Give us This Day - Matthew 6:5-16 • Eric Major

Hello CTK. My name is Eric Major. My wife and I have been members here at CTK for the past six months, but have attended for over a year. We are also part of the launch team for Reconciliation Church with Pastor Russell. I am a seminary student and it is my pleasure to open the word with you today.

We're continuing today in our series on the Lord's Prayer and today we're going to be looking at the third petition: Give us this day our daily bread. So we're gonna read Matthew 6:5-15. Feel free to read along on the screen or in your Bibles as I read out loud.

And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this, our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. — Matthew 6:5-15

Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for who you are, your love for us. I ask, Lord, as we open up your word today, that you would enlighten us, that you would illumine our hearts and minds to understand what it is that you are speaking to us through your word today. I ask that you would give me the words, give me the understanding to best open up the meaning of this text. And I ask God that you would be gracious to me if I speak out of line, but instead bring about your purposes through your word today. We love you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

A Personal Story

So it's interesting that for us, the way that we got to Raleigh plays right into this text for us today. We were living in Michigan for a number of years. I was born in Michigan. Heather moved to Michigan when she was around 12. And we had briefly lived in Alaska when I was doing my undergraduate—that's its own story. But we ended up coming back, and I started a job in ministry shortly after we got back there.

As we were living in Michigan, everything seemed to be going pretty well for us. We had no real complaints about needs, but those things started to change for us relatively rapidly. We had a number of issues arise with our children—unexpected medical expenses that we really didn't have any means to take care of them. Luckily, God was faithful and provided other means for us to take care of those, but we never really ultimately recovered from that during our entire time in Michigan.

We had most of our needs met. We weren't living on a surplus, but we were provided for until it became pretty clear at one point that the job I was in was not going to work out for the long term. So about a year ago, we ended up leaving the job that I was at. We ended up selling most of our earthly possessions—a house and a lot of the home goods. I was in seminary at that point, and what Heather and I had decided was that we knew this was God's ultimate plan for our lives, for us to continue on through that.

So what that led to us doing is leaving Michigan and moving in with my in-laws—me, my wife at 30, with our three kids. It was not what we expected to happen. It's certainly not something that you think about and dream about when you graduate high school: moving in with your in-laws with your kids. But that was something that for us we knew we didn't have any other means. If we were gonna do the seminary thing and I was gonna commit my time to it, we needed to spend that time doing it.

What we kind of feel like as we've been reflecting over the past year is that we got about an eight-month head start on pretty much everybody when it came to not learning to rely on ourselves, but instead to rely on God. We realized that God has used all kinds of other people to provide for us during this time. So it's been interesting to be able to think about this when now we are in the middle of this crisis and it's still active for us. We are beginning to learn that we really are not able to rely on ourselves like we thought we would.

A lot of our different things that we've had our hope in, whether those be our jobs, our health, our sense of community, even some of our freedoms have not been available to us. And so when we come to this text, I hope it has new meaning for us today, in the midst of coronavirus. While we might have prayed "give us this day our daily bread" before—maybe many times—for many of us, it's possible that we didn't feel the need to pray it. But what we're gonna see in this verse is that God himself is the giver of all things. Everything that we have does not truly come from our own effort, but ultimately comes from the hand of God.

What we're gonna do today is walk through this text word by word, and I want us to see four different things. First, as we pray the word "give," this tells us that God is a giver. Second, we pray "us," which tells us that God gives to us communally. Third, we pray "this day" and "daily," which tells us that God gives regularly. And fourth, we pray for him to give us "bread," which tells us that God gives us sufficiently—he gives us those things that we need.

So again: God is a giver. God gives communally. God gives regularly, and God gives sufficiently.

God is a Giver

The first is we pray "give us this day." When we think of the word "give," we see that God is a giver. This doesn't come out of nowhere. If we look throughout the entirety of Scripture, what we will see is that this is God's interaction with his people from the very beginning. If you look at Adam and Eve in the garden, the first thing that he does is give. He gives us blessing. He gives us dominion. When he places them in the garden, he gives to them the fruit of all the trees.

God's relationship to his people through Noah, through Abraham, through Moses, through David, through all the covenants, and all the way up to today, is ultimately a relationship in which we rely on God to give us all these things. If we look just a few verses later at Matthew 6:25-33, we see this played out:

Do not worry about what it is that you will drink or about your body, what you will put on or what you will eat. Is not life more than food and is not body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they are? — Matthew 6:25-26

We see this relationship all throughout Scripture of God providing for the needs of his people. That is our relationship to him. If you look at Adam, if you look at Moses, if you look at Israel, and we ask the question, "What did they do to deserve any of this?"—the answer is that they didn't do anything. God chooses at the beginning to bless Adam and Eve, not for anything else, but simply because it's in his nature to give. It's in his nature to bless. And the same thing happens when he redeems the people of Israel out of Egypt. He does that because it is of his own choice to give and to redeem and to save.

What's interesting about this is that what we're really talking about is that God is the giver of all things. This is really expanding our understanding of what grace is. Grace by its very definition is undeserved favor. If we think about grace simply in terms of salvation, we might miss something here.

Actually, what we can often do is read our own experiences into our salvation experience. If we look at the things that we have, we are people who really do believe most of the time that we have gotten what we earned. We've earned our position in life. We earn the job that we have. We earn the wages that we have. And because of that, when we then turn our attention to salvation, we can almost read into that the same idea—that we can earn that as well.

But instead, if we begin to look and see that our relationship to God is one of him as the giver and us as the receiver, what we end up seeing is that the notion that he has to give us freely salvation is not a stretch. All the things that we have are given to us because God is a giver. We do not earn the things that we have. This is not to diminish hard work or those types of things—we're talking about ultimately. But in that same way, we do not earn our salvation. We cannot earn it. Instead, we have a God who gives it to us. That is our relationship to God and a recognition that God is a giver.

God Gives Communally

The second thing that we see is when we pray "us," we recognize that God gives to us communally. I think this is a pretty important point.

If we look at this prayer together, you'll notice that all of the first person pronouns are plural. Our Father, who is in heaven. Give us our daily bread as we're looking at. Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And oftentimes when we read scripture, we read it very individualistically—we just think of it as God to us, just God to me. Right? But when you look at scripture, all of it is written to a group of people. It's written to the people of God, not just to the individual persons of God. And this is really important as we pray this idea that God give us today our daily bread.

There is a promise here that God will continually provide that which is sufficient for his people. And so as we were preparing this week for this message, I was able to talk to Jeff and he was able to pass on to me an email from John Miller, our deacon in charge of facilities. It was an email where he was reflecting on the different ways that God has provided for CTK. Some of these things predate my time here, but I know many of you will be blessed to be thinking about them.

First, he reflects on just the growth that happened at the Cobblestone property. Again, not familiar with that, but in being able to recognize that. But then just the circumstances surrounding getting the West Street property, getting a lease extension that nobody thought was possible, and that was structured to protect CTK from property tax increases. And then, this is one that for me, I remember the process of being at CTK, worshiping on West Street, and hearing about the potential purchase of the Wake Forest property that I'm at right now. And during this time, part of that was getting out of the lease at West Street. So John reflects on this—we signed an early termination on the lease on March 9, without any kind of termination fee. Literally right before everything happened with the coronavirus. And then the perfect timing of the Wake Forest property. We went through periods where we thought we had it, and then we didn't, and then we had it again, getting it at the exact perfect timing. And just the way that God has continued to provide through this campus for our needs during the coronavirus, even having the field next door that we could provide outdoor worship together has been an incredible blessing to me and my family during this time, and I know for many of you as well.

And so we see God continue to provide for his church as a group. We have the promise that Jesus made to Peter, that when Peter made the good confession saying that he is the Lord, Jesus said that the gates of hell will not be able to prevail against his church. There is a promise in scripture that God will continue to provide for his church communally.

But in that same way, we also see in scripture that God provides for the individual members of the church through the community of faith. And so we look at Acts 2:44-45 as well as 4:34-35, and we see that the early church made a regular practice of looking for those that were in need, and that those who had an abundance would sell possessions, they would give freely, so that there was not any in need among them. The normative means that God uses to provide for his people is through the abundance and blessing of others.

Provision Through Family

This is evidently seen through the relationship of parents to their children. So my wife and I, we have a seven year old, a five year old, and a three year old. And none of them are shy about asking for things. All day asking for anything. Mommy, daddy, can I have a snack? Mommy, daddy, can I watch a show? Just on and on. They are not shy about that. But there's a recognition that for my children, the way they are provided for, they do not work. I mean, we don't practice child labor in our home. But as my wife is working regular as I'm going through seminary, she is providing the means that we then feed and clothe our children.

One of the things that we do as a family as we gather around the dinner table, like so many, we have learned to pray and thank God for the food that we have. But we've just made a regular habit of thanking the Lord together as a family for all of his blessings. Thanking him for their grandparents that have allowed us a roof, but all the different ways that they have continued to provide for us. The fact that we have working cars, all these things. Just to be able to lay those out in front of our children so that they can recognize—and we want them to continue to recognize—that all these things that we have, we are to be thankful to God for because he's the one that is providing for them.

And so, even though our children come to us—they come to me as dad—for snacks, and for breakfast, and lunch, and we're the ones that provide them shoes, and clothes, and school supplies as we're heading into that season. We want them to be able to see, as we recognize, that this is simply God providing for our children, and only using us as a means.

And so, that same way, when we think about the family of faith, this is where we gather together our abundance to be able to provide for the needs. And I know that's one other thing that for me has just been blessed at CTK, to be able to see that happen during COVID, providing for the different needs in our community. And I just want to thank you for your generosity as you continue to be able to faithfully give during this time. And so we are seeing that God not only gives, but he gives to us communally to provide for both his church and his people.

God Gives Regularly

The third thing is that God gives regularly. And this we see in two phrases in our English text. We say, we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." These are the only absolute time references for this whole prayer. That sets for us a rhythm about when we should pray this. It seems to be at least daily that God is calling us to enter into prayer with him.

One of the things that we recognize with this is that there is not a particular time that we have to schedule to pray to God to ask for needs. It's whenever a need arises that our response is to come before him and ask him to provide for this need. We don't have a one time, and then that's it—that's the only opportunity that we have. But instead, we are able to come to him every single day, regularly, or whenever we have needs.

In the same way, as I think about when I provide for my children—forgive me for using that again, but it's helpful—I don't give my children all the food that they need at the beginning of the week and just say, "Okay, here you go, feast up, because we're not having any other food for the rest of our time." No. Every single day, in the morning breakfast, right? When lunchtime comes around, or an hour before, I'm asked, "Daddy, when's lunch? When's lunch?" Because they know that I'm going to give them lunch and I'm going to give them dinner. And that's a day in and day out thing. And so God follows the same pattern. When we look at him as providing those meals regularly, providing for those needs on a regular basis, it's not just at special times.

Oftentimes, the way that we treat the Christian life, however, is more like a feast and a famine. We have this opportunity to come to God regularly to feast on his word and just for the regular sustenance of it daily.

Meditate on the law of God day and night. — Joshua 1:8

We're told to meditate on the law of God day and night. And we oftentimes will spend just Sunday feasting on God's word together, and then we expect that to kind of take us throughout the rest of the week. This isn't the pattern that we have laid out for us, but instead the ability to continue to meditate on the word of God. We have the great benefit of having an actual physical Bible. I don't think that most of us are starved for that. And if you don't have a physical Bible, I'm sure there are great ways for us to be able to provide that for you.

But if we think about a time when the scriptures are being written, most people did not have a written copy of theirs. They had it written in scrolls. They would have been kept in the synagogues, and it wouldn't have been widely distributed. But instead, they memorized the word. This was a common practice. This is the regular, normal practice for Jewish children—to memorize it. And so when God tells Joshua to meditate on the law, to meditate day and night, there was an understanding that he had it hidden in his heart and in his mind, and that he would think on the things of God during his day when he rises up in the morning and when he lays down at night.

And so, in the same way as we're going to see that bread is not just physical needs, but also our spiritual needs, we recognize that God provides us daily all the things that we need for life, both physically and spiritually.

And so, as we come to the last part of this verse, we look at the word "bread." And this is often one that we might not see a lot of significance to, but we want to be able to see that there is much more going on than just simple bread. Now, very obviously, when Jesus says "bread," he is talking about physical bread. There he is asking us, or telling us, to ask our Father who is in heaven for our physical needs on this. He expands this out later on here as not just talking about just food, but also drink and clothing as in the passage that we read earlier in John 6:25.

But the daily bread piece of it should naturally stir in us an Old Testament image that's important for us to see and understand. God provided daily bread for his children when they were in the wilderness. He provided manna. He provided for them six days a week, with an extra helping on Friday so that they would have enough for the Sabbath. But this daily bread imagery is one of God's provision that the Israelites, when they woke up in the morning, they knew that God was providing for them. And their simple need was that all they had to do was go out and gather it, harvest it in, so that they would have it.

More than this, if they harvested more than they should have, thinking that they would eat some and have some left over the next day just in case God didn't provide, we're told that the food would spoil. And this itself was an act of unbelief on the part of the Israelites who did it because they were not trusting that God would provide for them these daily needs.

So as we understand these two words together—daily and bread—we want to recognize that God is saying he will provide sufficiently for what we need for today. In Proverbs 30:8, we're told that asking God for not poverty or wealth, but only for that which we need. And this is what we have laid out here in this understanding of daily bread.

But we also need to see that bread is beyond this. Bread is not just our physical needs of food and water and clothing and other physical things, but also that what God is providing for us is spiritual bread. That which is sufficient for our spiritual needs. Bread is a symbol of the kingdom and of the abundance. If you remember, twice Jesus multiplied fish and loaves in order to feed a multitude of people. And not only did he feed a multitude of people, but he also provided more than they needed, that there were baskets left over.

In the book of Numbers, when the people are starting to grumble about the fact that God provides them daily bread, but they want meat, God says that he'll provide them meat. So much meat that there would be an abundance and overflow, and they'll have so much that they'll be sick. That's exactly what we see happen—that when God pours out his blessing on us, it is an overflow. It is an abundance.

And so when Jesus multiplies the five loaves and the two fish in John chapter six, we see that this is exactly what the people's reply is. They go to make Jesus king because they recognized what was happening here, that this was a miracle like what Moses did in their mind. Moses provided for them food in the wilderness, and so here is Jesus providing for them food now, and so they look to make him king.

But as Jesus interacts with them after this, he provides a better interpretation for them. It shows them that it was not Moses who provided for them manna in the wilderness, but instead it was God who provided for them. And now there's a new bread that came down from heaven because Jesus then says, "I am the bread of life."

The Spiritual Bread

See, as we talk about physical needs, we need to recognize that there are greater spiritual needs for every single one of us. And Jesus does not just stop at saying pray for just those physical needs, but also says, "But I'm gonna provide for you the sufficient bread of life that provides for your eternal spiritual need."

In that same way that we oftentimes think that well, we're good enough, we can earn God's favor—that's just not what scripture says. But instead, we have to rely on God and his grace to give us the things that we need, and that includes salvation.

And so Jesus says that in the same way that manna came down from heaven to provide the daily bread for the people in the wilderness, that Jesus comes down out of heaven to provide for his people their eternal bread of life. That all who come to him, they will not be turned away, but will receive him and receive with him eternal life.

And so Jesus says this:

Whoever comes to me shall not hunger. Whoever believes in me shall never thirst. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. — John 6:35-38

It's in the same way that we, during our liturgy around the communion table, we confess the same thing that the disciples did after this. Because as Jesus says to them, "I am the bread of life, come eat my flesh and drink my blood," many of the people deserted him is what we're told. And then Jesus turns to his apostles and says, "Will you also leave me?" And their confession is this:

Where else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

God has provided that which is sufficient, and he nourishes us with himself.

And so, as we conclude, we see that as Jesus is teaching this on the Lord's Prayer, in verses 25 through 34, he continues this out and shows us really what he means by saying that he will provide for our certain needs and expands that out. But later on, he gives us the basis for what it is that we're to do with this amongst a time when many of us are furloughed, or have lost jobs, or have lost health, or are trying to figure out what we're gonna do with our kids for school. There's all these different questions that we have going on here. This is what Jesus says in Matthew 7, beginning in verse 7:

Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds. And to the one who knocks, it will be opened. Which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, as we ask our father for bread? How many of you human parents will give him a stone? If he asks for a fish, would you give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil compared to God—that's the implication—those of you who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? — Matthew 7:7-11

And so because we see that God is the giver of all things, our response is to ask like children. To ask and go before him, recognizing, "Daddy, give me my food. Please, give me my food," and knowing that he will provide in the same way that my children, when they come to me, ask regularly expecting that I will give to them. In that same way, we look to God and we say, "God, this is our daily bread. Please give it to us," knowing that he has said that those who come before him will ask. Let's go before him and ask boldly.

Prayer

Let's pray together. Father God, we thank you so much that you provide hope for us during this time, that you provide hope for those of us who have lost many things during COVID. Lord, I pray for you to provide for us. We thank you, Lord, that you call us to come before you boldly and ask for our needs. We thank you, Lord, that you give to us that which is sufficient for us today according to your will. We recognize, Lord, that we ask in this way expecting a future kingdom in which all these needs will be provided for and more. We thank you, Lord, for your sufficient death on the cross on our behalf, dying the death we deserve so we might live the life that only you deserve. We thank you, Lord, for your grace, your continued provision for us. We thank you for the hope that you provide for the hopeless. We love you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.