Author: Haverland

OUR DAILY BREAD

Text: Matthew 6:11
Heidelberg Catechism LD 50
Readings: Matthew 6:19-34; Prov 30:1-9
Theme: This petition reminds us of our daily dependence on God for our needs.
Purpose: To remind us that we are dependant on God for our daily needs so that we can serve him and share with others.  

There is a similarity between the structure of the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer. 

Both begin with our relationship with God. The first four commandments are about God, and so are the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer - hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done. Both the commandments and this prayer begin by focusing our attention on God and his greatness and direct us to honour his name and put him first in everything.

Then both move from heaven to earth, from God to man, from the vertical to the horizontal. The next six commandments deal with our relationship with our neighbour and the next three petitions in the Lord’s Prayer address our needs. The first of these petitions asks God to provide our most basic need; “Give us this day our daily bread.”

For some this comes as an anti-climax. The first three petitions have been broad and sweeping, taking in the whole scope and range of God’s name, his kingdom and his will. And then we pray for … bread!
The early church fathers found this so disappointing they spiritualized this request and applied it to the Lord’s Supper, to the Word of God, and to the Lord Jesus as the bread of life. 
But that will not do. This is a request for bread – plain, ordinary, simple, everyday bread. It does cover more than this because it includes all that is essential to life – food, clothing and shelter – the daily necessities of living. Jesus teaches us to pray for these things.  
 
We should not be surprised about this because Jesus was human; he was hungry and thirsty; he was tired and needed to rest and sleep. He was like us in every way except for sin. During his time on earth as a man he was aware of his own physical needs, and those of his disciples, and so he knows what we need. 

We see that in the gospels when a large crowd of 5000 had listened to him teach the whole day; he did not want to send them home hungry, so he fed them. (Matt 14:13ff) This is the only miracle that is recorded in all four gospels.

In another miracle he raised the daughter of Jairus to life. After the family had recovered from their surprise and great joy he told them to give her something to eat. He knew she would be hungry and would need food to build up her strength. (Mark 5:43)

As we look at this petition we will consider:
1. The source of our daily bread
2. The purpose of our daily bread

1. THE SOURCE OF OUR DAILY BREAD is God. Everything comes from him.  

Some of you have plenty of fruit trees and impressive vegetable gardens and so you gather your own fruit and veges. But all of us also buy many of our food supplies; we shop at Pak’nSave, or at Countdown or some other supermarket. 

But praying this prayer reminds us that our daily bread does not come first of all from our garden or from the food-store; it comes from God. James reminds us that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights.” (James 1:17) God is the ultimate and only source of all that is good, physically and spiritually. 

This has two important applications.

a. Frist, this means we must work responsibly.

i. There is a Latin phrase that says, Ora et Labora, which means, Pray and Work. We need to do both. We must pray, asking God to provide our daily needs; but we must also work so that we can supply our needs. The eighth commandment forbids stealing but it also obliges us to work.  Paul rebuked the New Testament Christians for being lazy; “If a man will not work he shall not eat.” Many of the proverbs condemn the sluggard who is too lazy to get out of bed, who cannot be bothered preparing and planting his fields and in the end had nothing to eat. (Prov 10:4; 20:4)

ii. Working responsibly also requires us to plan for the future, to invest our money wisely, to think about our retirement, to save for a rainy day, to take out sensible insurance cover. All of these provisions are consistent with praying for our daily bread. God expects us to work diligently, using our bodies and minds, so as to look after ourselves. This is our responsibility. 
Are you doing that? Are you working steadily? Are you providing for your own needs? Are you preparing for the future? 
 
b. But praying this prayer also means that we must trust in God. This too is entirely consistent with working hard and providing for our needs. God’s sovereignty and our responsibility fit together in the plan and will of God. 

i. It is not easy to trust in God. By nature we would rather trust in ourselves, in our hard work, our secure job, our mortgage free home, our life insurance, our investments, our good health. If we have a lot of these earthly investments then we are inclined to rely on them. Agur, writing in the books of Proverbs, was aware of this. He asked of the Lord;
“Give me neither poverty nor riches, 
but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise I may have too much and disown you
and say, Who is the Lord?” (Prov 30:9f) 
We need to be aware of this danger. We can easily put our trust in what we have and own. But these things are fragile and insecure and can be taken away from us in a moment. 
Our only certain and safe trust is in God.

ii. Praying this prayer reminds us that we are dependant on God; that we must rely on him and look to him for all our needs. This is why it is a good habit to pray before every meal. We need to thank God for what he has given us and remind ourselves that it comes from him.

Psalm 127 spells out our dependence on God:
“Unless the Lord builds the house,
its builders labour in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.
In vain you rise early and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat –
for he grants sleep to those he loves.”
 
David gave beautiful expression to this awareness of dependence in his prayer as he and his people gave gifts for the building of the temple. “But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand…. All this abundance that we have provided for building you a temple for your Holy name, it comes from your hand, and all of it belongs to you.” (1 Chron 29:14,16) 

This is also expressed in the words of a hymn:
“We give thee but thine own,
whate’re the gift may be;
all that we have is thine alone
a trust O Lord from thee.” PH 482

iii. As we pray this prayer we are reminded that we depend on God each day; “Give us today our daily bread.” Twice in this brief request there is a reminder that each day we must pray for what we need, for the food and clothing and shelter of this day.  

The people of Israel were reminded of this as they traveled through the desert for 40 years. Every morning they went out to collect manna, except for the Sabbath day when they had to rest. For 40 years God gave them their daily bread, 6 days of the week, 52 weeks of the year. 

iv. This prayer also reminds us that we need not worry. In that well-known passage in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus urges us to build up treasures in heaven, not on earth. “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or what you will wear.” He pointed out that if God can feed the birds of the air the he can feed us. If God can clothe the grass of the field then he can clothe us. “Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow.” (Matt 6:25-34) 

Of course, we know that is easy to say but hard to do. We all have times when we feel so overwhelmed by the pressures on us or by a crisis in our lives that we are struggling to cope physically, emotionally and spiritually. At times like this we feel weak and weary and it is all too easy to slide into worry. It is just at these times that we need to remember these words of Jesus; “Do not worry about tomorrow.” 

The Catechism sums up our confidence in God in Question and Answer 1 where I confess “That I am not my own, but belong, body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ…. He watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven. In fact, all things must work together for my salvation.”  

Everything we have comes from God. This means we must work responsibly and trust in him.

2. THE PURPOSE OF DAILY BREAD

a. To sustain our bodies. God created us as physical beings and he knows that we need food and water to sustain us and clothing and shelter to protect us. He wants us to ask for these things. In the history of the church Christians have fallen into to one of two opposite errors when it comes to our physical needs.

i. One error is known as asceticism. This describes a denial of the body. People who did this were known as ascetics. They punished their body, going without food and water for long periods, sometimes whipping their bodies, all, supposedly, for spiritual gain.
This error arises from Greek philosophy not from a biblical perspective. The Greeks put all the emphasis on the spirit of a man; they despised the body as a prison of the soul. 
The Bible however, describes our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit and urges us to look after them and care for them. That means we must eat healthy food and get enough sleep and do plenty of exercise. 
There is no biblical warrant for asceticism. 

ii. The opposite error is the health/wealth gospel. It teaches that God does not want you to be sick and he doesn’t want you to be poor. Rather you can be healthy and wealthy; you can indulge yourself and enjoy a great lifestyle!

The Bible, however, does not teach a health/wealth gospel. In this petition we are praying for our needs not our greeds, we are asking God for necessities not niceties, we are requesting bread not cream cakes and savouries, water not wine. 
Sometimes God will give his people much more than we need, he will be generous. But we must be satisfied with what he gives us, even if it is only daily bread. Paul wrote to Timothy, “If we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.” (1 Tim 6:8) God gives us food to sustain our bodies.

b. He does this, secondly, so we can serve him.
In the first three petitions we have prayed, may your name be hallowed, may your kingdom come, may your will be done. We have seen that each of these requires that we do something. We must honour God’s name, we must seek his kingdom, we must do his will.  
In this petition we are asking that God may give us what we need physically to be able to serve him. We want to serve him in our homes, in our work, in our church and in his kingdom. 

c. Finally, we pray for our daily bread so that we may have something to share with others.
“Give us this day our daily bread.”

This is a communal prayer, not a personal prayer. I pray that God will look after my needs but also the needs of those around me. The pronoun “our” forces us to look beyond ourselves so we can serve others.

The Apostle Paul told his readers to work, doing something useful with their hands so they might have something to share with those in need. (Eph 4:28) He also urged those who were well off to be “rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.” (1 Tim 6:18)

Jesus said that the distinguishing mark of Christians must be our love for each other, and that love must be expressed in practical deeds of kindness. God looks after others through us. 

James and John make it clear that we express the reality of our faith by looking after the needs of others. Faith must be seen in works, words must be expressed in actions. (James 2:15-17; 1 John 3:17-18)

This petition is a prayer for our physical needs, our own needs and those of other believers.

But we also know that “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” (Deut 8:3) We not only need physical bread to sustain our bodies, but the Living Bread that comes from God. That bread is to be found in the Lord Jesus Christ; he is that bread from heaven. As we pray for the physical needs of our bodies let’s not forget the spiritual needs of our souls, which also come to us through the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the focus of the next two petitions. 

As we pray we can be confident that God will supply all our needs according to his riches in Christ Jesus.

Amen