Over the last four weeks, we have been focusing on the Lord’s Prayer as Jesus’ model for our prayers through our series, “Lord, Teach Us to Pray.” So far we have looked at three areas of prayer: relationship, honoring, and yielding. In fact repeat these after me [say them again]. Prayer is about a relationship with God, “Our Father who art in heaven.” Prayer is talking with God our Father. We begin our prayers by honoring God, “hallowed be thy name.” We honor God by praising him, telling God how great he is, we appreciate God for what he has done in our life. Next we yield to God in prayer, we submit to God, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We ask God to bring his kingdom on earth just as it is in heaven, and the way God does this is by using his people, so we are asking God to use us to accomplish his purposes, therefore we submit or yield ourselves to God. As God uses us, our life, our family, our community begin to reflect God’s kingdom in heaven. This week we are looking at the fourth area of prayer: petition, “give us this day our daily bread.”
Humorous Story
One time there was a guy hiking through the woods looking at the beautiful trees that had changed color (he probably wasn’t trudging through snow while he did it) when suddenly he noticed a bear running toward him, not being familiar with bears and what to do he jumped up and began to run. Of course the worst thing you can do is run from a bear because that caused the bear to chase him even faster. Worse yet he had begun running up hill not knowing that a bear runs best up a hill because of his strong hind legs. The bear began to gain ground on this guy, so in desperation the guy thought perhaps I should pray and ask for God’s help and so he prayed, “God please make this bear a Christian bear!!” Amazingly, at that very moment, the bear stopped dead in its tracks, knelt to the ground and began praying, “Dear Lord, Please bless this food that I am about to eat! Amen!”
Be careful what you ask for. God does enjoy caring for all of his creation, and all of the creatures therein, providing for their needs. However as we have seen thus far in the Lord’s Prayer the focus has not been on us or our needs, it has been on God and God’s will. “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
The reason we focus on God first is so we can get God’s perspective before we ask for anything so we are praying for the things God wants to answer. We want to make sure our motives our good when I ask God for a need I think I have.
NIV James 4:3 "When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."
We tend to be pretty self-centered, even when it comes to our prayer life. If we rush into prayer first with our “needs” or even the needs of others, we might not be praying with wrong motives. We might be praying for a want rather than a need, or we might not be focusing on where God’s heart is. If I come to God and pray for the Tigers to win the World Series, it might not be what God had in mind for me to pray for. It is possible I could even be praying against God’s will.
Let me give you a real life example. Many of you have noticed that we don’t have children yet, we have struggled with not having children. My pray has been, “God may you bless us with our own children so we can honor you through these lives.” But we have come to notice, this might not necessarily be God’s will. It’s not that God does not want us to have children, but rather we are sensing that perhaps God’s desire is that we adopt children. As we spend time with God, and as we observe the circumstances of our struggle with infertility we have sensed God leading us in a different direction and so my prayer has changed a little. I still ask for God to bless us with children (which is a Biblical request) but I allow God to provide the means. I try to pray according to God’s will, again this is where submitting ourselves to God comes in. This is why Jesus said:
“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.” John 15:7, NIV
So we spend time with God to gain his perspective before we ever ask anything.
I. Asking God for Our Needs
Having said that, Jesus does expect us to be praying for our needs. Back in Bible times bread was a staple of life. Bread was baked fresh every day and was an essential food product for the daily survival of people. I came to appreciate this more when we were in Haiti visiting the missionaries, the Cunninghams’, in the town of Montroius (Môç). One of the things this town is known for is its fresh baked bread. Not everyone had ovens to cook bread in and people would come from miles around just to have this wonderful freshly baked bread. Being in a third world environment helped me realize how we fail to understand the impact of Jesus’ words because we have such a variety and quantity of food and we don’t rely on bread as a staple.
When Jesus was instructing His disciples to pray and ask God for their daily bread, he was inviting them to pray for their daily needs. The word we use for this is petition which is simply praying for myself and my needs. Of course our needs go beyond just a need for daily food, bread is a symbol for everything necessary for life and well-being. Such as food, health, shelter, clothing, job or source of income, transportation, friends and family, or other meaningful relationships.
Jesus taught us that it is okay to pray for our own needs. I realize some of us may find it difficult to pray for yourself because it seems too selfish. Or perhaps you have thought, “I shouldn’t bother God with my petty or insignificant issues. Surely God has more important things in the world to take care of than my problem.” That is hogwash. God loves you and wants what is best for you. If as a parent something is truly bothering your child or grandchild, if there is something weighing heavily on their heart no matter how big or how small, wouldn’t you want to know, especially if there is something you could do to make it better? Even though God already knows your need, God wants you to let him know so he can help you. There is nothing too big or too small. In fact the Apostle Paul once wrote in Phil 4:6:
“NLT Philippians 4:6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.
Pray about everything. There is no need of yours which is too small.
II. God Will Provide
In our passage this morning we are reminded that God is not stingy, but generous and wants to provide for our needs.
Matthew 7:9 "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!"
Of course God wants to give you good gifts. We just need to ask. “Ask, and you shall receive.” We just need to make sure we are asking for our needs, and not our wants or desires. Are we asking because it is something God wants us to have, or are we being selfish? God will not answer requests which will harm us, even if we do not realize it at the time.
A theme in the Bible is God providing. In the OT, we read of God delivering the people of Israel from slavery to the Egyptians, and he guided them to the desert. God first provided them freedom from their captors. However they found themselves in a harsh desert environment, no food, no water. And so they asked God for food (okay, it was more like they whined and complained), but nevertheless God provided. Every morning came the dew and as the dew evaporated it left a flaky white substance called manna (which means, what is it?), they called it the bread from heaven. If that weren’t enough, in the evening God also provided quail which fell from the sky (Ex. 16). While God provided only enough for that days food supply (with the exception of the day before the Sabbath when he would provide a double portion), he provided for them, every day, one day at a time, for forty years. Be careful what you ask for though because they had to eat the manna every day for the next 40 years.
In the NT Jesus provided by turning water into wine at a wedding, he fed over 5000 people with two fish and five loaves of bread. He healed those who were blind, deaf, paralyzed, demon possessed, Jesus provided for the needs of many because God’s character is giving.
III. Recognizing God’s Daily Provision
God enjoys providing for our needs, but the truth for most of us in the United State is that we have everything we need, or at least everything we think we need. We have food (our cupboards are probably full with plenty of food and a variety), clothing (probably several shirts and pants), shelter (many of us probably own our own house), a job (unless you are retired in which God provides an income). So do we even need to bother with praying for God’s provision, “give us our daily bread?”
Yes, because by praying this prayer we aren’t just asking for God to provide for our needs, we are recognizing it is God who has provided for us. The reason we have food on the table is because God has given us the physical ability to work. God has given us the gifts and talents to do our job. In a very real sense the reason we have daily bread, and a roof over your head is because God provided. It might have been the sweat of your brow, but it was the Lord who gave you the ability and the blessing to be successful.
In Deut. 8, the Israelite people, after wandering in the desert for 40 years (eating the bread from heaven everyday), were preparing to enter the Promised Land. A land the Bible says was flowing with milk and honey. In other words the land would produce bountifully, especially compared to the desert they were coming from. But God gave them this warning before they entered (Deut 8):
11b Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the LORD your God and disobey his commands, regulations, and laws. 12 For when you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in, 13 and when your flocks and herds have become very large and your silver and gold have multiplied along with everything else, 14 that is the time to be careful. Do not become proud at that time and forget the LORD your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt. 15 Do not forget that he led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with poisonous snakes and scorpions, where it was so hot and dry. He gave you water from the rock! 16 He fed you with manna in the wilderness, a food unknown to your ancestors. He did this to humble you and test you for your own good. 17 He did it so you would never think that it was your own strength and energy that made you wealthy.18 Always remember that it is the LORD your God who gives you power to become rich, and he does it to fulfill the covenant he made with your ancestors.
It is easy in a land of plenty to forget that it is the Lord our God who gives us the power to be wealthy and have all our needs met. We must not forget by whose hand we are fed.
When we pray, “give us this day our daily bread,” it is as though we are saying to God, “Everything I need comes from you. I am open to receive it. I face this day and all of life believing that you will supply my needs.” In other words we are moved into an attitude of thankfulness to God. I can look at the food in my pantry, and be thankful to God for providing for me. We are also reminded of our responsibility to share what we have with others who do have. God uses us in response to another person’s prayer for “daily bread” somewhere around the world.
IV. We need Spiritual Food Too (Jesus is the Bread of Life)
Lastly, our physical needs are only a part of our total needs. God offers us food for the soul as well. We have a spiritual hunger which only God can satisfy.
NIV Deuteronomy 8:3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
NIV John 6:35 Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
48 Yes, I am the bread of life! 49 Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, but they all died. 50 However, the bread from heaven gives eternal life to everyone who eats it.”
One of our greatest needs is to be spiritually fed. Many people today have every physical need met, but are spiritually malnourished. We need forgiveness, because our sin separates us from God (which we will get into more next week), we need the Holy Spirit to help us do the right thing every time, and to be filled with fruits of love, joy, peace, Jesus was telling us in John 6 that we need eternal life. Jesus tells us the only way we can find spiritual nourishment is through him and his presence in our life. He is the bread from heaven that provides every day. He is the well that never runs dry. How do we make use of the ways in which God has provided so that we might be spiritually fed? Prayer, Scripture, worship, serving others?
NIV Matthew 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Closing Prayer
What are your needs this morning (physical, relational, spiritual)? Where do you need God to provide for you? As we go to a time of prayer I want you to be thinking about this because I want us to lift up this need to God this morning. Ask and it will be granted to you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened to you.
Pray with me (in your hearts)
“Lord Jesus, you’ve told me to pray today for the ‘bread’ I need. You’ve told me not to be anxious, though, about what I’m going to eat or drink or wear. You’ve assured me that if an earthly father knows how to give good gifts to his children, You as my heavenly Father will give even more abundantly than I cam ask or think. So here are what I think my needs are (silence as people express their needs). I leave these needs to your supply, and I open myself to receive whatever you have to offer, believing that what you have to offer is far greater even than the meeting of these needs. In that assurance I commit myself to your loving care today. Amen.”
Children’s sermon: use Frosted Flakes to explain how God provided the manna for God’s hungry people while they were in the desert. God only provided this bread from heaven one day at a time. Remembering to pray and ask God to care for our needs and the needs of others.
