The 5^th Sunday After Trinity

SERMON

Text: Matthew 6:11

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

In Christ Jesus, Who has taught us so to pray, dear fellow redeemed:

I am sure that all of you have met individuals, who are self-centered, and who by their words and actions leave the impression that their concerns and desires are of more importance than those of others. Such individuals often view others as merely available to fulfill their wishes. They are self-absorbed, demanding, impatient, condescending, and often unkind. Needless to say living or working with such individuals is at best difficult and most unpleasant.

Imagine then how God must react to dealing with each of us on a regular basis, for we all are at times guilty of those things mentioned above! The Scriptures say, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6a). All too often, we are very self-centered, even as believing children of God, treating God in much the same way that self-absorbed people treat others. God, frequently, is viewed as a power there to fulfill our desires and wishes. We often act as if He should consume Himself with our concerns. We are at times demanding, impatient, and dare I say unkind, suggesting that when our desires are not immediately met, God has somehow failed and proven Himself unfaithful!

My dear friends, when Jesus teaches us to pray in the Fourth Petition “give us this day our daily bread,” He is teaching us many things about His relationship with us, and our relationship with Him. Let us consider then these words—GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD. We will see that our Savior is teaching us, among other things, humility, patience, and gratitude.

I.

As some of you may know, my family and I returned this past Wednesday evening from our family dream vacation of a lifetime. We spent three and one-half weeks in Europe. As we flew back over the North Atlantic from Iceland to Minneapolis this past Wednesday afternoon, my wife and I noticed small white objects in the waters of the North Atlantic. Those small white objects were actually large icebergs broken off from the glaciers of Greenland. As I stared out the window of that Boeing 757 at those objects floating in the waters 34,000 feet below—objects so large and yet from the heavens seemingly so small, my mind turned to the thoughts expressed by the Psalmist David. David reversed the angle. As he stared up into the heavens he wrote, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?” (Psalm 8:3-4) It is a humbling experience to contemplate how small, and seemingly insignificant we are as individuals in comparison of the other aspects of God’s creation, many of which are so mammoth in comparison to us. To ourselves all too often we are the center of our universes, but in reality this is not the case. There are, after all, six billion other people in this world, all of whom are precious to God. Besides, God is so great and so powerful that it is amazing to consider that He is interested in us personally and in our physical needs. He is busy sustaining the entire universe, yet He has time for and invites each of us to bring before Him any and all of our needs!

Such an experience is even more humbling when we consider the fact that by nature we are God’s enemies and cannot please Him (cf. Romans 8:7-8). Yet, “while we were still sinners,” St. Paul tells us, “Christ died for us,” and in this way “God demonstrate(d) His own love toward us” (Romans 5:8). St. Paul then goes on to explain how God, “who did not spare His own Sun, but delivered Him up for us all,…shall…also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). Consequently, when our Creator and Redeemer deigns to invite us to pray, “give us this day our daily bread,” He is also teaching us humility, for He wants us to realize that we are dependent upon Him for our every need whether spiritual or physical. Consequently, we come before Him in our prayers not as lords and ladies demanding what is ours by right, but rather we come to Him as repentant sinners redeemed and forgiven by the blood of His dear Son and privileged to be called His own dear children. The prophet Micah informs us, “What does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8) Consequently, my dear friends, let us come with boldness to the throne of our Savior God to ask for our daily bread for He has invited and instructed us to do so, but let us do so with a spirit of humility.

II.

Notice, secondly, how our Lord and Savior teaches us patience, by instructing us to pray, “give us this day our daily bread.” So many of us, I am afraid, tend to be “worriers.” We need to hear, as we did this morning in our New Testament Lesson, that God does not want us to spend our lives worrying about all of our physical needs. He has, after all, created the entire physical universe and sustains it on our behalf and to His glory. He takes care of all of the lesser creatures—the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. He can and will provide for us!

Consequently, He teaches us to pray that God would “day by day” take care of those needs. We live in a world filled with financial planners and financial planning can be a very good thing. Our Lord Himself urges us to be wise builders, who count the costs and make adequate preparations (cf. Luke 14:25ff.) for the future. In premarital counseling classes I encourage young couples to make wise financial plans for their future. However, undue emphasis upon IRA’s, 401K Plans, health and life insurance can lead individuals to believe that their future security lies within their own hands and is to be based upon the mere accumulation of wealth. Such is not the case. The Lord can and does bless us physically, but He also can and does upon occasion remove those blessings when it suits His good purposes for our lives and the lives of others. As Job understood four millenniums ago, “The LORD (gives), and the LORD (takes away)” (Job 1:21) and within the framework of that knowledge we are to bless His holy name!

Let us, therefore, continue to come to our Lord with our needs, recognizing as did Luther that those needs include not just the food that we eat, but our every physical need. The welfare of our families, the quality of our relationships on the job and in our neighborhoods, the weather we need for our crops and gardens, and the health we enjoy are all issues included within this Fourth Petition. We can be confident that when we ask God will respond for He has promised to do so (cf. Matthew 7:7), but let us do so with patience. God will respond both to our needs and our prayers, but in His own good time and in accordance with His own gracious will. Remember the words of St. Paul, “All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). We can pray “give us this day our daily bread” with patience.

III.

Finally, our Lord teaches us gratitude through this Fourth Petition. Luther suggests in his explanation to the Fourth Petition that “God gives daily bread without our asking, even to unbelievers, but we pray in this petition that He would teach us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.” God certainly does know our every need and will provide for those needs as He sees best. The question, however, lies in this—do we recognize and appreciate the fact that our Creator/Redeemer God is the source of all of our blessings?

To express gratitude is so important in any relationship. The tour that my family and I took in Europe these past weeks emphasized not just seeing the great sights, but meeting the people. In view of that quite a bit of time and effort was expended by our guides to teach us phrases in German, French, and Italian so that we could communicate with the local people in their own languages. It is not surprising that two of the words emphasized were “please” and “thank you.” We were encouraged to begin our attempts to find directions in France with “S’ll vous plait” or please and to end our inquiry with “Merci” or thank-you. We were reminded that waiters in Italy would be especially helpful if you would respond to their efforts to communicate about a menu with the addition of a “Grazie” or thank-you. The same principle of expressing gratitude as a means of helping in our earthly relationships is so important as we deal with our God!

It is so easy to receive and then to forget. The nine lepers who were healed but then forgot to return to thank Jesus had just as much for which to be thankful as the one did, yet in the excitement of the moment, they failed to respond as they should have. Can this and does this not also happen to us in our lives? We can so easily receive the Lord’s blessings day in and day out without thought and without response. Oh yes, we politely tip the hat at meals and recite a brief, “O give thanks unto the Lord,” but how often are not our thoughts elsewhere. May I suggest that a remedy may be to have different members of the family offer ex corde prayers—prayers from the heart simply mentioning the things for which the family can be thankful including the specific things received at that particular meal. May I likewise suggest that each morning when we awake and each evening as we lie down to rest, we begin and close the day with prayers of thanksgiving. There are always things for which we can be thankful. My feet may hurt, but at least I can walk! The meal may not be my favorite, but as least I have something to eat! My job may be stressful, but at least I am employed!

My dear friends, what a privilege we have received from our Savior God! He invites us to come before Him with our requests not just for our souls, but also for our bodies. Where we have failed in these matters, let us ask God for His forgiveness, resting assured that God in His love has forgiven our sins and failures. We can in the blood of Christ come before Him with boldness on behalf of others as well as ourselves. May we ever do so with a spirit of genuine humility, patience, and gratitude. Amen.

—Pastor Paul D. Nolting