Word of Salvation – Vol. 32 No. 02 – Jan 1987

 

Prayer: The Fourth Request

 

Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp on Lord’s Day 50

Reading: Deuteronomy 8, Mark 6:30-44
                  Heidelberg Catechism – L.D.50

Singing:        Exalt the Lord, His praise proclaim (BoW.135)
                        How blest is he whose trespass (BoW.032)
                        Father God in heaven (BoW.439)
                        Guide me O my great Redeemer (BoW.441)

 Theme:  The prayer in which we acknowledge by faith God’s grace in material things.

 

Introd:  I don’t think any of us remember the first words we ever spoke.

Yet I would risk a guess that among MY earliest words were the words of a simple prayer:
Lord, bless this food, for Jesus sake. Amen !

That was my earliest introduction to prayer.
And I’m sure they were also some of the first words I learned to speak.
My parents said those words with me before I could even say them myself.
Many of us still teach our children and grandchildren to say something similar.

A simple prayer!
  Just like the fourth request of the Lord’s Prayer: Give us today our daily bread!
Just a brief request for God to supply our material needs.
So simple we can teach it to our children before they can even speak properly.
So we might well wonder:
   What can we possibly learn today from such a simple prayer?

I believe the Lord especially wants to teach us two things.

Two very simple things that we so often and so easily overlook.
            Firstly – that our material goods too are a gift of God’s grace.
            And second – that also in material things we have to live by faith.

A]        OUR MATERIAL GOODS ARE A GIFT OF GOD’S GRACE.

We have a problem that often when we talk about the GRACE of God…

   …His favour towards us… that we think only about spiritual things.
Grace!  That’s the “Amazing grace… that saved a wretch like me!”
GRACE is all about my salvation.  We’re saved BY GRACE!

Grace means we haven’t deserved what God gives us in Jesus.
God forgives us and offers us eternal life only out of His pure mercy and goodness.
That’s grace!

1)         But let’s just remember that we are creatures made by God.

We are totally dependent on Him to provide.

And therefore all that we receive is a gift of grace from Him.

That was already true in Eden, in a perfect world before the fall in sin.
Everything that Adam and Eve received was a GIFT of God.
And they were totally dependent on Him to provide.

The creature has no inherent right to what it receives… they are gracious provisions of the Creator.

We are totally dependent on God.

Scripture teaches us that in many ways:
In Proverbs we read that it is vain for us to rise early and to work till late.
  Long hours are not going to guarantee that we will be well provided for.
The parable of the Rich Fool makes that even more clear.
  A good business with lots laid up in reserve… but God took his soul away and that was that.

Our Catechism reminds us
That neither our work and worry, nor God’s gifts can do us any good without His blessing.

We are utterly dependent on God.
Creatures who can do nothing unless the Creator meets all our material needs as well.

So this request is a recognition of our creatureliness… an admission of our total dependence.

That dependence hit home to me forcefully in a couple of ways recently.

One of our children recently asked for copies of some old family photos.
So I pulled an old photo album out to look for the photos and make some copies.
But I saw again there a copy of a food ration card from when I was a baby.
Towards the end of WWII food was terribly hard to get.
And my parents could only feed and clothe me if they had the ration cards.

In the same week one of our older members talked about the terrible winter of 1944.
Food became so scarce that people were eating tulip bulbs.

Today we tend to take it for granted that everything we need will be there waiting for us.
All we need to do is push our shopping trolley thru well-stocked supermarket aisles.
But we’ve also come through a time of drought.
            And some items become scarce and the price of meat escalates.
Or we think back to times when there was a strike of some sort.
            And the supermarkets soon begin to have empty shelves.
And then I haven’t even mentioned those who have plenty but who can’t enjoy it.
            People who waste away because of illness.

Our life support system as creatures in this world really hangs by some very slender threads.

And the Lord has sometimes used droughts and strikes to remind us of our creatureliness…
of our total dependence on His gracious provisions for all our daily needs.

2)         However we deserve these gifts even less because of our sin.

All our material blessings, even our daily bread, are gifts of God’s grace.

Not just because we are creatures dependent on a Creator…
but even more because everything… not just heaven and our souls…
but everything… our food and drink, clothing and houses are all forfeited because of our sin.

If before the fall in sin everything was a gift of God to us then that is even more so after Eden.

Adam and Eve were banned from Eden
as a token of the fact that they had totally forfeited all God’s provisions.

Of course God did continue to provide but it was absolutely undeserved.

In view of that it’s amazing how we human beings always stands on our RIGHTS.

The worker has his rights.
The right to a shorter working week…  and the right to better superannuation.
The right to generous salary increases… and the right to strike.

Employers have rights too.
The right to use their employees to the maximum… and the right to greater profit.
The right to increased productivity… and the right to new markets.

Everyone insists on standing on their rights.
And sometimes even husbands over against their wives.  Wives over against husbands.
And bosses over against the workers.  Workers over against the bosses.
And worst of all… man over against God!

Of course that is nothing new.  Israel already did that in the wilderness.

They demanded their RIGHTS from God: “Give us meat…we loathe this manna.”
 Surely we have a right to the foods we enjoyed in Egypt”.

The Bible never talks that way.
It reminds us that we have no rights… only debts.  God has all the rights.
By our sin we forfeited any rights we might have had.
            If God gave us our rights then it wouldn’t go too well for us.
            Then there would only be death and destruction.

We have no rights…no rights to material things either.
It has all been forfeited… we do not even have the right to daily bread.
And so we had better realise very clearly that this request
“Give us this day our daily bread!”  is not a demand by which we stand on our rights.
Because the simple truth is that we don’t have any.

3)         So at the heart of this request is God’s GRACE.

It is the graciousness of God upon which we plead…
both because we are dependent creatures… and because we are sinful creatures.
            In this request too we throw ourselves on the grace and mercy of God.

That is also reflected in the language of the Heidelberg Catechism.

It speaks of God’s gifts and blessings… about Him being the only source of everything good.

IOW don’t make the mistake of thinking that it is just our salvation that we owe to the grace of God.
It is not just our forgiveness and the hope of heaven that comes by God’s mercy.
Everything hinges on the goodness and mercy of God – life and everything that sustains it.
It all comes to us as an undeserved favour from God.

So in this prayer request we recognise the goodness and graciousness of God.

And yet that’s where we are also left with some hard questions.
If God is the only source of everything good…
     and if this request is an acknowledgment of the goodness and graciousness of God
            then why is there hunger in so many parts of the world
     and how come there are so many refugees?
Why is there is so much inequality, with the gap between rich and poor growing daily?

We have learned that there are no EASY answers to such questions.

What we do have to take into account is human sinfulness.
It is because we stand on our own rights that we have so many problems… so much injustice.
The problem is not that God isn’t gracious… it is rather that we are so wicked and perverse.

Millions of dollars of relief is poured into needy countries in years of famine and war…
But so much of it has gone to line the pockets of the wealthy and corrupt in Government.

The problem does not lie first of all with God but with humanity.
Exploitation of man by his fellow man.
Unbridled luxury… while the hungry are sent empty away.

As Christians we also know that the grace and mercy of God towards our world
is there only because of the saving work of Jesus.
            In Jesus God redeems a world that has deserved only His eternal judgment.
            God is merciful and gracious for the sake of Jesus.
That doesn’t solve all our questions but it does take away our doubts about God’s mercy.

God IS gracious.  And this request is a plea upon His mercy and goodness… upon His grace.

B]        REGARDING MATERIAL NEEDS TOO WE LIVE BY FAITH.

 

But we have another problem:  We not only limit God’s GRACE to spiritual things; to our salvation.

We do that with FAITH too.
It is as though we put faith into a neat little pigeon hole marked “God”.
We are saved through faith
            and it is by faith that we come to God
            and by faith we have a relationship with Him.
 So TRUST and BELIEF are important for spiritual things BUT not for the rest of life.

1)         However we may not separate FAITH from the material things of life either.

First of all because our life of faith is made possible by the material things that God gives us.

It is because God gives us our daily bread and all other material things which are included in this prayer
that we are able to live in this life by faith.

Let me say it again:
God makes it possible for us to life by faith as He gives what we need for life.

We see that already in Genesis 3.
There the Lord first gives the Gospel promise after man’s fall.
            One will come who will crush the head of the serpent.
And Adam and Eve are to live by faith in that promise of God.

But at the same time God also promises Adam that he will be provided with bread.
True, Adam has to work for it in the sweat of his brow…
            but God will provide so that Adam and Eve may live before God by faith.

I believe that is also why this request of the Lord’s Prayer
comes before the request to “forgive us our trespasses” and to “lead us not into temptation”.

We can only continue to seek God’s forgiveness and live here a temptation-avoiding life
as God sustains that life by our daily bread and all our other necessities.

Living the Christian life by faith… is only possible as the Lord also supports life with all its necessities.

Surely there is a healthy balance here?
Many live life here as though this life were an end in itself.
They live to eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow they may die.

If we look at life that way then this request about material needs becomes
at best, something very selfish,  just for us to have a good time before it’s all over.
at worst, it becomes a meaningless request
            because all our food, drink, clothing and shelter ends up nowhere else than death.

No!  We are called to be the people of God; to live here by faith as citizens of the Kingdom of Christ.

And that bread we ask for is to support us in our calling to live life here to the full as Kingdom citizens.

“Lord, give us our daily bread to sustain us in our life of faith!”.

2)         So we are reminded that faith covers much more than spiritual realities.

Faith is a way of life for the people of God.

That is what Scripture means when it says, “The righteous shall LIVE by faith”.

Faith… or trust in God… is all inclusive.  Every step of life is to be lived out in faith and trust.

And that means that we are to do that also when it comes to all the necessities of life also our food.

Sometimes we use the expression “living by faith” to mean that one no longer has a regular income
because one is “serving the Lord” in some sort of “full time” Christian ministry.

It’s certainly true that many could tell of wonderful things the Lord has done
in providing for our needs at times when we had very little
 and we handed the problem over to the Lord.

Faith left it to God to solve the need… and the Lord gave more abundantly than we had dared to hope.

We all agree that that is living by faith… and we commend those who have the faith to do that.
But my question is: Should we not all be living by faith all the time?
Expecting the Lord God to supply all our needs…even when we apparently have plenty?

Let me put it another way: Is it like this:
That here we have a full time Christian worker with a Faith Mission,
            and when it comes to food and the necessities of life, he lives by faith but we do not!
He trusts in God to supply.
            We trust the boss to ensure the wages are received every week.
He believes God will meet his needs.
            We believe our abilities as workers will sustain us and our families.

If that’s the way you see it then there is something wrong with your Christianity.
And maybe you’d better stop praying this fourth request.
This Lord’s Prayer request is not a cry to heaven in emergency when the cupboard is empty…
            or when we suddenly find ourselves on social service benefits.

No!

This request is an admission that we also live by faith when it comes to material needs we face daily.

We pray: Lord, help us give up putting our trust in creatures for these things & trust you alone for them.

3)         Earlier I mentioned that this request appeals to the grace of God.

And I said further that God is gracious only for the sake of Jesus.

I must now also add that our faith too always centres on, and rests in, the finished work of Jesus.

That means that if this request reminds us that in material things too we live by faith…
then this is really a very Christ-centred request.

This request is intimately related to faith.

First: because we pray that He will give us our daily bread so that we may live by faith in His Kingdom.

Second: because in this prayer we are putting our faith in the Lord to provide.

Now, thirdly, we add that the reason why we are allowed to ask this at all
is because of what Jesus Christ earned for us on Calvary… as we look to Him in faith.

He won for us the right to heaven and to God…but also the right to ask God for our material needs.

We were people who had no rights…only debts.

But as we come to Jesus by faith He gives the right to ask for many things from our heavenly Father…
also to ask for our daily bread.

Don’t forget: Jesus gave this model prayer to CHRISTIANS to pray.

It is they who may now come to the Father and ask for all these things…
but only thru faith in what Jesus did.

We tend to think we receive our daily bread and all those other necessities of life…
simply because of God’s general goodness and love.

Not so!  Only for the sake of Jesus His Son does the Father give so generously…
and therefore too only for the sake of Jesus His Son…
and only thru faith in Him may we pray:  Give us this day our daily bread.

Scripture tells us that MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE!

When we then pray this request in the right way we become aware that this request too
is not just about bread alone…at the heart of it is our relationship with God in Jesus His Son.

A simple request for a simple commodity… the loaf of bread on your breakfast table.

As simple as that.

And yet the Lord calls us again to take this request seriously as an appeal to God’s graciousness…
as a request made in faith.

In that way this is indeed a call not to live by bread alone this week…
but out of the living, faith relationship with God through Jesus His Son.

Amen!