In his sermon 'Give Us this Day Our Daily Bread,' Pastor Steve Hopkins discusses the importance of family integration in worship, emphasizing how historically children were included in church services alongside their parents. He critiques the modern practice of separating children from the congregation, arguing that it departs from biblical principles. The sermon continues the series on the Lord's Prayer, focusing on the phrase 'Give us this day our daily bread.' Hopkins explains that this request is not merely for physical sustenance but symbolizes our total dependence on God's provision. He explores the concepts of God's decreed will—His sovereign plan that includes all events, even those that seem evil—and His preceptive will, which refers to His commands in Scripture that humans are to follow. Illustrating with biblical examples like Joseph's story and the crucifixion of Christ, Hopkins shows how God's greater good can emerge from acts of evil. The sermon emphasizes that our prayers for daily needs should reflect a communal concern, not just individual requests, and that our ultimate purpose is to glorify God by living in accordance with His will.

Welcome back to Burnet Bible Church. This week Pastor Hopkins will continue this series on the Lord's Prayer. Before we stand for the reading of the Word of God and the message today, I was just wondering what in the world was going through the minds of the little babies as they're being held by their fathers, as they're praying, as they're reading the Word of God. You know, I just see them looking out. You see, their fathers are holding their babies up here.

You look at those sweet expressions, and they're just looking out there, and I think, what is in their minds? What is in their minds? And, you know, I was thinking the same thing that was in the minds of babies for 1900 years of Christianity as they were held by their fathers and their mothers in the congregation, because that's the way it always was. In every denomination of Christianity, there was no taking your children at the door of the church and putting them in another place, they were with their families. That's the way Christianity was.

It was only since the 1960s in this country that we said, you know what, let's separate the families. Let's segregate the children from the families in the congregation. And it's had a devastating effect upon the family in this country. Praise God, we've got what, 600 I think churches now in the nation, at least, that have returned to a family integrated or a more biblical model for worship, praise the Lord. And it's biblical, you know.

When the Apostle Paul said, read all my letters, he said, take my letters and read them in all the churches. If they tried to read his letters in the churches, they really couldn't, could they? Because his letter to the church at Ephesus and his letter to the church at Colossi specifically addressed children in the congregation. He said husbands love your wives as Christ also loved his church. He said wives submit to your husbands is unto the Lord and he said children obey your, there's no children in here.

They're all over in children's church or down in the basement watching someone pastor said vegetables on tv or what have you. You know, no everything's changed. Everything's changed. We need to return to the biblical model. But let's stand if we would for the reading of the Word of the Lord.

And I know we're going along today, we've gone way over, but it's the will of the Lord. Let's read Matthew chapter 6 verses 9 through 11. We're continuing to look at the Lord's Prayer. Matthew chapter 6 verses 9 through 11. Read with me.

Let's read together aloud the word of the Lord. After this manner, therefore pray ye, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Let's pray.

Our Father, you are the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, and We do hallow Your name, O God, this morning, and we offer our praise and adoration with grateful hearts, O God, that we have access into Your presence through the mediation of Your Son Jesus, who suffered and died for our sins and rose again the third day. And God, as we open the scriptures this morning, Father, we remember the words of the psalmist, that your Word is a lamp for our feet, it's a light to our path, without which we would be consigned to wonder in darkness like the rest of sinning humanity. But we ask, O God, that you would take your Word and enlighten our minds this day by the truth of your holy word that you would open our understanding by the power of your holy spirit. And God, we thank you for your infinite grace, your kindness, your mercy. We thank you that we were translated.

We who you brought to saving faith were translated from the kingdom of darkness into the light and kingdom of your dear Son Jesus, in whose name we pray and offer our humble praise this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. In our last session, we looked at the second half of verse 10, and we focused on the third petition of the Lord's Prayer, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. And in brief review, the first thing we looked at was the two aspects of the will of God that we find shown to us in Scripture, in the Bible. Because there is a sense in which God's will is done on earth, and my brother Eric just kind of went through that talking about God's providence, and there is a sense in which we are to pray that God's will is done That God's will which is not being done may be done theologians refer to these two aspects of the will of God is the decreed of will of God and the preceptive will of God.

Again, the decreedive will of God simply put is whatever God decrees comes to pass. God does whatever He pleases. Eric brought that out with all the scripture passages he just gave us. Psalm 135 verse 6, whatever the Lord pleased that did He in heaven and on earth. Pretty clear, right?

Psalm 115, 3, our God is in the heavens, He does whatever He pleases. Very clear, right? He does whatever He wants to do. So the decree of will of God is simply that God brings to pass by His decree whatsoever He pleases. In God's providence, by His sovereign, effectual will, He ordains all things whatsoever come to pass.

And as I said in our session last week, All of the old confessions of faith taught this, and Christians used to understand this, but in the modern era, many professing Christians stumble over this, and they reason just like the enemies of Christianity. And they say things like, well, if God is good, then he can't permit evil. Or they say, because a good God will not permit anyone to do evil. They say things like, we hear coming out of the minds and the mouths of humanists and the writings of humanists, or the reason that If God is good and doesn't prevent evil, then it must be because he's powerless to do so. So he's an impotent God.

But the Reformers understood from the Scriptures that God ordains all things that come to pass. He ordains all things that come to pass, yes even evil in this sense, though he is not the author of evil, for God cannot be tempted to do evil, and he cannot do evil and he can't tempt anyone to do evil as James says in James 1.13, still God ordains all things, even evil in the sense that though he has the power to stop any act of evil, he chooses not to stop all evil. God chooses not to stop all acts of evil. He's omnipotent, he has all power, he could stop all evil if he wanted to, he could just say stop and it would all stop. God has all power to stop evil.

But he doesn't stop all evil and he does that for his own good purposes, for his greater plan of good that he's working out in the world. And as our proof text, we looked at God's decretive will, the aspect of God's decretive will as it was carried out with Joseph's brothers when they sold him into slavery. Could God, and I asked last week, could God have stopped Joseph from being sold into slavery? Yes. Was it a great evil and treachery that took place against Joseph when his brothers sold him into slavery?

Yes. Could God have stopped that evil? His God omnipotent, he could have stopped it? Yes. Did God stop it?

No, He did not. Could God have stopped when He was put into slavery and ended up in Potiphar's house, could He have stopped the horrible false accusation that took place when Potiphar's wife accused him falsely of rape when she was the one who was going after him. And he tried to flee the scene and she ended up with this coat in her hands. Could God have stopped that evil from taking place? Yes, He could have stopped that evil from taking place.

Could God have stopped the false accusation against Joseph, the false accusation of attempted rape and stopped him from being falsely imprisoned by Potiphar? Yes, he could have, but he did not. God did not. And Joseph later told his brothers, but as for you, you thought evil against me, but God meant it for good. There's no getting around that.

You thought evil against me, but God meant it. What? Meant that evil for good. That's the decretive will of God. Why?

He said, to bring to pass as it is this day to save much people alive. Genesis 50-20, if you didn't write that down as your proof text last week. Genesis chapter 50 and verse 20. And we saw how this was a biblical example of God ordaining the evil of Joseph's brothers for his greater plan of good, and the sense of him permitting that evil to take place and then allowing or ordaining greater good to take place as a result of it. And then we looked at the greatest act of evil that ever took place in the history of the world, and how God ordained it for the greatest good that has ever taken place in the history of the world, the crucifixion of Christ, by which Countless millions were redeemed from sin and death and hell and granted life everlasting.

The crucifixion of Christ, His being delivered over to wicked men to be crucified, is the greatest act of evil that ever took place on the face of the earth. And it resulted in the greatest good that has ever taken place in the face of the earth. Countless millions have been, hundreds of millions have been saved. And we looked at Acts chapter 2 and verse 23 where Peter says to the Jews, Him, that is Jesus, being delivered by the determinate counsel and by the determinate foreknowledge of God you took, you wicked men took, and by evil hands crucified and slain. So wicked hands, though God was not the author of their evil, took Jesus and crucified him.

God foreknew it, could have stopped it by his omnipotent power, but didn't, God foreknew it, and God deliberately delivered Jesus to the wicked by his determinate counsel again for the greater good, the greatest good that's ever been done from the greatest evil that's ever been done in order to save many people. And these were our two examples in Scripture of the decretive will of God who ordains all things whatsoever comes to pass. And then we looked at the other aspect of the will of God, the preceptive will of God, which has to do with God's precepts or commands in Scripture. Very simply, the revealed will of God. That which God has revealed to us in His Word by way of his commandments or his precepts and thus the preceptive will of God all that God has Revealed to us in his word that is pleasing or that is not pleasing by way of his commandments by way of his precepts This is what theologians have termed or called the preceptive will of God.

So when Jesus says, pray thy will be done, pray to God the Father, thy will be done in earth. We're praying for God's preceptive will, his will to be carried out in the earth as his will is revealed to us in the Bible. That's what we wanted to see take place. And I said that we need to have a universal mindset when we pray that will be done on earth. It really needs to begin with ourselves in our own homes, right?

We need to be praying, Lord, that there be no opposition to your will or reluctance to carry out your will in my life, in my home. Father, may your will is revealed in scripture and the Bible be done in my life, in my home, in my marriage, in my family, and yes, in my workplace, and yes, in my church, and yes, in my community, and yes, Lord, in all the world. From here to universal. That's the way we're to have a local and yet universal mindset. Thy will be done on earth.

And then we looked at how Jesus qualified this third petition of the Lord's Prayer. He does not only say, thy will be done on earth, but thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. As it is in heaven. How many remember what that was all about? When we pray, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven, we're praying that God's perfect will, as it is revealed in the pages of Scripture, might be carried out on earth by all men everywhere just as his will is done in heaven.

And how is his will carried out in heaven by the angels of heaven we looked at Psalm 103 verse 20 bless the Lord ye as angels that excel in strength that do his commandments hearkening under the voice of his command. And I said, you know, there's no rebellion in heaven. Angels carry out God's will perfectly in heaven. So that's the way we're, that's the goal. That's the way we are to seek to obey God's will as it's revealed to us in scripture, even as it is in heaven.

We read of a rebellion in heaven ever since the third of the stars of heaven fell in the rebellion of Lucifer. There's been no other rebellion. The host of heaven do his commandments as Psalm 103 verse 20 says. The angels hearken into the voice of his word. When we pray, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven, we're praying that all mankind will keep the commandments of God and hearken unto the voice of God and hearken unto his word with an angelic type of obedience.

And I quoted Calvin saying, without opposition, we're praying, without reluctance, oh, may we keep God's will, may God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Without opposition, without reluctance, for as God has the angels constantly ready to execute His commands, So we desire that all men may have their will formed to such harmony with the righteousness of God that they may bend in whatever direction he shall appoint. That God might remove all the obstinacy of men which is rising and unceasing rebellion against him and may render them gentle and submissive, that they may not wish for or desire anything but what pleases God and meets with his approval. Amen. So we ended the session considering also and finally the glorified saints in heaven.

Those are also in heaven, not just the angels of heaven, right? How we should also do God's will as the glorified saints in heaven do. How do they do it? Gratefully. Gratefully on earth as the saints do as will gratefully in heaven.

That's the way we will be in heaven. We will spend all of eternity in gratefulness to God, saying, oh God, we thank you for what Jesus Christ has done for us. We will be praising God in gratefulness for our Savior and for the salvation that He has given us every moment for all eternity. And I look forward to that. Do you look forward to that time?

You look forward to that? We're going to be praising God for what He's done for us for all eternity. So we pick up with verse 11, the fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer, give us this day our daily bread. Father, give us this day our daily bread. And The first thing we need to understand when we consider this petition is that it is the first petition that uses the word us.

Look at your text, look at the text. In the first three petitions, we are concerned with how we and all men regard God's name, the advance of God's kingdom, and the doing of God's will. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.

Only now in the fourth petition does Jesus have us turn our attention to supplicate God concerning ourselves. Only now that God's name is reverenced, that His kingdom is advanced in the earth, and that his will is done by us and all men universally is our chief concern when we go before God in prayer. Only after our hearts are directed to him do we turn our attention to supplicate God, that is to pour out our hearts before God concerning our own needs. Why? Why?

Maybe we need to have the purpose for our existence in mind before we turn our thoughts to the material means for our existence. The purpose for our existence in mind first. Remember Jesus said seek ye first What? The kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. All what things?

The context was food and clothing, right? All these things will be added to you. Seek first the kingdom of God. Same thing. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all things necessary to sustain your bodies To be able to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness will be added to you And obviously Jesus didn't mean when he talks of bread merely flour and water mixed together and baked into a cake.

Right? Under the name bread, we are to understand everything that is needful to sustain our bodies, everything we need in order to live. How do we know this? If all you have is bread, you die. Right?

You can't live by bread alone. You'd also have to have water. You used to feed people on bread and water of affliction, as they would call it, knowing that eventually they would die of malnutrition. But if you had bread and water and no clothing and no shelter, you die. You die of exposure to the elements, either the cold or the heat or what have you.

Under the name bread is to be understood all things necessary in order to sustain our lives on earth. In short, God's provision for us. Think about how good God is in his provision for us. Our God is so good. He's concerned for all our needs, our food, our clothing, our shelter, our medical needs.

Yes, everything needful for our bodies. And here, all under the heading of bread, and of our daily bread, of our bread. Time would fail us if we looked at every passage where Jesus, you know, visited the homes of people and enjoyed God's gracious bounty with them. He wasn't against, you know, building homes and sharing the bounty, the gracious bounty that God provides. Again, under the name of bread is to be understood all things necessary in order to sustain our lives on earth.

But notice, look at the text again, how Jesus said we are to pray. When you pray, pray, Father, give. Father give. James 1, 17 says, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from who? From the Father.

Every good gift comes down from the Father of lights. Father give. When we pray that fourth petition, we're to pray, Father give. Jesus is saying that our prayer should be directed to our Heavenly Father, acknowledging our continual dependence upon him for the supply of our every need. Matthew Henry writes here that we are taught in this quote constantly to depend on divine providence end quote and how about this not knowing where Eric was going today, I also ended up on Webster's 1828, Providence's, quote, the care and superintendence which God exercises over his creatures.

Webster 1828, which Eric also quoted. The same power that made all things, sustains all things. But the prayer goes on to say, give us. It is not a selfish prayer. Please hang with me.

Please listen to what I'm saying here. It is not a self-centered or self-focused prayer. It is not a prayer that is concerned merely for one's daily needs to be met to the exclusion of others. Give us, Jesus says to pray. You see how you get outside of yourself when you pray?

Give us. God, give us. Not me, gimme, gimme, gimme, God, gimme. No, give us. We're taught in this to be aware and concerned with the needs of others.

In our families, in our church, And in the world, give us this day, in our families, the man, the scripture says in 1st Timothy 5, who doesn't provide for his own is worse than a what? Infidel, an unbeliever. Give us. And in the church, remember how James deals with that in the second chapter of James? If you see a brother or sister in need and you say to them, go in peace and be warm and fed, well fed, see you later, but we don't help them?

He said, what good is that? And in the world, remember the good Samaritan? He didn't even know the man that everybody else was walking by as he lay there bleeding in the ditch. He didn't even know him. He used his own money to help him when everyone, everybody else was passing by on the other side.

Many years ago our church made several trips into Mexico And we found a place, many of you will remember this, that we were still here. Last week we had the old timer stand up that had been here for 12, 15, 20 years. You remember these several trips that we made into Mexico where we take canned goods and clothing. You had to smuggle clothing at that time because they had a law at that point in time where they searched your vehicle. You couldn't take clothing in because they were trying to keep the manufacturers of clothing supplied, I guess, with good cash and everything in Mexico.

But they let us through even when they discovered it one time. But many years ago, we made several trips into Mexico and we found a place in Matamoros, where whole families lived in these makeshift cardboard and scrap wood houses with dirt floors. It was a little community. And they would take bottle caps and flatten them out to use them as washers. And then little tacks, and they would tack those to hold the cardboard against the crates that were set up for walls.

And they would make these little houses with their dirt floors. Whole families living in these, hundreds of people. And we would take in food and this little village of lean-to houses was on the outskirts of the dump, of a dump site in Matamoros. And this is the place where garbage trucks would come in and they would dump the trash from the city daily. And these families would come out of these little makeshift cardboard houses with dirt floors and they would all rush into the dump site to get their daily bread.

Their daily bread. And I noticed a little girl one day as we were passing out canned goods and Bibles just on the outskirts of the dump there. She was in her mother's arms and they were standing on the outskirts of the dump and her mother had gotten her bag filled with rotting food for the family's daily bread. And this little girl had what appeared to be a little stick in her hand. And she was sucking on the end of it, and as I washed I noticed that the end of the little stick turned a bright orange.

And it was then that I noticed that it was a little carrot. She was sucking on the end of a little carrot that they had pulled out of the dump. Very happy to have it, her daily bread. When we pray, give us this day, our daily bread. We need to be concerned with others and not just ourselves and not just ourselves.

Now, notice Jesus says, pray, give us this day. This day. And we need to be mindful that Every day God is providing for us, whether we realize it or not. But because we live in America, the richest nation that has ever graced the face of history, because we live in America and not Bangladesh, we may be tempted to leave out that part of the prayer, give us, oh God, this day our daily bread, out of the pride of self-sufficiency. Because we may have provisions laid up for weeks or even months.

Or we may be tempted to think that because we have money in the bank for provisions, And we have a schedule to go to the grocery store once a week or once a month or whatever. We don't need to pray for our daily bread for God's provision today. But brothers and sisters, don't be tempted to think that. God is the one who's providing all things for all of his creatures, for all of his people, and for us daily. Pray, God, our Father, give us this day our daily bread and thank him for his daily provisions, knowing that God could change your financial status overnight.

And he's done it many times with people. And God could change your health status overnight. And I had that impressed upon me deeply this last year when my health failed. We rely on God for everything, not only daily but moment by moment. Whether we're mindful of it or not, we are completely dependent upon God for everything.

Even to draw a breath and to stand upon our feet in the morning is a blessed provision of God. And we need to remember that God will have us on our knees one way or another. God will have us on our knees one way or another. God will have us on our knees one way or another. That's the Christian life.

Total dependence on God for everything. Is that the way you live? Is that the way you pray? It's a good day to make a change if it's not. Give us this day our daily bread.

But as we close, I want to go back to where we started for a moment. I started off by saying that God's name is reverence, that his kingdom is advanced in the earth, that his will is done by us, and all men universally is our chief concern when we go before God in prayer. Only after our hearts are directed to him do we turn our attention to supplicate God, to pour out our hearts before God concerning our needs, why? Maybe, I said we need to have the purpose for our existence in mind before we turn our thoughts to the material means for our existence. I want you to just think about that for a moment as we close.

Think about that. Why are we here on earth? What in the world are we doing here? The old catechism puts it like this, man's chief end is what? Man's chief end is to glorify God.

It's to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. As it relates to the fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer, can you see how it connects us to the first three petitions? Think about it. We need to be physically sustained on earth if we would be able to pray for and work for the hallowing of God's name on earth. And we need to have our physical needs met on Earth if we would be equipped to carry out Jesus' command to pray for and labor for the advance of God's kingdom here on Earth.

We have a purpose. And we need God's gracious provision of our daily bread if we would be sustained here on earth to both pray for and work toward the carrying out of His will on earth as it is in heaven. When we pray, Father, give us this day our daily bread, we are turning our concerns to our material needs, but not merely that we might enjoy the bounties of the earth God provides for all His creatures, though we are most certainly meant to enjoy all of God's bountiful provision that He continually pours out upon us. But when we pray, Father, give us this day, our daily bread, we're to be concerned with our needs and the needs of our family members and with the needs of all the members of Christ's body for the purpose that we might live, live for the purpose for which God made us, to serve him, to serve him, and to bring glory to him. Do you see that?

Do you see that? We're to cry out to God for our needs daily in prayer, acknowledging our reliance upon our Father in heaven for everything needful for the sustenance of our bodies and our very existence that we might live to give glory to Him as we enjoy Him forever. Pray, Father, give us this day our daily bread. Amen. Now let's pray.

Our Father, we do thank you for giving us day by day our daily bread. We do thank you, God, and we acknowledge that we rely upon you for everything, even our next breath. But Father, we know that your greatest provision to your people was provided to us in the giving of your Son. Your greatest provision was provided for us, so God, our Father, in the giving of your Son. That bread which came down from heaven, That if a man eats thereof, he shall never die.

And we thank and praise you for causing us to draw near to Christ and eat. We acknowledge that that was you who caused us to draw near to Christ and eat. And if you had not caused us to, we never would have. We thank you for changing our will, for the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, for grace to repent and grace to believe on Jesus' name. And We thank you God, our Father, for your infinite mercy in saving unworthy sinners like ourselves.

And we thank you for Jesus' body broken for us and for his precious blood which has cleansed us from all our sin. Amen.