Daily Bread (TCS High School)

Daily Bread

Matthew 6:11 “Give us this day our daily bread,”

‘The first three petitions in the Lord’s Prayer express our concern for God’s glory in relation to his name, rule, and will.’ John R. W. Stott

I grew up in a southern home: we had some type of bread on the table for every dinner. You may also show your passion for bread in a number of ways: crust or no crust on sandwiches, toasted level, what type of bread, or whether you eat the end piece of a loaf of bread.

Bread has always been a common image of sustenance. Even Jesus showed and spoke of bread in John 6 with the feeding of the 5,000.

Summary: We pray daily for bread to show our dependence on God, who ultimately provides for us through Jesus.

Give _______ this _______ ________ ________ _______.

Prayers of petition

Notice that Jesus’ modeled prayer does not instruct us to leave out requests to God,

Matthew 7:7 “Ask, and it will be given to you”

John 14:13–14 “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”

but it does tell us in what posture we make these requests known.

We first take a posture of humility before God...

Matthew 6:10 “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

...then he teaches us to ask.

Jesus’ modeled prayer shows us who to look to and how to ask — We are not to look to ourselves but we are also not to approach prayer in the same manner as we make our birthday wish list.

‘God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food.’

This is good and right to be thankful; however, notice that Jesus begins with a request. It is good and proper to ask God for provision before thanking him for provision. It shows we acknowledge our dependence on him.

We sometimes falsely assume that a strong Christian is self-dependent; however, Jesus shows us that our faith is strongest when we recognize our dependence on God.

Give us this _______ our _______ ________.

The prayer, like all of Scripture, does not presuppose that we function as individuals. The Bible assumes we function as “the people of God”.

The prayer orients and teaches us to pray as “we” and not “me”.

There is no way you learn this prayer and come away self-centered.

The prayer is not requesting God for merely my provisions and sustenance but works as a prayer of supplication and a prayer of intercesion.

Prayer of supplication - making a request to God.

Prayer of intercession - making a request to God on behalf of others.

This plural language also has possessive language. - this is not just that we are eating bread or asking for mundane things but this bread is something that belongs to us.

The very person teaching us to pray this prayer aimed to serving others is the same who came to give us life for our provision of life.

Give us this day our daily ________.

This is a request not of a far distant future but of immediate necessity.

The first time I won a year of Chick-Fil-A. So excited but quickly found out it was not unlimited Chick-Fil-A for a year. 52 coupons. That is different than unlimited Chick-Fil-A for a year.

Luke 11:3 “Give us each day our daily bread,”

The idea is not to make a one and done request to God for everything we need. Instead, this is a constant returning to a state of dependence before God.

While this is a regular reminder that we are unable to provide on our own, it is also a reminder of a God who provides for all of our needs in his timing.

This prayer is a daily reminder of our daily dependence on him.

However, notice the prayer is not modeling one who wonders if God can provide or if God will provide but that each day we can expect that God will always provide.

Matthew 6:25–34 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, 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? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Give us this day our daily bread.

‘...in Adam, and by our own sin, we have forfeited our right to all the outward blessings of this life, and deserve to be wholly deprived of them by God, and to have them cursed to us in the use of them...’

Westminster Larger Catechism

What the catechism is saying is: Due to sin, no one actually deserves God’s provision.

Every meal we eat is an act of mercy upon our lives.

Every meal we eat is an act of grace upon our lives.

Not only are we instructed here by Jesus that we have access to pray for these things through Him, but we also have a greater invitation of met needs through Him.

Jesus is not just teaching us to ask for bread; he teaches us that he is the bread that we need:

John 6:26–27 “Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”

John 6:31–34 “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

This position of request modeled by Jesus for us is not merely about communicating our ability to request God for our physical needs, but also about His giving to us in spiritual needs as well.

If the prayer is showing our dependence upon God, then every day that we read “give us this day our daily bread,” we are not just asking God to provide physically, but we are acknowledging that we require Christ to make us alive spiritually as well.

Every time we pray for God to give us our daily bread, we are not simply just asking for physical sustenance but confessing that only Christ can sustain us daily and for all eternity.