Lifestyle

“Prayer Lessons from Jesus", Part Four
Matthew 6:11

Many, many, many years ago, I accepted a call to become the Youth Pastor of a large church on the Gulf Coast of Texas. During the interview process for that position, I asked the Senior Pastor to tell me a little bit about their former youth pastor. The Pastor thought for just a moment and then said, “Good guy, but…” and then he proceeded to tell me a series of stories to help me understand the significance of that little word, “but.”

The last of those stories involved their most recent high school mission trip. 75 high school students, their parents and the accompanying adult sponsors arrived in the church parking lot promptly at 5:00am as planned to load the buses with all of their luggage in preparation for their 6:00am planned departure for a 10 day mission trip. Unfortunately, they couldn’t load the buses because the buses had not yet arrived. 5:15 and still no buses. 5:30 and still no buses. They made a donut and coffee run to keep everyone busy, but by 5:45 there were still no buses.

One of the adult sponsors finally approached the Youth Pastor and said, “We’ll stay here with the kids. You need to go in and call the bus company and find out what’s happened to our buses.”

The Youth Pastor said, “Good idea. I’ll be right back.” And a few minutes later he was back. It turned out that the reason the buses were late was because the Youth Pastor had forgotten to make any arrangements to have buses show up. He’d taken care of all the big stuff: they had a mission site, they had a mission objective, they had students and adults trained to do missions work. The big stuff was all in place. Unfortunately, he’d overlooked one little detail—transportation. I’m not sure what line of work he’s in, today.

This is the fourth week of our summertime journey into that amazing passage of scripture that we call, The Lord’s Prayer. On one level, it seems to be a very simple prayer, but as we’ve stopped, each week, to reflect on the substance of each individual statement within the larger prayer, we’ve been amazed over and over again by the treasure that we’ve found in this prayer and the profound truths that it reveals.

--Beginning with the words, “Our Father.” It astonishing to think that people like us would be invited to call Almighty God, the Creator and Sustainer of Heaven and Earth, “our Father.” It’s far too grand a thought for finite minds like ours to fully comprehend.

--Especially so in light of the next statement in the prayer: “hallowed (or, “holy”) be your name.” The same God who invites us to call Him, “Father,” is also holy. He loves us. He cares for us. But He is very different from us. He’s high and exalted; pure and radiant; He’s all light with no hint of darkness; He’s all good with no hint of evil. He is holy deserving our respect, honor and reverence.

--And our “Father,” who is also “holy,” is also King. He rules and reigns over an expanding kingdom. He is accomplishing His will throughout His kingdom. And He invites us to join Him in the kingdom and in the accomplishing of His will by praying, “Father, your kingdom come, your will be done…and let it begin in me.”
“Establish Your kingdom in me. Accomplish Your will in me. I claim You as my king and I submit to Your will. Father, in all things, not my will, but your will be done.”

I don’t know what you’re thinking, but from my perspective, this is shaping up to be one amazing prayer. In just a few short statements, Jesus has led us into some of the most profound realities of life. In just a few short statements, He has lifted our eyes and our thoughts off of the small and ordinary things that tend to preoccupy so much of our time and He has carried us into the world of grand and eternal truths. He has reminded us that God is up to big things.

And then, right there in the midst of all of these grand and lofty thoughts; thoughts about the holiness of God and the establishment of God’s Kingdom and the accomplishment of God’s will, Jesus does the most extraordinary thing by reminding us that the same God who is up to such big things never overlooks even the smallest of things. He never allows Himself to get so caught up with the big stuff that He loses interest in or fails to provide for the small stuff. In other words, He never forgets to order the buses. So, Jesus says, When you pray, pray like this: “Give us today our daily bread.” It’s a simple little request that just happens to be perfectly stated.

Look, first, at that word, “give.” “Father, give us our daily bread.” That little word, “give,” is critically important to this request. And here’s why:

--It reminds us that everything we have in life comes from God.

--It reminds us that God is the source behind every good thing that we enjoy in life.

--It reminds us that we are absolutely dependent upon God for the provision of all of our needs. If God ever decided to get out of the giving business, we would be in big trouble, real fast. God is the source of all that we need. We are dependent upon God.

So, Jesus tells us, here, to live our lives in a way that reflects our dependency upon God; to live our lives in a way that clearly demonstrates that we recognize our dependency upon God. And how do we so that? We ask Him, each day, to provide for our needs and then we trust Him to do so. And do you know what happens when you begin to do that…when you begin to ask God for and trust that God will provide for your daily needs? Two things.

First, you’ll learn something about God. You’ll discover that God is faithful. You’ll discover that your Heavenly Father can be trusted to provide for the needs of His children. God doesn’t forget His kids and God doesn’t neglect His kids. God provides for His kids. Trust Him. Depend upon Him. And you’ll discover that God is faithful.

And the second thing that will happen, as you begin to ask God for and trust that God will provide for your daily needs is that you will become grateful. Gratitude is the natural response of everyone who recognizes the faithfulness of God. Folks, let me just say this as bluntly as I can and then hope that you’ll forgive me—if you do not live with an abiding sense of gratitude toward God, you are not convinced that God is faithful. And I know that’s true, because gratitude is the natural response of everyone who depends on and experiences the faithfulness of God.

“Father, as this day begins, I’m asking you to provide for my needs.”
“Father, as this day ends, I’m so grateful for your faithfulness.”

That’s why that little word, “give” is so significant in this request. “Give us today our daily bread.”

Now let’s zoom in for a closer look at that word, “bread.” “Give us today our daily bread.” Now, the obvious question here is, “Why bread?” Why not, meat or fish or dessert or clothes or any number of other things? Why, specifically, did Jesus tell us to ask for “bread?”

And the answer is that Jesus is using “bread” here as a symbol to represent all of our basic needs. Bread is a symbol of all of those things that are truly necessary. So, again, He’s teaching us to trust God to provide for all of our needs. And the consistent teaching of the scriptures is that when we do so we will not be disappointed. God will provide.

Psalm 84:11 says, “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.”
Philippians 4:19 says, “My God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

And in Psalm 23:1, David says, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want.”

Wow. Maybe the name it and claim it preachers are right, after all. If you want something just ask God for it, believe that He’ll provide it and it’s yours. Right? Wrong. That’s a complete distortion of the scriptures and if you run across one of these guys…run. I don’t care how big their church is, how big their income is or how big their TV audience is…run. Because that is false doctrine and it is dangerous to dabble in false doctrine.

The biblical teaching about God’s provision is this: we can absolutely…100%…with total confidence…trust that at all times and in every circumstance God will provide us everything…literally everything…that we need to do what He wants us to do and to be the person that He wants us to be. Let me say that, again—We can absolutely trust that at all times and in every circumstance God will provide us everything that we need to do what He wants us to do and to be the person that He wants us to be.

--It’s true when life is great…and it’s also true when life is not so great.

--It’s true in times of plenty…and it’s also true when times are pretty lean.

--It’s true when life leads me through green pastures beside quiet waters…and it’s also true when life leads me through valleys that are shadowed with death.

--It’s true when doing what God wants me to do is easy…and it’s also true when doing what God wants me to do is really tough, costly and requires real sacrifice.
God’s faithfulness does not change with our circumstances. At all times and in every circumstance God will provide us everything that we need to do what He wants us to do and to be the person that He wants us to be.

You see, folks, contrary to what you may have heard elsewhere, we’re not here to accumulate stuff, protect our comfort, avoid hardship and do our own thing. As children of God, that’s not what life is about for us. We’re here to get to know God; we’re here to bring glory to God; we’re here to serve God; and we’re here to welcome the changes that God wants to work in us to make us more and more like Jesus. Those are huge goals—God-sized goals and the good news is that God has promised to provide us everything that we need to accomplish every one of those goals.

And that brings us to the final two words on which I want us to focus, this morning. The words are “today” and “daily.” “Give us today our daily bread.” Those two words are absolutely critical to rightly understanding this petition because they remind us that God does not want us ever to outgrow our dependency upon Him. In fact, just the opposite is true. God wants us to nurture our dependency upon Him.

In fact, one of the primary marks of a growing relationship with God is greater and greater dependency upon God. And one of the early warning signs of impending spiritual disaster is greater and greater independence from God—living more and more by our own wisdom, our own desires and our own strengths and less and less by the wisdom of God’s word, the power of Christ in me and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

“Did you pray about that before you made that decision?” “No, it just seemed like the right thing to do.”

Folks, that’s a step away from depending upon God; and that’s a step in the wrong direction. And if you put enough of those self-directed steps together, you not only stifle your spiritual growth but you set yourself up for disaster.

Folks, we have all seen people who once walked closely with God make terrible decisions that have destroyed their witness, their marriages, their families, their ministries… Decisions that create waves of destruction that last for generations.
How does that happen? How does it happen that someone who once walked so closely with the Lord can end up living as if the things of God hardly matter to them any more? I’ll tell you exactly how it happens. It happens one day at a time…one decision at a time. It happens as the result of a growing sense of independence from God that built up one day at a time.

--Listening to God a little bit less and listening to them selves a little bit more, one day a time.

--Seeking God’s heart a little bit less and seeking their own desires a little bit more, one day a time.

Then a day becomes a week becomes a month becomes 6 months… They’re still going through the motions of “looking Christian” but the heart connection to God has grown cold and weak. They may not even know it, but they have set them selves up for a fall.

Folks, we cannot live the life that God wants us to live today nourished by spiritual bread that we ate a month, a year or five years ago. We cannot sustain our spiritual health apart from daily spiritual nutrition. We can fool others for a while. Maybe even a long while. But we can’t fool God. If we’re not eating every day of the bread that only God can give our spirit will grow cold, our worship will be lifeless, our prayers will be empty and sporadic and God will seem to be far, far away. But, if fact, He’s not. He is quite literally only a prayer away.

“O, Father, forgive me. Forgive me for neglecting You. Forgive me for living without You. Forgive me for ignoring You and going my own way. Father, I need the bread that only You can give. And I need it today. I need it right now. Father fill me, refresh me, restore me by Your bread.”