Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread (Morning)
Download MP3This morning, we're gonna continue our study on the Lord's prayer, by looking at give us this day our daily bread. And so to begin, I wanna invite you to pray with me the Lord's prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Joel Brooks:Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. 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. Amen. Give us this day our daily bread.
Joel Brooks:I have found that when studying this petition this week, that there is almost an immediate impulse for preachers, for commentators, to somehow turn that request for bread into a more spiritual request. The bread that we are supposed to ask for is really Jesus because Jesus is the bread of life. Or perhaps the bread that we are to ask for is His word. It's scripture. Growing up, I used to have, on our dining room table, our family had a little plastic loaf of bread.
Joel Brooks:Some of you might have had this. And the inside was carved out, and it had all these little cards in it. And they were, scripture cards. On the loaf of bread, it had, the words, our daily bread. Anybody have that growing up?
Joel Brooks:Yes. Yes. Thank That's fantastic. You can't find about I mean, I'm sure you can eBay them now, but I used to love, we would sit down and we would pull out and read one of those King James version Bible verses. And so we would have that bread with the bread from our meal.
Joel Brooks:And it is true that scripture is our bread, that God's word is our daily bread, and also that Jesus is the bread of life. But let's be honest, we all need real actual carbs, don't we? We need real physical bread. And this is why when Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted by Satan, He did not say, man does not live by bread. He said man does not live by bread alone.
Joel Brooks:But we still need bread. And here in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus teaches us that asking God to give us something as mundane as bread or other things to sustain us like rent money or tuition or maybe even just provide a parking space. Asking God to give us those things is not to be seen as any less spiritual than asking for God's kingdom to come or for God's name to be hallowed. A matter of fact, do you know where you see God's glory for the first time in the Bible? The first time we ever see the phrase the glory of the Lord, it might surprise you because it's not in creation.
Joel Brooks:It's not found anywhere in Genesis. When you get to Exodus, it's not at the burning bush or during the plagues. It's not when, when God parted the Red Sea. It's after that. After God parted the Red Sea, we read that the Israelites were hungry.
Joel Brooks:And so they cried out to the Lord in their hunger And the Lord said, tomorrow, you will see the glory of the Lord. And He gave them food, manna, to eat. So if you want to see the glory of the Lord, you need to ask Him for bread. You need to ask Him to meet your physical needs. And when God freed the Israelites from slavery and He took them out into the wilderness, He did not just take care of them spiritually, He took care of them physically.
Joel Brooks:But He took care of them physically in such a way that it would feed their spirits. Each and every morning, the Israelites, they'd come out of their tents and they would find manna there for them to eat. And I find this fascinating because when you're God, you can feed people, you know, a 1000000 different ways. You can sustain them, you know, any way you see fit. But He chose to do it that way.
Joel Brooks:The most obvious way to feed these people would have just been to take them the most direct route to Canaan. It's maybe a week's journey away. I mean, if you look on a map, at least my map, it was like this this this far. And Canaan, it was a land flowing with milk and honey. Just take them there.
Joel Brooks:They'll be fed. Or he could've just chosen to sustain them without giving them any food at all, just supernaturally sustain them. Or He could have given them a week's or maybe a month's supply of food at a time, but instead, He wants them to get up every morning to go outside and discover anew God's provision. To give them bread every single day. And then 1400 years later, Jesus taught us to pray for God to provide for our needs the exact same way.
Joel Brooks:Today, would you give us the bread we need? Why did God just decide to sustain His people that way? I think it's because He wants us to seek Him out every day for His provision. He's our father. He likes spending time with us.
Joel Brooks:The very first thing that Jesus taught during this prayer when He taught us how to pray to God is that we are to call Him Father. And that is the foundation of this request and all of the requests. He is a Father who delights in having a relationship with us so much so, He wants us to come to Him every single day asking for things. Big and small, doesn't matter, ask Him. Years ago, I had to go to someone and ask them for a favor.
Joel Brooks:It was not even for me. It was on behalf of school our kids were going to. The problem was the person that I had to go to and ask for this favor, she was a bitter, old, angry woman. And, she didn't like me and she didn't like anyone. And so I just I didn't know what to do.
Joel Brooks:I didn't know how do you approach somebody like that. I thought about going up to her and just asking randomly, can I mow your lawn? You know, or maybe bake her some cookies. As I'm thinking through this, this was my plan. I decided to take Georgia, who was a baby, with me, because I thought, she can't yell at me if I have a baby.
Joel Brooks:And it's true. That's So I literally, I took Georgia with me and I'm bouncing Georgia to go and talk to this woman and she can't yell at me when I have her. A matter of fact, she even softened a little. And, she partially gave me what I asked for. But let me tell you what, I was sweating bullets as to how to approach this woman.
Joel Brooks:Could you imagine how terrible it would be if God was like that? If we had to go to God with our request like I had to go to this woman. I mean, what if we went to God knowing we were annoying Him? Or that He was uncaring? Or He was always too busy to talk with us?
Joel Brooks:What if we thought we needed to offer a bribe to Him or we just needed to catch Him at the right time? You know, just so what's His mood like? Well, you know, I've been doing a lot of good things all this month. I think He's in a pretty good mood. Now might be the time to ask Him.
Joel Brooks:Thank goodness we do not approach God like that. We wouldn't ask a God like that for bread, let alone for forgiveness, which is what we'll look at next week. Thankfully, God is our loving and caring Father. He delights in giving us things. After this prayer, Jesus taught His disciples to pray this.
Joel Brooks:Just a few verses later in Matthew chapter 7, He expounded on how we are to pray And He writes or He said these words. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives.
Joel Brooks:The one who seeks finds or the one who knocks, it will be opened. Or which one of you, if he has a son who asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for fish, will give him a serpent? If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in Heaven give good things to those who ask Him? For those of you parents here or are parents, could you imagine even for a moment if your child was hungry, I mean like actually hungry and came to you and asked for something to eat, could you imagine if you had the resources there telling that child no?
Joel Brooks:Or telling your child, you know, here's a stone. You know, I was lucky to have that when I was a kid your age. You know, suck on that. I mean, could could you imagine being so cruel? Not at all.
Joel Brooks:I mean, it delights you as a parent to be able to provide for your kids. And Jesus says of course as a parent you would give bread to your child if they ask for bread. Of course you would do that. And you're evil. Don't you love how Jesus just casually slips side in?
Joel Brooks:He goes, you would do that and you're evil people. Just think what good things my heavenly father would give you if you asked him. God wants us to ask for him and for his provision. He wants us to do this each and every day. Give us this day the bread we need for today.
Joel Brooks:We do not ask God for a month's provision. We do not ask Him for a week's provision. We go to Him each and every day, asking Him for the provision for that day. You know when God created manna for the Israelites, He somehow He infused in manna this curious quality. It rotted after one day.
Joel Brooks:It's kinda like if you if you buy the fruit at Aldi. For those of you who shop at Aldi, which is where we go, you the strawberries are so cheap, and so you you buy a bunch of them, but they last for a day, and then and then they all rot. God, He infused the manna with that kinda quality. And He did this not because He was cruel or because He didn't want to give the people in abundance, no it's because He wanted them to seek Him each and every day for that abundance. Abundance came not from storing things up, it came from going to God every day.
Joel Brooks:A scarcity mindset is why you store things up. A scarcity mindset is let me hold as many things as possible. An abundance mindset is, God, you hold it all for me. And then you will give those things as I need them. God is telling us you don't have to be afraid as you're walking through life because I'm with you.
Joel Brooks:And if you have any needs, just ask. I'll give them to you. Hear me. Your Heavenly Father is more trustworthy than any bank. He is more trustworthy than any job you have, any family, any neighborhood or school system, any skill set that you have that you depend on to provide for you.
Joel Brooks:He is more trustworthy than all of those things. Can I tell you one of the ways that my family has seen this to be true in our lives? And just so you know, I've I hesitate to share this example. I was thinking of examples. I hesitate because this is true of God's calling on our life and this might not be at all true of God's calling on your life.
Joel Brooks:So I'm not saying that you have to live like this, but 25 years ago, Lauren and I, we decided to live in a neighborhood in which all the schools around us were failing. The elementary, the middle school, the high school, all had failing grades. That was fine until you had kids. Once we had kids, we felt this strong pull to leave. We actually, when we thought of other neighborhoods, this is kinda silly, but we we saw other neighborhoods as essentially cruise ships.
Joel Brooks:You just If you could get aboard the cruise ship, it will like take you to the destination. You don't have to worry about anything anymore. You just kinda get to sit back, enjoy the food, enjoy the view, be well provided for, and it's gonna get you where you ultimately wanna go. And so we're like, oh, if if we could just get in the cruise ship. So that's that's what we thought.
Joel Brooks:But God called us to stay. Once again, that was God's calling on our life. Not saying that was God's calling on anyone else's. But what this meant for us was that God would have to provide. He would have to provide education for our kids.
Joel Brooks:He would have to provide friends for them. The wilderness for the Israelites might have been a lack of food, but the wilderness for the Brooks family was a lack of educational opportunities and it was a lack of friendships for our children. They were the oldest kids in our neighborhood. They were the oldest kids at our church. So we prayed and we prayed, God provide.
Joel Brooks:This day, will You provide. We pray that He'd provide a school. Then we pray that He would provide money for tuition. Then we pray that He would give our children friends. That He would be our Father.
Joel Brooks:That He would take care of our needs. And we would invite our kids to pray with us. We did not hide at all from them the situation we were in. We would tell them, I mean, every year, if God does not provide, we have no school, no educational opportunities for you. We have no idea what we will do.
Joel Brooks:God has to provide and so they would pray with us and each and every year God provided. He provided in new and beautiful ways. He would provide a school, then He would provide tuition money through the most unlikely resources. He would give my children great friends. I mean, one of my one of which my oldest daughter is now engaged to and that was when there were only 3 people in the youth group.
Joel Brooks:He just He abundantly provided. Ask my kids about it. They will testify to the Lord's goodness. They were able to see that they actually had a father who cared for them more than me, their earthly father. And He was a God, not of scarcity, but a father of abundance.
Joel Brooks:Are you asking your Father for bread every day? If not, I bet it's I bet it's because of one of three reasons. So I'm gonna go over three reasons why you might not be asking the Lord for daily bread. And the first is this, you don't think you have to. The truth is that for many of us in here, we are far more likely to ask God for self control to not eat bread than to actually ask that He provides bread for us.
Joel Brooks:We live in a place where we have an abundance of bread, an abundance of clothes. Most of us have money in the bank. Some of us even have large stock portfolios or retirement plans. And the honest truth is when most of you got up this morning, you did not feel this desperate cry. God, if you don't feed me, I won't eat.
Joel Brooks:Would you give me this day bread? For most of us, that thought didn't even cross our minds, and if if that's you, where that wasn't what you thought of when you got up this morning, I just wanna encourage you to pray that prayer anyway. Early in the morning, Father, would you give me this day my daily bread? For starters, I want you to pray that way because you need to learn that we go to our Father in all things, and we don't just go and talk to Him when our back is up against the wall. We don't just go to Him when we're in dire need of something, but we go to Him for for everything.
Joel Brooks:Remember, your father wants a relationship with you. He wants to talk with you each and every day. And when you do this, when you actually go to Him and you ask Him for food, and then later that day you are provided for, it is gonna produce in you such a heart of thanksgiving. I know, you know, most of us in here, because you know, we grew up in the South. We're Christians.
Joel Brooks:When we sit down for a meal, lunch, you know, or dinner, we thank God for the food. We say the blessing. That's great. But you know what's We'll take that blessing or that thanksgiving up a notch, if earlier in the day, you had said, Lord, Father, would You provide food for me today? And then later you sit down to eat and you're like, thank you, father, for answering my prayer this morning.
Joel Brooks:You do take care of me by giving me food. That produces in you such a heart of thanksgiving. Another reason you need to get in the habit of asking the Lord for daily bread, even when you feel like you have an abundance all around you, is you need to be stripped of your illusion of control. You really have no idea how your day is going to unfold. You have no idea how safe your job is, if there's gonna be a global pandemic.
Joel Brooks:You know, like the Hutchins had all their plans together and then that just completely crumbled. You have no idea if the stock market's gonna collapse, if the housing market's gonna collapse, if there's gonna be some accident that keeps you from working, if you're gonna have a blood vessel pop, you have no idea. But your Heavenly Father is a more reliable source for your security than anything else. And so we need to begin our days by asking, Lord, would you be my security? Will you be my provision?
Joel Brooks:Because everything else might fade away. Do you believe that God's security for you is more than money in the bank? A second reason that some of us do not pray, give us this day our daily bread, It's because we think we're supposed to pray, give me this day my daily bread. Instead of give us this day our daily bread. This is a request for God to give us food.
Joel Brooks:As Christians, we live lives that are so interconnected with one another. We're considered family, And that means that everyone's needs are also our own needs. And did you know that nowhere in the gospels will you ever read about Jesus eating a meal alone? Never does He is He shown ever eating a meal alone. He's always eating it in the midst of community, thanking God for giving them, for giving us food.
Joel Brooks:It seems like Jesus understood that when God gave food, He was not just giving physical nourishment, but He was also giving us a means for providing emotional nourishment. The emotional nourishment of being part of a community. Give us bread. Don't just give me bread. Meet my physical and emotional needs.
Joel Brooks:Make me part of a community. As a matter of fact, when God gave manna to the Israelites, you should not think of it as, you know, every morning they they got out of their tent and there's just loaves of bread everywhere. That's not what manna was. You read about it in the book of Numbers. Manna had a seed like quality that had to be gathered up and then it had to be ground down, made into like a flour, worked into a dough and then it had to be baked and it became bread.
Joel Brooks:It had been very inefficient for every person to try and do that by themselves. It was a community effort to make bread. So the way that God provided for the people was to show them what a redeemed community is supposed to look like. We're all working together to feed one another. We help one another eat, and then we eat with one another.
Joel Brooks:To pray give us food is to pray give me food along with my brothers and sisters to enjoy it with. The third reason that some of you might not be asking God for provisions for daily bread is because honestly, you've been burned. You've asked God for things before and he didn't come through. Anybody struggle with that? I tried praying before and he did not answer.
Joel Brooks:And if you struggle, you know, when I read through Matthew 7, ask and you shall receive. Like, well, I've asked and I didn't receive. Or the other places in scriptures, you know, everything you ask, believing you shall receive. That's Mark 11. Like, well, I did ask and I did believe and I received.
Joel Brooks:Squat. So it's just you feel burned by God and you're like, I mean, why would I ask for bread if he hasn't answered my prayers in the past? So what are we supposed to do with that, when God has disappointed us in the past, when it seems like God is not answering our prayers? Well, I think the answer to this question is once again, we need to see God as Father. We do not go to God in prayer like we would go to a genie in a bottle, asking the genie to grant our every wish.
Joel Brooks:Equally as dangerous is seeing God as, you know, some angry, bitter, old woman, who would only begrudgingly give to you, is seeing God as that genie who's gonna grant you your every desire. Just think with me for a moment. Can you imagine if genie lamps actually existed? Then imagine a 10 year old child finding that genie lamp. Do you know what you should do if a 10 year old child finds a genie lamp?
Joel Brooks:Just run away as fast as you can. Hope the child forgets you even existed. Because no child should be trusted with that kind of power. They can't make any kind of wise decision. No child should be given that power because they have no idea what's actually good for them.
Joel Brooks:They have no idea what are gonna be the consequences of their request. They'll request things like, you know, make the world, everything full of chocolate or, I want everyone in the world to be my friend. Can you imagine having 8,000,000,000 friends, how exhausting that would be? You don't have the wisdom to make a request. Now let me ask you this.
Joel Brooks:What if the child was 15? Not 10, but 15. Would you trust a 15 year old to be granted their every wish? What about 20? 25?
Joel Brooks:What if what if you were 30 years old? Should Are you wise enough then to make the right request? I mean, I was thinking back as I was writing this what I was doing when I was 30. I was an idiot. At 30 years old, I was an idiot.
Joel Brooks:Here was my great idea I had when I was 30 years old. I was doing college ministry. It was the Super Bowl. I thought we would have a bring your own hatchet to the Super Bowl party. I'm not lying.
Joel Brooks:I asked college students to bring weapons to a Super Bowl party. We we were gonna tear down the student center that we were in. It was being torn down the next month. I was like, well, let's just go ahead and tear it down. I spray painted ninjas on all the walls so we could throw hatchets at them.
Joel Brooks:So you have 100 of college students coming with hatchets. They're flying all over the place. At one point, people who were upstairs began chopping away at the floor. They created a hole. They were jumping from the 2nd floor down to the 1st floor.
Joel Brooks:All of a sudden, light fixtures began falling down. Sparks were flying everywhere, and then I heard someone say, Hey, isn't that a gas line? And at that point, I just said, Run, Shut it down. We're ending this. I was a I was an idiot at 30.
Joel Brooks:I started Redeemer 4 years later, by the way. But that's what you're always gonna think of your old self. I don't care what age you are right now. I don't care if you're you know 30, 40, 50, 60, whatever it is. Think back to who you were 5 years ago.
Joel Brooks:Would you trust that person with a genie in a bottle? 5 years from now, you're gonna look at your current version of yourself and you're gonna say, idiot. That was a fool. Thankfully, God is not like a genie who just grants us whatever we wish. Instead, he is our father.
Joel Brooks:Fathers listen to their children's request, and then they see the real need underneath that request. And they give their children what they actually need, not just what the child thinks they need, or the child's interpretation of that need. My daughters, when they were little, they asked me for everything. Here's some real things they asked me for. They asked if they could go play on the roof, if they could drive my truck, if they could mow the lawn, if they could turn the attic into their bedroom.
Joel Brooks:And then, of course, they wanted to bring home every animal. They asked if they could bring home kittens, puppies, parakeets, ferrets, ponies, chickens, a monkey, anything they ever saw, and so we allowed them to bring home a dog. But what I was supposed to do, I listened to their request. Some were silly. Some were downright harmful.
Joel Brooks:So I tried to listen and say, well that's your interpretation of your And And that's why they asked to be on the roof is I was working on the roof. They just wanted to be with me doing something. Did they just need a companion to play with? Did they need a new challenge to try? I would try to find that real need when they were asking for something.
Joel Brooks:And can I tell you with all my power, I'd try to meet it? Because nothing as a father delights you more than being able to meet the real needs of your children. When we come to our father with a request, I've heard this preached by several pastors, he gives us the thing we would have asked for. The thing we would have asked for if we were wiser, more powerful, and we could see all the ends. And remember, God is not just thinking about how to answer that prayer so that you might have a good tomorrow.
Joel Brooks:He's thinking how can I answer that prayer to where you will have a good day a 1000 years from now or 10000 years from now? God doesn't have a one day plan for your life. He has a 10,000 day plan for your life and more. And so he's thinking of what's the best way to answer this prayer in light of who you will be 10000 years from now. And what this looks like for some of us is that there are gonna be times that we think God, You're not giving me what I want.
Joel Brooks:There's gonna be times where He's gonna let terrible things happen to us. Perhaps He might even allow us to suffer and to die even after repeated requests to be healthy and to live long. But if He answers us this way, it's only because He's answering our prayers in light of the resurrection He knows that there is all of eternity before us and so we're in 10000 years from now, we're looking back and we're gonna say that's exactly what God needed to do in my life at that moment. That is the benefit and the joy of being a child of God. He's not just our father now, he's our father for all of eternity.
Joel Brooks:Jesus has secured this sonship for all of eternity through his own death and resurrection. And every time we, as Christians, eat bread, we should be reminded of this. We're reminded that Jesus gave his very body to secure for us eternal life. He is the bread of life. He is the one who sustains us even through death for all of eternity.
Joel Brooks:Let's go to him in prayer now. God you are our father. I pray that those words would just sink to the the very essence of who we are, the deepest part of our being. If someone were to ask us, who are you? We would say without hesitation, I'm a child of God.
Joel Brooks:That's where our identity lies. You are our father, and it is your delight to take care of your children, not just with the needs of today but for all of eternity. May we go to you. You're more trustworthy than anything else in this world. May we go to you.
Joel Brooks:Would you give us this day our daily bread? We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
