SUNDAY SCHOOL: "Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread"

Welcome back to the Shepherd's Church podcast. Just like our Lord's Day sermon, we hope that this Sunday School message blesses you and strengthens you in your faith. We will begin with prayer, and then we'll begin with, or start with our fourth part of this, which is give us this day our daily bread.

So let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for today. Thank you for your word. Thank you for the Lord's Prayer that you've given us to pray and what it means. Lord, help us as we study it and as we learn from it, and as we grow to pray like you taught us to pray.

Lord, help that to be a blessing to us. Help it to enrich us. Help us to pass along this great legacy to our children and to our children's children. In Jesus' name, amen. When Christ taught us to pray, as we've covered already now, he didn't begin with our needs.

He began with God. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come and thy will be done. Only then, after we've acknowledged those things, do we turn to our concerns. And even then, he teaches us to ask modestly, humbly, independently.

Give us this day our daily bread is not a prayer for extravagance, nor even for tomorrow's security. It's a prayer for today, for sufficient provision from the hand of our Father. This petition in the fourth, or this fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6 .11 is not only a request for bread, but a confession of our creatureliness, a declaration of our dependence, and a cry of trust in the providence of Almighty God.

And we'll explore the meaning of the fourth petition now in its biblical, theological, and pastoral dimensions. Number one, the structure of this section. The Lord's Prayer, as we've said before, is beautifully ordered, like the Ten Commandments.

It begins with our duty unto God, and then it moves down to us as people, just as the Decalogue begins with the love for God in the first four commandments, and then moves to a love for a neighbor in the second table.

The Lord's Prayer follows the same pattern. The first three requests are vertical, and the second, in the next section, is horizontal. They focus on give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our debts, lead us not into temptation.

Reformed theologians like John Calvin and Gerhardus Voss see this meaning as intentional and replicating even the structure of the Ten Commandments, that there is a centrality of God first and us second.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart,.

Sow your mind and strength,.

Love your neighbor as yourself. There's this identity of that baked into the scriptures throughout, because Jesus knows who we are. He knows that we're embodied creatures, and because he knows that we need him more than we need anything else, and then after that, we begin with our stomach.

He starts with our stomach so that he can train our hearts. He moves from our most pressing physical need to our deepest spiritual ones. That is not irrelevant, that's deeply incarnational. In teaching us to pray for bread, Jesus is reminding us that God cares not just about our souls, because we're not Gnostics, but he also cares about our bodies.

Daily needs matter to him. The God who formed us from dust doesn't despise our frame, he honors our bodily life by teaching us to pray for it. So when we pray for daily bread, we're not just praying selfishly or worldly prayers, we are praying a holy prayer, not carnal, but covenantal.

So the structure of it is very important. Again, we go to God first as God, and then we now make our request. That's the structure. The meaning of the petition, give us this day our daily bread, is also fascinating.

The Greek phrase, tonarton, haemonton, epiousion, I got through that one, has sparked centuries of discussion and debate. The word epiousion is extraordinarily rare. In fact, it appears nowhere else in any Greek literature that we found anywhere, pagan, Jewish, Christian, or whatever.

It is what scholars call a hapax legomenon, which means that it's the only occurrence in known history of this word. And it's been debated what its precise meaning has been for 2 ,000 years. Because of its rarity, some believe that it was a new word that Jesus himself coined on the spot, perhaps first spoken in Aramaic and then translated into Greek by the evangelists.

The word is formed by two Greek words, epi, meaning upon or for, and ousia, meaning being or substance. So Jesus is telling us to pray for our being, to pray for our substance, to pray for our daily necessities that we need for existence, for the coming day, even for that which is superstantial.

The last rendering, superstantialism, comes from Jerome's Latin translation and has led some church fathers to interpret this as being the Lord's Supper bread. That give us this day our daily bread is pointing sacramentally to the table.

But throughout most of church history, reformed theologians like Calvin, Turretin, and the catechisms insist that this is not just speaking about the Lord's table, but it is speaking about our physical bread that we need to live.

Calvin said it is exceedingly absurd to twist this passage into a mystical petition when the plain sense so clearly speaks of bodily provision. So Jesus is teaching us to trust God with what we need to live and to do so daily.

He begins here to train us in total dependence, starting with the stomach and then moving upward to the soul. And what I love about this is he tells us to pray this daily because he doesn't want us to get out ahead of ourselves.

In the same way, in the Old Testament, it says thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. We have to realize, Shannon and I love this metaphor. You have to realize that this is not a spotlight.

This is not a headlight. This is a tiny flicker of light that just barely cast enough light onto the ground for your next step. So the word is a lamp unto your feet, meaning it's a guide to your next step, to your next step and then to your next step.

So you have to trust God continually. Well, in the same way, you have to pray daily for your needs because the Lord doesn't want you getting out ahead of yourself. He wants you trusting him every single day.

And on top of that, this is not just about wheat, flour, water, and all of that. This is a synecdoche. A synecdoche is a word that stands for a whole. So when Jesus tells us to pray for our bread, that stands for everything that we need to sustain bodily life.

That means food, water, clothing, shelter, strength, health, medicine, safety, and peace. As our Sinus writes in his commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, when we pray this, we are asking that God would give us all fountain of good.

Every word of this short petition matters. Give reminds us to live daily by his grace. Us tells us that this is a communal prayer, not selfish or individualistic. This day tells us that we need daily dependence and our bread points to rightful, honest provision, not stolen, not hoarded, but worked for, earned, and given by a means of grace from God.

This petition teaches us that God is not indifferent to our daily lives and our daily needs, and that is a glorious thing. Now the next part, which I find interesting because this prayer doesn't have any first person pronouns.

Our Father, our bread. I find it interesting that it says our bread. The Lord's Prayer is not for private, individualistic incantations. It is a communal confession. It doesn't teach us to pray, give me this day my daily bread.

It says give us this day our daily bread, and that prayer assumes a covenant community. It assumes a Father who is caring for us as a people, not as individuals. The corporate language is so strong and it confronts our modern, Western individualistic tendencies to think that my needs are my needs instead of our needs.

When Jesus teaches us to pray for our daily bread, he's teaching us to pray not just for our own needs, but he's also telling us to pray for our neighbors. He's telling us to look to the left and right and to see those who are hungry in our midst, those who are burdened in our midst, those who are in need in our midst, and to pray for them as well.

Not just for our own needs, but for our needs. This is why Paul, when he speaks about generosity in 2 Corinthians 8, 13 through 15, invokes the manna imagery from Exodus. He who gathered much had nothing left over and he who gathered little had no lack because the gathering of the bread was a corporate event.

It was because God was giving abundantly to his household and bread is not merely a personal property, it is a covenant provision for a covenant people. Praying our bread binds us to our brothers and sisters.

It means that we cannot pray this prayer in good faith while ignoring our fellow saints. That's why James warns, if a brother or sister is without clothing and is in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, go in peace and be warm to be filled, and you don't give them what's necessary for their body, what use is that?

He calls that false religion. You can't pray this petition rightly and pray it only for yourself. In Acts 2, 44 through 46, this passage that many twist into being a sort of Christian form of socialism, which is not, which is not.

The early church lived together. They had all things in common. They began selling their property and their possessions and they were sharing them with all as anyone had need. They took their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart.

If there's one area that the modern church needs to repent and recover, it is a corporate identity. It is an understanding that we are a people, we are not persons. The fourth petition teaches us at the very heart of our humanity.

Before we pray for anything else, we must acknowledge our corporate need. Our Father begins the table of God in the prayer and our bread begins the table of man. Do we not see how important this is to God?

The catechisms pull out some of these same themes as well. The shorter catechism says in the fourth petition, which is give us this day our daily bread, we pray that God's free gift, that of God's free gift we may receive a competent portion of the good things of this life and enjoy his blessing with them.

They're not pietist in the Westminster Shorter. That God would give us a good portion of the good things of this life, I love that. That we pray that and we pray it for our neighbor. The larger catechism expands on this.

We acknowledge that by our own sin, we have forfeited our right to any and all outward blessings of this life, but we pray that both they and we waiting upon the providence of God from day to day may enjoy a competent portion.

I love the dichotomy of that, that by our sin we forfeit any right to any blessing at all. We can't even like the lady who says even the dogs sit under the table and wait for crumbs, we have no right to that.

We have no right to crumbs, we have no right to anything and yet the Westminster says that by faith in what the Son of God has done, we pray for a competent portion, not by what we deserve, not by what we've earned, but by what he gave.

So really by praying our Father and by praying our bread, we're acknowledging his goodness and his kindness and we're putting faith and trust in his work, not ours. The Heidelberg Catechism, it says, provide for all of our bodily needs so that we may acknowledge that you are the only fountain of all good and that neither our care and our labor nor your gifts can do us any good without your blessing.

Grant therefore that we may withdraw our trust from our creatures and place it entirely on you. I love the Heidelberg so much. If you haven't read all of it, we're reading it each week in church, read the Heidelberg, it is a wonderful, wonderful confession or catechism.

It's here acknowledging the same thing, the larger catechism says that we don't deserve anything. So therefore, instead of putting our trust in our own creaturely effort, instead of putting our trust in the enterprise of the elements of humanity, we put our trust, our faith, our hope, our everything in God.

All of these catechisms are getting after the same thing that everything is grace. Everything God has given us is grace. So when we pray, give us this day our daily bread, it's not a demand and it's not even a begging petition.

It's a confident and yet grateful acknowledgement that God will give us everything that we need. Seek first the kingdom of God and everything else will be added to you. All of it is grace and we're confident, not arrogant.

We're confident because of what Christ has done. We're not in despair, which is another form of arrogance, because of what Christ has done. Also, there's this idea underneath this of contentment. We're taught not to pray for abundance.

We're taught not to pray for indulgence. We're taught not to pray for the Maseratis and the, I watched a Tesla. I actually, at this point, wanna support them. And I'm not a EV guy. Anyway, I watched a video of a guy who went to a restaurant and had like a 40 or $50 ,000 hamburger.

Like, that's not what this prayer is asking us to pray. That's wasteful, extravagance, and yet this prayer is telling us to be content with what God has given you. Here's a question, what has God given you?

Whatever you have, whatever you have today is what God has given you for your day and be content in that and praise God in that. To me, that's such a helpful question is, what do I currently have? Well, that's what God wants me to be thankful for.

And nothing more and nothing less because He's sovereign. He's given me exactly what I need. Another theme in this is blessing. God's gifts alone are not enough. We ask that He would bless us with Him.

The greatest petition in all of the scriptures is not just about bread. Man can't live by bread alone, but only by the words that proceed from the mouth of God. We need God even more than we need bread, even more than we need water, even more than we need oxygen.

Again, we're not Gnostics. We believe that God has given us good gifts to enjoy, but we believe that underneath all of that, the greatest thing that He's given us is Himself. And we ought to remember that when we pray.

Another one, another theme here is dependence. God has put us in the position of children in this prayer. To pray, our Father acknowledges we're the children. And as children, we cannot depend upon ourselves.

We need our Father to care for us, to take care of us. And don't, if you're thinking about it this way, don't put yourself in the role of 16-year-old, 17-year-old, I have plenty of responsibilities and I can take care of myself.

Put yourself in the role of like two-year-old or three-year-old. That's the kind of dependence. That we need when it comes to God. Any questions? Yes, sir. Yeah, so the question, just to repeat it as Ken said, what would you say to someone who said, well, this passage proves that we don't need to save for an inheritance.

We don't need to put aside anything for the future. We just need to pray for our daily needs and live sort of on a daily kind of paycheck to paycheck. Okay, well, the Bible explicitly tells us to save for future inheritance.

Says that a wise man stores up in the barns. Joseph is another example of one who stored up seven years of excess provision in the book of Exodus. So we have to understand that because of the law of non-contradiction, the Bible doesn't contradict itself because it proceeds forth from the mouth of God.

Because God can't contradict, the scripture can't contradict. So our understanding of the Lord's Prayer can't be that all 401k's retirement plans and future savings for our children's inheritance are sinful.

That can't be what he means because Jesus would not have contradicted the scripture. So I think what it means is instead of putting your hope in your provision, instead of putting your trust in your provision, you put your trust in God.

Has nothing at all to do with being responsible. Just don't put your hope in that. A good question to ask is, do you have money or does your money have you? It's never a sin in the Bible to have money or to have possessions.

It is a sin for those things to have you, to grip you, to control you. Remember, Jesus told the Pharisees, it's not money that's the root of all evil, it is the love of money that's the root of all evil.

So I would say that this prayer is basically, Ken, pressing into us a trust in God and a dependence on God even as we're responsible in space and time to do the things that we should do.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, absolutely. And then even, but still underneath that though, let's say you're on your way to work and you get hit by a car and now you can't walk, the means by which is still trust in God. So it's still, even though God has given you means to work and to make a paycheck, the underlying assumption of this is dependence upon God.

Not in contradiction to what you're saying,.

But in support of it, right.

As a wise podcaster once said, it's the Brian Sovey, work heartily unto the Lord, do everything that you can to raise enough resources to bless your inheritance, and if for some reason you fail and you fall flat on your face, and you, then still praise the Lord.

Right, yeah, right.

Definitely not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that we should adopt an aesthetic lifestyle and become monks. We should work heartily unto the Lord. You're worse than an unbeliever if you don't provide for your family, which is probably one of the strongest passages in the Bible towards men.

And yet, underneath it, there is a fundamental trust that God is the one who is providing for us. As we work hard, as we labor, as we do those things. Those aren't, those kind of like very hard, fast categories come into play in maybe a more two kingdoms approach,.

I would think, but not here though.

Yeah, not here. Absolutely. Any other questions? Yes, sir.

So, yeah.

The question, if I'm hearing it rightly, the question is what causes the problem of this radical individualism in our culture? I mean, the history of it is probably more in depth than what I would be able to put my head around right this moment, but yeah.

After, I was thinking after like the French Enlightenment period, this sort of radical individualism, humanism came into play, and it's sort of like an idea of the depravity of man and the limited nature of man became suppressed for an idea that man is good, man is capable, man is this.

And on top of that, this sort of rugged individualism that we have as Americans where you think about the kind of people who had to leave Europe to come here and settle were pretty entrepreneurial and pretty high self, like hard workers and stuff like that.

So I think that a combination of philosophy that was happening in Europe at the time and also a combination of the kind of people that came to America to take on this kind of burden maybe sort of put something into the ethos of our DNA as Americans to where we're radically individualistic.

That's a guess on my part because I don't know the history that well. Derek, you're an American history scholar, so maybe you could help me out with that.

No, I don't do that.

That's your degree, though.

No, I don't do that.

Is there anything you would add to that, though?

It's sufficient for me.

Yeah, yeah.

Selfishness. The impulse that we care about ourselves more than anyone else. Are you at the end of Days of Vengeance?

Yeah.

Oh, good job.

Yeah.

But he said that one reason we're into this mess we're in is because much of the church has lost the eschatology. They've become very antinomian. We forgot how much the law of God, so there's so much of private individualism.

Yeah.

That's true. I went away for a little retreat at one point to just pray and to look into the scriptures about a particular topic, and I remember being so impressed at how many second-person plural use there are in the New Testament.

You don't see them in English unless you have the Kendall and Shannon translation where they say y 'all. Actually, I think it's a more sophisticated way of speaking because it does differentiate the singular and the plural.

You can disagree with me if you want, but grammatically, it's better. In the New Testament, when you see the word you, you could end up thinking singular, and many of them, most of them, in fact, are actually plural, that it's not you.

It's more of a you collective. It's a we.

It's a us.

Yes, sir. I think y 'all's great. So people spend energy and effort on their values, and as you read in the NASB, there's values that I love and appreciate, and there's also values that I don't love so much.

One of their values that I don't love so much is they have a dispensational bend, and you can totally see it in the book of Revelation, even in verse three. It's already starting to show up. Verse five, it's showing up.

Translation committees are not infallible. We have good translations, but one of my irks is that second person plural you is usually not translated. You all would be another way to do it, but I don't see many translations actually put forth the effort on that, and I think in Greek, it's important, and I think in English, it is, too.

It might help some of this individualism we see. Yes, sir.

I don't know.

Hawaiian pigeon, we'd have to look it up.

Yeah, give us this day or daily breath.

What does it say?

Well, at the end, at the end. All right, let's see.

Yep.

Y apostrophe A-L-L is the correct spelling. All right, at the heart of this, we're seeing that there is a trust in God, not in ourselves. As Derek was saying, we work hard, and we work heartily. We work as worship.

Everything we do, whether we eat or whether we drink, we do it all to the glory of God, amen, but we don't put our trust in our effort. We don't put our trust in our job. We don't put our trust in the things of this world.

We put our trust in God as we work hard, and we work hard for him as an act of worship to him so that all things would come under his dominion. Contentment is huge in here. We're not praying that God would give us riches.

We are praying for our needs, and simplicity, I think, is an important factor here. Sinclair Ferguson notes that this petition simplifies our desires, and it weans us off of consumerism, and it reorients us back to the kingdom, and if there was ever something that we needed as a church now more than ever is to be reoriented back to what it means to be a part of the kingdom, what it means to actually work in the kingdom, to build the kingdom, to grow.

I mean, just this building process has been fascinating to me because we're in a place and a time right now where churches have to meet in warehouses, in office buildings, when there was a time when the church met on the beautiful cathedrals on the top of every hill, and it was not even a question.

If the church said, hey, we need to build a church, there's people in this town that need a church, and they don't have one, the resources came. That's something we need to recover as a society because the church being at the center of the next, hopefully, Reformation here in this place, we're gonna need churches, faithful churches, and there's just far too little here.

What is there, nine million people in Massachusetts, and I can count on two hands the churches that I would even recommend people go to. It's unbelievable. So, a little off topic there, but working in the kingdom, seeking first the kingdom.

There was a cool story that I wanted to share as we close that R .C. Sproul, one of my favorite theologians, and the more I think about it, he finished his life without any scandal. What a great blessing that is in today's day.

He finished his life without scandal. The only thing you could accuse him of is that he smoked cigarettes, and that wasn't even really that well known. He said, or he shared this story that after the Korean War was over, the children were so traumatized by their lack of food that in order to get them to fall asleep, their parents, and this was a very common thing at the time, their parents would give them a loaf of bread, not to eat, but to remind them that tomorrow's bread would be there when you wake up.

In the same way, we trust that the Lord is gonna provide for us each and every day, and we let our anxieties go because God is in control and he cares for us.

Amen?

Amen.

Let's pray. And let's pray in good King James fashion, the Lord's Prayer together, not Hawaiian pigeon. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

Amen.