Your Provision

It happened on an ordinary day.

Jesus had withdrawn to a solitary place to pray—something he did regularly, a rhythm his disciples had observed countless times. After Jesus finished praying, one of his disciples approached him with a request that would change everything: "Lord, teach us to pray" (Luke 11:1).

It's a remarkable request when you think about it. These were Jewish men. They'd been praying since childhood. But they'd seen something different in Jesus. They'd watched him pray with an intimacy, an authority, an expectation they'd never witnessed before. His prayers weren't performances or recitations. 

 When Jesus prayed, things happened. Sick people were healed. Demons fled. Storms calmed. The Father's will was done.

We will go deeper in the Lord’s prayer around five phrases in the prayer: Our Father, Your Kingdom, Give us, Forgive us, Lead and Deliver us. This is an invitation to go deeper by Learning to Pray with Jesus.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Thank you for listening to an audio resource from Stanwich Church, located in Greenwich in Stanford, Connecticut. The vision of Stanwich Church is to know Christ and make him known.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

A reading from the gospel according to Matthew chapter six, verses nine to thirteen. Our beloved Father, dwelling in the heavenly realms, may the glory of your name be the center on which our lives turn. Manifest your kingdom, realm, and cause your every purpose to be fulfilled on earth, just as it is in heaven. We acknowledge you as our provider of all we need each day. Forgive us the wrongs we have done as we ourselves release forgiveness to those who have wronged us. Rescue us every time we face tribulation and set us free from evil. For you are the King who rules with power and glory forever. Amen. May God add his blessing to this reading of his holy word.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Whenever she was in town, she would corner any of our friends when they came to the house, and she would lightly interrogate them on what church they attended. I remember a time when my grandmother was in town, she was visiting, and she actually came to our church. And I believe it was one of the first Sundays that I was actually leading a solo. She was so happy because, in her mind, I was singing in church, so that meant that I was saved. And then she proceeded to tell everyone how I got my voice from her, even though she was told that. Miss Tita Mae White, small-framed, intelligent Jamaican woman who was never married to a man, but most certainly married to Jesus, and you knew it. She was a woman who worked for years and years as a teacher on the island of Jamaica, and she saved up enough money to go on a ship at 30 years of age to travel to England to study nursing. She met a man on that ship, they fell in love, and then my mother was born in the UK. When my grandmother died, my mother went to her house, and we were all there. My mother went into my grandmother's bedroom. She opened the top drawer, and in that drawer, she saw a little booklet. And in the booklet, it had all the details for a funeral, all the arrangements. We found out everything was paid for. And then we went and got the headstone, and it just had the year she was born and a blank date already made for the year that she died for us to fill in. You know, that that funeral was a moment for us. It was a moment for my mother, and I believe it was a moment for many of the people that were in attendance. It was when we realized we weren't eating off of the same plate spiritually that my grandmother was eating off of. Jesus was her bread. It was also her means, her peaceful ending, you know, her preparations, um, the reputation she had at church and the way she managed her life. That told you everything about who was managing her. Lots of times, leaders in our lives they do that. They humble us, they course-correct us, they become like a northern star for us, and then they give us an example of what it's like to live devoted. It can leave us asking ourselves the question well, who's my tea to white? The challenge for us in accepting the daily bread of the Father, whether it's a morsel or whether it's a full meal, is determining our identity in the story and the role that we're supposed to play in our own lives. The question then becomes: do I even belong in the role provider? Because the truth is, Jesus is the bread, but he's also the means through which we obtain it. Jesus is the bread, but he's also the means through which we obtain it. Matthew 6, 11 says, give us this day our daily bread. Now, in hopes to better understand this familiar line to all of us, in the Lord's Prayer, as we call it, and the idea that Jesus is the provider and he's also the means through which we obtain it, let's rewind a bit. Let's look at the moments leading up to Jesus' prayer. Because many scholars agree that Matthew chapter 5 through 7 should be read together as one sermon. And at this point in Jesus' life and ministry, he's teaching daily. Gobs of people are following him around as he moves from synagogue to synagogue in the different towns around Israel. This is occurring daily as well, these people following him. And on one of these days in particular, Jesus sees a crowd gathering, and then he does what any good worship leader or preacher would do. He goes up on a mountainside to get auditory and visual leverage. He wants to see the people he's speaking to, he wants to make sure they can hear him. And the very first phrase that comes out of the mouth of our Lord is this blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. This is a complete reorientation for the Jewish people. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Now, many of us might tune out that statement because we hear the word poor, and then it kind of feels intrusive. This is too deep, where are they going? However, to have and to have not is not synonymous with being poor in spirit. To have and to have not is not synonymous with being poor in spirit. A person who's poor in spirit is simply this: a person whose need is in Christ and they know it full well. A person who's poor in spirit is convinced that Jesus is the bread. They're convinced that he's also the means through which they obtain it. Our human capabilities, hear this. Our human capabilities at best is a means to God's end. Jesus said it in Matthew, in John 15, 5. He says, Apart from me, you can do. So the spiritual baseline that the Lord desires for everyone in attendance at the Sermon on Mount and for us today is to be poor in spirit. That's the lens through which he desires us to pray and follow him. It's our true north in our spiritual growth. This is the posture that allows us to glean the most out of Jesus' teachings. And yes, Jesus' teachings are corrective, they're disorienting. They're designed that way, though. And these particular teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, they follow a path of corrective commentary for the law of Moses. Jesus is giving a proper interpretation of the laws of Moses. They're widely known by the audience that he's speaking to. So he's reorienting them to a new way of living under God's law to strengthen their intimacy with him. A way of life that's unbothered by the demands of the world. A way of life that's unconcerned with a need for human affirmation. That's hard. That's hard for me. I'm a singer. I speak in front of people. Unbothered by a desire for human affirmation. It's hard for the follower of Jesus now, and it was most certainly hard for the follower of Jesus then. But the poor in spirit are people who are daily pressed by the bread of the Messiah. Jesus offers a right view on the law of Moses. Anger is addressed. Lust. He brings up divorce, making commitments and vows. Any of these things hitting home? Revenge. Nobody here ever tried to. I know I didn't. Dealing with opposition, generosity towards the physically poor. And then in the following chapter, he addresses prayer. So a key takeaway that has been emerging off of the page as we read this and as we've learned is this asking for the bread, asking for daily bread keeps us spiritually humble and allows us to embrace our physical needies. Asking for daily bread keeps us spiritually humble as we embrace our physical neediness. Give us this day our daily bread. Over the past few weeks, we've been covering how to establish the Lordship of Christ in our hearts and in our minds as we pray. We would say, Our Father who art in heaven, hallow be thy name, right? He's holy in his name. We've learned how to intercede for the daily kingdom of God to land here in our homes, in our schools, in our workplaces, and in the and seeing the sacred and the secular spaces disappear to the glory of God with the prayer that we say, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. But in the second half of the Lord's Prayer, we're taught to pray for our own needs, beginning with the request, give us this day our daily bread. I like how David Brown argues that the Greek transliteration says it more accurately, and it would read as this give us this day the bread which our days' necessities require. Our days' necessities. Sufficient is the worries of today, right? So, because of the chapters leading up to this prayer, the shift to a focus in human needs and took in the Lord's prayer gives prayer a brand new meaning, a new spin, if you will. It exposes the reality that we all fall victim to, which is that we forget the one who is powering the faith that we actually have. The one Jesus. It's our failed attempt to embrace the title provider, trying to make it our own. As a father, I've had to wrestle with this the minute that my first daughter came. We have mouths to feed, like we take this baby, put her in the seat, and then we leave the hospital. Are you good with that? My wife and I was driving down the road and looking back. Is she, is she, oh, she's still there. Wow, okay. This is real. Nobody's calling us to come back. It was a beautiful beginning of a journey. There's mothers in this room. There are caretakers in this room, fathers, grandparents, there's even foster parents potentially. And we have someone looking up at us daily for bread. But Jesus, thank God, in his own words, in Matthew 6, 26, declares this look at the birds. They don't plant, harvest, or save food in barns, but your heavenly father feeds them. Don't you know you're worth much more than them? You cannot add any time to your life by worrying about it. This prayer, we're taught, is kind of like God telling us, daughter, son, stop fighting me for a yoke that I never wanted to weigh you down with. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, the scripture says, because I am humble and I'm gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your soul. Jesus says, For my yoke is easy. It's easy to bear, and the burden that I give you is light. God is so good at being God, especially in the means through which He provides for us, we will often forget at times our own spiritual need, our spiritual desperation, our physical needs, and then we begin ways to seek living off of a bread supply that has already gone stale. Yahweh, Eh, the Lord, he says to Moses while they're in the wilderness, they've just miraculously left Egypt. Everything is scary, but it's an upward trajectory, and the people are hungry. So God in his faithfulness and his loving kindness, his loyal love, he says to Moses, I will reign down manna from heaven. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way, I'm gonna test them and see whether they'll follow my instructions. If they didn't follow the instructions and they got greedy, the manna would immediately rot and get smelly in their tents. There's a sense of humility baked into the testing of the heavenly manna. No pun intended. And the us and our in this phrase give us our daily bread. That positions this prayer in the arms of community. I'm not interceding for myself alone, but I'm also interceding for my brothers and sisters, right? Israel having to gather grain with their brothers and sisters and elders and spiritual leaders alongside the young and the old is humbling. It's labor, but it's not in vain. Another key takeaway that pops off the page for me in this text is that asking for the daily bread of Jesus helps us to feed the community. Asking for daily bread helps us to feed the community. The us and the hour in this passage begs the question, who? In Dr. Chuck Davis's book, you ever heard of that guy? The Lord's Prayer, 30 Day Journey. I found out when he wrote this, I'm like, this is virtually impossible. What type of robotic machine are you plugged into? But it's a brilliant breakdown on, it's a brilliant breakdown on the various lines in the Lord's Prayer. And in Chuck's book, he allows us to speak and think indeptly about the corporate us. Chuck says, when I pray for daily bread, I'm praying not just for my household, but for the larger family of God. I'm praying for brothers and sisters in Christ who do not have enough, who face real hunger, real deprivation. And if I'm praying for them, I'd better be willing to be a part of the answer, to share what I have, to advocate for justice, to participate in meeting their needs. That's why James can write so bluntly. Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, go in peace, keep warm, and be well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is that? If we pray, give us our daily bread, we're committing to care about whether our brothers and sisters actually have bread. Their needs become our concerns. For many along the periphery of this very community and secretly within it, that time is now. Needs are abundantly around you. Jesus uses this prayer as social commentary. It was actionable, but it could be answered by Christ through us. So, Stanwich Church Family, I want to encourage you for a minute. In many ways, you've answered that call. When I began to talk with Pastor Chuck several months ago, and he started sharing with me the vision for Stanford and the hopes and dreams and desires that you guys have. And it was like with every little piece of information that came into my system, my heart just would leap more and more and more. My wife and I would get more and more and more excited. The early days in the boxing gym, that eclectic group that God began to bring through and set you guys afower. The 10 years of intercessory prayer that's been fired in the direction of the enemy to loose anything that's been hindering the spiritual lives of the people of Stamford and there's residents. My wife and I also, and our children, at one point were a part of a church plant in a UFC gym in Hoboken. I know some one of them are gonna be like, no, you weren't. I'm like, well, you were literally, you didn't remember that. But all of that allowed the Lord to move in you and do what many people would deem impossible. You look to your neighbor and you started sowing gospel seeds. You did that with your hopes, you did that with your commitments, you've done that with your dreams, you're doing that with your desires, and now you're doing that with your finances as well. Many of you have even volunteered to help Stanwich get off his feet. You've prophetically proclaimed along with King David in Psalm 27, 13, that Stanford will see the goodness of God in the land of the living. For that, you gotta be proud and filled with anticipation for the work that the Lord will do. And you know he ain't done. He's gonna do more. Pour out more, Lord, bring more glory, more resources, more people, more favor, and draw people near because no one comes to the Father unless he draws them there and he'll raise them up, he says on the last day. So we just don't need only to be in place with our yes. All three writers in Mark, Matthew, and Luke record something that must have been a life-changing moment for those who are listening. Thousands are now following Jesus as we've talked about. And in their logical mind, the disciples say, Well, let's send the people away so that they can get a bite to eat. It's been miles and miles of walking, some people for days. Yet in all three accounts, Jesus replies, You give them something to eat. Jesus takes the bread, he breaks it into multiple pieces that he gets from the young boy, and then he gives it back to the disciples. It's not until he gives it back to the disciples that the bread begins to multiply. Jesus is the means. But today, he's asking us to be the means through which he provides for the needy. But church family, we're the means through which. For the past two years, I've been personally in a wilderness. I felt the Lord's prompting to walk away from what many might say is the pinnacle of Christian American church ministry, the mega church. Um huge project production every Sunday, wonderful people. But we stepped out in faith, feeling that the Lord said it's time to move. I want to do something new. We stepped into traveling ministry and full-time doing that in faith with no clear view of what was next. What I didn't expect was the Lord to strip me of every stale piece of manna that I stored in the cabinet of my heart. At this very moment, our family is actively being trained to live off daily bread, minute by minute. These days, I know my need full well. I know Jesus is that need. So with sober minds, let us consider a few thoughts and meditations as we contemplate the goodness of God and his mighty act as he's been providing for us spiritually. He's been providing For us physically, and he's been providing for us through emotional provision as well. Number one, let's meditate on this. Provision is God's name, not ours. He alone is entitled Jehovah Jira. You know the name. Labor cannot be completely provisioned. Labor cannot be complete provision because some labor to no avail. Some communities labor day and night and they are still unable to provide for themselves adequately. The Israelites labored day and night in Egypt, unlawfully, with limited resources, on purpose, they did so unfruitfully for the selfish gain of others. Though labor is not the enemy, it's not the true full means to an end. Jehovah Jirah is the means to an end. He's the means and he's the end. John said it in Revelation 22. Jesus says, I'm the Alpha and the Omega, I'm the beginning and the end. I'm the first and I'm the last. Later on, as the disciples are arguing about food, Jesus says, I am the bread of life. In that same chapter, he says, I'm the bread that came down from heaven. That's freedom for the believer. Why? That's freedom to know that regardless of the abilities that I have, you know, or the lack thereof, that's not going to determine my value in society, that's not going to determine my value at home, and that's most certainly not going to determine my value in the kingdom of God. We all have access to the bread of Christ. And we're called to pray as those who are poor in spirit. That's the lens through which we're called to acknowledge our daily need for Jesus because he promised that he provide his daily bread of sufficiency. And as we end, we're going to have a moment of silence. Above me, you'll find a few reflective questions. There's a lot more reflective questions in this book that you can meditate on and maybe replace your daily quiet time with a book like this to really draw into what God is saying to you in this season. But as you ask yourself these questions in this silence, also listen for the whispers that the Holy Spirit might speak to you as you ask.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

We'll begin that moment of silence now.org.