Mm. Having a career you enjoy and providing for your family can be tremendously satisfying. Just be sure to give credit to the one who makes it all possible. Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah continues his series on the Lord's Prayer.
With a look at the many blessings you receive when you ask God for your daily bread. To introduce today's message, the prayer for provision, here's David.
Well, I mentioned yesterday that most of us are pretty good in asking God for stuff. Pretty good for asking Him for the things that we feel we need, and sometimes our needs and our wants get mixed up, and we don't know for sure what to pray for. But the Bible does tell us that we're to ask the Lord for the things we need. And in this prayer, which is the example that the Lord gave his disciples, he said, part of the prayer is this, give us this day our daily bread. And he's not just talking about the bread we eat, but he's talking about the sustenance and provision that we have a need for in our life every day.
So, in this lesson, which we're only going to teach on one single lesson on this, one single day, we're going to talk about how we ask God for what we need, how we come to Him with our needs, and ask for provision. We'll get to that in just a moment, but before we do that, let me again remind you that we have a wonderful book for the month of August that is our resource, and we want you to have a copy of it. It is beautiful. It is filled with incredible help and encouragement for prayer. And as I mentioned to you before, we've taken the things that we know people pray about and things that people have written us to pray about for them, and we found key scriptures, and we've put together prayers for those things written out.
To just give you an example and help you get started. You know, the Lord taught his disciples to pray by giving them a prayer. And we think we can teach one another to pray for the things we need by sharing our prayers. And we're sharing these prayers with you. This is a book of prayers to help you pray through the situations in your life.
And it's beautiful, and it's yours for the asking when you send a gift of any size to Turning Point today.
Now, I know that we're in the summertime, and everybody's on vacation and in vacation mode. But Turning Point Radio goes on regardless of what time of the year it is, and we need your help and we need your encouragement.
So take some time today and let us know you're with us, and please be sure to ask for your copy of this book. And now let's get started with our discussion of how to pray for the things we need. The prayer for provision from Matthew 6, 11 right here on Turning Point. This section to which we are turning today in Matthew chapter six. is a section that moves us from the spiritual to the material.
Someone has said that the prayer starts and ends on the highest of mountain peaks. It starts with our Father who is in heaven, glorified, and it ends with kingdom and glory. And in between is the valley where most of us live, the journey between the two places. We live in the place of the need for provision and the need for protection. And it's here that we began to deal with these issues in our lives.
In the phrase that we have before us today, there are many lessons for us to learn. In spite of the fact it's just one little simple phrase, here we will find many of our questions answered. Here, if we study carefully, we will be kept out of the cul-de-sacs of life and out of the dead-end streets of our prayer. For first of all, this petition encourages dependence upon God. When the Lord instructed us to pray, For our daily bread, he reminded us that all of us, no matter who we are, no matter what station we may occupy in this life, we are all totally dependent upon the Lord for the daily supply of our needs.
It doesn't matter whether we live in an affluent part of the county or whether we live, as someone might say, on the wrong side of the tracks. The Bible says that one and all are alike dependent upon God for daily provision. If we understand this, It will help us to see all humanity as They should be seen. In the 104th Psalm, there is a statement of this dependency. And while I would like for us to look at it, perhaps you can just let me read it to you, and you can stay with me in the train of thought upon which we have started.
In the 104th Psalm, we are reminded by the psalmist of the universal dependence of man upon God. Listen to these words: These wait all upon thee. That thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That thou givest them, they gather. Thou openest thine hand, and they are filled with good.
Thou hidest thy face and they are troubled. Thou takest away their breath, and they die, and they return to their dust. What does that say? It says that each and every one of us, no matter who we are, whether we like to acknowledge it or not, we owe our next breath to God. We owe our next meal to God.
Whatever it is that we have comes from God. God is the one who feeds the mouths of human beings in this world. It doesn't matter which mouth it is or where that mouth is located. God is the one who does that. The Bible tells us that God is even concerned to provide the needs of the sparrow.
Someone has estimated that every day God spends more than our national treasury just to feed the hungry mouths of the sparrows. God does that. He is our source. The one to whom we go, and I know some of you who are independent and self-made and all of that. You're saying that isn't true, Pastor.
I went out and You just don't know how hard I worked this week. Man, I put in some heavy-duty hours. I took my wife, we went, we got the bread. Don't tell me God got that bread for me. I bought it.
In the New Testament, there's a verse that says that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And we usually, especially in Matthew 4, we take that phrase, that passage, to speak of the priority of the spiritual over the material. That you don't live by the material, you'll really live by the spiritual. But think about it. Think with me back through the process of God's provision of your bread.
What is it that causes bread? to meet the needs of the human body. How is it that the things which grow from the earth which we put on our tables and then put into our bodies. How is it that those things provide the energy and the strength for us to exist and to grow and to be healthy. How is it that that happens?
It is due to the word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. He spoke those nutrients into the seed. He spoke that energy into the food. He's the one who makes bread the nourishment that causes us to grow and to thrive as human beings. God did that.
If God hadn't spoken In the creative process. the nutrients into the seed and the nourishment into the ground and the Sun and the rain and all there wouldn't be any food, would there?
Someone years ago gave me a little bit of doggerel verse. That expresses that. Listen to this. Back of the loaf is the snowy flour. And back of the flower is the mill.
And back of the mill, is the wheat and the shower. And the sun and the father's will. Isn't that true? You say, well, I got that bread.
Well, Where did they get the bread that you got from them?
Well, they got it from the mill.
Well, where did the mill get what they got to make the bread.
Well, they got it from the farmer. And where did the farmer get what he got to give to the mill, to give to the store, to give to you so that you could. He got it from the ground.
Well, where did the ground get it? He put it in there. What did he put in? He put in the seed. What's that?
That's God's miraculous provision for your need, isn't it? God did that. And back of all of it, is God. Your daily bread comes. from him.
And whenever you stop to think about that, the next time you sit down to a meal, And it's wonderfully. provided. Just look around at all of the things at your dinner today. Listen to me.
Next time you look at those things that are on your table. Just remember. that the ultimate source behind it all is God. Most of us don't really appreciate that because we've never really had Our food supply challenged, have we? I don't think most of us have.
I can only remember one occasion when it was scary to me. I've been in California, not one Sunday have we ever had to cancel church because of inclement weather. But I started in Fort Wayne, and for the first 12 years I was there, that was kind of an iffy thing every winter. And one winter, It all came at once. In one week, I'll never forget it.
We got the worst blizzard you'd ever seen. I mean, feet of snow. Out in front of our church was this two-lane highway that was the main artery to feed all of the housing projects out there, and it was closed. I mean, you couldn't even see where the road was. All you could tell was the telephone poles on each side kind of outlined the road, but you couldn't see the highway.
There was no traffic.
Someone had taken their snow shovel and they had shoveled. right down the center of that highway. And I looked out at a sight I'll never forget: people pulling their little sleds down that little slit in the highway. To the grocery store and pulling it back home. And then all of a sudden, the word got out that the trucks couldn't get to the store.
Have you ever been in a grocery store where nothing was on the shelf? I got there a little late. I could not believe it. The shelves were getting empty. The bread was almost gone.
Milk was history. Eggs weren't there. People had come and gotten everything they could, put it on their little sled, and pulled it down the road back to their home and hunkered down for a long winter's night. That was kind of scary. Let me tell you something.
whether it's a storm or not, every day. You're dependent upon God, aren't you? Every day. When you pray, our Father. Give us this day our daily bread.
Yeah. That's a good lesson to learn. It eliminates pride. and it causes you to focus. on your dependence.
Then secondly, notice this. This petition examines the discipline of our lives. This prayer doesn't say, give us this day. our daily wants. You don't have to have 14 sacks of bread, you just have to have your need.
Someone gave me something they had been reading, and it had some material in it about the Lord's Prayer. And in that was this little thing that I just thought was great. It's called the New Lord's Prayer. A felt needs translation. Listen to this.
Our audience, which are on earth, hallowed or at least greatly esteemed, be our name. Our destiny come, our will be done on heaven as it is in earth. Give us today our daily indulgences. and help us to love and forgive ourselves just as we love and forgive others. Lead us not into difficulty, suffering, or unhappiness, but deliver us from unmet needs.
For ours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, at least here and now, which is what really counts anyway. End of prayer. Isn't that the way a lot of us live? It's sort of self-centered. And the Bible does not tell us.
that God will meet our daily wants, but He will meet our daily needs. Give us our daily bread. It is a reminder to us of what Paul said to Timothy when he wrote: that godliness with contentment is great gain. If we ever sat down and put down what our needs are, they're pretty basic. In fact, if you have your Bibles open to the 6th of Matthew, Go over with me to the 31st verse.
And notice what it says. It says in verse 31, Jesus is speaking. He says, Do not worry saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For after all these things the Gentiles seek, for your Heavenly Father knows you need all these things, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Now, Jesus kind of alludes to what our basic needs are.
Someone has said, it's. What we put on our clothes. And what we put in are food, and what we put over Yeah. food, clothing, and shelter. And God says, you ask for your daily bread.
By the way, did you ever notice that in the New Testament in that passage where it says, ask and it shall be given unto you. Seek you shall find Knock in. And it shall be opened unto you that if you go back, And put all those three petitions down in order. It's ask, seek, and knock, almost as if God is saying. Ask.
Ask, seek, knock, ask. We don't have because we don't ask.
Some of you say, well, Pastor Jeremiah, I don't have my daily bread.
Well, we'd have to talk about that. Because, first of all, is it your daily bread or your daily wants? And number two, and this is the most critical: when did you ask for it last time? I know a lot of folks that go around grousing because God doesn't supply their need, and they never ask. Isn't that something?
And of course, the reason they don't ask is because you've got to show up. You've got to show up for prayer once in a while in the morning. How can you ask God for your daily bread if you're working on a week's plan? You know? Ask for your daily bread.
Thirdly, this petition eliminates the disease of worry. I love that. Anybody here worry? I know some of you worry about worrying. That's true.
Okay. What you want this prayer to say is, give us this day next week's daily bread. Or next month's daily bread, or Lord, I'd like to check in on how I'm going to be fixed for daily bread at the end of this year because I'm a little worried about this year. This prayer does away with human pride. It brings all humanity before God to request bread.
And it not only does away with materialism, as we're reminded it is for our daily bread alone that we are to pray, but I'd like to encourage you with the truth that it does away with worry. The Bible says that our concern is to be that we pray every day for every day's need. We don't have to pray for tomorrow's need. And the older I get, and the more I get bumped around in life. The more I hear myself saying to my wife, We just have to take this one day at a time.
We just have to deal with this one day at a time. Life is so daily. Can I get a witness? Aren't we all there? Just one day at a time.
We try to worry about tomorrow's thing. We want to talk about tomorrow's bread. And the illustrations of the Bible are so profound. Elijah's experience, for instance, with the miraculous provision that God made for him. Every day came back, and the flour was just where it had been the day before.
It didn't get used up. Why? Because the supplier is God, and He doesn't run dry. He has what we need. And I love the story about the Israelites out in the wilderness and how they got that crummy old bread they didn't like, that manna.
You remember what that word means? The word manna means what is it? That's what the word means in the Old Testament language.
So every morning they get up and go out and say, There it is. What is it? What is it? Yeah. And every day they'd go out and get the what is it?
And every day they could collect only enough for that day, remember? In fact, God said: if you collect enough for the next day, what you don't eat today that you thought you were going to save tomorrow when you get up, you're going to say, What is it all right? Because it's going to be spoiled and it'll stink. Don't do it. And God provided that every day through the week, with the exception of Friday, they could collect enough daily bread for that day, and on Friday they could collect enough for two because they weren't allowed to collect on the Sabbath day, remember?
So they could collect enough for two, and for some reason on the Sabbath, the bread didn't spoil. But you tried doing the Friday thing on Monday, and you're in big trouble. God says one day is all you get. I wish we could get to the place, and I think life, generally speaking, life pushes there, doesn't it? It pushes you in that direction.
To live in the thing one day at a time. I'm not talking about not planning long range and all of that. I mean, I understand that. The Bible says we're to plan like it depended on us necessarily and pray like it all depended on God, and it does, really. It depends on Him one day at a time.
And when you do that, You don't worry.
Someone gave me this, it says, Better never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you. For you only make your trouble double trouble when you do. How many of you know? that when you worry about tomorrow You get tomorrow's trouble today. Isn't it true?
Why don't you just take the bread God's promised for you today? And live on that, get the energy out of it, do what you need to do with that bread, and then realize that when you get up tomorrow, You will have enough energy immediately. To worry about tomorrow, but never trouble trouble unless trouble troubles you, because if you do, you get double trouble. That's what worry does.
So you don't have to worry. when you know. God's in control. I love the story about Thomas Carlyle. There's a great man of God who grew up in the city of London.
In one of the books of history that I have, he was a great student of the Word of God. Nobody will understand this unless you love to study. But because he lived in a busy section of the city, he built the study like a vault. It was a vault-like structure. It was on the top floor of his house.
It was insulated against all the noise of the outside world. I mean, it was like being in a sound chamber. He would go there every day for his study time, lock himself in the room apart from all the influences that can interrupt his study of the Word of God. He thought he had solved his problem of interruption. until he began to hear a rooster in the neighborhood.
That had such a shrill, high-piercing crow that three times a day that rooster would interrupt his study and just infuriate him. Finally, he sought out the owner of the rooster and he said, I built this place so I could study, and I've managed to shut out all the noises of the world except that lousy rooster of yours. And I'd like for you to do away with him. In fact, he said, I'll be glad to pay you whatever it costs to get rid of that rooster. And the owner of the rooster said, I don't understand.
I mean, this is no big deal. The thing only crows three times a day. I can't understand why you're so upset. Carlisle answered, yes, but you can't imagine how I die waiting for those three noises every day. Do you understand that?
That's kind of the way we function, isn't it? We worry. about the rooster that's going to crow. God says just every day. one day at a time.
Finally, this petition enlarges our duty to pray. Please note that the text does not say, Give me this day my daily bread. The pronoun's in the plural, isn't it? Give us this day our daily bread. And if that is true, And this prayer is the answer to pride and materialism and worry.
It's also the answer to selfishness, isn't it? I've reminded you many times that Christ did not write in hearts of his disciples this prayer: give me this day my daily bread. But give us And I'm reminded today that whenever I pray for my daily bread, and pray for our daily bread. I'm to be concerned about the daily bread of others too. Do you walk by the street people?
Did that thought ever touch you?
Okay. Do you see the people on the corners with the signs? Does that ever get to you that their daily bread might be something God would want you to have a part in helping? And you gotta be careful and you gotta let the Spirit of God motivate you, but you know what? That doesn't mean you have to respond to every need, but it means you have to be ready to respond to every need, doesn't it?
If you care about the daily bread of other people while you're praying for your daily bread, if you pray this right, God's going to make you sensitive about the daily bread of others. And when they have a need and you're aware of it, you realize that God might just use you to be the answer to their prayer. Isn't that true? God does his best work through people. Have you noticed that?
Give us our daily bread. Someone wrote: Bow thy head and pray that while thy brother starves today, thou mayest not eat thy bread at ease. Pray that no health or wealth or peace may lull thy soul while the world lies suffering. We pray, give us and we recognize it all comes from God. We pray this day.
and we recognize that it's enough for these hours. We pray our daily bread and we realize that God has exactly what we need for our lives. Give us. This day, our daily bread. After you praise him.
And after you pray, your priorities in order. Then you say, give us this day our daily bread.
Now, watch carefully.
Some of you are going to say, well, how do we know we're not misusing that prayer? I mean, how do you know that you don't turn into a Prosperity, gospel prayer. Isn't it easy to do that? Even among us evangelicals, isn't it possible for us to get our little want list and start to pray, but God, I need this. And sometimes we think we need stuff.
And we don't. Let me tell you what's the secret of this prayer. Watch this. When you've praised God, And hallowed his name. And then you've prayed.
Thy kingdom come. And then you've prayed. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. It is only then that you can come and pray, give us this day our daily bread, because until you go through that process, you can't be sure your prayer is going to be pure. But if you've prayed that the will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven, then when you pray, give us this day our daily bread, your prayer will be in the context of the will of God, and you won't abuse it.
Let me just illustrate it. How many of us who are parents Prey. for our children. All of us do, sometimes more fervently than other times. But what do we pray for them?
Keep them safe. Keep them close to you. Keep them healthy. Oh God help him to study. I mean, we pray all these things, don't we?
But why do we pray them? Have you ever thought about praying even for the most basic things in the context of the kingdom of God? Have you ever thought about taking your prayer for your children beyond the scope of the things that tweak you every day and saying, God, I don't want this just for me and just for my comfort and just for my satisfaction, but God, I want that kid, I want that child of mine to be your person and I want him to grow so that he can be an influence for your kingdom on this earth. God, do these things for him or for her or for them that the kingdom's work might prosper? And then your prayer takes on all new meaning.
God, give me this need. But don't ever let me forget. that my needs are. are in the context of God's will. on Earth.
Just as it is in heaven. No, when we pray like that. We've prayed the way Jesus taught his disciples to pray. When they said to him, Lord, Teach us to pray. And he said, When you pray, pray like this: Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. I will be done. on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
and lead us not into temptation. but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom. and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Amen. Well, we've said it many times in church. and in other places. But this prayer at the core of the teaching on prayer by Jesus. Is amazing, and every time you read it, every time you recite it, if you listen carefully, you learn something new and a different way to apply this prayer to your own life.
Tomorrow, we're going to talk about prayer and personal relationships. And This is a very important one because here we're going to see how, when we pray right, it helps us to get along with each other. And uh We'll tell you more about that tomorrow. I hope you'll be with us for the Friday edition of Turning Point. We um want to make sure that you know how much we want to be helpful to you.
The resources we provide are monthly magazine. Radio and television, daily and weekend television. All of this is to help and encourage you in your walk. And we thank you so much for your support. And please join us again tomorrow when we meet together.
See you then. For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's series, Prayer the Great Adventure, please visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected, our monthly Turning Points magazine and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio or call us at 800-947-1993.
Ask for your copy of David's new book, Everything to God in Prayer. Guided prayers for your deepest needs and biggest dreams. It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New King James Versions, complete with notes and articles from Dr. Jeremiah's decades of study.
Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org slash radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series Prayer: the Great Adventure on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
