Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

As Jesus moves on in the Lord’s Prayer, he takes us from “Hallowed by Thy name” and “Thy kingdom come” and “Thy will be done” to “Give us this day our daily bread.” (Mat 6.9-11.) And it seems that Jesus is taking us from the sublime to the mundane, from the spiritual to the carnal, from great things we must pray for to something relatively unimportant we are permitted to pray for. But this is just another area in which our thoughts are not God’s thoughts (Isa 55.8). We are the ones who have divided up the world into “spiritual” and “physical” – not God. We are the ones who bemoan our physical needs and dependence – not God. God is the one who created us not only to live by every word that proceeds from his mouth, but also to need daily bread (Deut 8.3; Mat 4.4). This is a glory to God, and it should be a glory to us. After all, our first parents were just as dependent on God in the Garden of Eden, and we will be just as dependent on God in the fully perfected new heavens and new earth. Our complete dependence on God, spiritually and physically, is a function of our being his creatures and his children, not a result of the fall. Indeed, sin came into the world when man sought to be independent from God. This is just another way in which, by putting his prayer in our mouths, Jesus is not only changing the world, he is changing us. I hope you enjoy the sermon. Thanks for listening. –Alan Burrow