against those people and things that oppose God and His work.
Illustration: We might illustrate it this way. To football fans the heroes are the ball carriers. But to the coach and ball carriers the real heroes are the linemen who open holes in the opponent’s line through which the ball carriers can run. They also protect the quarterback in pass plays and block for the ball carriers to clear out opposing tacklers. No matter how talented the quarterback and ball carriers may be, without these linemen they are dead insofar as performance is concerned.
• In the work of the church, if you cannot carry the ball, at least you can help others do it through your prayers (Hobbs, H. H. (1990). My favorite illustrations (200). Nashville, TN: Broadman Press.).
In requesting God’s provision, we have seen: 1) the substance, 2) the source, 3) the supplication, 4) the seekers, and finally:
5) The Schedule:Daily
Consider the initial hearer of these words, the precarious lifestyle of many first-century workers who were paid one day at a time and for whom a few days’ illness could spell tragedy. Similarly for Jesus and his disciples during their itinerant mission the daily provision of material needs could not be taken for granted (see 8:20; 10:9–14, 40–42). The rabbinic “distinction distinguished between the itinerant poor (who were given enough for one day at a time) and the local poor (who were given enough for a week);” Jesus and his disciples came into the former category (D. Instone-Brewer, Traditions 1.158–161).
• Compare this with the lesson Israel had to learn during forty years of daily manna (Exodus 16:15–26); any excess spoiled by the second day. They were always just one day away from starvation, and yet they ate well during all those decades (Weber, S. K. (2000). Vol. 1: Matthew. Holman New Testament Commentary; Holman Reference (82). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.)
For many years commentators and linguists did not know the exact meaning of the Greek word translated “daily” (epiousios), and even today, there is still some doubt. The word has been found again in a papyrus from upper Egypt which seems to reveal its meaning. The manuscript is part of an account book, and the relevant inscription reads: “½ obol for epious—.” At this point the writing is broken off, but there is little doubt that the last word is the one that occurs in the Lord’s Prayer and that it refers to what we would call a daily ration. Probably the phrase belonged to a shopping list and is therefore a reminder to someone to buy supplies for the coming day. This meaning is supported by a seemingly parallel inscription in Latin found at Pompeii which contains as part of a list of expenditures the words “five asses for diaria [a term based on the Latin word for day].” Since both of these expressions would seem to be pointing to items that were part of a day’s ration for a person or a group of persons it would be natural to take the word epiousios in this sense. In this case, the fourth petition in the Lord’s Prayer would be a request that God grant us daily our daily ration of life’s necessities (Boice, J. M. (2002). The Sermon on the Mount : An expositional commentary (191). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books.).
The schedule of God’s provision for His children is daily. The meaning here is simply that of regular, day-by-day supply of our needs. We are to rely on the Lord one day at a time. The prayer prayed in the morning seeks bread for the day opening out before the praying person, while prayed at night it seeks bread for the coming day.
Both ways of taking the word see it as looking to God for the supply of one’s immediate needs, not those of the indefinite future (Morris, L. (1992). The Gospel according to Matthew (146). Grand Rapids, Mich.; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press.).
Back to Psalm 104
Psalm 104:23-26 [23]Man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening. [24]O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. [25]Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. [26]There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it. [27]These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. [28]When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
God may give us vision for work He calls us to do in the future, but His provision for our needs is daily, not weekly, monthly, or yearly. There are prudent actions that we are to take like appropriately gathering resources (Ps. 104:28), nonetheless, we are to accept the Lord’s provision for the present day, without concern for our needs or welfare tomorrow, is a testimony of our contentment in His goodness and faithfulness.
In our society it would be wrong for a father to neglect to save for his children’s education, his own retirement, and old age on the grounds that he should ask only for one day’s ration at a time. In our society part of this day’s ration consists of the money to be laid aside for the next. Consequently, we are not to neglect our families by neglecting insurance policies, pension plans, or saving accounts. To do that would be to misinterpret Christ’s teaching. At the same time, however, we are obviously not to become entirely wrapped up in these things as if our life and our future depended ultimately on them. Instead, we are to wrap ourselves in our confidence in God (Boice, J. M. (2002). The Sermon on the Mount : An expositional commentary (192). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books.).
(Format Note: Outline & some base commentary from MacArthur, J. (1989). Matthew (387–398). Chicago: Moody Press).
