“Here we now
consider the poor bread basket, the necessaries of our body and of the temporal
life.” [LC III p 72]
Today in our
ongoing series on the Lord’s Prayer we consider the 3rd Petition as
well as the 4th. Thy Will be done and Give us this day our daily bread. We have begun with the bread. We have begun with the 4th.
In the 4th
Petition we pray for bread, but this prayer is for much more than simply just bread. Bread is only the finished product. Bread is that thing that we need so that we
can eat and live. But bread doesn’t
appear all by itself. Before there can
be bread there must be someone to bake it, there must be flour and grain and
eggs and sugar, there must be a farmer to grow and to harvest the grain, cattle
and chickens for milk and eggs, land to plant the seed, sunshine and rain to
make it grow. Daily bread is much more
than just a prayer for bread. It is a
prayer for everything that goes in to making and preparing that bread. It involves all of commerce and all of
life. This simple prayer is a prayer
that God would provide all of those things as much as we need them. We pray that God would support us in our
earthly and bodily life.
Last week we
mentioned that the prayer that God’s
Kingdom come was not a prayer for our election cycle – God’s Kingdom is not
of this earth, so a prayer for God’s Kingdom has nothing to do with who is
president in Washington, Beijing, Moscow, Baghdad or Tehran. But, here in the 4th Petition good
government is included (we can’t after all make a living and eat our bread
in peace unless there is a government to help us protect it). God provides this. God takes care of us, of his world and his
whole creation by creating our various stations in life: bakers and farmers and
presidents and autoworkers and soldiers and teachers and mothers &
fathers. He gives each station, each
office for our good and then he calls every one of us to fill those
stations. Tom, you bake bread; Marsha,
you be a nurse to bandage and heal; Al, you go farm – plant and harvest; Jill,
go paint and draw – and since you’re so good at it teach others to do it!
It’s God’s
world, God’s creation. He makes it. He keeps it running. He enlists us and calls us to participate in
this work together with him.
When you,
the Christian pray this prayer you do not simply pray it for yourself – Lord I
want my pantry full. You pray this
prayer for all people, for your neighbor.
Notice that the prayer is not singular.
Give me this day my daily bread. It is profoundly plural. Us and Our!
We pray not just for ourselves but for each other. “Lord you have blessed me with more than I
need, but I have noticed that my
neighbor has a need.” You pray for your
neighbor and for that need. And if you
are going to pray for it, you also should help to fill it.
James says in
chapter 2 of his epistle. “What good is it my brothers if someone says
he has faith but does not have works?
Can that faith save him? If a
brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food and one of you
says to them, ‘Go in peace be warm and well fed.’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what
good is that? So also faith, if it does
not have works is dead.” (James 2:14-17)
Remember the
preaching of John the Baptist? “Whoever
has two coats is to share with him who has none. Whoever has food is to do likewise.”
Even as we
pray that God would fill us it is our duty to fill others.
So we pray
this prayer on behalf of our neighbor.
But we also pray this prayer against Satan. Luther says that “(Satan’s) thought and desire is
to deprive us of all that we have from God and to hinder it. He is not satisfied to obstruct and destroy
spiritual government by leading souls astray with his lies and power. He also prevents and hinders the stability of
all government and honorable, peaceable relations on the earth.” [LC III p 80]
Wherever there is dissention and disagreement
know that the devil is at work. Wherever
there is want and poverty and need, know that the devil is at work.
“If it were in his
power, and our prayer (next to God) did not prevent him, we would not keep a
straw in the field a penny in the house, yes even our life for an hour.” [LC
III p 81]
In the 3rd
Petition our Lord teaches us to pray, “Thy will be done.”
I will warn
you dear Christians, think twice before you pray this prayer.
This first
petition that we have covered is one that we can readily agree to pray and
eagerly get behind. Lord give me bread,
preserve my wealth and health and stability.
While you’re at it do the same for my neighbor. We like that prayer, but this next one – the
one that comes directly before it – Thy will be done – that is a terrifying
prayer.
It’s
terrifying because it means you have to die.
The Small
Catechism tells us that the devil, the world and our sinful flesh get in the
way of God’s will. They do not want
God’s Kingdom to come or his name to be kept holy and so they fight against
it. You are on the devils side in this
fight. You might not agree. You might not care to hear that. But it is true. The Catechism says that it is. St Paul says it
is. “For I know that nothing good lives in me,
that is in my sinful nature. For I have
the desire to do what is good but I cannot carry it out.” (Romans 7:18)
The Apostle
John says the same thing. “Do
not love the world or anything in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. For everything in the world – the cravings of
sinful man, the lust of his eyes, the boasting of what he has and does – comes
not from the Father but from the world.
The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the
will of God lives forever.” (1 John
2:15-17)
In order for
God’s will truly to be done. In order
for God to really and completely and totally have his way with you, it is
necessary that you die. It is necessary
that your will, your priorities, your aspirations, your pursuits, your
pleasures, your achievements all come to nothing. And there are many of them. Some of them are temporal – careers, personal
achievements, family goals, financial goals.
These become gods that take the place of the One God.
Some of
these goal might even be spiritual goals – your commitment to God, your good
works, your prayer life! The Christian
does not look at himself and say, “I need to be a better Christian, I need to
be a more devout Christian. I need to
pray more, be more sincere, be more faithful, be a better husband or wife or sister
of brother.” “The good we want to do we
cannot do. But the evil we don’t want to do, that is what we keep on doing.” (Romans
7:19) So the Christian looks to Jesus
and simply prays, Lord may your will be done with me and then in faith submits
to that will. And then, if you are to
win the fight against the Devil God will do it.
If you are to overcome the sin in your heart, God will do it. If you are stand against the world, God will
do it. Pray! Go with your Bible and
pray. Pray that God’s will be done in
you and then submit to that Holy will. God will make sure that it happen.
God’s
Kingdom first came to you when He first gave you His Name. Our Lord fulfilled the first two petitions – His
Name was Hallowed and His Kingdom came to you when you were baptized. He gave you his Name through His Word and according to Faith he made you an
heir of His Kingdom. The Gospel has come to you and made you a
Christian. And that’s just it. That’s where your death began – you died to
yourself and to your sinful flesh and to your own quest for wealth and power
and glory – you died to your own will on the day that you were baptized.
Paul writes
in Romans 6:
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into
Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by
baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by
the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we
shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our
old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought
to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died
has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we
will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will
never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died
he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you
also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:3-11 ESV)
In the Large
Catechism Luther writes, “In God’s Kingdom, although we have prayed
for the greatest need – for the Gospel, faith, and the Holy Spirit, that He may
govern us and redeem us from the devil’s power – we must also pray that God’s
will be done. For there will be strange
events if we are to abide God’s will. We
shall have to suffer many thrusts and blows on that account from everything
that seeks to oppose and prevent the fulfillment of the first two petitions.” [LC
III p 61]
So your
death and the overcoming of your will began at your baptism. It is God’s Will that the overcoming of your
will be accompanied by trials, by struggles, by temptations, by suffering. God gives you your own cross to carry.
If you are
like me, you hate to suffer. I hate to
suffer. I hate it when God allows people
and events and situations to come up that cause me discomfort or grief or
hardship. In fact, I even tell myself
that if God really loved me he wouldn’t make me have to deal with all of
this. But that is my sinful flesh
talking. Yours probably says the same
thing. Our sinful flesh, that doesn’t
want God’s name hallowed or his kingdom to come, wants to set aside the
heavenly kingdom in the interest of the earthly kingdom. We want peace and prosperity and
stability. We want to be happy. And we want it now.
But remember
the 4th Petition? Give us
this day our daily bread?
Notice what we prayed for. Bread.
Not a feast. Not a lavish and
succulent banquet. Bread. The basics.
And not an overflowing cupboard of bread. Bread for each day.
”Two things I ask of
you; deny them not to me before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give
me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest
I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the LORD?” or lest I be poor and steal and
profane the name of my God.” (Proverbs 30:7-9 ESV)
Our sinful
flesh wants to be rich. Our sinful flesh
wants success and fame and glory and honor and we want those things now. God hasn’t promised to give them to you now. God has promised to give you bread. Bread for today – to feed you, to give you
what you need, to support this body and this life.
The
suffering that God sends your way, the cross that you will carry, this is God’s
gift to you. Remember the apostles who rejoiced
that they were counted worthy to suffer?
(Acts 5:41) God’s promise is that
whatever suffering you incur it will be for your good. God’s promise is that through your suffering
he will teach you greater faith and through suffering he will overcome sin in
you.
We often
pray Thy will be done but we often mean it only in terms of external
situations. Things outside me. My job, my taxes, the weather. My family. Pray that God’s will be done inside you. In your heart. To overcome sin and to teach you to humbly
and meekly carry your cross.
And you will
carry a cross because Jesus has called you to die. But so has he. Jesus carried his cross. Jesus died on that cross. But Jesus has been raised. And just as he was raised, you will be too. And
on the day that you will be raised he will give you all those things your heart
desires. Daily bread will be replaced
with an eternal feast. Suffering will be
replaced with joy. Crosses will be
replaced with crowns. Death will be gone
forever and replaced with life.
The
Christian faith is a faith that is lived in the present with an eye to
future. We live today, but in the hope
of tomorrow. We pray that the Lord would
give us what we need to keep going for
today, but we know his greatest gifts are reserved for tomorrow! The devil, the world and our sinful flesh
want us to worry about bread. Get what
you can, early and often. But its just bread. It gets stale and moldy. We are in line for a seat at the table for
Heaven’s feast that will come on the last day!
Lord get us to that day. Give us
bread for today. But as far as tomorrow,
as far as forever is concerned – Lord, may Your will be done.
Amen
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