Diffusers 12: Sustained by Grace

Intro

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 6

9 “Therefore, you should pray like this:

Our Father in heaven,

your name be honored as holy.

10 Your kingdom come.

Your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

11 Give us today our daily bread.

12 And forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13 And do not bring us into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.,

14 “For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. 15 But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses.

The people Jesus were speaking to understood poverty and lack well. This prayer speaks directly to their immediate needs.

For many of them they worked the day of for the food they would eat that evening. The literally lived a hand to mouth existence, barely getting what they needed to survive on time.

Most of us have full bellies in the West, but we must realize that we need daily bread from God just as they did.

Some scholars believe that this passage may be better translated as saying “daily existence” rather than “daily subsistence.” Daily existence would still include the concept of food or bread, but goes even deeper.

It is very likely Jesus’ prayer here has a duel meaning. He is praying both for our spiritual and physical nourishment and the two do overlap quite a lot.

The Aral Sea disaster: how effective are boats without an ocean?

God's grace is the ocean. Faith is the boat.

I. Sacramental Grace

This perspective emphasizes “our daily bread” as referring to communion bread.

Here we recognize the new spiritual life we receive through the body and blood of Christ.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 6

47 “Truly I tell you, anyone who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that anyone may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

This is about God's grace to save us.

The discourse Jesus has with the Samaritan woman in John 4 is similar. He is the living water from which anyone who drinks will never again thirst.

The point? There is physical bread and water which satisfy and quench thirst for a moment, but those are to ultimately remind us of the true and better bread and water which satisfy our souls forever.

Physical sustenance of all kinds, and our need for them, serve as reminders of our own mortality and our need for a greater spiritual sustenance by God’s grace through faith in Christ.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 1

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel,, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith,, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.,,

Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke Matthew 6:9–13; Luke 11:1–4

There is this difference, however, between the two kinds of petitions which we have mentioned. When we pray for the kingdom of God and the sanctification of his name, our eyes ought to be directed upwards, so as to lose sight of ourselves, and to be fixed on God alone. We then come down to ourselves, and connect with those former petitions, which look to God alone, solicitude about our own salvation. Though the forgiveness of sins is to be preferred to food, as far as the soul is more valuable than the body, yet our Lord commenced with bread and the supports of an earthly life, that from such a beginning he might carry us higher. We do not ask that our daily bread may be given to us before we ask that we may be reconciled to God, as if the perishing food of the belly were to be considered more valuable than the eternal salvation of the soul: but we do so, that we may ascend, as it were by steps, from earth to heaven. Since God condescends to nourish our bodies, there can be no doubt whatever, that he is far more careful of our spiritual life. This kind and gentle manner of treating us raises our confidence higher.

II. Kingdom Grace

This perspective emphasizes “our daily bread” as the spiritual sustenance we need to live out our kingdom citizenship in everyday life.

This is about God's grace to transform us.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

5 Therefore, put to death what belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, God’s wrath is coming upon the disobedient, 7 and you once walked in these things when you were living in them. 8 But now, put away all the following: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator.

“Not only do we begin to live by God’s Word, but we also go on living by God’s Word. ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4; Deuteronomy 8:3). Our physical life is created and upheld by the Word of God, and our spiritual life is quickened and sustained by the Word of God.” -John Piper

"Before there can be fullness there must be emptiness. Before God can fill us with Himself we must first be emptied of ourselves. It is this emptying that brings the painful disappointment and despair of self of which so many persons have complained just prior to their new and radiant experience. There must come a total of self-disvaluation, a death to all things without us and within us, or there can never be a real filling with the Holy Spirit." -AW Tozer

III. Physical Grace

This perspective emphasizes “our daily bread” as literally referring to God's provision to sustain our mortal bodies.

This is about God's grace to physically sustain us.

Dallas Willard once wrote that God’s reign is eternal now, not later. This means he has sovereign authority over our every moment. Because he is good, and his kingdom is coming, we can be certain that he will care for our needs.

This does not mean that we will be like spoiled children, getting everything we want.

It is critical that we always have God first in line in our hearts. If not we run the risk of trusting in material possessions to save us rather than in Christ. Such an error can badly derail us.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 6

6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out. 8 If we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.

He will provide for our needs, we can trust him, and this frees us from being filled with anxiety.

“What hinders or shuts down kingdom living is not the having of such provisions, but rather the trusting in them for future security. We have no real security for the future in them, but only in the God who is present with us each day.” -Dallas Willard

Consider the Israelites in the wilderness. God provided the manna daily, but they struggled to trust him. Some would horde it only to have the excess rot. God was teaching them to trust him rather than in what they have.

So we should pray for our daily bread, but we must keep our trust not in the bread but in the giver of it.

Closing

"We ask for our daily bread; which teaches us constantly to depend upon Divine Providence. We beg of God to give it us; not sell it us, nor lend it us, but give it. The greatest of men must be beholden to the mercy of God for their daily bread." -Matthew Henry

We pray for this bread daily, and are reminded that we are sustained by the grace of God alone.

Matthew Jesus Teaches About Prayer / 6:5–15 / 59

Our continual need for bread points to our deeper, daily need for God. The request for today’s bread keeps our relationship with God in the present tense. We will be just as much in need of God tomorrow as we are in need of his provision of nourishment, protection, and guidance today. Each day, present your needs to him.

-LASB Notes

We need sacramental bread, kingdom bread, and physical bread every day. God is good and we trust that he wants both us and others to have these as well.