resume our study this morning of the Lord's Prayer. We've been going through the Lord's Prayer one petition at a time, examining them in detail. But as I've noted in the past, we're still only scratching the surface of the depth of this prayer. And again, I was faced with that same challenge this week So, again, keep in mind that this is not a complete treatment of this fourth petition, but we're merely scratching the surface. So we come to this fourth petition, which is, give us this day our daily bread. So, Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6. I'll begin reading verses 9 through 15. And then I'm going to skip down to verses 25 through 34. Because verses 25 through 34 that talk about anxiety and worry relate directly to this petition regarding our daily bread. Let's give our careful attention to the living and abiding Word of God. Our Lord says, Pray then like this, Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. If you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. Now skip down to verse 25. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, And all these things will be added to you. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Give us this day our daily bread. With this fourth petition, we seem to come crashing down to earth. In the first three petitions, our minds have been lifted towards God, towards His glory, and towards our eternal destiny. And in those first three petitions, we saw that there's a very logical flow to them. They contain a depth of theological truth. But after these first three petitions, we come from the glorious heights of heaven, down to ask for bread. The loftiness seems to be lost. It seems to be almost out of place. It seems to be an incongruous petition. As we will see, it's not out of place. It reflects the intimate care of the Lord for us as His creatures. God knows that we are both body and soul. He seeks to meet the need for both of those things. Matthew Henry pointed out that the reason that this request for our physical needs is where it is, he says that it is because our natural well-being is necessary for our spiritual well-being in this world. In other words, God gives us the physical necessities of this life in order that we can carry out our spiritual duties. And we know this on a very practical level. Think about how difficult it is for us to carry out our spiritual duties when we are sick, when we are sleep-deprived. It's very hard to read the Bible, to pray, to pay attention to a sermon when you're physically ill. And so the Lord gives us these physical things in order that we would use them to serve Him. So God gives us food and clothing, health, physical strength, in order that we might use those things to hallow His name, to proclaim His kingdom, to do His will. So this petition is not out of place, and we ask for these things for God's glory, that He would enable us to use them for His glory. Now, as has been our practice in the study of the Lord's Prayer, before we jump into this first petition, I want to just make some general comments about prayer, and I'll draw your attention to your bulletin. We're very blessed, and this is easy for us to forget, we're very blessed to have in our standards, our confession in our catechism, excellent expositions of the Lord's Prayer and of prayer in general. And I would remind you not to take these things for granted. I know most of us are well acquainted with the Shorter Catechism, but I want to read questions 98 and 99, because they summarize very essential truths about prayer. So please, please hear these things. Question 98 asks, what is prayer? Prayer is an offering of our desires to God for things agreeable to His will in the name of Christ with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgement of His mercies. Question 99, what rule has God given for our direction in prayer? The whole word of God is of use to direct us in prayer But the special rule of direction is that form of prayer which Christ taught his disciples commonly called the Lord's Prayer. I just want to make three very brief observations about prayer from these two questions. Question 99 notes that the specific Rule of prayer that has been given to us is the Lord's prayer. This is what the Lord taught us. He taught us how to pray. And what we have found in modern day evangelicalism is an objection. It may not be a conscious objection, but nevertheless it's an objection to the use of form prayers in worship and in private devotion to God. There's this idea that somehow it is more spiritual for us to pray freely and pray on our own. And we're reminded here that prayer doesn't come naturally. This is something we need to be taught. And so we have to ask ourselves, what does it say about the church? What does it say about us that we think that we know better how to pray than how our Lord taught us? that there's this discarding of the Lord's Prayer. And I think we've seen already, we've only gotten through three petitions, but we've seen the depth and how it really helps us to order our prayers and to think rightly about our life in this world, to think rightly about God, and to pray in a way that is glorifying to Christ. So this is what the Lord has taught us and we would do well to make use of it. Secondly, In Luke's account of the Lord's Prayer, some disciples come to him and say, teach us how to pray just like John taught his disciples to pray. And there's an interesting element of that. That means that John's disciples were recognized by their prayers. They prayed in a certain way. And it should be so for us. We should be recognized and identified by our prayers. Prayer is something that should unite us and bring us together. But instead, today, our prayers are all over the map. And in fact, I'll bet you most of us, if we heard somebody pray, we could very easily identify that that person was a Roman Catholic or a Charismatic or an Anglican, all by the way that they pray. But here we are given direction on how to pray. It's something that should unite us. It's something that should mark us out and identify us as Christ's disciples. Lastly, when we pray, we're not only praying in the way that Jesus taught us, but we are also following His example. I mean, think about this. Jesus, the sinless Son of God, prayed. And he prayed often. In your bulletin I have a few references, and keep in mind these are just a few from Matthew. Consider these, where Jesus prayed. After he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountainside by himself to pray. Matthew 19, 13. Then the children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. And then in Gethsemane in Matthew 26, 36. Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and He said to His disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray. Jesus prayed. He prayed at His baptism. He prayed before His transfiguration. At times He prayed all night. He prayed before He chose His twelve disciples. And I would submit to you that if the sinless Son of God needed to pray, How much more do we need to pray? Now, as we put our focus into this fourth petition, again, you'll notice question 104, which handles this petition, simply asks, what are we praying for in this fourth petition? In this fourth petition, We pray 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. It is God's free gift to us. We're asking for a competent portion, not for abundance, and that we may enjoy His blessing with them. So let's first consider the substance which we are asking for in this petition. We're asking for bread. And very interesting just to think about that we have been created with needs. We need food, water, and sleep. And even after the fall, our needs have increased greatly. We now need clothes, we need medicine, we need shelter, we need laws to protect us from evil people. We have needs. So in this prayer, we are asking that God would give us these things that we need. And this is the idea here. In the ancient world, bread was simply a generic term that was used to express the necessities of life. Now, there are some commentators who have really noted that this petition seems to be out of place and therefore they've tried to spiritualize this. But we are taught to pray for our physical needs. Consider what A.W. Pink says. He says, our daily bread refers primarily to the supply of our temporal needs. With the Hebrews, bread was a generic term signifying the necessities and conveniences of this life, such as food, clothing, and housing. Martin Luther adds, everything necessary for the preservation of this life is bread, including food, a healthy body, good weather, house, home, wife, children, good government, and peace. In this petition, we're taught to ask for the necessities of this life. And we're taught to expect God to give them to us. Think about that. God promises to give us these things. It's an amazing truth that often passes us by. And this is the amazement expressed by the psalmist in Psalm 8. Listen again to verses 3 and 4. Listen to the amazement. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? He's saying, you're the God who created the heavens and the earth, the almighty, all-powerful God. Who am I? that you should care for me, that you should give me my daily bread. I think we also learn from that psalm that we have no right to bread. We have no right to the necessities of this life. We live in a society that is obsessed with rights. We think we have the right to food, to health care, to a home. Whatever it might be, necessity wise, we feel like we have the right to these things. The Bible teaches something very, very politically incorrect in this regard. Scripture teaches that all people are born into this world in sin and they have the right to only one thing Judgment That is the only thing that we have the right to to be judged and condemned for our sin So we have no right to the good things of this life even the basic necessities of food and clothing. I It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed by God's wrath. Because of our sin, we have forfeited any right to the good things of this life. So when we ask for bread, we should come with humility, acknowledging that God is a merciful God. And every bit of food that we eat, Necessity that we are given is a testimony to the infinite mercy of our Savior. Because we deserve none of these things. And that is why we follow the example of Christ in giving thanks before we eat. Too often this becomes just a routine to us. It's something we do out of habit. Before we eat and we pray, it should be a profound act of worship. Acknowledging and thanking God as the provider of all of our necessities. Every time we eat together, we're afforded an opportunity to remember God's mercy, remember His provision. And remember Paul said, whether you eat or you drink, do it to the glory of God. And we have an opportunity to do that. Eating becomes this profound act of worship. So the substance we are asking for, bread, we are asking for food to nourish us, for health, for shelter, for clothing, for godly rulers to protect us. These are the things that we need and these are the things that God will provide. even though we don't deserve them. So this is the substance that we ask for. Let's consider the source of these necessities, and the source, of course, is God. We're making our request to our Father who is in heaven. That is how this prayer begins. So this petition recognizes that God is the sustainer of life. God is the source of our food and all the necessities, so we are turning to Him as the source of these things. If we are going to have food, if we are going to have the things that we need, then God must be the one to give them. And it has become easier than ever for us to forget that the Lord is the source of our food. with technology and the vast amount of food and product that is available to us, it's very easy for us to feel self-sufficient. But there's no place for this kind of thinking, especially in the life of a Christian. No one is self-sufficient. God is the source of these things. Whether believer or unbeliever, All of our needs are supplied by the Lord. The psalmist says of the unbeliever that God is not in all his thoughts. God is not in all his thoughts. And I fear too often when it comes to the necessities of life, God is not in our thoughts. Food is taken for granted. It's almost look upon today as something that is man-made. I mean, it's hard to believe that there are children out there in low-income communities that don't know that milk comes from a cow. And I'm not making this up. They don't know that milk comes from a cow. They think it's something that comes out of a carton that you get off of a shelf. Food has become denatured. Man now views himself as the source of food. Clearly, this is an illusion. We had just a very, very small taste of this this summer with the drought. We see that it doesn't take much to disrupt our food supply. It does not come from us. We are not in control of it. It comes from the Lord. So this prayer is both a petition, meaning we're asking for something, but it's also an affirmation. That is to say, we are petitioning or asking God to provide our food and our necessities, but we're also affirming that every good thing comes from Him. Every good thing that we've received in the past has come from Him. He is the source. Now the supplication that's reflected in the word give. Supplication simply means to ask for something, to petition. God in prayer. Give us this day our daily bread. It's a supplication. We're encouraged to ask for something. And again, this passes us by, but this is an amazing blessing. That we are even given the right to ask God. He invites us to ask Him. Not only do we not have the right to the necessities of this life, we have no right to even ask for them. Consider that for a moment. After the fall, we lost any right to come to God and ask Him for things. Even the things that we need. And we see this principle in our judicial system. Somebody commits a crime. If you murder someone, You lose your rights. You go to prison. You lose your right to freedom. You can't go to the warden and ask him if you can go to the baseball game. You've lost that right to ask. How much more for us who have offended the God of the universe, how much more have we lost the right to make these requests? But here Christ comes to us and He graciously invites us to ask, give us this day our daily bread. So it's a tremendous blessing just to be able to ask. Now this invites a question, especially for us as Westerners. How can we sincerely ask for something that we already have in abundance? In other words, this prayer makes perfect sense for a person in the first century. People who are paid daily wages. For them, one day of illness and injury would spell disaster. But for us, we have an abundance of food. We have an abundance of these necessities. So why should we pray this prayer when we have such an abundance of these things? Well, three brief reasons. First, we ask this because our necessities could be taken from us. They could be taken from us. It happens every day. I mean, someone loses their house in a fire. They lose everything. Someone loses their ability to work or earn a living through an injury, a head injury. It could all be taken from us in an instant. So by asking God for the daily supply of what we need, we are acknowledging our dependency upon Him. Not only for the actual substance, but for our ability to continue to work. For Him to protect what we do have. Second, we should also pray this petition because what we have will profit us nothing unless God blesses it to us. What we have will be of no value to us unless God blesses it to us. In other words, it's God who both gives the food and makes it to nourish our body. For many people, especially in our country, food becomes not a blessing, but a curse. The abundance of food becomes the undoing of many people. Many people destroy their health and their lives because of gluttony. In the same way, we need money to live. This is part of our daily bread. But yet, how many people are destroyed because they have money in abundance, and they come to love it? So we must pray, even in times of abundance, that the Lord would give us what we need and bless those things to us. Thirdly, we are required to pray this way because of love. This petition goes far beyond your personal needs, your personal necessities. Give us this day our daily bread. The Lord is teaching us love and compassion towards others. So though we may have an abundance, there are many of our brothers and sisters who don't. And so we're praying for them. We're not just praying for our own house, but we're praying for all Christians across this earth. Let's consider the ones who seek. That's reflected in this word, us, in this prayer. Give us this day our daily bread. As we've noted in the past, this sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, is directed at Christians. It's directed to Christians alone. So this prayer is for us. It is Christians that are urged to seek their daily bread. Christians are the only ones that are given this privilege. Now yes, God does in his common grace provide for unbelievers, that is clear. But God binds himself only to provide for us as his children. David wrote in Psalm 37, 25, I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread. So this is for us. The Lord promises to provide for us. He binds himself to provide for our needs. And it is also useful to consider the fact that we were created with a need for food. We don't think about that very much. We were created this way. From the beginning, food has been a critical part of our existence. In fact, food has been an area in which man has been able to demonstrate his obedience and dependence upon God. Even in that initial covenant of works, even before the fall, the test of obedience, what did it revolve around? It revolved around food. You shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The manna in the wilderness was given for the purpose of testing the people of Israel. It's fascinating. It wasn't given primarily for their sustenance, but as a test of their obedience and dependence upon God. Listen to Exodus 16.14. It brings out this idea of them being tested. Then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven, For you and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, that they may walk in my law." Very interesting. No mention of, you know, I'm giving you this bread so you don't starve to death, to sustain you. I'm giving it to test you, that you may walk in my law. So our Lord desires that we seek Him for our daily bread. It's almost this This daily reminder that we are dependent upon God for our sustenance. So this petition should naturally flow from those who belong to Christ. If you're a child of your Heavenly Father, then you realize that He is your Maker, He is your Sustainer, He is the One that you depend upon. It's important to know that this petition doesn't excuse us from hard work or generosity. We're required to work hard. That is clear from the scriptures. We're also required to be generous. In 2 Corinthians 9, Paul says, He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. So we are to seek God, we are to depend upon Him. And the need that we have been created with for food is a daily opportunity to pause and remember that we are dependent on Him and to show our obedience to Him. Finally, consider the schedule. Give us this day our daily bread. Notice the emphasis. There's that double emphasis there. Give us this day our daily bread. It's the same idea that shows up in Exodus 16, which I just read. Gather a day's portion every day. There's this emphasis that the schedule on which we ask for this is daily. This word daily is much ink has been spilled by commentators over this word. It's used only here and in the Lord's Prayer as it is recorded in Luke. Those are the only two occurrences in Scripture. As far as we can tell, it refers to a soldier's daily rations. soldier's daily rations, which would have been a small barley loaf and a handful of corn, and maybe, occasionally, a very small fish. It was very basic, just enough for the day. And it could be here that Jesus' words harken back to that manna in the wilderness. You know, the people were to gather one day's portion for the day. It was designed to test them, to teach them dependence upon God. And here we're taught where our focus should be when it comes to the necessities of life. And consider this, consider how we reverse things in our mind. So when it comes to the necessities of life, we're told not to worry about tomorrow, but really to focus on today, to ask for our daily bread. But think about what we do. We very often think about the future. We worry about our provisions and our necessities. But yet when it comes to our sin and our temptation, when we should be thinking about the future, when we should be thinking about the consequences of our sin, Satan has a very clever way of saying, don't worry about tomorrow. We have this reverse. When it comes to our sin and temptation, we don't worry about tomorrow when we should worry about tomorrow. But when it comes to our necessities, we dwell on tomorrow. We worry. We are anxious. And so here we are called, we are taught what our focus should be. We're not to worry about tomorrow. We're to focus on today. Tomorrow has enough worries for its own. And so praying this prayer daily, I think, is very useful for us. I think all of us struggle with anxiety and worry about the future. And our Lord knows our hearts, and here we have this very simple prayer to remind us. He's going to provide, and we shouldn't worry about tomorrow. And with this daily schedule, asking for this daily, the Lord really protects us from two extremes. The one extreme of having things in abundance and coming to trust in ourselves and forget the Lord, and being poor and stealing and bringing dishonor to the name of the Lord. Listen to Proverbs 38 and 9. Chapter 30, verses 8 and 9. It brings out these two extremes. Again, this is a prayer. Remove far from me falsehood and lying. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food that is needful for me, 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." It's a very wonderful balance. We're to ask for our daily bread. and expect the Lord to give it to us, to protect us from these two extremes. We would be fed with a food that is needful, lest we would deny the Lord and say, who is he? So it teaches us contentment, to be content with what we have, and to rest in the fact that the Lord knows what is best for us. And here we learn, you know, what But doctors are just now discovering that moderation is probably what is best for us. We see that with food, but I think also spiritually. We need to be reminded of our dependence upon God. Now, in closing, let's shift gears from these physical needs and consider these headings, the substance, the source, the supplication, the seekers, and the schedule. Let's consider those in light of the spiritual meal that we will share today. Consider the substance in the Lord's Supper. It's fascinating that the Lord uses these very ordinary elements of food to symbolize what Christ has done, to symbolize to us our dependence upon Him. It's very interesting, in a very simple yet beautiful way it communicates to us our need for Christ. He is the substance. This is just ordinary bread and ordinary wine, but they point us, they're a sign pointing us to Christ. He is the substance that we really seek in the Lord's Supper. We're seeking Christ and His saving work, the benefits applied to our hearts. What about the source? the source of the blessing in the Lord's Supper. We become very man-centered and our confession reminds us that the blessing that comes from the Lord's Supper has nothing to do with the minister administering the Lord's Supper. But it comes from our triune God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are the source of the blessing in this simple spiritual meal. So we're reminded that He is the source of our salvation, our sanctification, our eventual glorification. Our God is the source of these things. What about our supplication? What should we ask for as we come to the table? Well, the Lord has obviously given this to us as a gift, as a sacrament. The sacraments are Our signs to strengthen us. The Lord knows that we are weak. We need these physical signs to point us to spiritual realities. And so we're to ask God for faith as we approach the table. That we would be able to look beyond what's happening here in the physical. to what is happening in the spiritual, to what Christ has done, to what he continues to do for us, and what he will do for us one day. So we should ask for faith and expect to receive greater faith through this sacrament. Now, what about the seekers? Obviously it would be us, it would be sinners who have been redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ. He has given this meal to saved sinners. So, what does it say about us that seek? Well, it says that we are indeed sinful. We need this visible sign of the body and blood of Christ to remind us of the cost of our salvation. To remind us of the depth of our sin. To remind us that we should examine ourselves. We're hidden But yet we're also reminded that we are His children. We are urged to seek His blessing in the Lord's Supper. He promises to give it to us in abundance. Finally, what about the schedule? This could open a whole can of worms. How often should we partake of the Lord's Supper? As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, We proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. So, regardless of how often we do it, when we do celebrate it, we should make diligent use of it. I think it's wonderful that our spiritual provision follows the same pattern of our daily physical bread. God's mercies are said to be new every day. And so just as we are given our daily bread of the necessities that we need to sustain us physically, we're promised to be given His mercies every day that He might strengthen us. So we are invited as His people to pray, give us this day our daily bread. And this should comfort us, that our Lord knows our needs, He desires to meet them, And for this reason, we don't have to worry about tomorrow. And ultimately, our need for food points us to our need for Christ and His righteousness given to us. It points us to our constant dependency upon Him spiritually. Be mindful of these things as we come to His table, as Christ is shown forth to us in these simple elements. Let's pray.