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| SERMON # 119 Give us this day our daily bread. MAT 6:11 Our text, "Give us this day our daily bread," teaches eight basic principles. I dealt with the first four in our last message, and with God's help I will deal with the last four in this message. The eight basic principles are:
THE FIRST PRINCIPLE taught us our need for humility, "Give us," is beggar's language. "Give us this day our daily bread" is a confession of unworthiness. We have forfeited all of His blessings; it is a plea for mercy and undeserved favor.THE SECOND PRINCIPLE our text teaches is God's condescension in looking unto such trifling needs as the daily bread of His created creatures, but He sustains and looks after the creatures which He has created. Take notice of PSA 103:13-14, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him." God condescends so low that He looks upon us as little children, even as our earthly father looked upon his little children. He looks upon us with that same tender, fatherly love, looking after our every need in the same, intimate relationship as a loving natural father does for his children.Verse 14 says, "For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust." God remembers that He created us of the dust of the earth; He didn't create us from the dirt or from sand, but from the dust. Think of this; the Scripture speaks of the nations "...as the small dust of the balance..." in ISA 40:15. Think of how insignificant the dust is. God used the dust to make man. He used the lowest and the highest substance; He used the dust of the earth and the breath of God. "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul," GEN 2:7. So to create man God used the most insignificant and the most significant elements. Now God condescends to look upon man in that light. THE THIRD PRINCIPLE taught us our need for moderation. We are not taught to ask for luxuries, but for food, shelter and clothing; the Lord Jesus taught us to ask for the necessities of life.What did King Solomon ask for when the Lord came to him asking what he desired? He asked for wisdom, one of the necessities for daily life; you and I need wisdom to train our children. We are living in times when Satan goes out as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He wants to devour our children and grandchildren as soon as they are born and bring them into his service. We need wisdom to train, to teach, and to bring up children in the fear, nurture, and the admonition of the Lord. It is important that we understand what the Lord teaches us when He began the teaching of the Lord's Prayer, "After this manner therefore pray ye;" He is teaching us the manner of prayer and the posture of the heart. He is teaching us what to bring before Him and in what manner we should do it. The manner of our prayer in "Give us this day our daily bread" is teaching the same principle of moderation as we learn from Agur, "...feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain," PRO 30:8-9. He is teaching moderation. THE FOURTH PRINCIPLE our text teaches is our need of faith and/or trust in God. To touch on this again we read in LUK 11:9-10, "And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." This is teaching us our dependency upon the Lord in faith.THE FIFTH PRINCIPLE taught by "Give us this day our daily bread" is our dependence upon God. We are dependent on God for our daily bread, for the very food that sits upon our table. It is quite a common thing to say grace before we eat, but in saying grace before we eat, do we really stop to ponder how dependent we are upon the Lord for that very food?When we realize how dependent we are upon God for a slice of bread, it teaches us the principle that we are dependent upon Him for all things, every necessity of life. We are dependent upon God for the formation of healthy seed to raise the grain to make our daily bread. Do we realize that when we put seed in the ground, every kernel of seed is a new creation? The seed must die before it will take root; each seed that is planted is a miracle of creation to have life within it, to be able to die to bring forth fruit. We are dependent upon the Lord for the seed that is sown in the field. Even if people do labor zealously, we are still dependent on the Lord for sunlight, moisture, and protection from all kinds of insects, frost, floods, and hail to raise food for our daily bread. We must realize that we are dependent on the Lord for all things. In PSA 78:46-48 we read what the Lord did in Egypt to show them their dependence on the Lord for their daily bread, "He gave also their increase unto the caterpillar, and their labour unto the locust. He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycamore trees with frost. He gave up their cattle also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts." We seldom stop to think about how dependent we are upon the Lord for our daily bread and every other necessity; we've only dealt with some of the ways we are dependent upon the Lord for our food, but we must depend upon Him for every necessity of life. The Psalmist saw his dependence upon God in PSA 147:17 when he said, "He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold?" If we have a frost at just the right time, there won't be one kernel of grain in the field. I have experienced this. When the grain is in bloom, one night of frost will freeze the blossom and not one kernel will form in the head. The field can look like it would produce a most abundant crop, but when you go in with the threshing machine, there isn't a kernel. We are dependent upon the Lord for the weather in many ways. Some find that the alfalfa for hay winter-killed because the cold or frost has damaged the crop, even fruit crops in the south can be damaged. We are dependent upon God for our economy to be able to buy our daily bread. Think about a situation where there was an abundance of food, but you didn't have the money to buy it. My brother was in New Guinea where he saw people holding out their hands, begging for a coin to buy food. There weren't any welfare programs like ours; if they didn't have money, they'd starve to death even though there was food in the stores. In our "Christian" country, we take care of the poor to a greater degree because we still operate on Christian principles to some extent, but there are places in the world where this is not true. "Give us this day our daily bread" teaches us the principle that we are dependent upon God for our health, our ability to work to make a living. "Give us this day our daily bread" teaches us the principle that we are dependent upon God for the ability to eat it, to digest it, and receive strength from it to be healthy. ACT 17:28 says, "For in him we live, and move, and have our being." We are dependent upon the Lord for every breath in our nostrils, and this is what it teaches us: we have to come before the Lord with beggar's language, "give us" a slice of bread. When we see our dependence upon God, we learn to understand 1CO 4:7, "For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?" We must see how everything we have is from the Lord. In JAM 1:17 we read, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." God is the owner of all things; therefore, we must come to Him for the smallest blessing such as our daily bread. We read in PSA 50:10-12, "For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fullness thereof." We must see that everything belongs to the Lord, and therefore, we must come to Him for everything we need. We learn from the history of Elijah that the Lord wants His people to come to Him day by day in humble dependence. Elijah was a highly favored prophet of the Lord; in fact, he is one of two persons in the history of the Bible that did not die. The Lord took him to heaven. He was one of the greatest, beloved of the Lord. 1KI 17:6 tells us how dependent Elijah was on the Lord, "And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook." Consider this, the ravens brought him food in the morning, but he was still dependent on the Lord for his food in the evening. He looked to the Lord for his daily bread, and it was not given in an abundance where he had a six month's supply or a three year supply. The cruse of oil and the barrel of meal were only replenished one meal at a time; there was only a handful of meal and a little oil in the cruse, but it did not run dry. It was re-supplied by the Lord to the amount needed for one more meal as told in 1KI 17:16, "And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by Elijah." Notice the method the Lord uses in this example; the Lord replenished their food on a daily basis, one day, one meal at a time. Each time the meal and the oil were all used, yet the Lord replenished it again just enough for one more meal. Has the cruse of oil, or the barrel of meal run out at your table? Has that oil run dry? Hasn't the Lord provided for your daily bread? What a shame that when the Lord provides in abundance, many times we acknowledge Him less; the more abundantly He provides, the less we acknowledge our dependence on Him. We see our dependence upon Him much more for our daily bread when we do not have that abundance. THE SIXTH PRINCIPLE taught by "Give us this day our daily bread" is our need of labor. We may not sit back, in a fatalistic way, waiting for the Lord to provide the things for which we prayed. We must earn our bread through much labor as a result of the curse God laid upon Adam in the Garden of Eden. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," GEN 3:19. The principle that we must labor is taught throughout Scriptures. In 2TH 3:10 we read, "For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat." That means one must work if one wishes to eat; Scripture teaches the need to labor for our daily bread.2TH 3:11-12 says, "For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread." This is another teaching of the necessity to work. PRO 13:4 says, "The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat." The soul of the person who works diligently will prosper. We read in PRO 24:30- 34, "I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man." The Lord teaches us that He provides, but we are not to sit idly by and wait for Him to provide; we must labor and be diligent. ECC 10:18 teaches us, "By much slothfulness the building decayeth; and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through." ROM 12:10-11 says, "Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another; Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord." In other words, when we are diligent in our business, we are serving the Lord as long as we are doing it by faith and in the right spirit. We are dependent upon God for laborers to till the ground and sow the seed. We are dependent upon the Lord for these things to bring us our daily bread. We are dependent upon God for laborers to supply equipment, to raise the grain, and to mill the flour. In the atheist countries there is such a problem because there is no incentive; they have no Christian spirit, and they do not see the Lord's hand in anything. They are sluggards; they often do not have the people or equipment to take care of the crops that are raised. Much food goes to waste in the field for lack of diligence to bring it in. One time I was driving through Chicago with my family. The children and I were visiting when one of them said, "Look at all the cars, Dad. You're in the wrong business; if we were making automobiles, think of all the cars we could be selling." "We should be selling trucks; look at the trucks." Then another child said, "Look at all the tires; think what a business we could have if we sold tires." This conversation continued until my oldest son said, "Dad, look at all the people, and they all have to eat. Maybe we should raise food." We were farmers. Stop and analyze this; God has provided those who till the ground to raise the food that we may have it in such abundance. So we must see how dependent we are on the Lord. We read in PRO 20:4, "The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing." The Lord provides the zeal of those who plow, that they do this in a timely way so they may harvest not only a crop to provide food, but also the seed. We depend upon the Lord for all these things. In atheist countries people have no incentive to work. Why? They live and work in an atheistic atmosphere, usually depending on the government to provide their food. What do we see today? Atheism in many parts of the world is causing famine. People refuse to work; they are sluggards, and they are facing starvation. Many of the countries in the eastern block, communist countries, publicly admit that they are facing starvation. Why? The Lord has not given them the incentive to work. Even freedom will not bring immediate relief. What is needed is a turning back to the Lord to supply their every need. ROM 1:28 says, "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, (a mind void of sound judgment), to do those things which are not convenient." In Russia it is said that they have such a problem with vodka and drunkenness, with folding of the hands to sleep and slumber, and of idleness; they are in fact facing starvation. "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind," so we do not realize how dependent we are upon the Lord for the laborers to raise the grain and other foods. "Give us this day our daily bread," teaches us the principle that we are dependent upon God to bless all our labors. In PSA 127:1 we read, "Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." Even if we do everything right, we are still dependent upon the Lord for success. I remember one year when the Lord laid upon my heart that He would give me a good crop, but this did not mean I could sit in the house with folded hands waiting for the Lord to give me this good crop. I had to labor with all diligence, but knowing the Lord had promised He would bless it. I tilled, cultivated, seeded the best seed, fertilized, and did everything I could do to raise a good crop because the Lord had already promised He would bless it. He must bless our labors; we are dependent upon His blessing, one night's frost and we would have nothing. True prayer is always connected with urgency and diligence in good works. When we pray for the Lord to provide, it is in blessing the work of our hands as we labor to provide. We must not sit back with a fatalistic attitude waiting for the Lord to provide, and this pertains to spiritual as well as physical things. We cannot ask for spiritual blessings for our souls while we sit in sloth, not doing what we know our hands ought to be doing. We must do, obey, and walk in the ways of the Lord; we must ask the Lord's blessing in the way of the exercise of saving faith. We are to earn our bread through honest, upright, diligent labor. God rewards the diligent. PRO 10:4 says, "He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich." The diligent do their work industriously, heartily, as unto the Lord. PRO 13:4 tells us, "The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat." Some people have the philosophy that if it can wait until tomorrow, don't do it today; or if it can wait until this afternoon, don't do it this morning. I have seen people who would leave the breakfast dishes on the table until lunch time. They could not set the table for dinner until they first did the dishes from the previous meal. How long does it take to do dishes after the food particles have dried on the dishes? Wouldn't it have been a lot easier to do them immediately after eating and put them away? You see, we need diligence in all of our labor; as soon as the opportunity is there to do what needs to be done, we should do it because our hands may find something else to do later. ECC 9:10 says, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest." Instead of going on with our other chores, leaving something drag, we should do the job with diligence. Scripture says, "The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing..." If you have something that needs to be done and you do nothing for hours, days, or weeks but look at it, what does it profit you? In that amount of time you could have had it done, and you would have avoided the drudgery of waiting to get it done. This is what we must see when the Lord says we must be diligent. We must do our work with diligence, as soon as possible, then it is done. Labor in itself is a blessing; it was there before the fall. Before Adam and Eve fell, they were the keepers of the Garden. The thorns, thistles, and sweat were attached to it through the fall, but the labor in itself is a blessing; it is a privilege. If you talk to a handicapped person who is not able to labor, you will find most often that it is one of the greatest burdens of their life that they cannot work. It is a great privilege that we may labor and do the things the Lord has given us to do. One time a gentleman came to me wanting many responsibilities assigned to him. I told him that in the Army I was taught that until one could prove his responsibility in emptying a trash can, you could never give him any greater responsibility. Until you are fully responsible for taking care of the small things in life, don't ever expect the Lord to give the responsibility of taking care of greater things. My Father used to say, "If you take care of the pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves." The principle is the same. We must look after little things. My Army captain said, "We must learn to pay fine attention to small details." If we learn to do that, the bigger things become dissolved in it; when we take care of the small things, they are not an obstacle to the bigger things. We must be able to ask the Lord to bless our labors, to bless the labors He has given us for our daily food. We need to examine our hearts to see if we separate our religion from our business. This is quite important. To those who would say, "You have to separate your business from your religion," I would reply, "I'm sorry, but if I have a business that is against my religion, or if I have a religion that is not compatible with my business, then I have either a wrong religion or a wrong business." I would not dare go on my knees and beg the Lord to bless my business if I ran a bar, but if I am raising food for people, I dare ask the Lord to bless that business. We may not think that we should ask the Lord to separate our religion and our business. THE SEVENTH PRINCIPLE taught by, "Give us this day our daily bread" is our need of generosity according to the second table of the law. The prayer, or petition, is "Give us this day our daily bread." It isn't a selfish prayer seeking something for me or my family, but it is a desire for something for us. "Give us this day our daily bread" is plural; it is a family prayer with concern for others as well as for ourselves. When I say family, I mean the family of God. All men were created in the image of God; if we see starvation anywhere in the world, it should cause us to pray for them even though they don't come to our door. We should be praying for us.This runs in the same vein of thought as MAT 6:9, "After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name." The Lord's Prayer begins with "Our Father." The Lord Jesus was the author of that prayer, and He was speaking of His Father. It is a family thing, "Our Father," not "my Father." We are not to pray, "Give me my daily bread," but "Give us our daily bread." As Jesus said in MAT 22:40, "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Which two commandments? "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," MAT 22: 37-39. We should have as much desire for the Lord to furnish the necessities of our neighbour, of our fellow man, as we want for ourselves. Let us also refer to that same instance in the Gospel According to Matthew, "Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets," MAT 7:9-12. It is very significant that we must come before God, asking to receive. Verse:12 says, "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." This implies the question, do we want forgiveness from our fellow man? The lesson is: ask and ye shall receive. It is hard for us as human beings to go to our fellow man and ask for forgiveness. Scripture says, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find." If we need something from our fellow man, if it is something he would give us in the way of a benefit, are we able to ask? See what God is teaching us; "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." This is the teaching of Christ; we are to be able to humble ourselves to our fellow man as well as before the Lord. We are to do to them as we would have them do to us. Our work must be mingled with faith. In JAM 2:15-16 we read, "If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?" What profit is there if you talk as if you have faith and will do all those things, but do not do anything about it? What are you really praying for if you say, "Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled," and do not give them the things you have that they need? Praying then for a miracle, because you don't want to share, is an empty prayer; you are actually praying for someone else to share. THE EIGHTH PRINCIPLE taught by "Give us this day our daily bread," is our daily need for the Bread of Life. When we have the Spirit of Christ, we will understand 2CO 5:17, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." We have a daily need for the Bread of Life. The bread and the wine of the communion teaches us how we are to be dissolved into one body, into oneness of purpose, and oneness of spirit. The Bread of Life, which is the bread of Christ's body, is needed daily.A true hunger and thirst after righteousness will teach these same eight principles in a spiritual sense. Jesus said in MAT 5:6, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." This is a spiritual hunger and thirst after righteousness, i.e., conformity of life to divine law, conformity to the image of Christ. Thereby we are brought into oneness with Him, and losing our identity, that we, in Christ, become one. True spiritual humility teaches that in a spiritual sense, we are but dust. A spiritual hunger and thirst teaches the condescension of God in noticing one who is so spiritually unworthy. We need spiritual food on a daily basis as well as or more than we need the physical food. We need the spiritual bread to feed our souls if we are to remain spiritually healthy. The Lord's supper teaches us the family relationship of His church. Watch for this teaching in 1CO 10:16-17, "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread." What is the communion of the blood of Christ? The wine that is used for the Lord's Supper is made of many berries or grapes that are blended into one wine. Every grape loses its identity; they are dissolved into one. Do you see the family relationship? The bread which we break is communion of the body of Christ. The kernels of grain are ground into flour, and the flour is made into one bread. All the kernels lose their identity; this is the teaching: there are no separate identities to these kernels. The church is spoken of as the body of Christ in EPH 4:15-16, "But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." This important teaching tells us of the oneness of the church; the Lord is showing us His daily, condescending care that He takes for every member of that body. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of thee." The hand cannot say to the foot, "I have no need of thee." Each member of the body is equally a part of the body as any of the honored members. We can not be the head because Christ is the head; we may not be as the hand; we may not be as the leg or foot, but suppose we are only as a single hair. A hair is very insignificant, but it is a part of the body. MAT 10:30 says, "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered." Every member of the body of Christ is numbered. However insignificant we may seem in ourselves or to the world, if we are in Christ we are a part of the body. No one gives much thought to a hair that falls out while combing one's hair, to remember that it was a part of the body that was detached. What a consolation to know that even one single hair of that body is not forgotten by our heavenly Father. Each hair has significance. God condescends so low that He recognizes every member of His body, never forgetting one, even though in our own eyes, the eyes of the world, or the church, we seem very insignificant. He will never forget one; He says, "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered," MAT 10:30. So if you are a member of the body of Christ, however insignificant, there is still no danger of being forgotten before God; that is the tremendous blessedness of the condescension of God and how His love goes to every one of His dear children. Amen. |
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