Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread (Afternoon)
Download MP3Everyone, my name is Ford Galen, and I serve on staff here as our community life director, and it's such a joy and honor to get to speak with you this afternoon. So a little bit about myself. If you don't know me, I didn't grow up in the church or in youth group or doing any of this, which meant that my first exposure to Christianity came through the Lord's prayer, which we've been studying as a church. Specifically, it was day in and day out at high school football practices. We're at the end, right before racing to the showers, we recite the Lord's Prayer, which meant that long before I believed in Jesus or cared a lick about Christianity, I actually had the Lord's prayer memorized, which is overselling myself.
Ford Galin:I didn't have the prayer memorized. I just figured out roughly what sounds I needed to make to fit in with the people around me, so I could kind of give a good time for it, and could do that just enough to make everyone think that I knew what was being said. And as long as I got to the end and could get kingdom and power and glory enunciated, no one had to know the difference. And I share that because I think that there's a lot of us who can probably actually resonate with that to a degree this morning or this afternoon, sorry. The the Lord's Prayer is something we're familiar with, for many of us, something that perhaps we have memorized or have had memorized for our entire lives, but this series going through the Lord's Prayer has been so helpful for me because it's forced me and hopefully forced us to body to slow down and actually think about these words that we know, because Jesus didn't give us the Lord's Prayer just to give us words with which to pray.
Ford Galin:He gave us the Lord's prayer to show us the heart from which we should pray, and even more than that, to show us the heart of the one to whom we pray. And so something that's been helpful for me and I on a Christian walk when I come to really familiar texts that it's easy for me to think I know what they mean and move on is to remember a Tim Keller quote which succinctly yet powerfully says, the gospel is good advice, or sorry, the gospel is good news, not good advice, And so this morning, it can task us to take a second to slow down and ask as we get to the next part of the prayer, give us this day our daily bread and ask the question, how is that good news for us this afternoon? And so I'm gonna go ahead and telegraph where we're going here because, admittedly, I don't think I'm gonna share anything that most of you don't already know. My hope is that in the next 30 or so minutes, some truths and some beautiful good news that maybe we get at a head level could seep down a little bit more into our hearts, and in so doing, we could trust and believe in the Lord a little more, but with that where we're going is that the Lord's prayer give us this day our daily bread is good news because it shows us just how great our neediness is, It shows us how greatly cared for we are by the one who meets those needs, and it ultimately points us to Him who is Himself our greatest need.
Ford Galin:With that in mind, let us pray, and I do say pray and not recite. Let us pray the Lord's prayer together, which should be up behind me and in your worship guides. Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.
Ford Galin:And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. And, Lord, we do pray that in these moments, as we worship you, you'd speak for your servants who are listening. God, I pray that any words or wisdom that is from me would fall to the ground and blow away with the wind and be remembered no longer. Lord, any words that are from you and may there be an abundance of them.
Ford Galin:May they remain and may they change us. We pray that in the present and good name of Jesus. Amen. And so we have hit a transition in the Lord's Prayer. Up to now, the Lord's Prayer has been focused on you, specifically talking to God.
Ford Galin:It has been, god, your kingdom come, your bill be done, hallowed be your name. But as we get to this part of the Lord's prayer, it shifts from a you focus to a we and an our focus. This is where we start praying things for ourselves. And so in this, we hit this transition, and the first thing that we're told to pray for is, lord, give us this day our daily bread. And if we're honest, it actually feels pretty underwhelming, doesn't it?
Ford Galin:Like, we we hear that it's this great Lord's Prayer and we're focused on the kingdom, and then it's, God, give us this bread. So right out the start, we should ask, well, what is what is daily bread? What is it it's talking about? Surely, it has to have some great metaphorical spiritual significance and be something greater than bread. And so right now, I am, taking classes at Beeson Divinity School, and I think I'm obligated as a seminary student to use the phrase in the original Greek at least two times per sermon.
Ford Galin:So this word we have translated bread here in the original Greek is the word arton, which translates and really effectively means bread. We don't have to overthink this one. It is bread. It is exactly what we see at face value. This prayer starts off with just this picture of bread, which can feel underwhelming to us, but if we think about these first original disciples who heard this prayer, these were men and women who had left everything behind to follow Jesus.
Ford Galin:And so for us as we sit here perhaps already drowning me out and thinking about where we're going to dinner in a few minutes, The disciples would have heard this not knowing where their bread was coming from the next day, so all of a sudden this became incredibly important and significant. And so for us, it may not be that food is the need that we have, that we can resonate with this idea of not knowing where our food is coming, but when we hear daily bread here, we can consider that to be representative of all the physical needs we need for life, food and water and air and shelter and safety. And you could certainly make an argument you would add into this some of the more intangibles, the things like companionship and love and security, and I won't comment on that, but regardless, this is at its core a prayer for God to meet our daily needs. And so these disciples would have heard this and known the need for daily bread, but again, it's not just prayer for bread. It's prayer for daily bread, and you may have a note in your Bibles that says something about how this could also be translated, give us this bread for the coming day or give us our bread for tomorrow today, and the reason why that is is that in the original Greek glad we're out of this already.
Ford Galin:You won't have to worry about it anymore the word used here for daily is found nowhere else, not only in scripture, but nowhere else in any Greek text that we still have today. And I'm convinced that Joel asked me to preach this one just to see if he could stump me. Congratulations, Joel Brooks. You have won. But regardless, the idea regardless of how it's translated is this idea of bread for the day that is ahead of us.
Ford Galin:And as the disciples these Jewish disciples would have heard this prayer for daily bread, instantly their minds likely would have drawn back to Exodus 16, which is a story if you're familiar with of God sending manna from heaven. For those who aren't familiar, the story of Exodus is this incredible account of God delivering his people, the Israelites, out of Egyptian slavery and into the promised land. But after taking them out of Egypt and taking them through the Red Sea, all of a sudden the Israelites find themselves wandering in the desert for 40 years, and so they begin to grumble and complain, and they start saying, Moses, who's our leader, did he take us out of slavery just so we die from hunger? But God responds and says, no. Here's what's gonna happen.
Ford Galin:Tomorrow morning, you're gonna wake up and bread from heaven will be on the ground They ended up calling a man, and this thin, white, flaky substance was on the ground, and they were told to gather enough that they needed to eat for the day. And as they did, no one had any lack of food for the day, but even those who tried to gather more than they needed, they woke up the next morning to see that it was rotten, but they saw fresh bread on the ground again the next day and the day after that and the day after that. And so these people are hungry, and they cry and they complain and they say, well, we need food, and God responds by saying day after day, I'm gonna give you a meal for one day at a time for 40 straight years. Let me ask the question, why? I mean, god, he surely could have just invented the refrigerator a few 1000 years earlier and not had to put up with it, But why would he answer their need for bread in this way?
Ford Galin:It's because God delights in providing for us and it's because he wanted the Israelites to see their need day in and day out. See, God doesn't choose to typically answer prayers in ways that will cause us to forget about Him afterwards, but He keeps us in reliance on us because He knows that's ultimately what we need. If you think about those original Israelites on the 1st night, the fear they would have had of will we wake up tomorrow and have bread, will we have what we need to live, surely would have been great. But if you think about those same Israelites 10, 20, 30 years down the road, there would have been no question in their mind they were being fed the next day, because they had seen their father, their Lord, their God provide. And so when Jesus tells us to pray, give us this day our daily bread, he is pointing us to that, reminding us of our need and reminding us that he is good to meet our needs.
Ford Galin:Clifton Black, who wrote a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, summarizes this prayer in this way. He says, this petition has 2 big implications for us. First, this request acknowledges our essential neediness, and second, God, the one to whom the prayer is addressed, remains at the center. Simply put, we are creatures reliant on our Creator. Ultimately, of our own volition, we do not create sustenance or anything else.
Ford Galin:We are needy beings dependent for God for everything. I think I need to stop right here, because the reality is I read that, and there's some of us in here who immediately feel this and know what it is to not know where your meal is coming from tomorrow, but the overwhelming majority of us in this sanctuary, myself included, have never known a day where bread for tomorrow is in question. Our needs were really in jeopardy, and so it's easy for us to tune out and think, what what do I what do I do with this? And if that's you in here who has never known a day where you didn't know where your bread would come from, there's 4 things that I'd like to put before you really quickly. Four questions I think we should be asking ourselves is, first, is the reason that we've never truly needed the Lord to provide for us that we haven't actually followed him as faithfully or sacrificially as he might have called us to.
Ford Galin:See, the disciples, it wasn't because they lived 1000 of years ago or because they were poor fishermen that they had need, it was because they left everything behind to follow Jesus. And in our cultural moment, typically that doesn't mean for us to follow Christ, that we're gonna have to leave everything behind and put ourselves in a position of poverty, but that's also not something we can assume. Just as we got to see through the faithfulness of the Hudgens and many others who've gone before us, following Christ could have remarkable implications for what we do with our money, our efforts, our times, where we live, how we parent, what we do with our day to day lives. So if you're here and you've never felt the need, I think it's worth us asking, is it because we've really been following the Lord as faithfully as he's called us to? And I'm not saying for most of us, it means we're giving up these things.
Ford Galin:For most of us, it probably doesn't, but we need to be asking if we're willing to do so. And if you are in here and realize that God has not just met your needs but given you abundance far beyond that, That isn't something that should lead you to some sort of guilt. That is something that should lead us to praise and thanksgiving, that God in his kindness has not just given us bread, but far far beyond that because he is the father who gives good gifts to his children. So it shouldn't lead us to guilt, but to gratefulness. But the second question we should ask is if we're in that spot where we haven't had need is why.
Ford Galin:Why might God have given us an abundance? If you look back at this prayer, it is not a prayer that says, give me this day my daily bread. It's a prayer that says, give us this day our daily bread. See, it's a prayer that God would feed all of his children and not just where we look out for what we personally need. And it may be that if you're here and have a life where you don't have to worry about where your next meal is coming from, it may be that the Lord has provided for you in abundance so you could be a blessing to others.
Ford Galin:Maybe that what some of us need to hear this afternoon is not what it looks like for us to pray this prayer, but that God might be calling us to be the answer to this prayer for someone else. We have brothers and sisters around the world in our own city asking the Lord to provide for their needs, and many of us have the means to respond. So maybe it means looking out for the brothers and sisters around Birmingham, around the world who don't have food security right now, or maybe it means not a physical need. Maybe it's that you've been provided with an incredible family and companionship. But there are others out there who have this need for family, but are not in a season of life where they have that and maybe God has blessed you with an extra seat at your dinner table.
Ford Galin:And for us to see this prayer that God would meet our needs for our daily bread means opening up that chair to someone who needs it, because God's given you extra. 3rd, I think we should ask if we're in that spot that we have never had this great need, if it's our pride that thinks that we've earned a life of security and comfort. And I I want to be really clear. In no way am I discounting how hard so many of us have worked, and in no way am I saying, well, you didn't do anything to get where you're at in life, But earlier this year, I got to go to Cuba with our college ministry, and I remember us passing out water filters in the slums outside of Havana and seeing these children, some incredible children who were born into this poor community with an oppressive government that affords them very few opportunities and likely makes a way they could never leave the country. And let me ask right now, that same child, if he tried and worked harder than anyone he'd ever known, if he applied himself or herself more than anyone he'd ever known, do you think he could get to where you are right now?
Ford Galin:The answer is, for most of them, no. The reality is that, yes, you've likely worked extremely hard to get where you are, but none of us had any say about where we were born, the family we were born into, the natural aptitudes we had, the physical health that we may have been given at birth. So it's easy for us in our pride to think, well, yeah, I'm secure and I have my needs, but I've I've worked for those, But realize that there are things that God gave you simply to even allow you to work. And, 4th and finally, what I would put before you is if right now you haven't been in a spot where you've ever felt the need for daily bread, are we over secure that that'll be the case tomorrow? Was really struck by how fragile life was a few years ago when in 2019, I was foolish enough to think that Auburn's basketball team was good enough to make some noise, and so when Auburn made it to the final 4, I made the completely irresponsible decision to fly up to Minneapolis for the final 4 only to have my heart ripped out, and I've gotta stop there because I'm gonna get discouraged and walk off the stage, but what led to happening after that was that based off Auburn losing in this final four semifinal game and, some plans falling through for a ride back to Birmingham, I scrambled and ended up in a car back to Birmingham on a 19 hour drive through the night with 4 guys that I did not know well who were still in college and way overconfident of how good they'd be at driving at night.
Ford Galin:But we had this great plan where the 2 guys who were sitting in the front of the car would do the first half, and then I and, my friend I don't know if friend was the right word. We haven't spoken much since this, but friend Will would sit in the back, and we would sleep these first 8 hours or so or however long, and then we would make a swap halfway through and we would drive. And so I'm asleep in the back seat. I think we're somewhere at this point outside of Indianapolis, and I wake up to the car shaking violently around. And what had happened is, Jack, who was sitting in the passenger seat, supposed to be up keeping John, the driver, awake, had fallen asleep and kind of woken up, but was still asleep enough that he said he just saw darkness in front of us and thought we were going off a cliff.
Ford Galin:So Jack, again not driving, but in the passenger seat goes, oh, I should take the wheel and yank it as hard as I can. Let me tell you in 4 seconds, my life would have been over like that. But John, incredibly and masterfully, was able to fight off control of the wheel while punching Jack until Jack woke up, and the only reason I didn't die that night is because John worked out more than Jack. Like if Jack's a little bit stronger, I'm gone. And it I say that for humor, but do we realize how fragile and insecure our lives really are?
Ford Galin:No one wakes up expecting that that'll be the day where one phone call or one yank of the car wheel could completely change everything, Or to put it another way, right now in your body, there are 37,000,000,000 chemical reactions happening every second. Admittedly, that number is from chat g p t, not sure we can trust it, but I think we can say a lot of things are happening to your body right now that you actually have no control over. Like, think about as you've been sitting there breathing, what are you doing to make yourself breathe? Like, the most basic dire need we have for air, we do nothing to make our bodies do that at subconscious. So realize if we have no control over that, for us to think, oh, life's been secure.
Ford Galin:I don't I don't really need God as an absurd thing because God is the one who's holding it all together in ways that we couldn't imagine. Now with those out there, I sense what you might be thinking. Ford, you said we were going to talk about how this prayer is good news, and so far you've basically told me I'm a jerk who should be giving my stuff away and prideful, and actually I'm really don't have that much security in my life, and I have a lot of needs, and this sounds like really really bad news, to which I would say, fair. I'm glad you've been listening. But the reason I start there is because our view of god will only be as great as our view of our need for god.
Ford Galin:You see, we all have basically 2 possibilities. Either we're in charge of providing for ourselves and our families and keeping our lives going, which means that we have to work tirelessly day after day to put food on our tables, to put money in the bank, and to put security in our lives where we can never truly rest, but are constantly realizing that if we make a false step, then our world could crumble or there's someone else who cares for us to provide for us, and if that were the case, it would mean we could rest. So the reason this is good news that we are so needy is only because of the god we're praying to. You see, this prayer would be terrifying if it was prayed to any other god than the loving God of the Bible, we see, which brings us to the second point, which is that give us this day our daily bread as good news because it reveals to us the one who greatly meets our needs. So n t Wright commenting on these verses says the danger in getting to this part of the Lord's Prayer is that we get there too quickly, and what he means by that is that it's a fall or it's a mistake for us to immediately jump to asking God to be give us things in prayer without first having those moments of saying, no.
Ford Galin:Our father who's in heaven, your kingdom come. It is a mistake to do that without first telling the lord your will be done and aligning our hearts with his. And he's right, but there's actually a deeper reason why it's a mistake and a problem when we rush too quickly to ask in the Lord for things in prayer. So when we do that, we miss the God we're praying to. See, we've been in the Lord's Prayer for a month, almost a month and a half now, and you realize we haven't actually asked for anything.
Ford Galin:We've been praising the Lord. We've been thanking him. We've been saying blessed and hallowed be your name. It's important because we begin to realize as we do those things in prayer that we have a God who is great enough for a kingdom that spans the entire universe yet also near and caring enough for us that he intimately meets our needs as a father. One of the things that struck me as I studied this passage is how weird it is that this comes first.
Ford Galin:There's basically 3 prayers or 3 asks we make. We have a physical ask, give us the stale bread, and then an ask for our soul of, Lord, forgive us our trespass, and then finally an ask for our spirit of, Lord, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And then it feel really underwhelming that this one comes first. I mean, we've just been talking about how the Lord's kingdom is coming and the first thing we hear about that kingdom is about God giving us bread. But don't miss what a great kindness that is from the Lord.
Ford Galin:You see, what that means is God says, do you wanna know what my kingdom is like? It's a kingdom where I meet your needs. It's the same thing that Jesus does when he announces his ministry in Luke chapter 4. He says, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
Ford Galin:You see, our savior and our king Jesus did not come saying, your king is here, bow before me. He said, your king is here, let me serve and care for you. The fact that there even is such a thing as our bread in his kingdom is insane and a testament to his goodness and his kindness. For a second, think back to that account in Exodus 16 of God providing the manna, but this time rather than viewing it from the lens of the disciples, think about it from God's perspective. Again, God so easily could have just said, alright, here's a dump truck full of bread, you're good, quit your yapping, or God could have very easily just gone, you know what, fine, I've changed your complexion.
Ford Galin:You no longer need to eat. I don't wanna hear about it. But god chooses to respond to their grumbling by implementing the system of manna where god would have to work day after day after day, year after year. Like, god did not hear the phrase work smarter, not harder, but he caringly and lovingly and compassionately chose to meet the needs in in a way where he would have to constantly be working to provide for and care for the Israelites. Why?
Ford Galin:Because our God delights to give us good things, or God delights in caring for and providing us for us. It's not a burden, Our God delights in showing us that we can trust him. A little bit later in Matthew 6, I think Jesus actually gives some commentary on this very prayer of give us us their daily bread. This is Matthew 6 25 through 34, which may be a familiar stretch of scripture to some, and if you have not read it before, I would encourage you in the next couple days to find some time and to sit and read and meditate on this at the end of Matthew 6, but if I could just give the first part of his commentary. Jesus says, therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life.
Ford Galin:What you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body what you will put on, is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Almost feels rough for Jesus to say, hey. You realize how deeply you need me constantly and pervasively, But guess what? Don't be anxious about your life. You know what's really incredibly unhelpful for someone struggling with anxiety?
Ford Galin:To tell them, hey, don't be anxious because now you're just sitting there, and some of you since I talked about how fragile life have life is have been sitting there thinking, oh gosh, like what do I do? Like, I have no control. How how do I respond? Or some of you, I think, are even just sitting there trying to think and concentrate on your breathing right now since I mentioned that. Don't worry.
Ford Galin:It's okay. You have not stopped breathing yet. God's going to provide. You'll be fine. But the thing is, God doesn't just say, hey, don't be anxious.
Ford Galin:There's hundreds of commands throughout scripture in which God tells us not to worry or be fearful or anxious, but he never actually gives those in a vacuum. To my knowledge, every single time that God gives us a command like don't be anxious, he immediately follows it by a reminder of who he is. So 1st Peter 5 does not say, cast away all or cast away all your anxieties. No. It says, cast your anxieties on God because he cares for you.
Ford Galin:Or Isaiah 41, God does not say, do not fear. No. God says, do not fear for I am with you. I'm your God. I will strengthen you and hold or uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Ford Galin:And here in Matthew 6, God does not leave it at, hey, don't be anxious for your life. As you think about the needs you have, don't be anxious for your life. No. He goes on to say, look at the birds of the air, how they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are y'all are not you of more value than they?
Ford Galin:God doesn't just say don't be anxious. He says, hey, don't be anxious because you see the birds, how insignificant and unimportant birds are yet they haven't gone extinct but they've had food and been cared for? You realize I provide for them. And you think if I provide for them, you who I value deeply, do you not think I would provide for you? You see, this is why give us this day our daily bread is good news.
Ford Galin:It's because we have a father who loves us and values us. Not just that he can provide for our needs better than we can ourselves, but that he delights in doing so. Recently, my wife and I moved into Crestwood, which means I think we are now officially redeemer members. Don't know if it counted before then, but prior to that, we were renting a house in Crestline Park. And when we moved in, the original owners of the house who lived there before us, had done an incredible job with the landscaping and specifically cultivating this garden in the backyard.
Ford Galin:It was really impressive and I remember Megan and I moving in thinking, oh, we should we should keep this going. But as we moved out last month, if I'm being honest, the garden may not have looked quite as good as it did when we first moved in. You may be thinking, oh, well, that's just because, Ford, you don't strike me as someone who'd be good at gardening and you just were probably bad at it, to which I would say, fair. But more than that, what happened is as I got caught up in the cares of life, I ultimately just didn't care that much about the garden. I'd cut the grass because it was kind of the bare minimum requirement, but it just didn't mean that much to me versus the original owner who'd poured himself into that garden, who'd cared for it and cultivated it because he delighted in it.
Ford Galin:And for each of us, may we realize now that we have a God who delights in us, who values us deeply, so we need not fear whether or not he's gonna provide for and care for us and meet our needs. So as you sit here realizing, well, wow, how desperately needy am I, be encouraged that we have a God who does this. I'd put before you the story of George Muller. If you've not heard about him, George Muller was a German clergyman in the 19th century, who felt the Lord call him to start an orphanage in England. But his calling was not actually just to care for these orphans, he specifically wanted to do this in a way that would show how much God would provide.
Ford Galin:So he resolved that he would never once ask someone for money or do some sort of capital campaign or tell people what the needs were. He simply resolved that he was just going to pray for whatever the orphanage needed, and he started this orphanage with a few shillings in his pocket, roughly 50¢ in modern day currency. But decades later, when George Mueller passed away, he left behind a legacy of not one but 5 orphanages and having cared for over 10,000 orphans in England, more than the entire rest of the country combined. He never once asked for money, he never once did a campaign, yet that orphanage never missed a single meal. And in his biography, you actually get to read a bunch of his journal or article or journal entries.
Ford Galin:Admittedly, it is the most boring biography you'll ever read, because there's a few in there that are really exciting, but time and time again, the way this biography is set up would be something like this, July 8, 1962, 9:33 in the morning. I realized we have no food or no money for dinner tonight, so I resolved that the Lord would provide money so that we could buy bread for the or for the children. And then you'd see a little bit later, July 8, 1960 or 1862, 4:12 PM. I was getting distressed today as God had still not provided money for dinner, so I resolved to pray all the more earnestly. I felt the temptation but refused to tell someone of this need.
Ford Galin:Shortly after I resumed my prayers, there was a knock at the door from someone in the community who said he had heard of the work we were doing and wanted to support and to give us this amount of month money each month. To show as a promise of his good faith, he gave me a check for $200, and so we had bread tonight and dinner for the children. It was incredibly boring to read because it was incredibly simple the way God kept answering those prayers. And if you wanna know what it looks like for God to provide and care for you, it may be the job that you have. It may be the family that you're born into.
Ford Galin:It may be that your body just keeps breathing without you doing something, because, yes, God can work through the miraculous, but so often just in the ordinary meanly ordinary means in daily things of life. We have a God who just provides for and cares for us. And so, yes, give us this day our daily bread is good news, but as great as that news is, it actually gets better than that. It's because give us this day our daily bread ultimately points us to the one who is himself our greatest need. It's not that the prayer for daily bread isn't anything less than a prayer for our physical needs, but it is still actually more than that.
Ford Galin:You see, last weekend, Joel, or last Sunday Joel talked about how there is a kingdom of God and a kingdom of man, and how there's no dual citizenship between the 2, but we as Christians are called to be citizens in God's kingdom. And it's really easy for us to distort that and take that to mean that there's some sort of an invisible spiritual kingdom and a real practical physical kingdom and we're not to worry about what's actually before us because it's spiritual, but God doesn't view them in that type of distinction. For the Lord, the physical and the spiritual are much more closely tied than we realize. I mean, if you think about Jesus' life, if you think about the 4 gospels, it's an odd thing you realize which is that Jesus is constantly eating. Like, it's meal after meal throughout the gospels, disciples after he was resurrected to the last supper.
Ford Galin:Jesus is constantly eating. And when have you ever read a biography or let me correct myself. It's 2023. When have you ever watched a Netflix bio series? There was just a bunch of scenes of people eating.
Ford Galin:Like, it's absurd that the gospel of the most important person to ever walk this planet seems like it's just a bunch of meals. But it's because for Jesus, the physical realities were pointing to equally true and real things in the spiritual realm. The things he did physically were reminding us of what he ultimately was doing spiritually, and so he keeps eating and eating and eating, and one of these bears in a special consideration with our passage today, which is when Jesus feeds the 5,000. It's actually the only miracle that we see recorded in all 4 of the gospels. And to read about it, for instance, in John 6, where Jesus has been teaching, in this big large crowd of 5,000 men plus women and children, have come to him, and near the end of the day, the disciples realized, Jesus, we don't have food to give them.
Ford Galin:Send them away so that they can buy something to eat, and Jesus ultimately realizing that they have 5 loaves and 2 fish says, no, no, no. Sit them down, and then somehow causes just these few loaves of bread to supply and to feed thousands upon thousands of people. And there's a lot of parallels in that story that actually hearken back to Exodus 16 and God providing manna in the wilderness, from where it happens in this wilderness desolate place to the ways that the people in there are grouped to the way that Jesus and God delegate this happening, and we can't get into each of those, but the people who are there, the 5,000 who were fed, actually pick up on this, so the next day they come back to Jesus and they say, Jesus, you know, Moses, he fed us day after day after day, so just give us some more bread. Right? And Jesus says something really odd.
Ford Galin:He responds and he says, you know, I I actually have a bread that gives life, and if you eat of it, you will never hunger or thirst again. And so the crowds, logic goes there, well, say, well, yeah. Give us that bread. But Jesus responds and catch him off guard when he says, no. No.
Ford Galin:No. I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. And it sounds great, but what's actually going on there? C.
Ford Galin:S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity, he talks about how we would not have a or a desire or an appetite for something that there wasn't something out there that would satisfy So for instance, we feel hunger. God made food. We feel desire and a need for companionship. God made families and friendship and marriage.
Ford Galin:We feel a need to wake up in the morning, God made Starbucks. But C. S. Lewis in his book, he he writes and he goes on to say, well, if I find in myself a desire that nothing in this world seems to satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. What CS Lewis is saying is if we find things in our gut and our stomach where it just feels like there's something more out there, feel a pit.
Ford Galin:Perhaps you're in that spot of you have most of your needs met and you have security and peace and food on the table and don't have to worry about your daily bread, yet somehow you just feel like there's something more out there, like you have everything you could really possibly need. I mean, sure, maybe you could get greedy and want the lake house, the vacation home, or, you know, to go ahead and have your student loans paid off, but, you know, ultimately, I have everything, but it just feels like there's something more out there. CS Lewis is saying that we wouldn't have that appetite, that desire if something didn't exist that would satisfy it. When Jesus says, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will not hunger, he's saying, I am the thing that fulfills that yearning you have in your soul.
Ford Galin:Just as your stomachs get hungry and there's food to provide for that, so too our souls have this longing to be nourished and that find its fulfillment in Christ himself. Ultimately, our greatest need is to be with God. I wanna be really clear. It's not just that our greatest need is to be forgiven by God. Certainly that's true and that's what we'll talk about in the Lord's prayer next week, but it it's that we need God to be with him.
Ford Galin:We were created to be with our creator, And so as we have this feeling for more just as we get hungry day after day, so the lord says come to me. I am the one who will satisfy that longing in your stomach. Psalm 63, the psalmist says, my soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, when I remember God upon my bed and meditate on him in the watches of the night. Just as you feel after a great meal, so too, as we come to the Lord with this continual need, our souls are nourished and fed. And so, yes, give us this day our daily bread is good news.
Ford Galin:Because every time we eat physically, it reminds us of how God has made himself available for our souls. So coming out of this, don't worry, I'm about to wrap up, there's not really a lot of application for you today because what I hope happens is you hear this, hear that we have a God who cares for us and meets our need both physically and spiritually, hope that just leads us to trust him. Hope that just allows us to rejoice in him. Hope that allows us to just rest, realizing that tomorrow morning each of us are gonna wake up, and we're gonna have this temptation to say, if it is to be, it's up to me. I have to go and immediately start attacking the day to provide for myself, for my family, to make my life work.
Ford Galin:But the good news that we hear in this prayer is that tomorrow morning, we can reject that temptation and be reminded, no. My heavenly father will provide for me far better than I can provide for myself. So the 2 applications I have for you coming out of this is, first, tonight, when most of us go from here to dinner, as you eat whatever is on your table, may you remember that it's the Lord who ultimately put it there. May that lead you to gratefulness. May that lead you to realize and to be reminded that meal and every meal this week, that you have a loving father and God who's provided for you.
Ford Galin:And may it also point you to the truth that just as he is feeding your stomach, so too he is ready to fulfill the longings of your soul? And second, tomorrow morning when you have that temptation to think I'm in charge of my life, I'm in charge of my family, I have to make it work, Would you instead start your day off just praying this prayer, saying, lord, meet my needs today? And as that happens, would you be freed up to just spend time with your heavenly father, to come to him and to feast on him? And if you don't know what it actually looks like to do that, I encourage you to ask that in your home group this week. How how do I actually do this?
Ford Galin:How do I spend time with the father? And if you're not a member and wanna know, come find someone in this church, reach out to me and we would love to talk with you of what it actually looks like to sit with your father. Jesus, he eats all these meals, and I think the reason we see it throughout the gospels is because the most common picture we get of heaven in the day of salvation in the day coming is out of a great banquet and a great feast. And there's a lot of verses I could end with, but one specific one that I really wanna point you to is in Isaiah 25. When talking about the final day of the day in heaven, the day of salvation, we're told, on this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of rich food, a feast of well aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
Ford Galin:The picture we're given of heaven and our eternity is not one of us singing this never ending worship song to God. There certainly will be worshiping. It's a picture of a feast. And don't know there or don't miss in there, it's not a feast that we have prepared and that we're serving at, It is a feast in heaven where God has served us and is still providing for us even there. That is the God that we have in the Bible.
Ford Galin:That is the heavenly father who even now is making himself available to you. And what do you do at a feast? You sit down and enjoy. So when we come to that feast and when we come to the Lord each day of our lives. Let's go to him now.
Ford Galin:If you'd pray with me. Father, lord, we are astonished by how kind you are to us. God, we are grateful for the abundance of ways that you provide for us. God, and we just rejoice that we don't sit here being reminded of the 1,000,000 things we need to do, but we sit here able to rest because all that we have needed thy hand has provided. And so, Lord, we look to you and we say, God, give us this day our daily bread.
Ford Galin:Physically and spiritually, satisfy the longings of our stomach and as of our soul, and help us to come to you because, god, we confess that tomorrow morning, we will feel the temptation or reject that and to put ourselves back in the driver's seat. God, I pray you would force us beside still waters. You would force us to lie down in green pastures as our good shepherd who loves us and who cares for us and who will never leave us nor forsake us nor abandon us. So, god, we look to you in trust and in hope, and we ask you to be nothing short of the God that we know you are, and we praise you for that. We pray that in the good and present name of Jesus.
Ford Galin:Amen.
