Our Daily Bread

Recite the Lord’s Prayer

Continuing our series on prayer called “Lord, Teach Us to Pray”.

Woman in Texas who had snake drop from the sky and then attacked by hawk. “Help me Jesus”. She it uttering one of the oldest prayers known to man: “God, help!”

Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread…” Last week we looked at praying for God’s kingdom to come, becoming partners with him to see his rule and reign advanced. This week we look at petitionary prayer - praying for our needs and for others. Two facts underscore this kind of prayer; our need and God’s goodness.

Why pray?  This is where we experience God’s goodness.

There is a very un-Christian impulse to be our own answer to prayer. It sounds wise, even mature. But it is only slightly removed from “God helps those who help themselves”. This is not a quote from the Bible!  Yes, we should do what we are capable of; we must admit there is much we are incapable of and must therefore ask our loving Father for help.

When my grandkids come over, their Bibi has made sure they have lots of puzzles to play with. When they leave you realize just how many as you gather up the pieces. As some of the girls have gotten older it is appropriate that we withhold a little help. We want them to struggle, to grow, and to experience the deep sense of accomplishment of completing something on their own. But for the younger girls, there are puzzles they simply cannot do. They ask for help, and we help, because their minds and coordination aren’t yet up to the challenge. It’s completely appropriate that they ask, and it’s completely appropriate that we help.

“Give us this day…” is a humble acknowledgement to our Father that something is beyond us. That while we are willing to do our part, there are parts that we can’t do ourselves. And so we ask.

Ask

Matthew 7:7-8

“Ask, and it will be given to you…”

Greek scholars tell us that this verb is in the continuous present tense, meaning that it should be read “Ask, and keep on asking…” So this passage tells us something about persistence in prayer.

It also says something about faith. “For everyone who asks receives…” This is not an answer conditioned on our faith, but instead a promise that builds our faith. We should ask, because everyone who asks receives.

I know there are applicable caveats that I’m obliged to tell you about prayer. That there are conditions, quid pro quos, to prayer. God won’t give you what would be ultimately harmful to you or someone else. God won’t answer a prayer that is inconsistent with his character or will. Sin and disobedience can hinder God’s answer. The list goes on, and there is truth there. But I don’t want to steal faith from you this morning. The scripture is full of stories of sinful, disobedient, faithless people having their prayers answered. This doesn’t commend their actions, but it should tell us that, even with all our imperfections, we should ask God for what we need in prayer - and expect a response.

“Ask, and it will be given to you…”

Why ask?  Doesn’t God already know what we need?  Are we giving him information that he didn’t have before?  Pete Greig offers three reasons why God wants us to ask:

First, because the act of Asking is relational in a way that mere wishing or hoping is not. Jesus is more interested in friendship that simply dishing out blessings to nameless souls. 

Second, because Asking is vulnerable. It admits to personal need while at the same time extending trust to the One being asked. It is an expression of faith, a way of opening our hearts to believe and our hands to receive from another person.

Third, Asking is intentional. It involves the activation of our wills. We are not automatons: mindless robots pre-programmed and powerless to resist the Creator’s genetic coding. God respects us too much to ride roughshod over our free wills, and he loves us too much to force us to do his bidding. He comes where he is welcomed and waits to answer until he is called.

Petitionary prayer, praying for our needs and the needs of others, is a logical and exciting consequence of human free will. It means that our fate is not set. Things can change. We are free to ask, activate, and advance God’s blessing in any given situation by aligning our wills with God’s will, as we pray “Give us this day our daily bread...”

C. S. Lewis writes that “If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak…We are far too easily pleased.”

What is that thing you need, or maybe you want, that you’ve been hesitant to ask for?  Take a moment to be audacious with your requests.

How Much More

Matthew 7:9-11

Normal parents know how to give good things to their children. Normal parents expect their kids to ask, and will usually bend over backward to make their child’s wish come true. This is true, even though normal parents are evil in comparison to God. Jesus isn’t saying that normal parents are completely morally corrupt; just that in comparison to God, we’re all evil!

With this being true, Jesus introduces us to a phrase - posos mallon - how much more. Literally it means “to what greater extent”. To whatever extent a comparatively evil human parent can give good things to their children, how much greater is the extent that our good Heavenly Father will give good things to those who ask.

This brings us to the second thing underscored in the prayer “Give us this day our daily bread.”  God is good. He is really good. He is good and kind and generous. He is not in a bad mood, so you don’t have to worry about catching him on an off day. He’s not angry, he is not stingy or tightfisted. He is not annoyed with you. And he’s not worried about what you ask for, because he can cover it. He knows that most of you aren’t going to get greedy and start asking for yachts and Gulfstream jets. Most of you are going to ask for things you actually need, and he is delighted to hear your requests and respond.

The apostle James says that we have not because we ask not. What I want to ask is, why don’t we ask? And I wonder if at the root of our non-asking is a false image of God. We all wrestle with distorted images of God. The apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians that in beholding God, 1 Cor 13:12 “we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.” We all view God through distortion caused by sin and suffering, by bad teachings, by bad assumptions that we make about God. I think today God wants to polish the mirror for some of us. He wants to recenter us on who he really is. Because we will not ask of one of whom we are not sure of their love or goodness.

“How much more...”

This is not a blank check that says you always get what you pray for. There are other reasons why prayers may not be answered, or may not be answered yet. But it is an assurance that the One to whom we make our requests is so good and wants good for us - better than we want for ourselves. God is good. He is a good, good father. I think one thing the Lord wants to do today is to clear up our image of him.

I want us to spend a minute just holding before God any image of him that is inconsistent with what we see in Jesus. Let’s acknowledge the false images we have and ask the Lord to scrub that image until it is a proper reflection of who God really is.

The power of asking

George Müller is one of my heroes of prayer. He made it his life’s work to provide for orphans in Bristol, England during the Industrial Revolution. Most of these orphans were unwanted boys who would have ended up working in the sweat shops of the time. In his life, he started 117 schools, cared for over 10,000 orphans, educated 120,000 kids, and was accused of “raising the poor above their natural state.”

But what is most remarkable about Müller was his prayer life. He believed firmly that God had commissioned him to care for these kids, and so he resolutely determined that he would never petition anyone except God for their needs. He autobiography is filled with incredible stories of how God met his needs time and time again. It is estimated that by his unorthodox method of fundraising - only asking God - he raised more than $97 million in today’s money.

Müller was often forced to take the prayer for daily bread very literally indeed. On one occasion, he stood before three hundred hungry orphans gathered for breakfast, knowing that there was no food in the kitchen, and said grace, thanking God in faith for the food “you are going to give us to eat.” Suddenly, there was a banging at the door and the local baker entered carrying three huge trays of fresh bread, explaining that he’d been up since two o’clock that morning, feeling led by the Lord to bake for them. The milkman appeared next, announcing that his cart had broken down outside and wondering if they could use his load of fresh milk. Hundreds of children got their daily bread that morning, washed down with creamy milk. It was a breakfast they would surely remember for the rest of their lives whenever they prayed the Lord’s Prayer.

God doesn’t promise that there will always be jelly on the toast, but he promises over and over to “give us our daily bread” - we have only to ask. This is the nature of our good, good Father.

Do you know God as Father, as the one who cares for you, and wants to care for your needs? God is not angry; rather, in love he took on flesh and became like you. He knows what it means to be hungry and thirsty. He has had sleepless nights. He has felt the sting of betrayal. He has wondered where his next meal would come from. And knowing that we cannot save ourselves, his love took him all the way to the cross where he took all our sin upon himself and carried it away to death. This is how much he loves you. On the third day he rose from the grave, nullifying the death consequence of our sin so that we can have eternal life with him. If you’ve never accepted his offer of forgiveness and life, I invite you to do it today. (next steps slide)