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Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread (Mat 6.11)

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Matthew Sermon 20 – Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread (Mat 6.11)

Podcast intro

As Jesus moves on in the Lord’s Prayer, he takes us from “Hallowed by Thy name” and “Thy kingdom come” and “Thy will be done” to “Give us this day our daily bread.” (Mat 6.9-11.) And it seems that Jesus is taking us from the sublime to the mundane, from the spiritual to the carnal, from great things we must pray for to something relatively unimportant we are permitted to pray for. But this is just another area in which our thoughts are not God’s thoughts (Isa 55.8). We are the ones who have divided up the world into “spiritual” and “physical” – not God. We are the ones who bemoan our physical needs and dependence – not God. God is the one who created us not only to live by every word that proceeds from his mouth, but also to need daily bread (Deut 8.3; Mat 4.4). This is a glory to God, and it should be a glory to us. After all, our first parents were just as dependent on God in the Garden of Eden, and we will be just as dependent on God in the fully perfected new heavens and new earth. Our complete dependence on God, spiritually and physically, is a function of our being his creatures and his children, not a result of the fall. Indeed, sin came into the world when man sought to be independent from God. This is just another way in which, by putting his prayer in our mouths, Jesus is not only changing the world, he is changing us. I hope you enjoy the sermon. Thanks for listening. –Alan Burrow

Discussion questions

1. Read Deut 8.2-20, then answer the following:

a. Why did God take his people into the wilderness for forty years, remove all normal means of provision, and instead provide their needs miraculously? (Deut 8.2-6.)

b. What was God preparing his people for? (Deut 8.7-10.)

c. What was God guarding his people against? (Deut 8.11-18.)

d. What will be the consequences if God’s people forget the wilderness lessons?  (Deut 8.19-20.)

e. God says he was dealing with his people as with a son, and he wanted them to know that (Deut 8.5). Is God’s “son” any less dependent on God when he enters the land than when he was in the desert? (Deut 8.14-18.)

f. If not, then what is the difference between maturity and immaturity?

2. Realizing that our complete dependence on God, spiritually and physically, is the way he made us, that it is “very good” (Gen 1.31), and that it will always be the case (Rom 11.35-36) – what effect does that have on you?  Pick all that apply and explain:

a. Freeing
b. Surprise
c. Disappointment
d. Relief
e. Peaceful
f. Joyous
g. Other

3. Does the above stated realization (in question 2) change the way you look at your daily life, and if so how?

4. Do you think that accepting, and not only accepting but also glorying, in our complete dependence on God can help free us from unbiblical dependencies or slaveries, and if so how?

5. Give a couple of ways you plan to change the way you pray and the way you live to reflect the above stated truth (in question 2).

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