Before we come to our message this morning,
may I underline the welcome that has been
given to those who are joining us as
a family and as a fellowship here in
Knox today, particularly with the end and purpose
in view of bringing our gratitude and our
praises to the Lord for his goodness.
I trust that as you look over the
past of your life, whatever mysteries there may
remain to be solved, and which will only
be resolved in eternity, that today as you
recount the goodness of the Lord, you have
a song in your heart.
We all have some dark threads in our
lives, and if we haven't them as yet,
we shall soon have them.
That is of the order of our earthly
pilgrimage.
But the fact of clouds must not obliterate
the more obvious fact of the sunshine.
And today we concentrate upon the privileges of
life, the provisions of life, and behind all
this, the goodness of the God who so
lavishly gives and so graciously cares.
God bless you.
It's a joy to see you all this
morning, and I trust that the Lord will
enable us, as we wait upon him, to
learn some lesson from his word that will
enable us the better to live a life
of thanksgiving and of praise yielding.
Now, having been pondering for some time upon
the theme that should occupy us this morning,
I have felt constrained not to address you
directly on the theme of the harvest, though
there are plenty of biblical passages that would
invite us so to do.
But I have felt constrained this morning to
call your attention to a word of scripture
found in Matthew chapter six and verse eleven,
daily prayer and our daily provisions.
Give us this day our daily bread.
These words, of course, appear in the patterned
prayer, as I like to call it, the
pattern which our Lord gave to his disciples,
which should, if taken seriously, enable them to
pray in a right way before God.
Now, we are not in a going to
go into the background of the prayer, but
we are simply going to focus, or at
least mainly focus, upon the thrust and the
significance of this utterance that comes right at
the heart of the prayer.
You notice, this is the one and only
reference to material things that comes in the
body of this patterned prayer.
The one and only.
It's very significant.
In our lives, and I refer to those
of us who bear the name of Jesus
and who are members of his church all
too often, our lives' centre, the beginning and
the end and the centre, is the material
and the physical.
But here in the patterned prayer given by
our Lord to his disciples, the centre is
God.
God comes at the beginning and God comes
at the end, and sandwiched in between our
concern for God's glory with which we should
begin the day and begin our life, end
the day and end our life, comes this
one solitary, simple request, and it is this.
Give us this day, or day by day,
our daily bread.
Before we come to the thrust of it,
may I just say this one other word,
apart from apologizing that if I'm a little
husky this morning, you'll forgive me.
Your Canadian winter is beginning to, or autumn,
I'm sorry, is beginning to tell me that
the winter's on the way.
However, we'll do our best.
What I wanted to say was this.
I cannot other than be impressed and silenced,
as it were, to awesome worship as I
see the way in which our Lord so
naturally moves from the sublime thoughts of the
worship of God to the simple things of
every day.
You remember how the prayer starts, Our Father
which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth as it
is in heaven.
God is everything.
And then he comes down so naturally to
this.
Give us this day, our daily bread.
Now, I mention that, you see, because this
is how life ought to be.
Life is not divided up into compartments in
the absolute sense of secular and sacred.
If we rightly live our lives, then the
simple things, the matters that relate to bread
and butter are as important in the sight
of God as anything else.
But, of course, they must take their proper
place, as we shall see as we proceed.
Now, there are three main things I would
like to note, and I'll tell you what
they are before we go ahead.
First of all, the place of the material
to the privilege of the loyal.
Thirdly, the plea of the spiritual.
Now, we look, first of all, at the
place of the material in the life of
a child of God.
The place of the material in the life
of a child of God.
What is the place of the material?
Well, first of all, will you notice that
there is a place for material things, for
concerns such as that for daily bread.
In relation to this, I think we ought
to begin by stressing the propriety of praying
for material things.
That comes out in my text.
Our Lord taught his disciples to pray, give
us this day our daily bread.
So, we start there.
The propriety of praying to our Heavenly Father
for our daily bread.
It is right.
Now, I stress that because I don't know
whether you have this species of Christian here
in Canada, but I have met people who
appear to think that praying for daily bread
is a little bit or a little bit
immature.
If you're a Christian, you don't come to
these things.
You only pray about the great spirituals, as
they say.
My dear friends, this is all wrong.
It's an indictment of the Creator as much
as of the creature, or the Christian.
You see, God has made us to depend
upon himself.
And the heart of all sin is our
independence of God, or our attempt to be
independent of him.
And it is the purpose of God that
every day we should approach him for our
needs and receive from his hand, even though
it be via our employer.
But that we receive from his hands the
provisions of life.
That we should see beyond and behind secondary
causes, the primary.
And failure to acknowledge the propriety of the
material has led to all kinds of consequences.
I suggest to you that the rise of
materialism in our Western world and in other
sections of the world, the rise of materialism
and the communist philosophy especially, is very largely
due to the fact that generations of Christians
have minimized the importance of the material.
We have lived as if all that matters
were the ultimate and the spiritual.
It is not true.
Our Lord fed men.
He healed men.
And he told his disciples to pray for
daily bread.
You need daily bread.
Pray for it.
Your father is concerned.
When the sparrow falls, he notices it.
He clothed the grass.
Ah, are you not much more important than
the grass that today is and tomorrow is
passed into the own?
The thing does not make sense, says our
Lord.
You are more important than the grass and
you are more important even than the lily
of the field.
He meant you to be clothed and to
be clothed without getting all excited and anxious
about it and spinning.
He meant you to be clothed and he
bids you look to him for the necessities
of life.
Materialism flourishes where we overstress the one aspect
of things at the expense of the other.
Our Lord's life was that perfect balance and
equivalence.
Of course he came to seek our ultimate
and eternal salvation.
But do not forget that salvation involves the
redemption of the body.
You forgive me for saying this.
I am not criticizing anyone here as far
as I know.
But I do not like to hear people
talk about the mere salvation of souls.
I know what they mean and I have
every sympathy with it in one sense.
But you see, our Lord's redemption is a
redemption of the whole body and when the
trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be
raised, we shall receive a new body like
unto his and disease and death will be
done away with.
He is going to redeem the whole man.
Now we need to get a new grip
of this and we need to live as
men who see that God's concern is for
the whole of men.
The propriety of praying for material things.
But now having said that, to allay any
possible criticism and to be true to my
text, let us take a good long look
at the priority of the spiritual.
Look again with me at what precedes this
prayer.
See what precedes the plea and the pattern
prayer.
I can put it to you in three
words.
The hallowing of God's name.
Hallowed be thy name.
The hastening of his kingdom.
Thy kingdom come and the honoring of his
will.
Thy will be done on earth as it
is in heaven.
God's name, God's kingdom, God's will.
Now here we are four square in a
spiritual realm.
And that comes first.
And it is only when you and I
have really got there and we place God
first that we have a right to pray
the prayer of our text this morning.
But notice, it's not only what precedes my
text, you notice how the Lord's prayer ends.
After this prayer about our daily bread, you
remember what comes next?
Well, you may look at your Bible if
you like.
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors.
This is a spiritual matter.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from evil or from the evil one.
This is a spiritual battle.
And then it all works up again to
God.
For thine is the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever and ever.
Amen.
Now do you see the place of the
material?
It is sandwiched in between the worship of
God with which the prayer begins and the
work of God with which the prayer continues.
The work of God in our forgiving of
one another and receiving forgiveness from him.
The work of God in our making war
with the devil, the evil one.
And the ultimate capstone is again the worship
of God.
Thine is the kingdom and the power and
the glory forever and ever.
Amen.
Now this is the place of the material.
And in here, you see, if you have
any need that you can bring here, then
it is legitimate.
If you can place it in this context,
if it is congruous with these things, if
it is consistent with these things, then it
is in the will of God.
The place of the material in the life
of a child of God.
Secondly, the privilege of the loyal.
Our Lord is here assuming, and of course
assuming rightly in the initial context, that those
who had requested him to teach them how
to pray were loyal to him.
I know, of course, that there was a
Judas among them.
And our Lord knew.
But he is addressing them generally and he
is assuming that they are pledged to be
his disciples.
He is assuming the loyalty of the petitioner
to God in terms of worship and of
witness and of work.
He will proceed from prayer for daily bread
to assure God of his having forgiven other
people.
And of that score he is looking to
the Lord to be merciful to him.
Forgive us as we have already forgiven.
And he is involved in a war.
Let me repeat, a war against Satan with
a view to further worship of God in
conceding him the glory and the power and
the dominion forever.
Now, the obverse side of the kind of
Christian privilege is Christian responsibility.
There are two sides to every kind.
The privilege of the Christian is such that
we shall take eternity fully to fathom it.
But we are aware of many privileges given
us by God in Christ in this world.
The privilege of fellowship together, the privilege of
prayer, the privilege of having resources that are
unending, that apply to all of us in
our several needs, wherever we are.
And we so differ, do we not?
But we are assured that God has resources
for each one of us.
We are to be worshippers of God's name,
and we are to be children of his,
and we are to be subject to his
kingdom.
These are our privileges.
But the other side of privilege is responsibility.
And the two sides are always there, always
there.
Our Lord is assuming here, and he is
assuming a right, that the Christian who desires
to pray a right is a Christian who
puts God in the first place and who
is prepared to live accordingly.
Now, let me just say a word about
this.
If you are not prepared to put God
in his proper place, then you can't really
pray a right for your material needs.
Now, please don't misunderstand me.
I don't mean for one single moment to
suggest that God only blesses those who have
lived an impeccable, faultless life.
If that were so, then none of us
would be blessed.
But one thing I want to suggest is
this.
When you and I are consciously not living
for the glory of God, not living according
to the will of God, then we haven't
got the confidence to ask him to fulfill
his promises.
Even if we had the right, we haven't
got the confidence.
And you see, this is one reason why
so many of us have such little faith
in praying.
We know, of course, that if God were
to give us these things, we might misuse
them straight away.
Because we've misused the things we asked for
when we had them before, we've misused them
many and many a time.
And this is our common habit.
We are sinners.
And perhaps we want certain things not for
God's glory, but for our own good and
our own pleasure.
We are so full of ourselves, we want
things that really don't come into the category
of need, but of luxuries.
But when I know that I am in
the will of God, and when in communing
with my own heart I know that I
only want the glory of God, then I
can ask for anything.
These are the bold men in prayer.
These are the courageous men in prayer who
only seek one thing.
And they know it.
And when they commune with their own hearts,
even though they have temptations from this and
that direction, their one concern is the glory
of God.
Put those men on their knees.
My word, they bring heaven down.
You see, knowing that they only seek the
glory of God and to do the will
of God, they are encouraged to plead his
resources.
You see, I find people who have problems
about prayer, and I have invariably as a
pastor to start here.
Are you really living for God's glory?
Because this is the fundamental issue.
If you are really out for God's glory
and you are in his will where he
has placed you, then you should have no
inhibitions in bringing to him the promises of
his word and asking him to fulfill them.
I'll give you one illustration from the gospel.
You remember the story of Peter.
It's in Matthew chapter 14.
Peter is the central figure here, as in
so many places.
But the disciples are in a boat crossing
the little lake, Lake of Galilee, caught in
a storm.
And then in the middle of the night
they're toiling and they're going against the wind.
And if we imagine a right, the boat
is becoming almost full of water, and they're
terribly afraid.
And then they see this ghost-like figure
walking on the waves.
It must be a phantom, it must be
a ghost.
If it's not a subjective fantasy, it must
be a ghost!
And you can almost feel their blood turning
cold.
And then one of them said, Master, if
it is you, it was Peter of course,
if it is you, this is the kind
of thing that he was able to do
and no one else.
And it must be him if it's not
a ghost.
If it is you, he says, be it
me, come to thee on the water.
And then the Master's voice, obviously recognizable, and
Peter would not mistake it, said, come.
There's no reason for you to be afraid,
come.
And do you see what Peter did?
When the Master said, come, Peter, you'd say,
stupid fellow, jumped out of the boat and
put his two feet on the waves.
Ah, but the Master had called him, and
because the Master had called him, he could
look to the Master to enable him to
do the impossible.
But you say, that's not the end of
the story.
No, indeed it isn't.
Because when Peter saw the wind, or rather
felt the wind and saw the waves so
high, he began to sink.
Ah, but wait a moment, even in that
moment, he was able to look to his
Master, though up to here in water, and
say, Master, save me!
And save him he did.
You see the point?
When you're in the Master's will, when you're
doing what he's commanded you to do, when
you're in the place of the Master's appointment,
you can ask for anything.
And fundamentally this morning, to people who have
a problem about prayer, may I suggest that
we ask first and foremost, are you where
God meant you to be?
Are you involved in the business that God
ordained for you, so that you have perfect
peace?
Has he commanded you to walk that sea?
Then if he has, though your feet be
going down under the waves, you can cry
to him and he will yet save you.
We will be closing later on, don't turn
to the hymn book just yet, I won't
be long this morning.
But we shall be singing later on this
lovely hymns of Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady,
a joint effort.
Through all the changing scenes of life in
trouble and in joy, the praises of my
God shall still my heart and soul employ.
Now, I chose that, not only because it
generally synchronizes with our theme, but especially because
of its last verse.
Do you remember it?
Fear him, ye saints, and you will then
have nothing else to fear.
Make you his service your delight, your ones
shall know his care.
Oh, can I breathe those words into some
troubled heart here this morning?
Some perplexed soul, young or old, fear him,
ye saints, which is just another way, worship
him, honor him, give him the place of
God in your lives, fear him, ye saints,
and you will then have nothing else to
fear.
Make you his service your delight, your ones
shall know his care.
It is true.
So we move from the place of the
material and the privilege of the loyal to
the plea of the spiritual.
I think I'm breaking a record this morning.
The plea of the spiritual.
Now, this is related to the point with
which we begun, but it is something different.
I want to suggest to you that the
plea enshrined in our text this morning is
one of the most spiritual utterances ever to
fall from the lips of a man.
But you say it's got to do with
daily bread, it's got nothing at all to
do with the immediate, direct worship of God.
No, that is so.
But you see, we do not only respect
and honor God directly, but indirectly.
And here we have one of these amazing,
this classical illustration of the indirect serving to
the glory and the praise of the eternal
God, and ultimately to the service of men.
Now, I want to say that this prayer
can only be prayed, really, as our Lord
taught us to pray it.
It can only be prayed if we are
truly spiritual.
Now, let me point what I deem to
be the proof of that.
First of all, the reality of the petitioner's
godliness is reflected here negatively and positively.
Negatively in this way.
Notice what he didn't ask for.
Now, please, put yourselves in this man's, or
in these people's shoes, the disciples.
They knew that when Jesus Christ approached God,
He had done so much.
He had never said no to Him.
The Father never said no to Him, in
the absolute sense.
I say that because in the Garden of
Gethsemane, our Lord prayed, If it be possible,
let this cup pass from me.
Well, that was not an absolute negative, but
it was just saying it is not possible.
Jesus Christ's life of prayer, God's word, was
something of a most dynamic and perfect order.
He had that sweet, unbroken communion with God
and confidence in God that was honored.
Now, notice, they might have been tempted, that
is, the disciples might have been tempted to
ask for many things.
That the Lord would give this, give that,
or the other.
But our Lord says that they should ask
for one thing.
And this is the kind of true spirituality
that is ours.
When we can come and pray like this
negatively, note that He does not seek everything.
He does not seek much, but He seeks
one thing.
He does not ask for what might keep
Him aloof from God for one solitary day.
Or let me put it positively, which is
far better.
This man might have come and prayed.
The man envisaged here in prayer, the individual
disciple, might be tempted to come to God
and say, Lord, give me enough for this
next month, or give me enough for this
next week.
But He does not do that.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Why?
My dear friends, you have only got to
pose the question to see the wonder of
the answer.
You see, to a man of the spirit
envisaged here, he is as much concerned to
be in the presence of God as he
is to have his portion from God.
And if he had his larder full for
a whole month, he might not go back
to God for another whole month.
And he is not simply concerned in getting
things from God, he is concerned in being
with God.
And so he says, look, I'll not ask
for such a quantity today that I won't
need to come back tomorrow, but what I'm
asking for is this, give me today my
daily portion.
Just today.
That's all I ask for, just for today.
Why?
Because, you see, God meant as much to
him as his gifts.
This is why some of us ask for
so much, you see.
God's gifts mean more to us than God
means.
And therefore we want enough stock to take
us right through life.
And this is what we would like this
morning.
We would like to sit here in Knox
Church and say, now Lord, stock up my
bank, give me everything I need until I'm
out of this world.
That's what we would like.
No, we wouldn't agree to that, would we?
But this is the kind of thing we'd
like.
We'd like security to know that the bank
is full right up to the very end.
The prayer of the spiritual is this, give
me today my daily bread.
Why?
Because the spiritual man finds as much pleasure
in coming to God each day of his
life and receiving his daily needs from him
as in receiving the gift itself.
It's the pleasure of his presence.
It's the delight of his countenance.
The worship of his name.
You see, when he prayed at the beginning,
Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be
thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on
earth as it is in heaven.
This man was real.
Jesus envisages people being really worshippers of God
and that's what it means.
Very well then, if God means all this,
I don't want such a stock today that
I won't have to turn to him tomorrow.
The reality of the petitioner's godliness has reflected
them both negatively and positively.
It is also reflected in the frugality of
his request.
He only asks for daily bread.
Now, I'm quite sure that our Lord knew
men well enough and would understand our gratitude
if with daily bread God gave us a
smear of butter and a little bit of
jam.
Of course, because our God and our Father
gives good measure, good weight, pressed down and
running over.
Look at the beauty of the countryside at
this time.
He's not skimped his colors, has he?
Look at the people of God throughout the
ages.
See their manifold gifts and their manifold services.
Look at what the church has done through
history.
God does not skimp his grace, I say.
If anyone knew that, the Son of God,
the Lord Jesus knew it and his disciples
got to know it through him.
Our God is not a mean God.
He gives good measure.
It's not just sixteen ounces to the pound.
It is good measure.
But he taught his disciples only to ask
for their necessities.
Leave it to God to give the over
and the plus.
He may.
He's told us that he will do that.
But to ask only frugally for our necessities.
See, one of the consequences of sin in
our every life is this.
We expect things over and above our needs.
We have become egocentric, centered in ourselves, and
we are not content with our needs.
We want always so much more than our
needs.
Jesus said, when you pray, come to this.
Give us today our daily bread.
And one other word from there is this.
You know, modern expositors, particularly in the light
of certain findings of manuscripts, suggest that really
the word our Lord used was the word
for the soldiers' rations or for the prisoners'
rations.
Now, I'm not going to dogmatize.
I don't know.
I don't think they know, actually, but we
don't need to.
But if it is true, it's a very
precious thought, you see.
A soldier's rations.
Well, now, he doesn't get a packet of
cream or a lot of luxury.
He may not have his steamed Christmas pudding,
but I don't know what he gets.
But he'll certainly get his needs, his rations.
And this is what we should be primarily
concerned with.
If God gives us more, praise be to
his name.
But in prayer, we can expect our needs
if we're in the will of God.
And I want you to notice the final
thing that I'm concerned with this morning is,
though he asks frugally, he asks responsibly.
Because Jesus taught him to pray, Give us
this day our daily bread.
Not my daily bread, but ours.
Now, my good people, I don't know how
you feel, but this touches me.
The more I get to know about the
needs of the world, I really find this
pinches.
I remember sitting one day and Reverend John
Stott's study in London, who was our neighbor
in the Anglican church, and we had lunch
together.
And as John was saying grace over the
meal, he turned to me and he said,
I've just been reading some literature about certain
parts of the world which can be nameless.
You know, he says, I've got no stomach
for this meal.
Oh, we've made a mess of God's world.
With all the ability we have to transform
the desert into a garden, and we use
our capacities, our energies, our money, our finance,
our ingenuity to do other things, even to
produce weapons of destruction.
Jesus taught us to pray that even though
we pray frugally, we don't even ask exclusively
for ourselves.
There's always the other man, and there's always
the other woman, there's always the other person.
Give us today.
Harvest Thanksgiving.
Hallelujah.
How good is the God we adore.
How lavish our God is.
How great our God is.
How bountiful our God is.
He gives us much more than we deserve.
He gives us more sometimes than we even
ask.
Have we learned to place the material in
the context of the spiritual?
This is something which is absolutely necessary for
a Christian man and a Christian woman to
see the whole thing sandwiched where it is
sandwiched here, that we may go out into
life not itching for more than God has
purposed us to have, which will only do
us harm in the long run, but knowing
something of that contentment of godliness which is
great gain, knowing that he has said, I
will never leave you nor forsake you.
Let us pray.
O Lord, our God, we thank thee once
again toward the close of our morning worship
that we are privileged to meet like this.
We have been meditating upon the words of
our Lord as he taught his disciples of
old and we have been seeing something of
the significance and relevance of it to our
day and age and especially on this Thanksgiving
day.
Come, O Lord, upon us in great, great
grace that we may learn increasingly to align
our lives to thy will and thy word
and thereby be enabled to live the life
of discipleship in a manner that is altogether
pleasing unto thee.
Hear us, forgive now our sins, the sins
that we have been conscious of even as
we have been meditating upon thy word.
Cleanse us from unrighteousness in the blood of
thy Son and renew us by thy spirit
and thy word and our fellowship together that
we may the more honorably serve and please
thee as long as life lasts in this
world through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.