We Are Self-Insufficient

The Lord’s Model Prayer and Our Dependence on God

Remain standing and open your Bibles with me as we go this morning to Matthew chapter 6 and verse 11. Matthew chapter 6 and verse 11. Give us this day our daily bread. Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.

I thank you for the truth of your word. I pray that you would keep me centered on the word, that you would keep me from error, and that you would focus my heart upon the truth and make the words of my mouth be committed to the truth.

And I pray that you would open the hearts of everyone here. For those who are Christians, who are believers in Christ, I pray that this would be a time of conviction for them and a time of comfort for those who need to be comforted, a time of learning and a time of education and a time of growth and edification.

And I pray also, Father, for those among us who don't know Christ, that this would be a time of both conviction and conversion, that we would see that we need not only the physical, but we need you for everything, that we are absolutely dependent upon you for everything that we have or will ever have.

We thank you for the word of God. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. A few months ago, we were in a verse-by-verse study of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapters five through seven.

And at the end of May, we departed from that series. And we haven't been back until today. Today is the first Sunday in August, and we are picking it up again right where we left off. And we had stopped that series right in the middle of what is typically known as the Lord's Prayer.

Now, as I mentioned before, and I want to continue reiterating this, this is not the Lord's Prayer. This is not the prayer that Jesus would pray. This is the Lord's model prayer. This is the disciple's prayer, if you will.

It was the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray. Jesus would never say, forgive me of my sins, forgive me of my debts, my trespasses. He has none. But he teaches us to say those things. So this prayer is the model prayer for us.

And we've looked so far in the model prayer, and we repeat the model prayer as part of our regular prayer time every Sunday for instruction and edification and also to include Scripture in our prayer time.

We use the model prayer as part of our corporate prayer. And we've looked already at the petitions which begin the model prayer. There are three petitions which begin the prayer. We first address God as Father in heaven.

We talked about how important it is to recognize the fatherhood of God and how important it is to understand the relationship which we have with him through Jesus Christ. If that relationship doesn't come in any other way, no one can call God Father except for those who go through the Son, Jesus Christ.

So we say this is not only the Lord's model prayer, this is the Christian prayer because this is the prayer through Christ to the Father, our Father who is in heaven. And then we have the three petitions that reference God's nature.

We said, let your name be holy. Hallowed be thy name. Let your name be holy. Your kingdom come. That's the second petition. Your will be done. That's the third petition. So we have in the opening of the model prayer three petitions, and all three of those petitions are what we would call theocentric.

They are focused on God. His holiness, his kingdom and his will. So the Lord wants us to begin our prayers because remember we said the model prayer is just that. It's a model for all prayer. It's a template for all prayer.

It's a framework upon all of our prayers should seek to focus. And how do we begin all of our prayers? Acknowledgement of God. Who it is we're speaking to. Who it is we're coming before. The Bible says we are to come boldly into the throne room of grace because of the work of Jesus Christ.

But that does not mean we come disrespectfully. We come boldly in respect for who God is. He is the creator of the universe. He is the one who has by his very word called all things into existence. And he formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life so that he would become a living soul.

This is the God who created all things. And when we come into his presence, we must recognize who he is. So the first petitions of the prayer are theocentric. And then the prayer makes a move to focus on petitions that we make on behalf of ourselves.

So it goes from being theocentric to being, in a sense, anthropocentric. It becomes focused on our needs. And there are three petitions which affect our needs. Give us this day. Our daily bread is one.

Forgive us of our. And we'll talk about this next week. Sometimes it's translated trespasses. Sometimes it's translated debts. Sometimes it's in Luke's gospel. It is simply sins. Forgive us is our second petition.

And then lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, which is actually one petition in two parts. So it's three petitions. And what's interesting about these three petitions is it deals with the whole of who we are.

It deals with bread, forgiveness and deliverance. Those three petitions really deal with everything. They deal with our present bread, the present need, our needs. It deals with our past forgiveness. And it deals with our future deliverance and leadership.

It also deals with every part of man. For man is physical. Man is mental. Man is also spiritual. And for the physical, he says, give us this day our daily bread. For the mental, he says, forgive us, because we know where are we most bound mentally.

It's our guilt. Forgive us of our sins and spiritual deliver us. Oh, Lord, from evil. So it deals with every part of who we are. It deals with every aspect of who we are. These three petitions deal with us.

So this morning, we're going to look at the first of these three petitions. Give us this day our daily bread. And I want to give you four aspects of this petition, four things in this petition which teach us about going to God for our needs.

So if you have your outline, your worship holder does have an outline. For those of you who enjoy taking notes, I wanted to make it easy on you and give you blanks to fill in. Certainly you don't have to, but they are there.

We're going to look at four parts of just that one phrase, just the phrase. Give us this day our daily bread. Seven English words. Short sentence. But I want to show you by the end of today that it is a short sentence that is that is pregnant with meaning.

It is filled with meaning. So we'll begin, number one, with the dependency that's found in this petition, the dependency in the petition. Let's look first at just the word give. Yeah, we're going to stop at the first word.

We're going to exegete just one word, the word give. Give. What's interesting that I realized about this word in my study this week and opening up the scripture, going to the original language, going to the Greek and studying the the statement that's made here is that this comes to us in what is known as the imperative.

And an imperative is what? It's a command. It is a command. Give that word is a command. Now, having said that, I want to address an issue. Because there are people who believe that it is our right to command and demand God do things.

I don't know if you've ever spent any time listening to some of these health and wealth false teachers. But one of the things that they like to say is, is, is, is we we tell God this is what I'm going to have.

And then God does it. In fact, one famous health and wealth preacher whose last name sounds sort of like money. So maybe you can think of who he is. He said that some of you know, he said, God is like a waiter waiting to take your order.

God is like a waiter just waiting to take your order.

What nonsense is that? What garbage theology?

But yet that's what a lot of people see. God is the celestial Santa waiting for you to simply crawl upon his lap and tell him what you want for Christmas. And when blessings go up. Oh, I'm sorry. I want to say it right.

When praises go up, blessings rain down. You know, that's the model. And, you know, obviously, there is some very dangerous stuff out there that's being taught. The one thing I can tell you, this is you do not in your creaturely status have any right to make any demands upon God.

You have no right to make any commands to the captain of your salvation. Pastor Fossey, you just told us this is in the imperative. You just told us that this is this. This actually comes to us in the Greek as a command.

So how is it that these people are not wrong? Well, let me explain something about how this particular verb is being used. OK, give us in this sense is an imperative. But let me explain a very important concept.

And this is seen throughout the Bible. When a superior makes an imperative statement to an inferior, it is a command. OK, when a superior makes a statement to an inferior, when God gives us an imperative, it is a command.

All right, when an inferior gives a imperative to a superior, it is a plea. It is not a demand. It is a plea as if to say, if you don't do this, we will die. You must do this. If not, we give it come from anywhere else, come from anywhere else, come from you or we will perish.

Why is it a demand? Because there is nowhere else to turn. We turn only to God for our daily bread. And that's the key to this, folks, is the give is not teaching us to demand God. The give is teaching us to depend on God.

It's teaching us our absolute and utter dependency on God. Beloved, one of the things that we must understand is that every single day and every single hour and every single minute and second and millisecond that we live, we live at the mercy of God.

We sit utterly dependent. People talk about, oh, I love my independence. You don't have any. You have no independence. You have none whatsoever. Your independence is a figment of an overactive imagination.

You are absolutely dependent upon. I remember a few years ago, this hit me in the face. I remember where I was when this truth hit me. I was down in the end of the hallway of this church and I would just come out of my office.

And you know how sometimes God will just make things very clear to you at a certain point. I'm not saying I received revelation from heaven. The clouds didn't open and the hand didn't come down and a dove didn't fall on my shoulder.

But there was a moment where something became very clear to me and it was this. That if God didn't exist, I wouldn't exist and that if God chose for me not to exist, I would cease to exist and that every part of my existence is dependent upon him.

And you might say, well, I've known that for a long time. Well, apparently I didn't because it hit me like a ton of bricks. My utter dependency stopped me from walking. And I was overwhelmed with a sense of self insufficiency.

It was good because since then, it has helped me understand more about how much everything I do depends on God. So when we see that word give, it's not a demand. It's a declaration of dependency. So that's the first thing, the dependency in the position.

That's the first. Number two, the plurality in the petition, the plurality in the petition. Yeah, we're going to go word by word because the next word we're going to look at is us. We saw the word give, but he says, give us this day our daily bread.

Beloved, that word us and he goes on to give us our daily bread. So there's two references here to a plural. Give us our daily bread. I was reading Albert Barnes's New Testament notes. I don't know how many of you have that.

It's actually available online for free. It's a pretty decent little New Testament commentary. One of the notes that he wrote about this, I had to take and copy it and put it in my notes because I knew I'd never remember it word for word.

So I want to read this to you because he talks about, well, who is the us and the our? You know, because that's the question, who are we talking about here? And I thought this was so appropriate, especially since this VBS week, we had such a focus on the family.

We said, you know, there's such an importance in the father and the mother and leading the home. And we had the Vacation Bible School focus on the family. And I read this this week and I said, you know, I can't I can't not put this in the sermon.

This is like this is all working together. God is showing me something here. But listen to what he says. This is Albert Barnes. This is written in the eighteen hundred. So this isn't a modern text in any sense.

He says it is evidently, therefore, intended to be used by more than one or by some community of people. No community or congregation can meet every day for worship, but families do. It is therefore evident that this prayer is a strong implied command for daily family prayer.

It can nowhere else be used so as fully to come up to the meaning of the original intention. And nowhere else can it be breathed forth with so much propriety and beauty as from the lips of a father, the venerable priest of his household and the pleader with God for those rich blessings, which are a parental, which which a parental bosom desires on his beloved offspring.

Again, it was written in the eighteen hundreds, not as smooth as. But but you get what he's saying. He's saying, who's the us here? Well, obviously, when I pray, I can pray for us as a church and I do pray for us as a church.

And I can pray for us when small groups get together like our dads and dudes on Tuesday night. We come together, we pray for each other, we pray for us. We pray God would meet our needs. But what group do I meet with daily?

My home. It's my home that comes around the table to eat dinner. It's my home that comes around the word of God to read from the Proverbs and from the Psalms and read from the scriptures. And we come together as a family.

And what do I say to God?

God, give us.

That which we need to be sustained. So the immediate context here could very easily be pointed at the father praying over his children. Certainly, it could be extended to the person who prays for the church.

I pray for every one of you every night. Not by name, I don't go down a list. If you're ill, you'll be on the list, not that that's how you want to get on the list. But but but we pray for our church family that no one would have a need that goes without.

And if there's a need in the body that we would meet that need. And we say, give us. So there's a plurality. And the reason why I point that out is that this is not a self-centered petition. Just because I said it's anthropocentric earlier in the sermon, that doesn't mean that I'm saying that it's self-centered.

What I'm saying is these petitions are on behalf of us as people. It's it's on behalf of us as mankind. And the need that we have is we need this daily sustenance. So we pray, give us what we need. All right, that's number two.

Let's look now at the third petition or the third thing in the petition, and that is the constancy of the petition. We're going to ramp up now and go to two words. So we'll speed it up a little. Yeah, we've looked at the word give.

We've looked at the word us and now look at the words this day, this day. I think, honestly, as far as the whole petition goes, I think that this portion of it is the one that we should really focus our attention on, because as Americans and as I would say, you know, middle class America, if such a thing still exists.

But, you know, I would say most of us in here probably don't go day to day wondering if we're going to have bread the next day. Now, I know some of us have had bad days and some of us have had bad weeks, but we talk about living month to month or week to week.

Right. That's typically how people live paycheck to paycheck. Right. But you got to remember, when Jesus is teaching this prayer, these are people who literally lived day to day, hand to mouth. This was this was a legitimate concern for the people of Jesus's day.

I want to make sure that today I'm going to have enough that I don't literally starve. So this day for them had a very important meaning for us. It's I mean, it's hard for us to imagine this for some of us.

It's like, Lord, don't give me too much bread today. I might. And don't let it have any gluten and no carbs. You know, you know what's so interesting about us? We make bread as a novelty. You ever thought about that?

People buy bread machines not because they need to make bread, but because it's fun. People in other countries are going, what? You make bread for fun? Well, yeah, we don't have to make bread. We could go to any grocery store and there's 50 different types of bread on one aisle.

It comes in different shapes and different sizes. And there's flatbread and there's fluffy bread. There's all kinds of different bread. People can ask me later, what's fluffy bread? But it's not flatbread.

OK, and here's the problem. We have become like spoiled children. I don't say that to be ugly, I just say it to point out the reality. How does a spoiled child behave? They get upset when they don't get everything that they want.

But also, what else does a spoiled child do? They expect to get things. They expect that when they go to the store, they're going to bring home the toy. They expect when they go out, they're going to do this or they're going to do that.

Right. That's a spoiled children. Just expect things. They don't live with any sense of anticipation. They don't live with any sense of wonder or worry that something they just get everything. And beloved, that's where we are in our land.

We have become a nation of spoiled children where everything is pretty much taken care of all the time. And there's no dependency in that, there's no urgency in our. So when we pray, give us this day our daily bread, it rolls off of us because we're like, hey, it's going to be there.

Bread's going to be there, all will be well. You know what the reality is, folks? And this is the truth. There is no one here. Who can guarantee that the bread you have today. Will be there tomorrow, investments fail, savings can be wiped out, stocks can crash, fields can dry up or burn.

And who is it that maintains our daily bread? Is it you? Do you maintain the influx of bread? First Corinthians four and verse seven, in the latter part of the verse, not the beginning, but in the latter part of the verse, it says this.

What do you have that you have not received? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? You get what that verse is saying? It's what do you have that God didn't give you? What did you, what bootstraps did you pull up?

I've pulled myself up by my own bootstraps. Where'd you get the boot? You know, every single thing we have comes from the hand of God. So we see this constancy of going to God, this daily need, realizing that not one crumb of our daily bread is guaranteed outside of the hand of Almighty God.

If God chose tomorrow to not give us our daily bread, no storehouse in the world could save us. God is the one who provides for our daily sufficiencies. And that leads to the last thing, the last point, not the last part of the sermon, but the last point of the text.

And that's the content of the petition. Give, we plead to God, us, we plead on behalf of ourself and others, this day because we need it every day, our daily bread. Now, here's the thing about that phrase.

It's an apparent redundancy in English. Give us this day our daily bread. Well, that's using the day phrase twice. And there seems to be an apparent redundancy there. Well, the thing is that word daily, there's actually confusion among scholars as to what it really means.

The word in the Greek is only used one other time in Greek literature. And it's the other time Jesus prayed this prayer in Luke. So it doesn't help with context. Usually how you determine an ancient word is you take it in the context of other writings.

But when you have a word that's only used once or if it's only used twice, but both times in the same context, it's kind of hard to determine what it means. And here's the here's the issue with it. The root of epiusia is the word usias, which is the word for being or substance.

Which has led some in the ancient world to come up with a spiritualized meaning. In fact, Jerome, who wrote the Vulgate, which was the Latin translation of the Greek Bible. When Jerome wrote the Vulgate, he wrote, give us this day our super substantial bread.

That was how he translated it in Latin. And how do you think the Catholic Church understood that? The mass, it was give us this day the Eucharist, and that's how it's often understood. It's made into a a something that was never intended to be.

The key to this passage is not the verb to be, which is in there. But the key to this passage is understanding the necessity of it. The key to this is understanding the necessity of it. Let me read to you very quickly.

It needs to be constructed. I'll read just a quick commentary on this. It should instead of being translated from the usia, from the to be, it rather should be constructed from the verb to go, because it's a combination of the verb to go and to be.

Epiusia is a combination of two words together. And the phrase what it says, it should be constructed from the verb to go. And it relates to the day coming or the day following. In fact, if you look at your ESV, if you have one of the one of the ones from the the.

The pews, we don't have pews like the chairs, one of the chairs at the when you get to the end of the phrase, give us this day our daily bread, you'll notice there's an E or a three there. If you jump down to the three at the bottom, it says or our bread for tomorrow.

Because that is another way of translating the phrase at the usia is to say the day coming or the essential give us that which we need for tomorrow. So ultimately, here's my point, because I don't want to get too bogged down in the particulars of what this word means.

What this is talking about is it's talking about that which is coming, the need which is coming. Every one of us knows that we're going to need bread every single day. And by the way, let's talk very quickly about the word bread.

Do we all understand that bread does not mean just bread? We don't want to over spiritualize it as Jerome did and make it the Eucharist, but we don't want to make it so literal that it only means bread.

It means everything that you need to survive. It means all of your physical needs. That's all wrapped up in the idea of bread. In fact, Martin Luther said this. He said the term bread here is everything necessary for the preservation of life.

Everything necessary for the preservation of life is what is wrapped up in the word bread. In fact, I go back to Jesus when he said man shall not live by bread alone, but from every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Jesus wasn't saying, well, don't live by bread alone, eat cookies and cake and other things. He was saying bread because bread represents the needs of the flesh. It represents the physical needs. It's not a spiritualized meaning.

In fact, Jameson Fawcett Brown, one of the commentary says this. Let us not rob ourselves out of morbid spirituality of our one petition in this prayer for the bodily provision. See what he's saying? They're saying don't don't over spiritualize this, because if you do, you're robbing the only petition in this prayer that has to do with your physical needs.

You're robbing yourself of the only petition in this prayer that deals with the one thing you got to have every day to survive. And that's your physical needs have to be met. So don't over spiritualize it.

Daily bread is the bread for the coming day or the bread, the absolute essentials of life that you need. That's what the daily bread is. It's not luxury. It's subsistency. That's another important point, because for some of us, I think that we have really gone beyond understanding what our needs are.

We've moved into the area of everything has become a need, but not everything is a need. I used to have a seminary professor. He was he liked to simplify things. And one of the things he said was that God will provide our needs, not our greeds.

I don't know if you've ever heard that. God will always provide our needs, but not our greeds. But you see, the problem is, again, going back to the spoiled children thing. Can we really make a difference anymore?

I mean, we need Wi-Fi in every McDonald's, you know, we need 3G in every car ride. You know, we need and we and we use that word incorrectly. Everything becomes a need because our wants become our needs.

This prayer is not a prayer for God to satisfy our every fleshly desire. And again, going back to the health and well-being and people may think I beat up on these guys, but let me tell you something.

I pray God would shut their mouth because that is what they need. They need to stop preaching these false sermons that God's concerned with you having a Mercedes. God's concerned with you having the best parking place at work.

God's concerned with you having this or having that. It's ridiculous. And it preaches a false gospel and a false Jesus. So I say this. When we're praying to God, give us this day our daily bread, that phrase daily bread is give us what we need for the day.

Not necessarily our greeds, but our needs. And I want to I want to I want to reference one passage here. If you have your Bibles, I just want to show you this. We read it opening the service this morning, but I want to go back to it very quickly.

Proverbs chapter 30, Proverbs chapter 30, verses 7 through 9 says, two things I ask of you. Deny them not to me before I die. Remove far from me falsehood and lying. Give me neither poverty nor riches.

Feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, who is the Lord or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God? What what is the what is the writer of Proverbs saying there?

Give me this day my daily bread. That's what he's saying. I mean, he's expanding the idea to say this. If I have an abundance, what is the result of the normal abundance is saying I don't need any more.

I don't need God. And if I have too little, I may be I may be tempted to sin and go out and take what doesn't belong to me. So, God, I pray this. I pray that you would fulfill this, that I not be rich.

Now, how many of us can pray that? God, don't make me rich, because if you did, I don't think I could handle it. You might say, well, I'd like to try. But I mean, but the reality is that's what the writer of Proverbs saying, don't give me so much that I don't feel a necessary reliance upon you.

But don't let me suffer as such that I don't have what I need and feel the need to sin and steal and profane your name. Give me just what I need. Jesus, in this passage, in Matthew six, is sanctioning for us the right to petition God for what we need.

He's sanctioning the right to petition God for our daily needs. We shouldn't be ashamed to ask these things from God. In fact, we should not ask them from God because he is the one from whom all blessings flow.

No child should be ashamed to ask their parents for food. Neither should we be ashamed to ask our father in heaven, give us this day our daily bread. Now, I want to end with two questions about this passage, and this is where we'll close, because I think this passage does bring up two important questions in the heart of people.

And as I always say, when I'm writing sermons, one of the things that I do is I try to imagine what I would ask if I were you. If I heard this sermon, what question would come to my heart? And here's the two questions that I thought of this week as I was considering what I was putting down.

Asking God for Daily Provision

Number one, God has already promised to meet all of our needs in Jesus Christ. The Bible says that. It says he has promised to meet our needs. So if God has promised to meet our needs, why do we have to ask?

Why do we need to ask? That's a legitimate question, I think. So let me address it. Let me answer the question. God tells us to ask so that we do not presume that we do not need him. The greatest failure in the modern church is an overall sense of self-sufficiency.

Our coffers are full, our bank accounts are running over. We don't need God is the attitude of many. But consider this. You don't eat anything, live in anything or wear anything that didn't come from this earth and ultimately from the creator of this earth.

God provides food for man and he provides food for the food of man. You ever thought about it? God provides your food and the food of what you eat. God provides the air that you breathe. He created a process by where you breathe out what plants receive and plants expel what you need.

I'll let Byron explain that to you later, how that works. You all know what I mean. Somebody says, well, I've worked for all that I have. Beloved, who gave you the ability to work, who gave you the strong back and the clear mind and the desire to go?

You know, all these things come from God. So why do we ask again to demonstrate our dependency? It's not as if we wonder or not whether God will give us our daily bread, but we go to him to show him our dependency.

You see a word that keeps coming up today. That's the word. Now, the second question, I think, is equally as important. And it's a question that I thought of while writing the sermon. And this is the question.

God Provides the Means as Well as the End

If God has promised to meet all of our needs, does that mean we don't have to work? The answer is a resounding no, it does not mean that you don't have to work. The Bible is clear that work is one of the means by which God provides our daily bread.

And in fact, God chastens those who will not work. Second Thessalonians 310 says, for even when we were with you, we would give you this command. If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. Now, that doesn't speak to the person who is unable to work.

It specifically says he who is unwilling to work. The church comes beside the one unable. The church is supposed to come by the one who is hurting or injured or is bereaved, widowed, whatever. That's the role of the church, not the state, but the church to protect the widows, to protect the orphans, to lift them up, to care for them.

But the man who does not work willfully has no claim, for if he does not work, he should not eat. The petition give us this day, our daily bread does not negate our responsibility. In fact, it assumes it because the means of receiving bread is labor.

And God doesn't just ordain the ends. He ordains the means to the ends and the means to the end of bread is the labor which brings the bread. And God provides the ability for it all. So I want to finalize simply by saying this in the Old Testament.

There's a great illustration of this particular passage. And if I didn't mention it, somebody would say on the way out, hey, you forgot to mention the manna. So let me finish by simply saying this. When Moses was taking the Israelites through the wilderness, the people complained because they didn't have enough food.

The people complained, they wanted to go back to Israel or to Egypt. They wanted to go back where they had the leeks and the melons and the garlic and the obviously great breath. They wanted to go back.

They wanted that food. What did God say? No, I'm going to give you bread from heaven. And he provided for them what's called manna. Do you know what manna means? It's what is it? Question mark, because they know what it was.

So they called it manna, which simply means what is it? That's literally what the word means. And God gave them this food from heaven. And here was the rule. He said, you take it one day at a time, only once a week.

Are you allowed to take two days worth? And that's on the Sabbath because I don't want you working on the Sabbath. So I'll give you, he said, but if you take more than you need when you wake up the next day, having hit it in a bowl or some other type of dish, if you hide this and try, he said, you'll wake up.

And this is what it literally says. It says it will be filled with worms and stink. It will rot by the next day. Exodus 16, if you want to just look over the passage this week. But here's the thing about it.