Open your bibles to Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6. The last Sunday of each month, we have been going through a different part of the lord's prayer. Tonight, we're halfway through as we look at give us this day our daily bread. And you should have the prayer itself printed in your worship guide, but I'm gonna read, a few chapters before that beginning in verse 5.
Joel Brooks:And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you. And when he prayed, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.
Joel Brooks:Do not be like them. For your father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray them like this. Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Joel Brooks:Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Pray with me. Lord, we gather together as your children to to sing songs, to read words, to spend time with one another. Yet all that is worthless apart from your spirit coming and being with us, allowing us to truly meet with Jesus in this place.
Joel Brooks:So we pray that that would happen. For, God, we want to know you. That is our heart's desire. Lord, for that to happen, you're gonna have to override a lot of obstacles that we bring in to this place. Closed minds, hardened hearts, distractions.
Joel Brooks:God, I pray that you would melt all those things away and that we would truly hear from you. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:Well, we're finally at the the part of the Lord's prayer in which we get to ask for things, which of course is what we associate prayer with. You might not want to admit it, but really when you boil down what you think prayer is, it's about asking God for things that you want. Prayer is is asking God for a good job, or maybe for a good house. It's asking for good health or a good lab report to come in. It's asking God for beautiful weather today that you could enjoy or for God to bless some jelly donut and somehow make it nutritious for your body that you might serve him.
Joel Brooks:And so, part of prayer certainly is this, part of prayer is asking God for stuff that you want. But it's important to understand where Jesus places this prayer in the lord's prayer. And I mentioned it before that this is at the midway point of the lord's prayer, which means that there were several things leading up to it. And as these things leading up to this petition of give us this day our daily bread, it's those things that really frame how we are supposed to treat this petition of asking God for things. So the order is very important.
Joel Brooks:The first thing, if you remember that the Lord taught us to pray was our father. We looked at that months back. And when we say our father, we're reminded that when we come to him, we come to him as a child going before his or her father. And and there's a great confidence in this, and there's also a humility that goes with this. The confidence is that when we get to call godfather, we know that he's not gonna cast us out, that he is going to accept us because we are his child.
Joel Brooks:And so that allows us to boldly go before him. But there's also a great humility that goes with this. Because when we call god father, we're acknowledging that we're children, that we lack understanding, that we often do stupid things, and we often make silly requests. We're acknowledging that he is far wiser and more powerful than we are when we come to him with our request. You know, Lauren and I, when we had Caroline, we decided that we wanted to be the yes parents.
Joel Brooks:You know, we grew up in, families that we thought always were saying no to everything, and so we said, we're gonna say yes. Our goal is we're gonna say yes more than we say no as parents. Okay? We're like, yes. We're gonna do that.
Joel Brooks:Well, that's impossible. Okay? It is impossible as a parent to say yes more than you say no. You know, can we have ice cream for breakfast? No.
Joel Brooks:Can we have cake for breakfast? No. Can we no. No. You can't have any kind of dessert, anything like that for breakfast.
Joel Brooks:No. Can we, can we go to Disneyland tomorrow? No. You can't go to Disneyland tomorrow. Can you play another 100 games of UNO with me?
Joel Brooks:No. 2? I'll play 2 games of UNO with you. But you're bombarded with these requests, and I feel like I'm a broken record constantly saying, no, no, no, no, no. But I have to.
Joel Brooks:I mean, I I look back at some of the requests my children make, and half of them would kill them if I were to say yes. The other half would probably kill me. And so, I I have to say no. And I say no because I actually love them, and I care for them. Bad parents say yes to everything because they don't care if their children get hurt.
Joel Brooks:They don't really care about them, they just want them to go away, yes, do that, yes, do this, yes, Get out of my presence. Yes. Fine. But God is a God who loves us, and that means at times he says, no, it's good parenting. And so when we come to God with our request, we come to him as a child going to his father, understanding God loves us, God accepts us, but often we request stupid things that any good parent should say no to.
Joel Brooks:And he's wiser, and he's far more caring than we are. We can't think of God like some celestial vending machine, in which you put in a few tokens of praise to get what you want. I think if we were to admit it, probably a lot of us treat God that way. You know, if we just want a minor thing, you know, small something, you only have to put in a little bit of praise like, okay, dear God, bless this food. Alright.
Joel Brooks:But, but if you have, you know, a slightly bigger request, maybe you, you need to do well on a test or do well in a job interview. You're like, alright. All almighty god, you know everything. You are really wise, and I love you. Could you help me with this?
Joel Brooks:And then, if it's something, you know, really, really big, maybe you're fighting some disease, or you're, you're about to move unless you can make a payment, and so, you need a lot of money. And then, you're just like, you're digging these things out. Almighty creator God, you are the alpha, omega. If you didn't know what that meant, I meant you're the beginning, and you're the end. And, and did I already say omnipotent?
Joel Brooks:You are all these things, and God, would you just do this for me? And then, if if you don't get what you want, you you think, well, maybe I had a bad coin, maybe I said a heresy, you know, I don't know what it was. Maybe I didn't offer enough. And so you try to dig way back there, and like, I've heard that you're the bright and morning star, god. And you're and you're just trying to come up with any kind of praise you can.
Joel Brooks:And then if God still doesn't give you what you want, you treat God just like you would treat any vending machine. You get mad. You yell at it. You kick it. You hit it.
Joel Brooks:You walk away frustrated until people, don't don't ever go to that machine. It doesn't work. Alright? It just steals your money. And I've known a lot of Christians who have felt that way towards God.
Joel Brooks:I know a lot of non Christians, and that's why they say they don't believe in God. I tried prayer, didn't work. They they leave and they run away. But God is not a celestial vending machine. He's not a genie, where you rub a lamp and you get whatever you want.
Joel Brooks:He's a father. But know that he loves us way more than we could imagine, and God wants to say yes. And indeed, he does say yes to every single request we make that is for our good. His answer is yes. Don't ever make the mistake of thinking that God's up there, like, delighting saying, no, no, no, to something just because he wants to to be mean to us.
Joel Brooks:No. God says yes to everything that will be to our good. If there's ever a time that you think that God is just he just doesn't want you to be happy, just he just doesn't want you to have good things. If ever you kind of into that way of thinking, I want you to remind yourself that God has already given you far more than you have ever asked. Humanity, I mean, all through the ages never never asked God to actually send his son, but God sent the most precious gift he could.
Joel Brooks:He sent us Jesus, and we never even asked for him. And he sent us Jesus. He's an extravagant god. He's a generous god. He gives us more, way more beyond we ever could imagine or ask for.
Joel Brooks:He has already done that. So god is waiting to be asked. Big things, little things, waiting because he's already proven his generosity, and he wants to keep giving. Let's dig into this prayer itself. Let's look at the first or few words.
Joel Brooks:I want us to look at every word closely. Give us this day our daily bread. The the first word is give. It's not please. It's not please give.
Joel Brooks:There there's none of the manners here that, you know, southerners really like when we're asking for things. There's no please, kind sir, if you wouldn't mind and it wouldn't be too much trouble. Could you perhaps give me some bread? There there there's there's none of those like southern niceties, no good manners that we have. Now afterwards, we're gonna have a potluck dinner, and, and it would just be to my horror if as a parent, my children just cut in line, and just said, give me bread.
Joel Brooks:No. Give me food. Yeah. You you know, you don't do that. Have your manners.
Joel Brooks:But this is how Jesus says we should pray. And what Jesus is hinting at here is our condition, The condition in which we come to him to pray. We come to him in such a desperate state that there's no time for the niceties. We're we're beggars on the street. We're absolutely desperate for him to provide food, and so we're pleading with God to help us.
Joel Brooks:You know, the shortest prayer in the bible is Peter as he's drowning, and he just says, save me. Alright? That's it. Save me. There's no, hey Jesus, if you wouldn't mind, if you have lived, you know, you wouldn't, you wouldn't get through the prayer.
Joel Brooks:He's in a desperate situation. Save me. And that's what Jesus is hinting at here when when it's just a cry out of our heart right at the start. Give me. Give me.
Joel Brooks:I I need something. I need it. So there's a desperateness to our prayers. 2nd, I want you to notice that god does not say, does not teach us to pray. Give me, but he teaches us to pray.
Joel Brooks:Give us give us this day our daily bread. This fits right in with how he taught us to pray at the beginning of this prayer prayer. Our father, not my father, but we pray our father. And now we don't pray, give me, we pray, give us. We're praying that God would meet our needs as a community.
Joel Brooks:And so when we come to him, we're not just recognizing our personal need, but we're recognizing the needs of those around me. Those around us, our brothers and sisters in Christ, we're recognizing their needs as well. So, god very well might grant you your request to meet your need, but it's not just for you. It's not just for you. God might give you money in order to pay your bills, but he might also be giving you money so you could pay your bills and to pay some other people's bills as well.
Joel Brooks:Or he might give you bread, he might give you food because you've asked for food, but he might also be giving you food so that you might give food to others. Maybe can have over some who are emotionally needy or physically needy over to your house and fix dinner for them. We we need to be aware of the needs around us in a community. You know, if god gives me bread, I have to realize he's not just giving me bread. He's giving us bread.
Joel Brooks:And one of the things that's been helpful to me, and I've only started doing this recently over the years, is that when I pray, I try to if if I need, you know, for instance, you know, money for something, and I'm praying, god, we really need money for this, I'm trying to picture somebody in the church with the exact same need. I'm trying to picture them, and so I can actually say, lord, we need money. Lord, we need money for this. And I promise you that when god then answers, it is a lot harder to just say mine. When in your mind, you've been kneeling next to this person, and you've been praying together.
Joel Brooks:And so, god, I I I need to be lifted up out of this depression I'm in. Well, I know some we need this, and you're praying together, and you will share, God's answer together. So it's not give me, it's give us. And of course, we see this throughout the new testament. We see this in the way God gives his spiritual gifts.
Joel Brooks:You know, the church gets in so much danger when they think God gives gifts for personal enjoyment. They're like, you know, so we're praying for gifts, like, you know, whether it's a prophecy or whether it's teaching or, or things like that. And we're like, okay, these are all mine. They're just for me. Wisdom is just for me.
Joel Brooks:But God gives gifts to his church in order for the edification of the body. He gives to you that you might give to others. He does that spiritually, and he does that materially. Give us this day our daily bread. So let's look at what we actually ask for, which is bread.
Joel Brooks:We're not asking god for lobster, not asking God for a new Ferrari, you know, a better vacation home. We're asking him for bread, boring bread. And this seems like a really petty thing to ask for, especially in light of what you've been asking God for earlier in this prayer, praying some pretty big things. God, hallowed be your name. May the whole earth, they hallow your name.
Joel Brooks:May your kingdom come. I mean, those are some pretty big things that we're praying for. And then we we come to this section and it kind of seems really small and mundane because earlier you're praying about cosmic things, and now just little petty things like bread. And so you got to ask yourself, why does God include this little thing in a prayer that he wants us to pray, teaching us to pray? It's it's kind of like praying for a parking spot, praying for shoes, you know, god, I pray that these shoes that are on sale, they would be in my size, please, you know.
Joel Brooks:It's it's it's a very petty request. And so is it wrong for things for us to pray for things like that? Jesus says, no. And the reason he says, no, it's not wrong to pray for things like that, because he says, you want those things. You need those things.
Joel Brooks:You need parking spots. You need shoes. You need bread. You need all these small little things. And so why not seek me in the seeking of them?
Joel Brooks:Seek me in the seeking of them. Hear me. It's the it's the small pursuits we have. It's it's really not the large ones. It's it's the small pursuits that we have that either steer us towards God or away from God.
Joel Brooks:You you you look at Esau. He sold his birthright for soup. Soup. That was it. His birthright.
Joel Brooks:That was a huge deal. It's like, here's some little soup. Yeah, I want it. Judas betrays Jesus for just 30 small pieces of silver. And when Jesus is giving the, the parable about the heavenly feast and inviting people into this wonderful banquet, you know, it keeps people from coming and being in his presence.
Joel Brooks:I was like, I bought some oxen, I need to check them out. Yeah. I just bought a small piece of land, I need to go look at it. It's the small things that kept people from enjoying a feast in the presence of god. The trivial things, the the little petty things, things like wanting bread.
Joel Brooks:And those can either steer us towards God or they can steer us away from God, and this is why Jesus says, go to God with these requests. Don't ignore these little desires, and don't pretend like you don't have them. You do. There's simple needs, And if you go to god with simple needs, you actually turn it into a little step of faith and a profession of faith that, God, you're the one who provides. You can turn a small little need and the pursuit of meeting that need into an act of worship, and that's what Jesus is saying we do here.
Joel Brooks:Praying for small things does not trivialize God. What is happening is God is taking trivial things and he's transforming them into something beautiful and act of worship. Jesus says that we are to do this daily. Give us this day our daily bread. Daily bread.
Joel Brooks:We we we are not asking for bread for next week. We're asking for bread for this day. And this whole idea of seeking God every day for food is nothing new. This is found throughout the bible. You especially see this in the book of Exodus because this is how God fed the Israelites for over 40 years in the wilderness.
Joel Brooks:He rained down manna, a bread like substance for them to eat. If you remember, he he would rain this down. They were to go and they were to gather up just enough each morning for them to use. It was also a give us this day or daily manna because, God said, now, he who gathers much will not have too much, and he who gathers little won't have too little because everybody shares what they gathered. They're all gathering for one another.
Joel Brooks:Then he says, and you're not to keep it to the next day. You're not to build, you know, barns and bigger barns and bigger barns. You're not to store this stuff up. Those who did, it it rot, it turned to worms. Said, every day, I want you to go out and to seek this food.
Joel Brooks:Every day, I want you to trust me for this. And if you think about it, god could have fed the Israelites any way he wanted. They they could have, you know, said, you wake up, you turn over, there's, you know, bacon and eggs and orange juice and coffee. Not bacon. There's there's just eggs, grits.
Joel Brooks:There's there's orange juice, coffee. Gosh, I get so distracted. He he could've just said, you don't need food. I'm just I'm just gonna sustain you. You don't need food.
Joel Brooks:But but instead, he he sets it up this way, where every day, they're gonna have to get out of their tent, and they're either going to gather up god's grace or they're gonna trample on it, but every day is gonna be there. They either recognize his grace and they bring it in or they just walk right over it. And god set it up this way as a sign for us, a sign for them and a sign for us. He wanted them to every day trust him for his provision. Every day to receive the grace that comes from his hand.
Joel Brooks:To acknowledge it, to receive it. You know, I was I was doing bad math. I was actually doing this right before I came up here, but I've had over 50,000 meals provided by God consecutively. It's a pretty good track record. I've I've never missed because I couldn't buy a meal.
Joel Brooks:Sometimes I've chosen to miss, but 50,000. That's that's a lot of graces. God's asking me is was that just a simple meal or was it an act of worship? Were you seeking me out participating in that daily grace? Are we just trampling over it?
Joel Brooks:God set it up this way so that every day we would depend on him. And this is really is what this prayer is all about that Jesus is teaching us. He's teaching us to to declare our total dependency on a good God and to accept his grace every day. It's about hearing from God and getting nourishment from God every day, physically, spiritually. Yesterday's manna is not gonna do.
Joel Brooks:You need fresh manna every day. Spiritually, some of you guys here have been have been living off a manna that was about 3 or 4 years ago. If somebody were to ask you, you know, how are you doing? How how is your Christian walk doing? Well, you think back to maybe a time where you in you were in college, maybe you had a prayer time with a bunch of people, and God was just so real to you, and you're going back to that time.
Joel Brooks:Yeah, man, I Me and God, we're we're tight. I had this experience a few years ago, and that's old manna. You're thankful for it. You grew from it, but but every day, we're to seek him, seek his grace, seek his face. Old manna will not do.
Joel Brooks:And, spiritually, I think is really the direction that Christ is moving us in this prayer. Definitely make no mistake. He's asking us to pray for physical bread, but physical bread is a symbol pointing to him. Christ is ultimately talking about our need for him. You know, if you go through the gospels, you're gonna find 1 miracle.
Joel Brooks:Outside of the resurrection, there's just one miracle that's in all 4 gospels, and that's Jesus feeding the 5,000. It's 5000 men. It was probably about 15, 20000 people that Jesus fed. Only 1 in all 4 gospels. And the reason it's there and every gospel writer, I think, saw it as so important because this reveals so much about who we are and who God is and how much we depend on him for everything.
Joel Brooks:And every gospel writer thought, I have to include that. And in John's gospel, when he's recording that Jesus feeding the 5,000, after Jesus feeds the 5,000, he he leaves. He goes across the sea of Capernaum, and people race to meet him there. And so there's also there's masses of people on the other side of the sea, and they're all saying, god, I heard no. They're not saying god.
Joel Brooks:They're saying, Jesus, you you gave us all this food. Do it again. Come on. Do it again. We just walked a long way to come see you again.
Joel Brooks:We're hungry again. Do it again. Jesus is it's like, you're you're you don't care about me. You you you just want the things I give you. And he says this to them in John 6, truly, truly, I say to you, you're seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.
Joel Brooks:Do not work for food that perishes, but for food that endures to eternal life, which I'll give you. Jesus says, don't just ask me for things and seek things just for the things. Don't follow me just because I gave you bread. Realize what the bread I gave you was pointing to, which is me. If you think about what's happening here in terms of the Lord's prayer, these people, they are praying, God, give us this day our daily bread, but they're not praying the hallowed be your name before it.
Joel Brooks:They're saying, God, we just want food, we want food, but we don't really care if it's an act of worship or if you're glorified and honored in it. Just fill our bellies. Jesus says, this is a sign to me. He he tells him, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger.
Joel Brooks:Whoever believes in me shall never thirst. So, Jesus says this physical bread is a sign pointing to the one who really satisfies you. Just as physical bread satisfies your stomach, I'm the one who satisfies your soul, your heart's desire. So come to me. And every time that you are eating physical bread, we hear we need to remember that.
Joel Brooks:God is the one who gives us physical bread, and god is the one who nourishes us. God, this is no longer me just eating bread. This is an act of worship. It's no longer me just praying for a parking spot. It's no longer me just praying for shoes.
Joel Brooks:This is an act of worship. You're the one who provides these things, and every good gift points me ultimately to you, Jesus. I've said this before, but god's greatest adversary is his gifts. We get fascinated with the gifts and we forget the giver. We need to repent of that.
Joel Brooks:I I so appreciated, Melissa Ritchie last week sharing, sharing in her testimony things I think all of us could relate to, how she had needs, some some genuine needs, you know, god, I I need more space. You know, god, I I really would like some time to where I could exercise. God, I really would like and she she just kept listing all of these things and praying for them and that God would give them to her, and then she would realize she wanted more. And God would give to her and then she wanted more. And what she was doing is she was just accepting the gifts, but it wasn't the giver that satisfied her, and she confessed that and it was a beautiful thing.
Joel Brooks:I think all of us can relate to that. God's given me 50,000 meals, and I'm still hungry, still hungry. And he's like, come to me and you'll never hunger again. Come to me. All of my gifts are to lead you to me.
Joel Brooks:Jesus is the bread of life. Jesus is the manna that God sent down, and what we're about to remember as we go to this table is Jesus isn't just the bread of life, but Jesus is the bread of life broken. He's the bread of life who is broken for us. He entered into our broken world. He entered into all of our hurts, all of our sorrows, and he took those upon him on the cross where he was broken for us.
Joel Brooks:You know, we deserve God to rain down judgment upon us, yet God rained down bread, rained down provision. We deserve to be thrown out from the feast. But because of the work of Christ, we are fully accepted, and now we come to him as our father, and we can sit at his table. What I would just encourage you to do that to do this week is to do that. Let everything you seek be an act of worship.
Joel Brooks:Every need you have, see the giver behind it. Pray with me. God, like we sang earlier, you were always giving. You were always good. We confess there's times we don't recognize your goodness, but that's simply because we're a child and we don't know better.
Joel Brooks:You have never once, never once denied any request that has been for our good. You're a good, good father. And I pray we would humbly come to you with needs both great and small. And through us seeking an answer to those needs, we would ultimately be seeking you, the giver of those who satisfies. Jesus, thank you for being the bread of life, and not just the bread of life, but the bread of life broken for us.
Joel Brooks:And we pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen.