Give Us this Day Our Daily Bread

Introduction to the Last Three Petitions and Their Scope

0:05 We are studying in these mornings this particular section of the Sermon on the Mount in our regular course of study through this entire section, this section in which our Lord deals particularly with the Christian and his religious life, his giving, and now the subject of his praying, and then we shall come to the subject of fasting, the discipline of our physical appetites to spiritual ends, and in the light of spiritual demands. We have considered the approach to prayer, recognition of who God is, our Father in heaven, our relationship to him, he is our Father,

0:48 if we have repented of sin and turned to Christ in faith and submission to him as Lord. We completed our studies last week of the first three petitions which we saw related directly to the Sermon on the Mount. Relative to the purposes of God. Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

1:17 The first three petitions relative to the purposes of God in the earth, and there we must begin our prayer. It's been very rewarding to have several mention to me how that simply taking this pattern for prayer and seeking to incorporate it, into their own prayer experience has transformed not only their prayer lives but their own personal lives. That when they began to take seriously the instruction of our Lord and instead of coming with the gimmies first, come praying that his name be hallowed, that his kingdom come and that his will be done, that there has accrued to them blessing that they were not even seeking.

2:01 And this is a principle that carries over into every realm of the spiritual life. He that would save his life shall lose it. He that would save his prayer time and gobble it all up for himself shall lose the essence of the blessing of prayer. But he that would lose himself in that which is the concern of God in turn will find things that he himself was not even seeking.

2:28 Now we come this morning to begin our study of the last three petitions or if you would like to consider them, there's four, I personally believe that there are three. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

2:51 I consider that last petition one, the positive and negative side. If you want to consider it two, why that's your privilege to do so. Now we come to these three petitions which relate to the three bases, the basic needs that every Christian has. And it's amazing how comprehensive this prayer is in its scope.

3:14 For what more does a Christian need than to have his basic needs of physical sustenance met from day to day. Give us bread. To be able to have his fellowship with God unmarred by a nagging conscience. Forgive us our sins.

3:30 And then to have power to live a life well pleasing to God. Now what more does a Christian need? Give us bread. Give us bread.

3:35 Give us bread. Give us bread. Give us bread. Give us bread.

3:35 Give us bread. Give us bread. Give us bread. Give us bread.

3:36 He's the richest man in all the world, isn't he? If he has enough bread to keep soul and body together, he has up-to-date forgiveness that he can look up into the face of his God without a nagging conscience, and he's experiencing the grace of God in overcoming sin and evil, that which would mar his fellowship with God. What else does he need? And so we come to these petitions which are comprehensive in their scope, and they are really, by way of introduction, they have a theological perspective to them.

4:10 For in a special sense, it is the loving concern of the Father to meet our material needs. How much more shall the Father in heaven give good gifts to his children? So we pray for our bread, that in a special way comes from the hand of the Father. We pray for the forgiveness of our sins, which in a special way comes through the intercession and the marriage.

4:34 For it's of the Son, the Lord Jesus, for it's by the blood of Christ that we are cleansed, it's by the intercession of Christ as our advocate, that his blood is pleaded before the Father, and in a peculiar way, it's by the power and enablement of the Spirit that we are kept from sin and temptation. And so you see in this prayer, not only something comprehensive in its scope, touching every need of the believer, but you see the whole...

5:04 The whole Triune God coming to play in the life of the believer, the whole power of the Triune God in answer to these specific petitions. Now we'll start this morning. I don't know how far we'll get, and possibly then we'll continue on tonight. We're not making very rapid progress through this sermon, so maybe we ought to begin to double up and preach morning and evening on it so we can get through it before the millennium dawns upon us.

Acknowledging God as the Source of All Temporal Supply

5:33 Now the phrase, Give us this day our daily bread. We want to consider first of all the meaning of the words, and then some of the implications of this petition, and then its relationship to other petitions within the latter three. Now it's interesting that when our Lord said, Give us this day our daily bread, he used a word that has caused great perplexity to the commentators. One scholarly Christian said he found no less, than 30 explanations of this word, which means give us our daily bread.

6:10 There's a particular word used that can mean give us enough bread for this day. It can mean give us bread for the coming day. There may be all kinds of different interpretations, but the sense of it is clear, and I'll not weary you with what wearies one who's trying to find out what has God said and plowing through the commentators can become very wearisome at times, but one wants to know what exactly. Did God say that?

6:35 Did God say, and I think the truth is right here on the surface, that bread is what we're praying for. Now what was bread? To the Easterner, bread was the very mainstay of life. You remember Jesus said man shall not live by what?

6:50 Bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Jesus said I am the bread of life come down from heaven. Bread was to the Easterner what potatoes would be perhaps to the average Westerner. The bread of life.

7:05 The bread of life. The part of every meal, the main substance of his physical existence. And so in this petition we are asking for the staple necessary food, that which will sustain us in our physical lives as we seek to live to God's glory, as we seek to be involved in the work of his kingdom, as we seek to have his will done in us as it is in heaven. Now, in this particular petition, every time we pray it with any understanding, we are first of all acknowledging God as the source of the supply of all our temple needs.

7:51 There was a Scottish preacher who had a group of young people in his little church school. It was apparently a parochial school, a Christian day school we would call it. And one day he asked the students, he said, now tell me, that bread, that you had on your table last night for dinner, where did you get it? And the whole class answered in unison, our mothers gave it to us.

8:15 And so then the old preacher said, where did your mothers get it? And the answer came back almost in unison, they got it from the baker. And he said, where did the baker get the bread? Well, he got the flour from the miller.

8:28 Well, where did the miller get it? Well, he got it from the farmer. And so then he asked the class, where did the farmer get it? Well, he got it out of the ground.

8:37 And then he said, where did the ground get it? And they finally said, God.

8:43 Now, they weren't being rascals.

8:46 But you see, we're so slow to acknowledge that behind all of the means that God uses to get bread on our tables, it's God who gives us our daily bread. And our Lord tells us that when we pray, we are to pray for our daily bread, indicating that the substance of this prayer ought to be prayed daily. And in so doing, we acknowledge that the one who puts bread on our tables is not our employer. He may be a means that God uses, but he didn't put the bread there.

9:25 And certainly we acknowledge that it's not our own hands. As an unsaved relative of mine said, I don't thank God for anything I've got. What I've got, I've got by my own hard work and my own sweat and my own frugality. Oh, you did, did you?

9:41 Who put breath in your lungs?

9:46 Why aren't you? Why am not I laying on a bed somewhere paralyzed from the neck down?

9:53 Why am I not hobbling about with both my legs cut off at the knees?

10:02 You see, regardless of the means that God uses, in this petition we simply acknowledge the truth of the Scripture, 1 Corinthians 4, 7. What hast thou that thou didst not receive? And what's the answer? Nothing.

10:17 Absolutely nothing. What have you that you've not received? Or the truth of James 1, 17. Every good and every perfect gift cometh down from above from the Father of life.

10:33 Now that gift may come through the hand of your employer. It may come in measure through the sweat and label of your own hands. But remember, its source is God. And God wants us to acknowledge this every day.

Cultivating Dependence and Gratitude Through Daily Prayer

10:49 So our Lord said, When ye pray, say, Our Father who art in heaven, give us this day our daily bread. For as we do this and acknowledge God as the source of all our temporal supply, it will cultivate two very wonderful graces in us. It will cultivate in us the grace of conscious dependence upon the Lord and the grace of conscious gratitude to God. And I confess, dear ones, these are two of the hardest graces of the Christian life to cultivate.

11:24 The grace of a conscious dependence upon the Lord. Now be honest with me. How many of you honestly every day before you go to work say, Oh God, if you don't continue the breath within my lungs and cause my lungs to function normally, if you don't continue to give me this measure of strength and health I have,

11:46 I'm utterly at your mercy, Lord. How many of us do that? No, we get up, put our trousers on, comb our hair, and go on off to work. No grace of conscious dependence upon the Lord.

12:00 Some of you perhaps have been brought to deep physical trials. This is the lesson God's taught you. You've known what it is day after day to get up and face the day and feel you had no strength to go to the first hour. And through this, God has taught you something of what it is to be consciously dependent upon Him for the bread, the bread of physical strength.

12:22 Then bless God that He's taught that lesson. But oh, how quickly we can unlearn it. God may have to take five years to teach it to us and then He gives us a month of health in which we don't need to consciously trust Him for strength and we forget the lesson. Don't we?

12:37 Isn't this the way we're made? And so our Lord wants us to pray this prayer so that we might cultivate that grace of conscious dependence. I think of this grace as illustrated in the life of the animal. And certainly God wants us to go beyond the beast.

12:53 For I read in the 104th Psalm, verses 21 and 27, the young lions roar after their prey and seek their meat from God. Verse 27, these wait all upon thee that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. And here the psalmist pictures the whole creation, even the ravenous, the ravenous lion as being utterly dependent upon the hand of God for the supply of His physical sustenance. Oh, may God find us at least equally the beast in their dependence

13:36 upon the God who made them. And then the grace of gratitude.

13:42 Often my own heart has been rebuked as I bowed over my food. I know better than to bow to eat without thanking the Lord. It's a habit, sort of like brushing your teeth. You get the habit to do it whether you're thinking about it or not.

13:56 But time after time, my spirit has been rebuked that though I've been bowing my head and thanking God for my food, there hasn't been one ounce of genuine, heartfelt gratitude to God. Is your heart made like mine? I've been mouthing the words of thanks, but really, dear ones, there's been no warm, welling up of gratitude to God.

14:23 Why? Why? It's because I really don't believe that I'm dependent upon God for the bread that sustains me. I really don't believe it.

14:32 I say I do, but I don't. For if I believed it, then when bread was there, I could not help but express my gratitude to God. And I believe this is why our Lord wants us to pray this prayer because in it we acknowledge God is the source of all our physical supply and thereby cultivate the graces of dependence, dependence on one hand and gratitude on the other. The second thing we do in this petition is we acknowledge the concern of God for this area of our lives.

God's Concern for Mundane Needs Amidst His Majesty

15:07 And this is precious to me this morning.

15:10 Here we move from such lofty concepts as the harrowing of God's name, all that God has done in the creation, and in a mysterious way that I can't explain, even the fall of man has turned out to the glory of God. For of Him and through Him and unto Him are all things. And so we've been thinking of this petition, hallowed be Thy name. We've been thinking of the great purpose of God to bring His kingdom to the hearts of men and one day to this very earth.

15:43 And then last week we considered that lofty concept that our obedience should reflect the obedience of the angels. A complete, glad, immediate, joyous obedience. And we move, and in the name of God, in the kingdom of God, in the will of God, to something so mundane as bread.

16:03 What a wonderful picture of our God.

16:06 You see it? Kingdom, glory, will, His name, bread.

16:14 And our Lord is wanting to teach us that just as surely as when we pray we must acknowledge God to be the great, transcendent, majestic, lofty God of the Bible before whom seraphim veil face and feet and cry, holy, holy, holy. He's the God who's concerned about the bread on my table.

16:38 That's what He wants us to remember. And so that's why He told us when you pray, say, Father, who art in heaven. There's a wonderful parallel to this concept in the 40th chapter of Isaiah. If you're not familiar with Isaiah 40, you ought to be.

16:55 You'll never appreciate John 3.16 unless you appreciate Isaiah 40. This wonderful chapter on the greatness of God, and in it we read in verse 9, Isaiah 40 in verse 9, O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into a high mountain. O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength.

17:21 Lift it up. Be not afraid. Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God. Now, all attention is fixed upon God.

17:31 Who is He? Now we get the answer. Behold the Lord, for God will come with a strong hand. He's the God of omnipotent power.

17:40 His arms shall rule for Him. He's the great sovereign of the universe. Behold, His reward is with Him. He's the judge of the universe and His work before Him.

17:52 Think of this God. Behold Him now. The judge of the world. The great ruler of the moral universe.

17:59 The God of omnipotence. But now look at verse 11. He shall feed His people. Roth like a shepherd.

18:07 Do you catch the weight of that contrast? From all the lofty concepts of God as judge, to He shall feed like a shepherd. I think we have the same thing here. Hallowed be thy name.

18:22 Give us bread. And our Lord wants us not only to acknowledge God as the one who supplies our need, but the second thing He wants us to do is to acknowledge that God is concerned about this area of our life, our lives, our physical sustenance, and I'm convinced that it includes all that is relative to my physical sustenance as I seek to live to the will of God, to the glory of God, and be involved in the work of the kingdom of God. May I give you several other instances where this is so wonderfully set forth in the scripture? You remember the prophet Elijah was there upon Mount Carmel, and the great issue at stake when the prophets of Baal were there, when the prophets of Baal were there, when the prophets of Baal were there,

19:06 with him was, who is the true God? This God Baal, after whom the whole nation of Israel had gone except 7,000? Or is the God of Israel the true God? And the great issue involved was God's kingdom and God's glory.

19:23 And so Isaiah prays that God would manifest His power. And you remember the fire from heaven came and consumed the sacrifice? The same God that sent fire upon the sacrifice on Mount Carmel to bind the people of Israel and to vindicate His name, every day prepared a raven to take a little piece of flesh to His prophet down by the book chair. That's the same God, concerned about His glory upon Mount Carmel, but concerned about the hungry tummy of His prophet down by the book chair.

19:55 And so the ravens came each day with flesh for the servant of God to sustain Him and to give Him His daily bread. The God who parts the Red Sea for Israel, the God who sends those tremendous judgments upon the land of Egypt, is the God who brings His people out into a wilderness and every day performs a perpetual miracle. He sends the manna from heaven to feed their hungry bodies in the midst of that burning desert land. And so God wants us to acknowledge His concern for this particular area of our lives.

Dying to Inordinate Desires and Daily Provision

20:32 And then the third thing, I believe, will happen as we pray this prayer intelligently. We'll acknowledge God as the source of provision. We'll acknowledge God's heart of concern for these things. And we'll have to die to the inordinate desire for more than what we really need.

20:53 For remember, what we're taught to pray is not for oil and wine, but for bread. We're taught to pray for bread. It was that stable food, that basic necessity. And Jesus said, pray after this man, give us day by day our bread.

21:11 He didn't ask us to pray for whipped cream and pom-poms. He asked us to pray for bread. Now, if He gives us whipped cream, fine.

21:22 But when you pray for bread, remember you're praying for bread. Jesus gave you no grounds to expect anything more than that. Did He? And so if we've become accustomed to luxurious living and have forgotten that there is a standard of Christian frugality, every Christian in any society, under any circumstance, is to so live and meet his physical temple needs in the light of eternity.

21:52 In the light of eternity.

21:55 And so when I pray this prayer, I'll have to die each day for my craving for something beyond that. As the writer of the Proverbs said, he prayed to God that he wouldn't be rich lest he forget God. He said, Lord, don't let me be poor lest I go out and steal, but give me just enough for every day. Proverbs 30 and verse 9.

22:14 And then we're praying, Lord, give me today my bread. You see, I have to die for this ish to see everything lined out for the next 20 years. Oh, this is a terrible curse of our society.

22:26 I've thought so many times, Lord, we're cursed in that we're in a society where I can't honestly pray this anymore. Give us today our daily bread. Most of us can see our bread lined up, naturally speaking, for years ahead. We've got ourselves so fixed up insurance-wise and, friends, benefit-wise and every other kind of wise, we've missed the blessing of having to look to the hand of God to put bread upon our table.

22:54 Mrs. Martin and I have talked about this on numerous occasions or on some occasions,

23:01 how in those days when we were out in the itinerant ministry and never knew, literally, from one month to the next how the rent money was going to be met and how the food was going to come to the table. What a blessed experience. I feel I'm cheated now.

23:17 I don't go out and stop my salad. I'm afraid.

23:21 But do you see what I'm driving at?

23:26 There was something about the blessing of having to look to the hand of God, literally, day by day, to see meetings coming up and know we had to be somewhere and had no money to get there and pay and see God send the bread.

23:42 What a blessed experience.

23:45 Who knows, maybe God will yet purify His church in America by putting us in the place where we'll have to learn that. It'd be the best thing that could happen to us, wouldn't it? So we've got to die. Die not only to the itch for something more than bread, but die to the itch to want to see things beyond today.

24:04 That's a very real thing, isn't it, Dad? You say, well, my kids are going to go to college in a few years and this is going to...

24:10 Yes, God knows all about that. But you haven't come to that day yet. Give us today our bread.

24:19 Don't rob your family of the blessing of having to believe God for some of your material needs.

24:27 I know a particular school that actually said, sets the faculty salaries with this in mind. They set the salaries just a little bit below what they feel would be adequate so that the teachers have to be constantly learning the truth of this prayer so they can teach it to the students.

24:47 Yes. And I believe as parents we need to learn this. I'm trying to do a little something to put a little away from the education of my children. But even if I had the money, I wouldn't put away enough that would take care of all of it because I don't want my children robbed of the blessing that I had in having to believe.

25:06 I need God to get me through school. Those lessons of faith I couldn't learn in 20 schools.

25:16 And if we'll pray this prayer, it'll keep us from that desire to have our security lined up for the next 20 years. We're praying, Lord, give us bread for this day. The flesh doesn't like that. It hates it.

25:29 The flesh does not want to be shut up to God in the present moment. It hates it. But, oh, dear ones, it's the most blessed place to be.

25:39 That's the lesson God tried to teach you. Remember, the manna came every day. Every day, except the day before the Sabbath. Every day.

Why Pray if God Already Knows Our Needs?

25:48 Why? God was trying to teach by pictures that His people are to be a people who look up daily for the supply of their need. Now, let's ask several questions about this petition. Maybe it's already occurred to some of you, this first question.

26:04 We read back in chapter 6, verse what? Verse 8?

26:12 Yes. Be not like the heathen, for your Father knows what things he hath need of before ye ask him. Now, if God loves me and He knows what my needs are, why is He telling me to pray for?

26:27 Does that bother you? Has that ever bothered any of you? Has that question ever entered your mind and caused some perplexity?

26:37 Maybe you're not built the way I am. That's bothered me. Well, Lord, why should I pray? You know what I need, and as a loving Father, you're concerned about my need, and yet Jesus said after this manner, pray ye.

26:49 Give us day by day our bread. An illustration that A.B. Simpson gave along this line I think is helpful.

26:57 He said, If God were to give all the gifts of His grace in one big lump sum, then we'd learn to live off that lump and we'd forget the giver. But it's though God in grace has put a great deposit in the bank of heaven, and He says to us His children, every time you have need, come to the bank of heaven and sign the check, and each time you do, you're reminded, that God put the bank, God put the reservoir there in the bank of heaven, and it's only as I'm rightly related to God that I can take out of the fullness of that supply, and in so doing, having to ask for bread that God is concerned about, He knows I need it and wants to give it, but He's told me to ask,

27:41 and my asking is somehow involved in His giving, the whole purpose, or at least much of the purpose is, that the very glory of redemption, the very gold of redemption, is found in this. God wants the creature to come back into a relationship of childlike dependence upon Himself.

28:03 For the greatest curse of sin is that the creature has cut himself off from God. His fellowship, dependence upon Him, recognition of His right, His sovereignty. We've lived independently of God. There's none that seeketh after God.

28:20 That's man in his natural, natural state. And so in the purpose of God through redemption, God wants to bring us back to the place where day by day for the supply of all our need, as Jesus said, without me ye can do nothing, we learn to be cast back upon Him. So that's the first reason why, even though God knows our need, we must pray. And the second reason, if I don't understand the first one, is God commands it, and that's enough.

28:49 He just commands me. You have not because He asks not. And somehow in the purpose of God, my asking is tied up with His giving. And though I can't explain it, certainly it's plain, and by the grace of God, I can obey where I cannot understand.

The Priority of Bread Among Personal Needs

29:04 Then another question that some of you may be wondering is, why does bread come as the first of my needs? The next two petitions deal with far more spiritual matters. Forgive us our debts. Lead us not into temptation.

29:19 It seems like bread should come down at the bottom of the list, shouldn't it? In order of importance? Well, I believe the answer to that is found in this simple fact. Sure, it's most important that you live in unbroken fellowship with God, and that you live a life of holiness.

29:37 But you've got to be alive to do that. If you're to glorify God by a life of holiness, you've got to be alive here on earth. I will glorify Him if He takes us to Himself through death. But if we're to glorify God here on earth, we've got to be alive to do it.

29:54 And so to be alive, I need bread. And so our Lord says, let's start where you are. You are not only a spiritual being, but a physical being. You're more than that, but you are that.

30:04 And so He encourages us to start on this ground floor of our basic physical needs, that having those met, now that we have enough to live to keep soul and body together, now I want to meet the purpose of life, which is to live in unbroken fellowship with God. Forgive our debts. And to walk in the power of the Spirit, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And so I see and I trust without any straining that this petition for my bread is put first in the three petitions about my own needs, because my basic need or my ground level need is physical,

Relationship to Preceding Petitions: God's Interests First

30:48 and I can only be the holy man or woman to glorify God as He meets these particular needs. Now, do you see a relationship of this petition to the other that preceded and those that followed? Notice that the asking for bread, and this is important, follows the first three petitions in which we have spread before God the interest of His own heart. Any man by nature who believes there's a supreme being will come whimpering to God in terms of his physical needs.

31:26 But only a man who's been subdued by the grace of God will forget his own tummy long enough to want God's name hallowed, to see God's kingdom come, and to have God's will done on earth, and then to pray for his bread. So this again teaches me that only a true Christian can pray this prayer. I used to be so upset, and if some of you wonder why I've sought under God to educate us in our praying, in our prayer meetings, I used to get so disturbed as I'd go from church to church, and when people would have a prayer meeting, all the prayer was involved with

32:09 Aunt Susie, who's 95, who's got a sore toe, and let's ask God to help her. And somebody else, these mundane, picayune little physical needs took up 85% of the praying in the prayer meeting, and the other 15% was taken up with request time. I said, somehow, Lord, this isn't right. You're the great God of redemption.

32:31 Who, in the midst of a sinful world, is taking out a people for thy name. In the midst of all the mess of the world, you're bringing your kingdom to the hearts of men. You're seeking to work out your will. Lord, is this your concern, that a group of people see no further than Aunt Susie's sore toe?

32:51 Something's wrong. Now, is God concerned about Aunt Susie's sore toe? Yes. He's concerned about something else, far more important than her sore toe.

33:05 The awning of His name, the coming of His kingdom, the doing of His will. And then, as we are lined up with that threefold purpose, His name, His kingdom, His will, then anything I need to see His name hallowed, to see His kingdom come, to do His will, then God will give it to me. He'll give it to me. He'll give it to me.

33:34 Be it a thousand dollars, be it the touch of my body to be strengthened to do His purpose, regardless of what it is, but this business of living a life that is not geared to the hallowing of His name and the coming of His kingdom and the doing of His will and come whimpering to God for every little material and physical need is an abomination. It isn't prayer. It's an abomination. It isn't prayer.

34:01 It isn't prayer, beloved. My righteous soul is vexed when I see this. Not righteous in myself, but I mean what God in His grace has done, using it in the scriptural sense. To see this even when a group of preachers get together, to see the conversation on mundane things, fishing trips, hunting trips, everything under the sun, and then when prayer requests are given, pray for this physical need, that physical need.

34:34 Nobody's saying, pray that God will break in with power upon my life. It's grievous, dear one. Because it's not prayer in terms of the pattern of our Lord. And so we see the relationship.

God's Interest in All Mundane Details for the Committed Believer

34:52 It stands after those first three. And oh, may I now just switch it and say, remember, it stands first in terms of my personal need. And if you are a child of God who's basically committed to glorify God and to be involved in His kingdom and to see His will done, there's not any temple need that you have that God isn't interested in. I pray about my parking meter, that I'll get one.

35:20 Then if I don't, I pray for grace, to be patient. Because the Lord alone knows what I need at any given point. Some days I know what I need is to save that time and get that parking meter, get in that place. Other days I know what I need is to learn a lesson of patience.

35:35 So I ask the Lord, help me get a parking meter, and if I don't, then I have to pray for grace to be patient. And it's hard for me to be patient when I waste time running around a block. The other day I went to the ShopRite. We were having friends come, so I wanted to go to the delicatessen there and pick up a few things.

35:52 So I got my ticket, number 14. When I got there, they were still calling off in the 90s. They hadn't even gotten over the hundred into the 14s yet. So I had to wait a half an hour.

36:04 But I got the message from the Lord. And to His praise, He gave victory that other times I wouldn't have known. I asked my wife. We pray about the most mundane details of our lives, if we're committed to those first three petitions.

36:23 See? Then may I encourage you, Christian, there's not a thing about your life that He's not interested in. Not a thing. Not a thing.

Transition to the Next Petition: Forgiveness of Debts

36:33 The next petition, I don't believe we can get through it. May I just throw it out for you to meditate upon it. And then, the Lord willing, I think we'll continue on from here tonight. Forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors.

36:47 I think you can see on the surface what our Lord is driving at. What good is it to live and have bread upon my table and to have all my things and all my physical needs met if I can't look up into the face of God and know that there's nothing between my soul and the Savior. And so, having our physical needs met, our Lord immediately moves to this personal request for the forgiveness of our sins that we might be able to have unbroken fellowship with our God. I'll tell you where we'll go tonight.

37:22 I'll just give you the headings, alright? And then maybe that'll bait you to come back again tonight, if I may use that term without being irreverent. We're going to see that sin is debt unpaid. It's debt that I can't pay.

37:36 We're going to see that God is willing to forgive. We're going to see the necessity of confession, the nature of confession. Then we're going to look at some problems, the problem of people who say, well, since I'm a Christian and I am forgiven, why do I have to pray to be forgiven? Then we'll look at the problem of some who say, well, a Christian can be perfect.

37:54 If so, then this prayer is out of place. Then we're going to look at this petition and its relationship to the one that preceded and the one that followed. And then maybe the Lord willing gets to that last petition, lead us not into temptation. So the Lord willing, I believe that's where we'll go.

Concluding Exhortation: Prioritizing God's Glory and Gratitude

38:10 But I think we'll stop with this one petition this morning. Give us our bread. Do you really believe God's concerned about your bread? That great God that we've been studying about, He is.

38:31 But He's concerned about something more, and that's what we're going to do this morning. You come to the place by His grace where His glory, His kingdom, and His will are the all-absorbing factors in your life. And when they are, then we'll see the bread of all our physical need met in the will and purpose of God. Why did God do so much for Paul in this respect?

38:57 Some of the miraculous provisions God made for his physical and material supply is because this man was wholly absorbed in the spiritual and glorifying God, in seeing His kingdom come and in doing His will. And you will notice that all the periods of the Church when the miraculous has been most manifested, supernatural evidences of the power and moving of God, it has always been in those periods of the Church when the people of God have been most absorbed in those first three petitions. And frankly, I'm suspicious of a lot of this emphasis on the supernatural in our day, that starting with, give me bread, give me this gift, give me this experience,

39:41 instead of starting with thy name, thy kingdom, thy will. And I'm convinced if we as the people of God are committed to those three things, God will do the miraculous, God will do the strange and the unusual and the marvelous. But I'd be scared to death if He did it, if we start with bread. So may the Lord help us to keep these things in perspective in our lives to keep these things in perspective in our praying, in our thinking and then by His grace we shall know what it is to cultivate the grace of conscious dependence and conscious gratitude to Him for the supply of all our need.

40:23 We're a rich people this morning, are we not, beloved? Nobody came here this morning hungry. All of us will go home to a spread of food that's more than adequate. Let's thank Him over our table today as never before.

40:37 And if, if we say our grace at the table there's no conscious gratitude let's tell the Lord, Lord, forgive my ungrateful heart. Let's go right around the circle and have the young children pray and ask God for a mighty baptism of the grace of gratitude. And I'm sure the Lord will be magnified and His heart will be delighted as we acknowledge Him as the One who supplies our bread. Let us pray.

41:08 Lord, we stand as a body of Thy people to confess today what ungrateful people we are by nature. And we acknowledge that this is sin. And we pray Thy forgiveness. O God, forgive us this debt that we've incurred by our ingratitude to Thee.

41:36 Here we are today the most affluent people that the world has ever known. Lord, forgive us this sin and yet we find it hard to have any true gratitude. O God, have mercy upon us. Teach us to pray each day and give up our bread that thus praying we may acknowledge Thee as the source of all our supply.

42:08 We may acknowledge Thy concern for the bread of physical sustenance and strength. We pray for any of Thy children who are committed to Thy glory and to Thy kingdom and to Thy will and they need the bread of physical supply. Lord, if financial meet that need today, if there are those who need Thy quickening in their physical frames, will Thou not be pleased to minister to them? Gracious God, whatever bread is needed today, grant that Thy children shall in childlike acknowledgment of their need pray from their hearts, give me

42:53 this day my daily bread. Grant it our Father that Thy name may be praised as we acknowledge Thy goodness and Thy grace for the sake of the Lord Jesus we ask Thee. Amen.