In the sermon 'Praying for Our Daily Bread' by Peter Allison, the focus is on understanding the fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer from Luke 11:3. The sermon elucidates the differences between the versions in Luke and Matthew, highlighting that prayer can be both formal and flexible. It emphasizes the need to pray for our daily sustenance, encompassing all essential needs like food, sleep, clothing, and shelter, and acknowledges God's role in providing wisdom for ordinary tasks. The sermon contrasts the biblical hierarchy, which starts with glorifying God, with Maslow's hierarchy, suggesting that our primary motivation should be God's glory. It underscores the significance of persistence in prayer and the necessity of aligning our requests with God's promises. Additionally, intercessory prayer is discussed, highlighting the importance of praying for others' needs. The sermon concludes by reminding believers of their complete dependence on God for all provisions and encourages them to integrate prayer into their daily routines.

Please turn in your scriptures to Luke chapter 11. We'll be looking at verse 3 primarily this morning, but I'd like to read this section of Jesus' teaching about prayer. Now it came to pass as he was praying in a certain place when he ceased that one of his disciples said to him Lord teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples. So he said to them when you pray say our Father in heaven Hallowed be your name your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins.

For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. And He said to them, Which of you shall have a friend? And go to him at midnight and say to him, friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him. And he will answer from within and say, Do not trouble me.

The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and give to you. I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs. So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find.

Knock and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds and to him who knocks it will be open. If a son asks for bread from any father among you will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish will he give him a serpent instead of a fish or if he asks for an egg? Will he offer him a scorpion if you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more?

Will Your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? May our tongues speak of His Word for all of His commands, our righteousness. Heavenly Father, as we look into Your Word, we ask for Your Holy Spirit to illumine our hearts and our minds. We ask that Your Word may come to us in power and in much assurance by your Holy Spirit. I ask that you would sanctify these sinful lips and that you would pour out your blessing upon us with faith and repentance and the light of your word.

In Jesus' name, amen. Well, this morning we come to the fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer. Give us day by day our daily bread. This is slightly different than the version in Matthew which is to give us today our bread, which shows us that these words are not the only words that we can pray. That should be obvious from the fact that there are many other prayers in scripture that don't use these exact words.

But even in this giving of this formal prayer, a written prayer, there are different words. Matthew uses slightly different words on this petition than Luke does. So there is no, It's not wrong to pray this prayer word for word. It's also acceptable to change the words of our prayers, to add in our own additional thoughts as they are consistent with the Scriptures. To ask for things that God has promised to give us.

Now there's no mystery here about what we are being taught to pray for. We are being taught here to ask God to provide our food each day. And not only our food, but all the things that we need on a daily basis for the maintenance of our physical bodies. We need sleep. We need clothing each day.

The Bible teaches us to ask for those things. It tells us that God is the one who gives us our sleep, that we can lie down and sleep in peace because God alone is the one who keeps us in safety. So we need clothing, we need shelter every day. So all these requests are also included in this petition to give us our daily bread, the things that our physical body needs on a day by day basis, and also included in this request are all those means that are necessary to produce bread. Seeds to plant, a rain to water the ground, sun to give growth, wisdom to harvest and to properly thresh the grain.

Yes, Isaiah teaches that the earthly wisdom to know how to prepare the soil, to know how to plant the crop, and to know how to thresh the grain that is harvested, and to prepare it for food. That all of this, what we think of as our ordinary work, Isaiah says that we know how to do this because God teaches this to us. That In other words, just as it was God who taught David's fingers to make war, He teaches the farmer's fingers how to make food. Isaiah 28 says, Does the plowman keep plowing all day to sow? Well, no.

Obvious answer to that question. Does he keep turning his soil and breaking the clods? Well, no. He knows how to stop when it's the right consistency. When he has leveled its surface, does he not sow the black cumin and scatter the cumin and plant the wheat in rows and the barley in its appointed place?

There's it. In other words, there's some wisdom there to know where to plant, how to plant, how to put it in rows, it says here. And the spelt in its place. For he, that is the Lord instructs him in right judgment his God teaches him Yes, even these ordinary things these mundane things like how to plant, how to get our food, how to make our bread. He instructs him in right judgment.

His God teaches him. For the black kummin is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor a cartwheel rolled over the kuman, but the black kuman is beaten out with a stick and the kuman with a rod. Bread flour must be ground, therefore he does not thresh it forever, break it with the cartwheel, or crush it with his horsemen." How does he know how to do all this? How do you know how to bake your bread? This also comes from Jehovah of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in guidance.

Everything that we do that might be broadly construed as business is in one way or another related to our bodily needs for food, for clothing, for shelter, and good health. Everything. Everything. No matter how big or how exalted or how glorified a business becomes, it exists to provide one of those basic needs for people. Otherwise it has no business.

And So this all then is incorporated into this request that Jesus teaches us to pray. Give us day by day our daily bread. Give to us today the needs of our body to be cared for, to be sustained. Our bodies in one sense are very robust, they are self-healing in ways that other engineers can only dream about making self-healing things. And yet there are some very simple and basic needs of our body.

We are very weak in many ways. We have to have air, we have to have food, we have to have water, We have to have shelter, we die. Our bodies need these things to live. And Jesus is teaching us here that we need to learn to look to our heavenly father to provide these needs to give us the wisdom and the skill to be able to produce these things. But what I think is very interesting is the place of this petition in relation to all the other petitions.

This comes after several other petitions, But it also comes before the petition for forgiveness of our sins. And I don't think These petitions are just a string of unrelated sentences. I think there is a definite flow to these petitions. We might relate them this way. At the base of these petitions is the glory of God.

That is the most fundamental purpose, goal, job for all of us. To glorify God. That's why we were created, to glorify God. And so that's how this prayer opens. It begins with the glory of God.

That is our chief end, as the Catechism says, to glorify God. That's why creation exists. The heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows his handiwork. The stars are created to be a constant declaration, proclamation of the wisdom and glory of God.

So this glory of God, this is accomplished through creation, but it's also accomplished through petition two, the advancement of the Kingdom of God. God is glorified as His Kingdom grows. That Kingdom of Heaven, that spiritual Kingdom that we talk about, where God's rule is mediated through Jesus Christ, as He rules in our hearts. That kingdom, as that kingdom advanced, God is glorified. And that kingdom is advanced when God's will is done on earth as it is already being done in heaven.

You see how these just flow. We must begin our prayers with the glory of God. That is why we do anything that we do. God is glorified as His kingdom is advanced. His kingdom is advanced as His will is being done on earth as it is in heaven.

But since we are humans with fleshy bodies, His will is done where He is obeyed. But in order for us to do that will, we need to be strengthened. We need to have food, we need to have clothes and shelter, and we need to be in health. Or we can't do these things. We can't serve our neighbor with kindness if we don't have anything to give them.

Or if we don't have any food ourselves. So you see how these flow. That this petition becomes the means through which God is glorified ultimately. And that's why it follows there. And that's why Paul can tell the Corinthians, do all to the glory of God.

Whether you're eating or drinking, do all to the glory of God. Now it's interesting to compare this to the humanist's motivational hierarchy. The biblical hierarchy says we start with the glory of God the advancement of his kingdom his will being done on earth Is it is in heaven and from that then that's the basis for which we ask for our daily needs But there are greatest need is to glorify God Still worship Him. But what does the humanist say? What does Maslow say?

Maslow says it turns this thing just on the upside down. It says we have to start with your physical needs, your food and clothing. That's the first thing. That's the foundation. And then from there you go to your emotional needs, to being loved.

And then From there you go to aesthetic needs of beauty. And then only once all those needs are met, then you get to your highest self-actualization of where you can think about other people. You can look outside of yourself. See the Bible says just the opposite. We start with God and work down to our needs.

You see humanism turns The biblical motivation model upside down. Humanism puts man's glory at the center. Self-actualization. And it begins with man's physical needs. All motivation in their world view begins with man's physical needs.

This is seen as the primary or fundamental motivation for people doing what they do. And once the needs of self are satisfied, you see then helping others becomes a motivation for us. How radical is the message of the cross? Jesus taught that the good shepherd lays down his life, his own life for the sheep. And he calls husbands To love their wives in the same way.

To lay down their lives for their wives. He that loses his life for my sake, Jesus said, shall find it. And he who finds his life shall lose it." And see, we see this same focus then, the same orientation to the glory of God first in the order of the petitions of the Lord's Prayer. Our motivation, our first motivation ought to be to seek God's glory. And then to seek first His kingdom and then all these other needs.

Jesus promises will be added to us, will be given to us. Our reason for asking for food is not just because we need food. Our reason for asking food is so that we can glorify the Lord with the life that He will give to us through it. Did you ever wonder or think about how do you eat to the glory of God as we are commanded to do? How do you eat to the glory of God?

What's the difference between eating to the glory of God and failing to eat in a way that glorifies God? Well, I think that command is speaking to the purpose or the goal of our eating. Why do we eat? What is our purpose in consuming food? Is it so that we have strength to speak in word and in deed of the Creator, the Triune God, to go about the work of building His Kingdom?

Or contrast that goal to what the Scripture records of the children of Israel in Exodus 32 when Moses was on the mountain. And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. That was not eating to the glory of God. Their purpose wasn't to glorify the Lord, to advance His kingdom, to see His will being done on earth as it is in heaven.

Their purpose in eating was to rise up and play. That's idolatry in action, putting something else where God in His glory ought to be. We eat to sustain our life so that it can be devoted to the advancement of His Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven, not for strength to rise up from the table so that we can seek our own pleasure. You know, laboring to advance the kingdom of God may seem rather esoteric, may seem rather detached from what you as a mother might do every day on Tuesday, or a father may do, or a businessman might do. But it really shouldn't seem that way.

This is really what our life is about. Remember Christ rules through three institutions. His rule is through the family, family government, church government, and civil government. And they each have their role, they each have their purpose, their jurisdiction, their sphere. The purpose of the civil government is to bring God's wrath on those who do evil.

The purpose, the call of the church is the proclamation of the gospel to go into all the world and Teach teach the nations teach all nations Baptizing them in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost teaching all nations to do whatever God, whatsoever things God has commanded. There's that seeing the will of God done. That's the purpose of the church. Equipping the saints then, God has given the church pastors and elders and their officers to equip us for that work. For us to do that work.

And he also rules through families and uses the government and families to train up children. And so the ability of families and parents to exercise authority over their children is a very significant part of the advancement of the Kingdom of Heaven. It's a very significant part. There are some ways in which we might say the family is primary. There are other ways in which we say the church is primary.

Ultimately and eschatologically, it is the church that is the ultimate organization. Because our relationship, your relationship with me, my relationship with you, your relationship with your spouse as brother and sister in Christ will extend into eternity. Your marriage will pass away, it will end. You will cease to have that marriage relationship. In heaven, we'll be like the angels.

But that relationship that we have now as brothers and sisters in the Lord, as members of Christ's body, that relationship continues in for all eternity. And so in that sense, the church is the more ultimate organization. But physically on earth here, the family is the founding organization from which the church and the state are built. And you can't have a strong church or you can't have a strong civil nation without strong families. As the family goes so go those nations.

And so we were looking today at the disintegration of our nation. We're looking today at the complete disintegration of truth, of basic justice. Remember, the foundation of civil rule is that there is justice. That's their job. That's the job of the civil magistrate, to do justly.

And we're seeing that completely evaporate. Well, why did that happen? Because in the generation when I was young and and even before that families were being destroyed families were falling apart and as the family fell apart now our nation is falling apart So when we talk then about all that to say, when we talk about advancing the kingdom of heaven, we are talking about the work that you do as mothers, as fathers, as husbands, as wives, as businessmen, to provide for your families, to provide services to other people. These things are what we're talking about when we talk about building the kingdom. About building the kingdom.

And I think seeing this pattern, this organization, this hierarchy to these petitions, makes it very clear that Jesus is talking about physical food here. He's not talking about spiritual food when he says give us this day our daily bread. Now this petition shows also that we deserve nothing from God. We deserve nothing from God. Today we hear a lot about rights.

The rights of criminals, the rights of minorities of various colors. And it's true that in relation to other people, with respect to other people, Scripture gives us certain rights. We have a right to life. We have a right to life from other people. Scripture gives us that right.

We have a right to marry and so forth. We have a right to justice. We have a right to have our property and so on. There are many rights that scripture gives us in relation to other people. But in relation to God the Father, we have no right to anything.

In relation to God, not even food. All The good things of this earth belong to the Lord. Everything in this earth, the cattle, the gold in the hills, the cattle in the pastures and the mountainsides, it all belongs to the Lord. And He does with His possessions whatever He pleases. He doesn't have to give them to us.

See by our sin we have really forfeited the right to live. We forfeited the right to live. That was the terms of our existence. The terms of what God gave to us. By our sin we forfeited what God gave to us.

We forfeited not only our life, but our right to all the things that sustain life like our food, as well as any other temporal blessings. And so it is, brothers and sisters, only the grace of God, day by day, that we have food and that we enjoy the temporal blessings that we enjoy. Part of the curse was that man would obtain his bread by the sweat of our brow. But even in this there is God's goodness in even giving to us that bread. The acquisition of it was cursed, the ground was cursed, but God is still gracious to us to give us our food and he's teaching us here in this petition to recognize that we don't deserve anything from him and to ask for our food as from his grace and goodness.

This petition is teaching us that we are completely dependent upon God, utterly dependent to supply everything that we need. And it's important for us to remember this. We live, most of us, far from the production of food. Some of that's coming back a little bit, but most of us still live pretty far from the production of food. Some of that's coming back a little bit, but most of us still live pretty far from the production of food.

And when it doesn't rain, we don't immediately think famine because we aren't dependent upon food that can be produced in our immediate area. We can, trucks can bring in food from other countries and other regions of this country and so on. But really, we are very, very dependent upon God and upon the rain and so on for our food. And I remember a time when this was really brought home to me. A number of years ago when the family was very little, we had moved back to a place where my wife grew up, back to Maryland, and she loved to have her sweet corn.

So one summer week day, summer Saturday, we're going to go out and we thought well we're going to get a couple of bushels of this corn and have ourselves a feast and and put up a couple bushels in the freezer to enjoy the rest of the year. And so we thought well we just have to drive out and we're surrounded by corn fields in Maryland, in the country, and we'll just get some corn. Thought it would be nothing to it. Well, to my great surprise, there wasn't any corn. We would find a few roadside stands with a few ears of corn.

They might have had a whole bushel or maybe a bushel and a half total at the place. I was looking for somewhere where I could get a couple bushel not buy one ear at a time. Kind of a slow way to buy something. And so we drive around and people would say, well, you can go try this guy, Farmer Brown over here, or this store. And so we'd go over there and try that, and they didn't have any more.

And I was getting to be rather surprised that there was no corn here in the middle of corn country. And we finally got to a rather bustling farmers market that looked like he was selling his own produce and ran into the owner of the farm and because I guess we got bumped up to him when we started asking for a couple bushels of corn and he we had the family was all out with us our family outing on Saturday and And so he looked at our family and he said well, he explained that well, he had been getting calls, this is Maryland, he said he'd been getting calls that very morning up and down the eastern seaboard by people looking for corn. He was a farmer, and he had irrigated fields. And so he was able to have corn for longer than most other people around that didn't have irrigated fields. But he said to me that day that this was the last, the corn that he was picking then was the last batch of corn that he had.

And unless there was rain, there wouldn't be any more corn. But he said he would be willing to sell us a bushel. He had turned down all these people up and down the eastern seaboard looking for large lots of corn. He said, I'll sell you a corn. I'll sell you a bushel of corn.

He saw our family and was kindly disposed to us. But As we drove home, I realized just how dependent we are on God to provide our food, on the rain. If the rain doesn't come, the crops don't grow, and we don't have food. It's that close. Jonathan Edwards said, the creature should have no absolute, should have so absolute and universal a dependence on God.

That the creature should have so absolute and a universal dependence on God. Provision is made that God should have our whole souls and Should be the object of our undivided respect if we had our dependence partly on God so he's saying that that so that God should have all of our soul. God has set it up so that we are wholly dependent upon him. That if we had only part dependence on God, and part on something else, man's respect would be divided to those different things on which he had dependence. Sort of like you can't serve two masters, God and money.

If we were dependent on two different sources, then we would have a divided respect, a divided loyalty. And thus it would be if we were dependent on God only for a part of our good and on others or some other being for another part. But now there is no occasion for this, God being not only He from whom we have all good whom we have all good but also through whom we have that good and he is that good itself and he says he goes on to say so that whatsoever there is to attract our respect, the tendency is still directly towards God. All unites in Him as the center. Prayer teaches us to depend on God for everything, for everything.

Paul told the Philippians, be anxious for nothing, but in everything, in everything. That includes our food and drink. By prayer and supplication, make your requests known to God. Everything. We are completely dependent upon God for everything, even for the food that we eat.

And the fact that we are to ask for something as fundamental as our bread, teaches us to pray fervently. When we don't have food and water, then we become desperate. Then we are willing to do almost anything to get food and water. So when we don't have food and water, that gets our attention. And that leads to fervent requests.

And that ought to be the spirit of our prayers, that fervency that we need God to provide our food and water, even the most fundamental things for our life. We ought to ask for that which God promises to give us. This is another principle that's being taught. And that is, we ought to ask for the things that God gives us. We should not think, well, God has promised to give me food, so I don't need to ask for it.

Right? If you're, for you children, if your mother has promised to do something, does that mean you don't ask her to do it? No, it probably means you ask more, right? You remind her, you want to remind her to do it. Well, God doesn't need to be reminded, but he does want us to ask him.

To ask him. The point of prayer is not to make God aware of our needs. God already knows what we need. The goal of prayer is for us to know the Lord and for us to grow in knowing Him as He graciously reveals Himself. He already knows what we need even before we ask.

And many times, in many things, He already provides us with needs, even when we don't ask. Prayer is to teach us to depend on God. It's to teach us to know God. Now here's another thing that this petition teaches us. Jesus said, ask, seek, knock.

Ask, Seek, knock. There's a progression there. Going from words asking for God for something to action to procure that for which we have prayed, to that seeking a, to that, that's what seeking is. It's an action to procure something. So we start with words asking God for something.

That moves, That should move to action to procure that for which we have prayed. That's what seeking is. And that moves to this repetitive noise making to draw attention to our request. That's what knocking is. It's an action that communicates a request.

So God-honoring prayer doesn't just ask. It doesn't just kneel in the closet all day asking God for food. But having asked God for food, God honoring prayer goes seeking for food. It goes to work. It seeks to use all the means that God has put at our disposal to acquire the food which we have asked God to supply.

See, Jesus says, So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find knock and it will be opened to you. It's for everyone who asks, receives and he who seeks finds. Yes, we pray to God for our food, but then we also go to work for that same food. So we ought to work for that for which we pray.

And we also ought to pray For that for which we work. We don't want to be working for something without praying for it Because it is God who is enables us to get that for which we work now. We also ought to ask repeatedly Right. This is a prayer for our daily bread. This doesn't say, ask the Lord to give you your bread this year, so that you pray January 1, Lord give me this bread for this year.

This is a daily prayer. We are to pray day by day, Lord give us our daily bread. And so we are to ask repeatedly, time and again, in verses 6 there in this little parable that Jesus told, it was the persistence of the petitioner that obtained what he needed. It was his persistence. The fact that we are to pray daily teaches us that prayer should be a part of our daily routine.

Our daily routine. Just like brushing our teeth and so forth. This is part of our daily routine. In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul told the Thessalonians, pray without ceasing. And David went even farther in Psalm 55 verse 17 saying, evening and morning and at noon I will pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my voice.

Evening, morning and noon, you know that's, we eat in the evening and the morning, in the evening and in the evening Most of us do. Yes, we don't eat in the evening and in the morning. But in each of those times, we are accustomed, Christians are often accustomed to praying around those times. It's a good reminder if we eat, it's a reminder to pray, not just to thank the Lord for a food, it's a reminder to pray. This petition also teaches us to be thankful and content.

That we are to ask for our daily bread, not yearly bread. This is like the daily ration of a soldier. Life does not consist in the abundance of good things that we possess. It consists, Jesus said, in seeking first the Kingdom of God. Take heed, next chapter, take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of things that he possesses.

So we are taught to pray for what God has promised to give, and pleased to give, and not to desire or covet, That's what covet means, desire, not to desire what He has not given us. Now lastly, built right into this petition is Christ teaching us to intercede for others? Intercessory prayer is built right into the Lord's prayer. It says give us Our daily bread Give us our daily bread. That's a plural.

Our Father. It's a plural. Give us. It means not give me my daily bread. And so Jesus' model is teaching us to pray for others as well as our own needs.

It's to pray for others when we are bringing these petitions before Him. We are to pray for others' needs in all of these areas. And then having prayed, we should act. This is Isaiah's message in Isaiah 58.7, where he says, The people pray, and God doesn't hear them. They fasted, and God did not notice.

He answers them, Is it not to deal their bread to their hungry and that you bring the poor that are cast out to your house when you see the naked, you cover him and that you hide not yourself from your own flesh or for others? He's saying in praying for others to be supplied, we are commanded to do what is in our power to provide for others as well. Not just praying for them, but also acting for them. As James says, it doesn't do any good to say, be clothed and warmed, and having prayed not to do anything. We must act.

And so this is especially true of all of these needs that we are taught to pray for. Give us day by day our daily bread. Give us day by day our daily bread. We are praying here. We are asking God to give us a competent portion of the goods of this world.

To give us a competent portion of the goods of this world, to give us what we need to sustain our life, to leave an inheritance for our children, to be able to provide for those who are in need. This is what we're asking the Lord for. May He enable us this week and each week to be diligent in bringing these petitions to Him, in remembering to ask Him for our needs, and not only our needs, but the needs of others as well. Amen. Our heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, we thank you for your love of us, that you provide for us all that we have need of, or even those times that we have forgotten to ask for things, how often you have supplied them.

Indeed, we could not even begin to number all of your blessings and provision for us. All that you grant to us, moment hour by hour, day by day. Indeed every good gift that we have comes from you the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Teach us Father to number our days that we may apply our hearts into wisdom, to use rightly the goods of this world that you have given to us and to learn, Father, to depend upon you for them. We ask all these things through Jesus Christ.

Amen.