Series Introduction
The Lord’s Prayer is but 38 words (in its original form in Luke’s gospel) that change the very way we understand God, ourselves, and the world. It’s the richest single source in the entire Bible of information on how to pray. It’s not the only place where prayer is taught inside the pages of the Bible but it the richest place to go for teaching on prayer …because it’s a model of true prayer for everyone. And I can say to you now without any reservations at all that all of the answers to all of your problems, when they’re rightly understood, are here. Let me say that again: the answers to all of your problems, if you rightly understand them, are in the Lord’s Prayer.
Why This Series? 1) I want to help you develop a powerful prayer life. I’m calling on all of us who believe in Christ to turn up the volume of our prayer life. To turn up the intensity of our prayer life. 2) I want to encourage you by showing you that God hears prayer.
Today’s Scripture
Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” 2 And he said to them, “When you pray, say:
“Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
3 Give us each day our daily bread,
4 and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation.” (Luke 11:1-4)
Introduction to Today’s Sermon
This is the third week for us to look at the Lord’s Prayer. And today we enter into the second half of the Lord’s Prayer. There’s five different “asks” in this prayer and today we’re focusing on praying for what we need. To many people, this is the whole point of prayer. The whole point of prayer is how do you get God to give you things, right? It can be the prayer of a lost hiker who can’t find his way back out of the dense forest, the frightened airplane passenger, or the mother who hovers over her sick child. Sometimes your prayer is nothing more than two words: “Oh, God!”
We often ask ourselves and others, “How do I get God to give me what I need?”
1. Why Pray?
It was the former Soviet Union leader, Vladimir Lenin, who wrote, “Electricity will replace God. The peasants should pray to it; in any case they will feel its effect long before they feel any effect from on high.” Some doubt the power of prayer altogether. While others wonder, “If God cures one person’s cold because they prayed, why didn’t He prevent Auschwitz?”
Let’s tackle one common questions to help you pray… Why Pray if God Already Knows? We Don’t Pray So God Can Learn Our Needs. Jesus tells us: “your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:8). In the second half of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray for three things:
1) We are to pray for the food we need;
2) We are to pray for grace to cover our sins;
3) We are to pray for deliverance away from temptation.
And God knows we need each of these three things before we pray. God isn’t ignorant. He doesn’t need to go to school. He knows what we need before we ask. So why should we pray? Let’s compare prayer to rubbing Aladdin’s Lamp for a moment. If prayer worked like Aladdin’s Lamp and you placed the lamp in the hands of fourth grader where God had to do what she asked for… God says, “I’ll grant you three wishes, no matter how stupid or smart your request is.” Some of you would be married to fifteen people while others would have killed everyone you work with. How comfortable would you be with this scenario? You say, “But I’m smarter than a fourth grader. God could trust me with Aladdin’s Lamp.” Really? Listen to this: Between 2000 and 2004 more than four million live animals were brought weekly into Miami’s International Airport. And those were only the ones that we individually counted. An additional twenty-one tons of animals that no one bothered to count. These non-invasive animals do $120 billion worth in environmental damage last year alone. Among the animals that are brought into the United States is the Burmese Python. Some of these snakes are released into the wild while others escape. No matter, because the Burmese Python is a nonnative species to Florida so it can find things to eat but few things are eating pythons as of yet. They are aggressive predators as they can even kill deer and alligators. They are eating raccoons, opossums, as well as bobcats. In 2012, a Burmese python was discovered that measure 17 feet, 7 inches. This mother python was carrying 87 eggs. People have purchased Burmese pythons as pets only to release them because they fear the snake will harm their other pets. But it is a disaster for the Florida environment.
Are we smarter than a fourth grader? Should God place Aladdin’s Lamp into our hands? Remember his song? I thank God for unanswered prayers. Even Garth Brooks got that prayer is bigger than a genie in a bottle.
God was smart enough to include a safety catch with prayer. If God hadn’t included a safety catch with prayer, we’d all be dead! The Bible says it’s because prayer only works if you understand it on father/child terms. What’s the safety catch? You don’t get to pray, “Give us today our daily bread” until you pray, “Our Father in heaven …” You have to know who you’re coming to. You cannot understand, “Give us today our daily bread” unless you see you’re praying to our Father, not the genie of the lamp. And the two are very different. Even though God know our needs before we ask, pray is about developing a trust in our heavenly Father. You see prayer and the genie lamp is a contradiction. Because when you think of prayer in terms of Aladdin’s Lamp instead of God as our Father, you fail to see what good parents always do. Good parents always distinguish between the need and what the child thinks she needs.
Prayer’s purpose is so that we would learn to develop a trust in God. Even though He already knows our needs, we pray to develop our trust in our heavenly Father. When we pray, we become convinced of His goodness, wisdom, love and power. That’s why this is the third “ask” of in the sequence of five parts recorded in Jesus’ prayer. There’s a danger with this prayer for bread and the danger is you’ll get there too fast. Before we “Give us today our daily bread” we first pray “Father, hallowed be your name” and “Your kingdom come.” Over the course of the next few minutes, let’s drill down on four words in this part of the Lord’s Prayer.
But before we do that, let’s play Fact or Fiction? with the Lord’s Prayer …
Fact or Fiction? God doesn’t care how I arrange my prayers?
Fact or Fiction? I have memorized the Lord’s Prayer?
Fact or Fiction? God is everyone’s Father?
Fact or Fiction? I’ve prayed the Lord’s Prayer in my own words?
Fact or Fiction? God always gets His way in heaven?
Again, let’s drill down on four words in this part of the Lord’s Prayer: give, us, daily, and bread.
2. Give Me?
It’s important to remember: While our personal needs are in second half of Jesus’ prayer, God doesn’t tell you to eliminate praying for your personal needs. It’s important to note this: Jesus gives an equal amount of space to both honoring God and to your personal needs. As we move into the second half of this prayer, we’re reminded that Jesus’ prayer is about the nitty-gritty of life.
2.1 Give
When you pray “Give us each day our daily bread” you are recognizing God as your provider. When you pray “Give us each day our daily bread” you are expressing thanks to your heavenly Father for taking care of you. When we pray this way, we are placing our trust in God rather than our own abilities. It is so difficult not to take for granted the stuff God gives us. Yet, even the food we buy with our money is a gift from God. Allow me to repeat: Even when we buy food, God is the one who puts it on the table. An extraordinary God often answers our prayer in ordinary means – through something as common as a job. To make sure we get this, Jesus teaches us to ask God for “our daily bread.” Here again is the big purpose of prayer: it’s not so we get stuff but that we develop trust in God. When we trust God, we are genuinely convinced of His goodness, wisdom, love and power. So we are to pray and ask God to “give.”
2.2 Us
Have you noticed that the Lord’s Prayer says “us” and not “me”?
Give us each day our daily bread,
4 and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation.” (Luke 11:3-4)
And remember Matthew’s version?
“Our Father in heaven…
11 Give us this day our daily bread,
12 and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6:9, 11-13)
You cannot pray the Lord’s Prayer
And even once say “I.”
You cannot say the Lord’s Prayer
And even once say “My.”
Nor can you pray the Lord’s Prayer
And not pray for another,
For when you ask for daily bread
You must include your brother.
For others are included
in each and every plea—
From the beginning to the end of it
It never once says “Me!”
When you pray “Give us this day our daily bread,” you’re not only praying for your family but also for your neighbor’s family. But you’re praying for the Morales family of Mexico and the Fuller’s of West Asia. The “us” keeps us from being self-centered. Jesus calls on us to ask our Father about our personal needs. Remember Jesus did feed the 5,000; Jesus sees to it that people are fed. Our God loves to feed us. God cares about your physical needs.
Prayer works. Prayer makes a difference. You can come to God and say, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
2. Give Me?
3. Each and Every Day
In Jesus’ day, people were paid each day for the work they had completed. Work on Monday and get paid on Monday. Work on Tuesday and get paid for Tuesday’s work. The pay was so little that it was almost impossible to save any money for a rainy day.So today’s pay would pay for today’s food.
So when Jesus teaches us to pray “Give us each day our daily bread” it wasn’t an empty prayer.
This is a prayer for the immediate future and not the distant future.
In the first century this was the only way people lived.
There were no refrigerators.
Some were able to store crops in barns.
But even they felt vulnerable against the elements.
In our day we do not feel this “one day at a time” as keenly.
We can easily fall into the illusion that we are the providers.
Until the storms come.
Until drought hits.
Pray Daily
Note this: Jesus tells us to come repeatedly to God in prayer.
We are to come to God asking each day for “Our daily bread.”
Jesus didn’t say “Give us this day our monthly bread or weekly bread.”
Instead, He says, “Give us each day our daily bread”
So you’re come to God each and every day.
4. Our Daily Bread
Bread is a fundamental part of our diet. We can make it without coffee or chocolate but we can’t make it without bread. But, bread is more than bread here. Even today, we will speak of a man or a woman as the “breadwinner” of a home. In our slang, we know that “bread” is money. So we aren’t just praying for old boring bread! When we are praying for bread, we are praying for more than bread. Bread covers all food. Bread includes a place to sleep at night. Bread includes physical health. Bread covers money and the ability to earn money. Praying for our “daily bread” becomes a prayer against unemployment and poverty. Bread costs money, money requires work, work requires good government, as well as good businesses. When we pray for “our daily bread” we are praying for everything necessary to keep our physical lives going. When we pray for “our daily bread” we are praying for good weather, our government, and for peace. So when you pray “our daily bread” you’re prayer is a prayer for good business practices. So when you pray “our daily bread” you’re prayer is a prayer for good political rule. When we pray for “our daily bread” we are praying for God to help us endure sickness, hard times, and all kinds of calamities. When we pray for “our daily bread” we are praying about the daily strain and daily commute of the average worker. When we pray for “our daily bread” we are praying for the pressure of the small business owner.
Someone emailed our church to ask for prayer this week:
Please pray for me. I need a new fulltime job with good honest people. I am miserable in the environment where I am employed. My bosses treat really bad and unfair. They make everything hard on me. I feel I need fresh start with new people. It has become so miserable that I dread going to work each day. It has got to the point it is affecting my health. My hours and wages have been cut also. Please pray that the Lord will open the door and direct me a good job with benefits. Please also pray that the Lord will heal from depression and set me free.
“Our daily bread” isn’t a prayer just for boring old bread. Instead, “Our daily bread” is a prayer for the basic physical needs of life. Look at this: “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). The Bible describes God as the one “who gives food to the hungry” (Psalm 146:7). Please note that it says “every need” and not every want. We are praying for “our daily bread” and not for our daily cake. The ancient wisdom recorded in Proverbs wisely says this:
“…give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,
9 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.” (Proverbs 30:8-9)
We can be grateful when He gives us cake but we are to only pray for bread.
4.1 “Give Us” vs. “Give Me”
And remember the words of this prayer is “Give us this day our daily bread” and not “Give me this day our daily bread. No Christian can be content to have too much while others have too little. “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that” (James 2:15-16)? There’s an injustice in our world distribution of food – some of us have way too much while others have way too little.
“The bread that is spoiling in your house belongs to the hungry. The shoes that are mildewing under your bed belong to those who have none. The clothes stored away in your trunk belong to those who are naked.” - Basil the Great (c. 329-379) Mention Cornerstone & CEC here – two local ways to bless those in need. This is a prayer for social justice: “Oh God, to those who have hunger, give bread; and to those who have bread, give the hunger of justice.”
Invitation
I began this message by telling you that prayer has a safety catch to it. God knows we are toddlers and we don’t know what to ask for. Our lives are fragile and we are dependent on our Father. It’s good that He cares about us and He cares about something as mundane as our daily food. What’s your alternative to trusting in God?If you don’t trust in Him, you’ll become butter and angry.
