Give Us Life

Teach Us to Pray series

Movie came out a few years ago, The Martian, starring Matt Damon - the story of astronaut who gets stranded on Mars, has to figure out way to survive if he has any hope of being rescued.

Damon’s character is botanist, develops way to grow potatoes - dirt, fertilizer, watering system

But let me invite us to do thought experiment, play out scenario - what if his plan to grow potatoes didn’t work. He digs them up, and nothing. By this time food supplies run out. So, in desperation, he goes exploring, traveling Martian landscape.

Miraculously, he finds few random bushes growing - have some strange fruit growing on them.

Picks them, tries them - discovers they are edible. But there are just a few, quickly gone, but at least he’s been able to feed himself that day.

So, next day, he goes back out, driving all over. Can’t find anymore bushes. Desperation, he returns to bushes he first found - and there’s a few more fruit on it. He’s so thankful! Survives another day. Takes and eats those.

Next day, heads off in different direction, driving around…nothing. Tries his bush again…fruit! Is this really happening?!?

So, now when he goes out, he first goes back to bush. And there’s fruit again. But what if, like on earth, there’s only a particular growing season? So he keeps searching in other places.

But to no avail. Nothing. But everyday, he finds more fruit on bush. And every day, he begins to relax a little bit more. He’s going to have food for that day.

Day after day, month after month, fruit on bush. To point where, it no longer surprises him. He trusts it will be there. He no longer is worried about having food to eat.

After while, it may even go opposite direction. He may begin to take it for granted. Gratitude that he experienced for so long begins to dissipate. He may even begin complaining about the same old, same old.

That scenario is similar to what God did with Israelites after he freed them for slavery in Egypt (Exodus), providing food for them every day for 40 years while they wandered in the Negev, vast wilderness in very southern part of Judea.

Everyday this bread-like substance, “manna”, would be on ground (except for Sabbath), all they had to do was to collect enough to eat for that day. Everyday, they’d wake up and it was there.

It was, as Dallas Willard puts it, “fundamental part of training they received in Kingdom living.”

In other words, God was teaching them that in the life of Kingdom of God, we can live without fear or worry because “God is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does”, and God gives food at proper time.

This is what Jesus is teaching us as well when he teaches us to pray the third request of the Lord’s Prayer, Give us this day our daily bread.

Just to recap - we’re making our way through Lord’s Prayer, because we want Jesus to teach us to pray - because he knows best how to pray.

First week, we learned from Jesus to come to God trusting He is personal and present…Dear Father, always near us.

We looked, too, at first request, that one of our great concerns should be glory of God - because he is worthy. May your name be treasured and loved.

Last week, second request, where Jesus teaches us to ask that God would rule over all things, ourselves included. Father, may your rule be completed in us, may your will be done here on earth in just the way it is done in heaven.

Today, prayers shift, as John Stott says, we shift from expressing our concern for God’s glory to our humble dependence upon his grace.

Today, Jesus wants to train us in Kingdom living by teaching us humble dependence upon his grace for what we need to live

Prayer / Scripture: John 5:25-35, Matthew 6:11

Humble Dependence on God’s grace for basic necessities of everyday life

One of primary things we learn in our training in Kingdom living is that we can humbly rely on God for basic necessities in life.

This is amazingly simple prayer, very basic request: Give us today our daily bread. Bread, just bread.

We learn from other Scripture passages that bread is symbolic for basic needs we have in life.

Paul teaches us in 1 Timothy 6:8 - if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.

Paul is echoing what Jesus taught in Matthew 6, we covered in our Kingdom Heart series, Jesus tells us not to worry about what we will eat or what we will wear, pointing us to how God takes care of birds of air and flowers of field. And aren’t we much more valuable? Your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

Martin Luther says that when we pray this this prayer, we are really asking for everything necessary for the preservation of this life, like food or healthy body, good weather, house, home, wife (or husband), children, good government and peace.

Jesus is inviting us to bring all our concerns for day-to-day life to him. That’s very heart of prayer - asking. Our Father is right here with us, so we ask him to provide the things we are need to live - because what concerns us concerns him (he loves us).

Notice how this request fits in order of how Jesus teaches us to pray: first Jesus teaches us to orient ourselves to concerns of God - his name, his glory, his reign, his will be done.

Otherwise, our prayers could be consumed with selfish concerns, but about my life.

But it’s in the context of seeking God’s kingdom first, that we then bring our concerns to him. Father, I’m coming to you because I’m not sure how I’m going to pay my bills this month. Father, my brother is in need of your healing touch, he’s hurting.

Other crucial element of what Jesus is teaching us - not only are we coming to learn humble dependence on God’s grace for basic needs we have in life, we learn to humbly depend on him on day-to-day basis. We need God’s grace every single day of our lives. Give us this day our daily bread.

Gave extreme example of being stranded on Mars, needing daily food. But in same way that God created Mars, he created earth, and only reason, the only reason we have basic necessities - food and clothing and shelter, is because of world that God created and sustained.

He made sun. He waters earth. He fills soil with nutrients. He created plants that bear fruit.

Easy to forget that dependence when we have pantries and fridges and freezers full of food. When we can simply drive over to grocery store where food is stacked from top to bottom, aisle after aisle.

But Jesus wants to teach us to engage in day-by-day trusting of our heavenly Father. Our faith in God is not a one-and-done - we make declaration we believe in God and that’s it.

It’s entering into day-by-day ongoing trust relationship with Jesus.

Jesus, this day, today, I trust you to meet my basic needs.

As Dallas Willard puts it, “Today I have God, and he has the provision. Tomorrow it will be the same. So I simply ask today for what I need for today or ask now for what I need now.”

How incredibly helpful this is! Because looking ahead at future needs can overwhelm us.

Especially when we’re facing long term challenges or struggles - chronic illness you may be suffering through, or providing care for someone else who’s disabled or chronically ill. Job loss, not sure how long your savings will last.

But to stand in assurance that God will give us this day what we need enables us to face that challenge day-by-day: Today I have God, and he has provisions…he has strength I need. He has comforting touch I need. He has food I need. Tomorrow it will be the same. So I simply ask today for what I need for today or ask now for what I need now. We live with God in present moment.

Willard gives example of parent discovers that their child has been hoarding food.

Not talking about hoarding candy - that’s common enough.

But if parent found their child hoarding half of their sandwich, bags of chips, breakfast cereal…they would be alarmed…and pained.

Because for some reason that child has taken mindset that they must take care of themselves - that they cannot trust there will be food for them tomorrow, so they’re hanging to their food, just in case.

Exact mistake some of Israelites made in wilderness when God began to provide them manna everyday. God expressly told them not to save any up, but to eat collect only what they needed for that day.

But some didn’t trust it would be there the next day, so they stored some away.

But to their utter dismay and disgust, next day it was filled with maggots.

God was training them in Kingdom living - humble dependence on him - every day - for basic necessities of life.

This is what God wants to teach us in this prayer. That we really can depend on him. It is invitation to worry-free living. In Kingdom of God, we need not fear. Under careful watch of our shepherd, I shall not want.

It’s hard to imagine what it would have been like for Israelites wandering for 40 years, 40 years!

And everyday, you wake up, and there’s this substance, this food stuff that no one had ever seen or heard about before.

But there it was, and no matter how much or how little they collected, they had enough to eat.

And even their clothes - 40 years is a long time. But we learn in Deuteronomy 8 that their clothing and their sandals never wore out. You might think it was terrible they had to wear same thing everyday for 40 years, but think how much time that saved them in mornings getting dressed. And they were on road, traveling - traveling light.

It was huge lesson that they had no reason to worry. Their God - our God - our Father - was taking care of them.

And he will take care of us as well. Every single day. In all of our needs.

Prayer is not coming out of fearful worry for daily bread, but out of humble dependence in God and his grace - he is good and faithful and he can and will meet our needs.

Our eyes look to him, because he gives food at proper time. “You open your hands and satisfy the desires of every living thing.”

Point of learning to pray like this, what Jesus is teaching us - is not that it’s not wise to save up. It’s ok to have groceries stocked in cupboard and money set aside for emergencies and to save up for retirement.

We should be doing those things - that’s good financial stewardship of money God puts in our hands.

It becomes problem when we put our trust, our security, in our belongings and our savings (child hoarding)

We all know 2020 has been crazy year - but I hope it’s been a training time for us as well. Because it certainly has provided opportunity to remind us of how insecure life can be - how easily things can change.

At beginning of 2020, U.S. economy was doing great - and then BAM! Coronovirus pandemic hits, lockdowns all over world. Killing of George Floyd, protests and riots break out. Wildfires like crazy in California, Oregon and Washington. Throw in couple of hurricanes.

How many businesses have had to close because of pandemic? A state audit in New York said half of the bars and restaurants in New York City might have to close in next six months. Or were destroyed due to riots or natural disasters? And people who worked in those businesses, who lost their jobs?

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us everything for our enjoyment…1 Timothy 6:17

Putting our security in things, laying up treasures on earth - as Dallas Willard says, shuts down kingdom living. He says, “Our security is to be in the God who is present with us each day. When we accept and practice Jesus’ teachings on prayer...we are entirely freed from concerns about the future. You can easily imagine what a marvelously transforming effect this has on our life and our relationships with others.”

One of those transforming effects is the freedom to share, to be wonderfully generous, to offer grace in the same way we humble depend on God’s grace.

To, as Paul puts it in 1 Timothy 6, “to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.”

So, we’ve talked about how in this prayer, Jesus teaches us what Kingdom living looks like - humble dependence on grace of God. To look to God for basic necessities of like, to look to him every single day, and that as we do so, we can experience this marvelously transforming effect as we are freed from worry about future.

Let me make one final point, to take this one step deeper, about what it means to trust in God for life itself. Remind us of who it is we are asking to give us daily bread.

When God provided manna in the desert for Israelites, it was something they’d never seen before, the word manna literally means, “what is it?” Manna was food, substance, produced directly by God’s words, his actions - it wasn’t food produced in nature, by ordinary natural processes. God spoke it into being, every day.

We may flinch at that - that’s little far fetched, hard to swallow (get it?!)…but that’s how God created everything, the heavens and the earth…he spoke it into being…And God said, and it was.

And we see Jesus doing similar things throughout Gospels

Wedding of Cana in John 2, when Jesus makes incredibly good wine out of water.

In all Gospels, story of feeding of 5,000. Jesus starts with five loaves of bread and two fish, and multiplies that bread and fish to provide enough food for thousands to eat until their bellies are full - and end up with more leftovers than what they started with.

Those stories are either a bunch of hooey (yes, I just used word, hooey), or God is master of matter and energy, inexhaustible supply of it, there is no limit to his power and his ability to create.

I say all that to remind us that God is the source of life, everything we eat and drink, clothes we wear, air we breath - all come as direct result of his being, his power, his energy, his life.

When we pray to Father, humbly asking him to give us today the things we need today, we are going to source itself. He is life itself. We’re not getting it second hand. God is life. It all comes from him.

This is why Jesus tells us that he is Bread of Life. He is living bread, come down from heaven, whoever eats this bread will live forever.

There is no other place to find life. It comes from God himself. He is the source. This is what Jesus is teaching us when he teaches us to pray, Give us this day our daily bread.