Sermon Tone Analysis

Dear Congregation I make no apologies for having you turn again to our Lord’s prayer.

Reminds me of a story of pastor who preached same sermon every Sunday, on the third time someone asked - why.

Well when we start doing this - The sermon was on love.

So too on prayer - continually schooled and growing - best way to learn prayer, is to start doing it - See in slightly different wording from Matthew to Luke, not just bread for this day, but for each and every single day.

If thy kingdom come the hardest and least frequently prayed, and actually praying God’s will not ours and twisting God’s arm to get what we want, but really thinking of our life situation, each relationships, each struggle, battle - imagining God’s revealed willed lived out in my life - what would that look like that’s what I am going to pray.

That one is prayed but it is the most abused petition.

NOw we come to the most prayed petition - we all shout out to God instinctively in our needs and even our wants - but Jesus teaches how to do this, and in what context.

A. GIVE us each day our daily bread

Here we need to remember if we have difficulty praying that lst request for God’s will - a good place to start is confession - where do you see youself breaking God’s will, ignoring it or even resenting it .

In you in the people around you - Pray then to discern, then for God to acocmplsih his will - and offer yourself to do so.

Well, so too when it comes to daily stuff this request is frist ofa ll a confession that everything we have right now, everything we recieve is a DONATION, UNEARNED, GRACIUOSLY GIVEN BY GOD.

What do I have that I really have meritted and deserved, why didn’t I grow up in misery of poverty, or orphanned, or itf orpheanned.

why not severely physically or mentally.

While God does not cause the eveil and suffering in this world, he does directly cause every good and perfect gift, for every person in the world, including you and me.

Do you begin with this confession, looking back and looking what God has put in your hands,

This confession of God as a giver int he past - ought to inspire thankfulness, confidence;

But in the present - it gives you an attitude of contentment. .

And here we should see this prayer is how we fulfill the postive of thou shall not steal - use what given for God’s will for you rlife and your neighbours.

But the main part of this PLEADING is concerned about the future.

Look at

What is your gaze to God like in prayer.

Do you even look up to him?

Reverence may bow your head - filail love and being loved in Christ - ought to raise it - and deep sense of HIs goodness to you, His deisre to be the Father of lights, to fill your life with good things - ought to keep your arms and your hands strntching out to him in prayer!

There are two great images in the Psalms of what our gaze ought o look llik to God in prayer: One is

Do you see that is from the last request, God let me be your righthand man, I await your command and trust it completely …

But this second gaze from Psal 145 - says, as your servant, ad child and heir - like Little Lord… I know that you will totally outfit me - supply everything I need for doing the task, for being the person you woul dhave me be!

Why we begin our services so often wiht that gaze with the words of

And so this is Petition spoekn boldly to our Father in Heaven - GIVE -while all should turn to God like this, why this is a gaze only a believer can really call out with.

When you see that this IMPULSE TO ASK GOD TO GIVE is intimately connected with the amin goal of prayr - God’s name be hallowed.

This asking for our daily stuff is intimately connected with the kingdom of grace Jesus is establishing and we are working for.

(HOW) It is intimately connected with the tool of God’s will being done in our lives… HOw are you to fulfill God’s calling in your life, your duty - revealed in the Word, praessed onyour conscience, sought in advice with friends - if you have no food no health, if calling is a salesperson not car, if you have called to parerent tteach but you have no Bible or books, if you are called to give generously but no savings to draw on.

Do you understand that you being brough into Christ’s program necessitates that He now equp you, not only with spiritual resources for kingdom living, but the very shrit on your back, food in your cupboards, the job, or the help from family - infirm or retired,

This is prayer then of faith - that you believe God provided all for you in dying for your salvation, yes?

Then believe also right now he will also provide everything you need for life!

Requires faith that so in control give you and I exactly what we need as we rely on Him in prayer for it!

So that is how we are to ask God GIVE!

But now what can you legitmately and with full expectation ask God to give you?

Some of us feel embarassed to ask God for money,feel not necessary to ask him for food, might even feel it is testing God to ask him for this job or that job.

Can you ask God for a parking spot driivng to imporant meeting and you don’t want to be late?

This part of the Lord’s prayer has a model for praying for every day life things, not just “spritual things”

B. Give us each day our daily BREAD

Back in the ANE - bread fish - daily supplies staples of life.

Jesus is teaching us to pray not only for stuff we don’t have and need - but also for a continual flow of what we already have - ever lost a job I bet you prayed for one.

But we should pray just as hard for ongoing work.

Jesus teaches to pray for the staples of life - What do we need for bread, job, money, need economy, land, need good weather, what comfort do you need?

What conditions do you need for tranquility in your life - need health, need space and piece certain degree of leisure, need roof over head, and satisfying relationships, and food .

Bread is the concentration of all the essentials for a fit life wrapped up in one word.

what a daily reminder that we receive this from Your Hand God, and we consecrate it to your use.

It is this request also that is at the centre of the whole prayer - our need and God’s desire to donate and give!

Is it not wonderful that the God whose eye encompasses the first day of creation, to the last hour of the judgment, who’s hands direct the hearts of kings and the kingdoms of this world, whose decrees of providence uphold the universe at every moment, that this God wants you to feel free to come to him with requests for daily bread - for even tiniest things like clothes, a car, books, a vacation, exercise, a bicycle, your groceries, rent.

His kingdom encompasses all that for us!

Unlike Jerome, Augustine, and Erasmus we dare ask God not only for spiritual bread but our physical bread!

A really good thing to pray before and after our meals - to lock this truth in our experience every day!

What is a really really good pray - Bless Your gifts, this food that we are about to receive FOR OUR USE and THUS TO THY SERVICE!

Good practice in that prayer to recount what your asking God for in daily life and what your are thankful for.

This is how praying for daily stuff is connected to God and His Name and his cause being lifted up, set apart, hallowed in our lives.

So thankful to George Scipione - talking of who called to leadership - those who pray like this - stuff, people, opportunities, pray for and receive them from God, then in prayer sanctify those relationships, and things, opportunities… ie.

this car, this home, this child - how receive for your purposes?

Do you know what happens if we want ask and receive our daily stuff from God in prayer?

These external things which are otherwise good gifts - they become snares, and traps, and a thorn.

Be on the look out that no evil that adheres in some way to them—.

We are to take all the external daily things in our lives and convert them to spiritual goods in some way.

If you receive them in prayer as tokens of God’s love to you, as His blessing on your ife - you will direct them to promoting spiritual goods!

William Ames,

3.

For this reason, these corporeal goods are converted into spiritual goods in some way, to the extent that they are considered as effects and signs of the divine blessing, are received as pledges of His love, and also are directed to promoting spiritual goods.

Your prayer for daily stuff, is an antedote to the materialism of our age.

I don’t live by this stuff, I’m not consumed by it - this stuff I deote to God and His puprose , I use it, it doesn’t use and wer out my life!

The Thee requests tell us that we will be formed into God’s family - as we revere the Father, advance HIs kingdom and obey his will.

The YOu requests - tells us God is so pleased to provide for us, so that we can do this!

But lastly whe you will dare ask GOd GIVE, and do so knowing the staples of your life are so important in odoing God’s will, living for HIs kgindom, and doing his will,

C. Give us each day our DAILY bread.

William Ames, A Sketch of the Christian’s Catechism, ed.

R. Scott Clark, trans.

Todd M. Rester, vol. 1, Classic Reformed Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2008), 217.

Here to is an orientation to our stuff.

We don’ think about God’s expectation for how we use our stuff, how we save for the future, how we spend inthe present too much.

But imagine signing up for hte army.

Turn everything in… and boot camp - here is now your stuff - get new boots, new computer, new clothes, taught how to handle care for, ficx all your stuff.

The prayer for daily bread gives us an orientation like that:

If you would not handle God’s gifts in an unworhty manner, if you would not abuse his gifts, you must learn what Jesus means by daily bread.

We are to seek our poriton, from God, and be content with no more no less.

Slightyly different wording than Luke’s emphasis but here, the unique word, found only in the NT and a slip of papyrus that had a grcoery list on it - The lists had the requirements of the day!

Seems to mean - give us today for tomorrow’s bread - every other day by for direct needs, then back the next day or two days after.

my allotted portion.

Rsting in HIs will, means finding contentment with the amount and level of phsyical blessing he brings into our lives - if we can do that - all our daily bread will give us and be used for spiritual goods.

But if our heart lusts after more than our daily bread, if we aren’t living with a moderation - then even the greatest riches of worldly goods, will leave us not only discontent but without any spiritual good from them!

We are to pray for the smallest and greatest needs, but this is not asing for rols royce gucci watches.

We are not to pray for our greeds but needs!

What we discern to be God’s will for God’s purposes!

This teaching is not against the Bible’s wisdom to save for the future, we are to be in the positon JOseph counseled of having enough for the hrad years.

rainy day, of what Paul said families should have, an ability to to care of someone widowed, or sick, as society we should like have enough to share.

But what is spoke against in praying for each day’s brad, and not tomorrow’s or next years, is what Jesus warned about when he said we can live a lot more like the birds of air, flwers of the field - we are not be anxious - God your Father - is the provider and provdies for them, you are worth 10,000M x as much to HIm , and he will lprovide for you - so Jesus boot campl - this pryare every time - ask and receive what’s need for today is to relive you from what?

That kind of anxiety is the enmey to kingdom living, its an inordiante desire for stuff and worry over stuff - To use John Calvin’s words, we are to use the world lightly - not matter how much or how little - it is the same challenge for us all - not to become worldlings - by burying our hearts and minds, time and investment in stuff for stuff’s sake.

Each day has so much uncertainity in it, just likke life , so the big focus of our lives are not things, absorbtion itno them, worry to keep them grow the, - but the duty of the day right before me to God and my neighbour - to use what God gives for that duty!

W emust be content if we only have enough for the day like Elijah provided for by ravens 1 King 17:6 , o Israel in the desert with manna.

And if we are blessed with more and can save for the future that is not to be our focus.

COntentment for todays’s task is the focus:

When you pray not for stuff, not just for bread, but daily bread, you are reminding yourself that you need it and want it for today’s tasks - God’s purpose for now.

ANd if you don’t pray for daily bread, if you just bury your nose into your stuff and getinng mreoa nd more - chances are that you will live day by day with a forgetfullness to God HIs calling, His Kingdom and His Will.

Daily prayer for daily bread from God - oreintates ourselves to God who is bringing both His kigdom and all these other things for HIs good pruposes.