There once was a man who was a worrywart. He was worried about every detail of his life. One day a close friend saw him and noticed that he was completely relaxed. He didn’t seem to be fretting about anything. His friend asked him what had changed and the man told his friend that he had hired someone to figure out all his affairs and do his worrying for him. The friend asked him how much this was costing him and he replied, $3,000/month. Where are you getting that kind of money, the man’s friend queried and the man said, “I don’t know, “I let him worry about that.”
Isn’t this how we should be as Christians? Since God knows all our needs and is concerned about them shouldn’t we leave our worries in God’s lap? In this prayer that Jesus gave as a model for our prayer He tells us that to worry is to not recognize that our Heavenly Father is watching over us. And this brings us to the next aspect of this “model prayer.”
C. A reflection of our daily needs
The next aspect of this prayer that we will look at this morning is found in the phrase, “Give us this day our daily bread.” It is a reflection of our daily needs. It’s interesting to note that it is not until we have focused on God and His concerns that Jesus turns the attention to ourselves. The whole first section of this prayer is directed Godward. For until we have bowed ourselves in worship and until we recognize that God’s agenda in expanding His kingdom precedes every other concern in our lives can we truly begin to ask for that which concerns us. If we don’t see that our goal in life is to live for the expansion of God’s kingdom we will mistake greeds for needs. If we don’t recognize how holy God is (Holy is your name) then we will fail to recognize how much we have been forgiven and thereby not forgive in return. And if we don’t recognize that our heavenly Father wants us to live like Him (Our Father who is in heaven) we will fail to seek the path that leads us out of temptation and delivers us from evil. Do you see how the first section of this prayer goes hand in hand with the final section?
We must not fail in our prayer to seek God’s face first or else our prayer will merely be self-focused dribble that falls short of prayer that is real communication with God. We will be like the Pharisee who, the Scripture says, “Prayed to himself” but failed to reach God. And this brings us back to the key idea that Jesus has been trying to teach us throughout this section of Scripture. That is we must avoid entertaining false ideas of praying that are ineffective and diligently cling to the kind of prayer that is a vital link between ourselves and God.
So we can see that this aspect of the prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread” describes our two basic needs as individuals. The first of our basic needs that we have are physical needs.
i. Physical Needs
In praying, “Give us this day our daily bread” we see a three-fold focus concerning our physical needs.
a. It focuses on the supplier
First, “Give us this day our daily bread” focuses on the supplier. When we ask God to “give us” we are recognizing that only God can supply our need. We don’t ask God to pay us our daily need according to our great effort. We don’t ask God to reward us our daily need by our work. We are asking God to give it to us. What this is recognizing is that apart from God we can do nothing. This is not saying that we should not go to work to earn our food. But it shows us that ultimately that God is the one who provides for us the strength to work and the opportunity to work. If we are somehow unable to physically work, does this mean that God will not provide for us any longer? Do we then need to look somewhere else for provision? Does God provide only for those who are the best and brightest that put their talent to work? Or does He say that He will provide for all those who put their trust in Him? David says in the Psalms, “I have never seen the righteous forsaken nor their seed begging for bread.” When we ask God to give us this day our daily bread it causes us to focus on the source of our provision. Our provision cannot be in our ability, in our cunning, or in our strength because these can all be lost in a moment. The source of our provision must be God alone. And this part of the prayer sets our heart to recognize that only God can truly supply our need.
This is the heart of faith. Trust in God calls us to look to Him to meet our needs. When it doesn’t seem possible for our needs to be met and we still cling to God’s promises (beyond hope) He is pleased. This is what the author of Hebrews says. “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” So if you are trying to accomplish God’s will apart from trust in God’s provision you are displeasing God. How many of us have missed God’s supply because, in our lack of trust, we tromp out on our own instead of continuing to rely on God’s help? And on the positive side how many of us have found God to meet our need at the very last moment? Have you ever been in a place where you were without any hope when you needed it (and not before) God supplied your need? And you know that God was the supplier because there was no other way that it could have been supplied.
When my wife and I were newly married and I was in the Navy we felt impressed to give one of our vehicles to a missionary couple. We likewise thought that the Lord would want us to provide them with some new tires because the ones that were on the car were going bald. However, we really didn’t have the money in our checking account to do this. But we felt so impressed by the Lord to do so that we agreed to write a check for the amount anyway (Now let me say that I do not recommend this as a good example of financial stewardship and my wife and I have never done this again. I suppose we might have if the Lord had strongly impressed us to do this but He has not). Maybe it was because I had great faith or maybe because I was ignorant but I didn’t worry about this. I was trusting that in trying to meet the needs of others God would provide for us. I knew that we were getting a check from the IRS because of an amended return that I had filed but all $700 of it was to reimburse a mission’s trip from which my wife and I had just returned. When we received that check in the mail a few days later I was astonished to see that the check was for $800 and not $700. When I looked at the stub it said that $100 had accrued in interest on the money. Do you think I said, “What a coincidence?” No, I knew that no one could have timed such a thing but God. After all if the IRS was giving extra money away that I didn’t request IT MUST HAVE BEEN A MIRACLE. God was the supplier for our need. Now I’m not suggesting that you write checks you cannot pay to test God. That was not the reason we were doing that. We just held to a principle that if we are doing what God is calling us to do He will supply the need. And we need to trust Him to supply that need for He is the supplier of our need.
b. It focuses on the present
Secondly we see that this prayer for our physical needs to be met focuses on the present. Jesus said, “Give us TODAY.” What this word speaks against is worry. Jesus doesn’t say give us today what we need for next year. Give us today’s daily bread today. There may be needs that we know are coming down the road but we are not to worry about them. This doesn’t mean that we don’t save. This doesn’t mean that we don’t plan. This simply means that we don’t worry. When we have sought to do our best in saving and planning and we still don’t seem to have enough then we need to stop wringing our hands and saying, “How are we ever going to make it.”
At the end of this chapter in Matthew, Jesus says, “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing . . . Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” Imagine this. One day at home I hear crying upstairs, loud crying. I run up into Paul’s bedroom and I see Paul kneeling before his bed with his face in his pillow and crying uncontrollably. Richard is pacing back and forth, back and forth. He is heaving great sighs and tears are running down his cheeks. With great consternation I ask, “What’s wrong? What has happened?” Paul turns and sees me, jumps up and grabs one leg. Richard crashes into me and holds my other leg. Paul immediately relates his plight. “Daddy! It’s almost 5 o’clock. Mommy hasn’t started to cook dinner. We are dreadfully anxious. Daddy, please tell us. Please tell us. Don’t keep it from us. Are you going to feed us tonight? Are you going to give us supper? We haven’t exactly played together well today and we wondered if you were ever going to feed us again.” “How foolish,” you say, “that they would doubt that we would provide their necessary food? How silly that they should cry over whether we would give them what they needed.”
O you of little faith. You who sit here and say that it would be preposterous for my children to doubt our provision of their necessary food and yet you do the same thing (I do the same thing) when you fret and worry about whether God is going to meet your needs. You toss and turn and eat Tums like they were candy because you cannot trust God to meet your daily needs. And then if that weren’t enough, you worry about things that aren’t even needs. You worry about not getting home from work in time to see your favorite TV show. You worry about company that’s coming over. You worry about getting the shoes that are cool because you’d hate to have the shoes that are two weeks out of date. You worry about your house not getting cleaned up. You worry about what others think of you. You worry about anything and everything else. Do I need to go on?
Since God is our Father He is concerned to meet our needs. We don’t need to be crying and distraught in the bedroom because we are worried about supper. Supper will be served. But it will not be served until it is time for supper. God will meet our every need. But He will meet them at the time that it is needed. So don’t fret if supper seems to be coming a little bit late. It will come at the right time.
c. It focuses on what is necessary
Sometimes it seems that when the time for our need to be met comes and goes yet it isn’t provided. Why is this? I think that this question is answered in the third area on which this prayer focuses. We see that it focuses on what is necessary. Jesus says, “Give us this day our daily bread. Or this passage could better be rendered, “Give us this day our necessary bread.” Jesus describes for us the reason why it seems that some of our needs are not met.
I think that there are two major reasons why sometimes it seems that our needs go unmet. There are others but the time would not permit us to go there today. The first one is obvious. It is not a need. We find ourselves wondering why God didn’t provide for us. When in truth what we were looking for was not a need at all. Nintendo, cable TV, Olive Garden and the list goes on . . . are not needs. The apostle Paul said that if we have food and clothing, let us be content with that. Too often we are simply coveting what others have. And because we do not have it we think that our needs are not being met.
Let us take a radical step aside from this rampant commercialism that this country has inspired in us. Let us refocus on where God would have us. Trends and brands are not needs. Nike is not a need when Cherokee (That is the target brand) will do.
We can’t have used cars, used clothes or other used items. New must do. Perfect is precious. Adequate is out and improved is in. It seems that the only secondhand material many Christians want is information (But that’s a different sermon on gossip). We must recognize that when we are not being supplied with our needs it is probably because we are trying to fulfill our greeds.
I recently heard a Christian woman describe how she was hurt and on disability. The level of disability that she was receiving was not enough to supply her mortgage and her savings were used up because of the situation. She was planning to sell her home and move to an apartment so she could afford to live. Some might say why isn’t God meeting her need to stay in her house? Who ever said that living in a house was a need? Too many Christians have their priorities so mixed up that they misunderstand what needs are. This woman recognized that God would provide for her if she would use what God had given her in the right way. She didn’t see her house as a right. If you think that God hasn’t provided for your needs than take a new look at your list of needs.
I think a second reason that it sometimes seems that our needs go unmet is because we fail to ask. James says this in his letter. He says, “You have not because you ask not.” How many times do we go out and buy something that we need but do not ask the Lord to provide it for us. We go out and put it on credit or installments because we don’t have the money for it but we go and buy it because we think we need it. I remember hearing it from someone a dozen years ago. The single mom said, “I had to put it on my credit card because my children needed the shoes.” But she didn’t ask the Lord to provide it for her. She went and did it herself. And when she couldn’t pay her credit card bill then she asked God to bail her out. If God is our Father and promises to meet our needs it is presumption on our part to go and do something without asking Him. How many of us go to shop (for food, clothing or anything else) and fail to ask God to provide for us within our budget? Instead we seek to install ourselves out in payments until the time that God answers last week’s prayer, which is when His kingdom comes. God doesn’t want us so stretched out that we cannot look at the needs of those around us and help them. The Scripture says that the righteous person is gracious and lends.
What Jesus is trying to tell us in praying this prayer is that we need to have a dependence on God that causes us to come to Him as a small child comes to his father for all his needs. We need to give control of our finances over to God and let Him guide and provide.
i. Spiritual Needs
The second of our basic needs that Jesus discusses in “Give us this day our daily bread is our spiritual needs. The reason that I believe Jesus is describing God meeting our spiritual needs in this passage is because of his confrontation with Satan. Satan came to Jesus after He had been without food for forty days. Satan said to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God turn these stones into bread.” Jesus quoted Deuteronomy, replying, “Man shall not live by bread alone.” In essence He was saying that there are more to our needs than the physical realm. Yes we have physical needs but they are not to be fulfilled to the neglect of the spiritual.
This prayer in dealing with our spiritual needs answers three questions for us.
a. Who is the giver of spiritual sustenance?
The first question that “Give us this day our daily bread” answers for us concerning our spiritual needs is “Who is the giver of spiritual sustenance?”
When Jesus quoted the Old Testament against the temptation to turn the stones into bread He said, “Man shall not live by bread alone BUT by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Our spiritual sustenance comes from God. He alone can give us real spiritual life. And it is only by His Word (that which comes from the mouth of God) that our spiritual needs can be met. Many people have various ideas about who their God is but unless it comes from the mouth of God the one that they worship is an idol.
God has made us spiritual creatures in need of spiritual sustenance from God. Apart from this spiritual sustenance we have no spiritual life at all. But like our physical needs, God says that He will meet our spiritual needs, if we only come to Him.
God says in Isaiah 55, “Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost . . . incline your ear and come to me. Listen, that you may live.” Any religious group that tells you that you must give them money to be accepted by God is false. God says, “You who have no money come, buy and eat.” Yes there is a cost to receiving eternal life but God has paid it all. He has provided all we need if we will only come to Him. Jesus said in John 6, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger and he who believes in Me will never thirst . . . For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” Do you see the promise that God has made to us to give us spiritual sustenance? Can you recognize that if you simply put your trust in nothing but the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for your sins that you have eternal life?
Don’t try to get the spiritual sustenance by your own effort. Don’t buy that which cannot satisfy. Only God’s Word can satisfy our spiritual needs. And our greatest spiritual need is to enter into an eternal lasting relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. He has provided all we need spiritually. Will you recognize that and receive it?
And I speak to all you who are already believers too. How many of us after having been accepted by God through faith try ourselves to please God by our effort instead of recognizing that He has paid it all and what we must do is to enter into all the benefits and blessings that God has provided. He wants to lavish them on us abundantly if we too will only evidence our faith in ALL His promises. And as we ask for our physical needs to be met we should likewise ask for our spiritual needs to be met. They can only be met in Christ.
b. How often do I need to meet with God?
So the second question that “Give us this day our daily bread” answers for us concerning our spiritual needs is “How often do I need to meet with God?”
I think that though the answer is obvious it is something that must be addressed because of the neglect of this very important command in Scripture. How often must I seek God’s spiritual sustenance? Daily. Give us TODAY our necessary spiritual food. We need to be in the bread line of God’s spiritual food daily.
How many of us, unless we are sick or under some other unusual condition, don’t seek to eat daily? Wouldn’t seem odd that we say I have too many things to do today so I think I’ll skip eating today and tomorrow and the next? How many of us would grow incapable of working because we have not eaten? Wouldn’t you think that person senseless if they refused to eat? How much more senseless are we when we refuse to take the time to receive spiritual nourishment from God’s Word daily. We have many excuses. We are too busy, too tired, too rushed, too guilty or too sick. But what if we used these excuses for our daily eating habits. Truly we may skip a meal but how many of us would skip a day or two. Yet many Christians will go day after day without receiving what is graciously offered by God.
Seek Him daily. He provides for our daily needs. We must come to Him to get them. If you are overdrawn, strung out and wilting spiritually is it because you are not looking to Him daily? Are you seeking the time, the daily time? Is it adequate time? Or are you scarfing down the junk food of the Word. Some Christians will read someone’s comments on the Word but not read the Word. We offer daily devotionals for your spiritual encouragement but if that is the only thing you’re reading then you are going to find that your spiritual needs are not being met because you are not taking the time to memorize and meditate on the Word of God. God’s Word ought to be the joy and rejoicing of our soul. It should capture our attention and be what we meditate on during the day as we encounter difficult circumstances. It should be what our heart gravitates toward when we feel overwhelmed. God’s Word and our relationship with the Lord should be our daily sustenance.
c. What is the necessary spiritual experience?
So the third question that “Give us this day our daily bread” answers for us concerning our spiritual needs is “What is the necessary spiritual experience?” As we mentioned before, the request that Jesus makes here could best be rendered, “Give us this day our necessary bread.” What is the necessary spiritual experience? Seeking Christ alone. This is it. There is no more. Perhaps you are seeking spiritual sustenance in His Word daily but that is not the only place you are seeking it.
Perhaps you are putting something else in the place that God should be. There are expectations that you have for your spouse that if they don’t meet them you will never be satisfied. God says you can be satisfied in Himself even if your spouse never treats you right again. If you can’t be then you are not seeking all of your spiritual satisfaction from Christ. Perhaps you are looking to have a certain position at work that if you do not get you will never be satisfied. God says you can be satisfied in Himself even if your job dreams never pan out.
You see if we are seeking for a certain circumstance or person or thing to satisfy us we will never be satisfied. This is because if we see that “thing” as what will bring us satisfaction it will never truly reach our expectations. We are creating an idol by putting something in the place that only God can fill. But if we leave all our expectations with God, then He will meet them. Our spiritual needs will be fulfilled and however the circumstances turn out we will be satisfied.
You see this was the problem with Martha. You know Martha, Mary’s sister. The Lord had come to their house and Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus while Martha was taking care of the work. When Martha complained about her sister not helping, Jesus told her that there was only one thing that was necessary. That necessary thing was seeking Jesus.
At first glance in that passage it seems like Jesus is scolding Martha for taking the time for preparation. But this is not the case at all. The passage says that Martha was “distracted with all her preparations.” “Everything had to be just right” was her motto. Everything must be picked up and the table set, the dishes washed and the bed sheets folded down before you can relax. Even her response to the Lord was focused on the serving. Her response wasn’t, “Lord have my sister help me so I can listen to you also.” It was “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone.” She didn’t care so much that she wasn’t able to hear Jesus speak, she was concerned that she didn’t have any help from Mary. Her preparations took precedence over the presence of the Lord. So though she had an opportunity to sit before Christ she refused to do so because there were other more important things than Jesus. We wouldn’t say it that way when it comes to ourselves but it just the same.
There is only one way of having our having our spiritual needs met. It is looking to the Lord to meet them. We cannot put the expectations that only God can meet onto others. And if we won’t be satisfied in Christ alone then we won’t be satisfied.
If we have a problem with our spiritual life it is because we are getting the essentials mixed up. We are saying, let me take care of the important things first and then I will have time with the Lord. What is that saying about our spiritual priorities? And like Martha, we are so busy with what we think are necessities that we neglect Him, the true necessity!
To excuse ourselves we say something like, “But I have to spend time with my family.” OK, so why can’t you spend time with your family and have time to spend with Jesus? Well I have to work. I have these four extra jobs so I can get all the things that everyone else has and that keeps me from spending time with Jesus.
Think on the words of Jesus, “There is only one necessary thing.” It is He. If we straighten out our priorities then we will find that we CAN work out the other details. The difference is that they do not become the priority above Jesus Christ.
Let me ask you some questions:
Are you seeking to have your physical needs met through God?
Do you consult Him in all your financial plans?
Are you worrying over what is God’s responsibility?
Will you reevaluate your list of needs and stop blaming God for not meeting your greeds?
Are you going make the time to have your spiritual needs met by Christ alone?
Will you recognize that there is one necessary thing that must take precedence above all else?