Daily Dependence
The Lord’s Prayer • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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A few weeks ago we began to look into something that theologians have titled, “The Lord’s Prayer.” A small section of the Bible where Jesus told his disciples how to pray. And as he was speaking on that hillside giving this instruction, the words he gave, the instruction to gave them was meant to be an outline. An example. This prayer that we see from the lips of Jesus wasn’t just something for his people to repeat and then move about their. It was an example, a structure, of the things we should communicate to the Father when we approach him in humility.
But if you will remember before Jesus told the HOW to pray, he told them HOW NOT to pray.
1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. 2 “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
Then after he tells them HOW NOT to pray, he tells them of the attitude and the heart and the intention that they should have when they pray..
3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 5 “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. 6 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. 7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
This is very important. When we communicate with God, the creator of heaven and earth, and the redeemer of our souls, we must understand that humility is needed to approach him. We need to be humble, grateful, and be amazed that we get to communicate with GOD! And…. he is listening. He wants to hear from us.
So as we enter into a time of prayer, we acknowledge WHO HE IS…
9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Then we acknowledge that he is the ruler of everything, and is it our desire that his will will be done
10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
If you can go before God and honestly say…God, your will be done…whatever happens…whatever that means in my life…I will be happy with your will being done… then you will truly understand what praying to God really means and you will be growing in your Christian life.
This morning, we are going to continue to look at this model prayer and look at God’s provision in our lives.
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Open your Bibles to Matthew 6:9-11
9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread,
Bread. I like bread. When we go shopping in Enugu, we will go into the store where they are cooking the bread and it smells so fine. Mom and I will buy a big loaf of bread, and it’s still hot. We open the package and reach in and grab the middle and pull it out. It is so good!
One of the things that Jesus tells us that we can do when we pray is to ask God for ‘daily bread.’ Is that all we can ask God for? Is that all that God wants us to eat is bread? No. Remember I told you that this prayer was a model, an example on how we should pray. So when Jesus says to ask God for our daily bread, he is saying that we should ask God for the things that we need to get through our daily lives.
But we need to be careful when we pray. God isn’t wanting you to have an attitude of “I will just ask God and he will give it to me.” That attitude can bring a life of not depending on God.
We may think, well the Bible tells me that God will give me the desires of my heart.
Psalm 37:4–6 (ESV)
4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. 6 He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.
John 15:7 (ESV)
7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
Listen, God wants the best for you. He wants you have everything you need to spend your days in this life, glorifying him. And sometimes, that means only giving you what you NEED.
This verse…Matthew 6:11
11 Give us this day our daily bread,
is about providing you for the things you need.
As you grow in your Christian life, one of the ways in which you can tell if you are maturing in Christ, is by the way you pray. What do you include in your prayers? Are your prayers just a list of things that you want, or are they things that God desires.
So what does this verse mean, give us this day our daily bread?
1. God alone provides the provision.
As Jesus is showing his disciples how they show pray, and he gets to this sentence about provision, I think it is interesting that we see that a persons provision comes God. And because it comes from God, we are dependent on him.
Someone could say, I work hard, all day, God doesn’t give me bread, I work for it. I earned it! But who gives man the ability to work? Who gives him the brains, the muscles, the knowledge to work? God.
Deuteronomy 8:18 (ESV)
18 You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
God gives man and woman the abilities to make a living. That is why, we come to him and ask for provision, and I might add, thank him for the provision he provides. This is one of the things we do before a meal, thanking God for the food, means thanking God for his provisiom.
It is God alone who provides the provision, so we go to him, in prayer and ask “give us”
God alone provides the provision.
2. We seek God’s provision daily.
I have never heard anyone ask God or pray to God for provision for something they hope will come next month. Jesus didn’t say. give us our provision next week, he said give us today. I think that it is interesting that the focus of this a sentence is one one day. GIVE US THIS DAY and DAILY bread. IS there a lesson we can see from these words that point to a single day?
There is. Jesus even says don’t worry about tomorrow..
34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Jesus spoke these words not long after he talked about pray. He was talking about worry and anxiety and as Jesus say here, you need to focus on today, it reminds us that God knows our future. he knows what is going to happen, he knows what tomorrow will bring, but he wants us to focus on Him and focus on today.
This daily dependence on God reminds me of the children of Israel as they were traveling through the wilderness on the way to the promised land. They were out in the middle of no where. There were no markets, not animals to kill, no oven to bake bread, so God gave them provision. And on eof thje provisions God provided was Manna. A sort of pieces of bread that would fall in the night.
Look at what God planned to do for his chosen people.
Exodus 16:4 (ESV)
4 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, whether they will walk in my law or not.
Bread, everyday. Would you like to walk outside every morning and God had provided bread for you? Yea. But there was a command that went along with gathering the bread, the manna. But God put a command before them about the manna. I would be a daily provision only. Look what Moses said……
19 And Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.” 20 But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them.
God would provide for them, but he would only do it, one day at a time. They had to look to him for their continual existence.
But then Jesus also said in Luke 9:23
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
That is the definition of a relationship. A relationship is a day to day dependence, love, and honoring of a person. And we see the same thing with a relationship between God and his children. We look to him daily.
Look at those last words…daily bread…
3. Provision is what we need rather than what we want.
For you A Place of Hope people, you know this phrase. Mom and I will ask you, is it what you need or what you want? What do you need? We all need food. We all need water. But outside of food and water, the other things are simply “wants.” If you could have food and water, but not have school, could you survive? Yes. If you could have food and water, and not work, could you survive? Yes. If you could have food and water and not have a phone, could you survive? Yes.
You see when Jesus says that we should come before God and ask him for our daily bread, we are simply asking for him to provide the things in order to live a life and in the process glorify God in heaven no matter how little of how much we have.
Because in the end, a phone won’t matter. Education won’t matter. A nice car won’t matter. But what will matter is that you had a daily provision for the days you have been alive, and that those days pointed to his Son Jesus Christ.
Let me close with this. I want you to see a progression of thought in these first three parts of the Lord’s prayer:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name: We honor him
Your Kingdom Come/Will be done: His will be done
Give us this day: we move onto us
You know we all put first things first. what is important is something we think about first, the what is less important comes after that. look at the order of how Jesus told us to pray.
verse 9: the focus is Him
verse 10: the focus is Him
verse 11: now the focus turns to us.
We are not number 1, not number 2, but number 3.
Prayer isn’t about what you want, it’s about what you need. We need to honor him, we need for his will to be done, then after we give him the glory he deserve with our mouth and with our hearts, we begin to ask for his provision in our own lives.
Who is our focus in prayer? Is it us? Or is it God? One way you can find out is in what you ask for.
CHALLENGE: Instead of praying for what you want, have you ever thought about praying for God to change your desires?