“Church ABC’s” is a year-long journey dedicated to understanding God’s calling upon His holy people—what it means to be a vibrant, mission-driven body of faith. We believe that God has called us to know Him and to make Him known to others in the world by living a life of service for the benefit of our neighbors.  

Our second sermon series is called, “A Sojourner’s Life,” which will be an exploration of God’s unique call upon our lives. In John 17:14, Jesus stated that we are “in the world” but not “of the world”. We live in this present age but recognize that our true citizenship is in God’s kingdom. Similarly, a sojourner is not a permanent resident, but someone who temporarily resides in a location foreign to them where they feel very much out of place. The apostle Peter implores: “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:11-12). 

Today, St. Paul encourages us to press on towards our true goal—our true country with God. Despite our earthly struggles, turmoil and heartache, we can find rest and hope in our Christian faith, knowing that our true citizenship is found in heaven. Today we also celebrate and remember the saints that have gone ahead of us and look forward to our reunion in paradise. 

“Church ABC’s” is a year-long journey dedicated to understanding God’s calling upon His holy people—what it means to be a vibrant, mission-driven body of faith. We believe that God has called us to know Him and to make Him known to others in the world by living a life of service for the benefit of our neighbors.  

Our second sermon series is called, “A Sojourner’s Life,” which will be an exploration of God’s unique call upon our lives. In John 17:14, Jesus stated that we are “in the world” but not “of the world”. We live in this present age but recognize that our true citizenship is in God’s kingdom. Similarly, a sojourner is not a permanent resident, but someone who temporarily resides in a location foreign to them where they feel very much out of place. The apostle Peter implores: “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:11-12). 

Today, St. Paul encourages us to press on towards our true goal—our true country with God. Despite our earthly struggles, turmoil and heartache, we can find rest and hope in our Christian faith, knowing that our true citizenship is found in heaven. Today we also celebrate and remember the saints that have gone ahead of us and look forward to our reunion in paradise. 

3. Give us today our daily bread.

Session #3:  Give us today our daily bread

Matthew 6:11

Can you tell a story about someone you know or heard of who has really endured some incredible physical, emotional or economic setbacks and still found great joy and peace in life?

Mother Theresa said, “You will never know that Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you need.”  What does this mean?  Would you agree?

            For years in my speaking of the Lord’s Prayer, I blew right past “give us this day our daily bread.”  I think that there are two reasons for that:  One, I’ve always had daily bread.  I’ve grown up in a remarkable time and place in history where everything I’ve ever needed or wanted had been given to me – and indeed, even in abundance!  After years and years of this provision, one can easily come to expect abundance as some sort of right or entitlement.  Why ask for what I fully expect to get???  And secondly, I couldn’t wait to get to the next part of the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses,” now that is what I really need!  But as I’ve studied this petition of the Lord’s Prayer I’ve learned that understanding these few simple words changes how I look at God, my life and my purpose in the world. 

            Our hope in this study is that an increased understanding of “daily bread” will

            *          decrease our anxiety about the future,

            *          increase a growing awareness of His presence and activity in our lives,

            *          develop a deeper sense of contentment in who we are and how we live.

1.         Imagine that you are among the disciples when they asked Jesus to “teach us to pray.”  When the Master Teacher said, “give us today our daily bread,” you would have known exactly what He was talking about.  Your thoughts would have immediately connected you back to your Old Testament history, back to the deliverance of your people from bondage in Egypt and the daily bread, the manna, God provided for your ancestors in the wilderness.

Is this what you think of today when you pray “give us today our daily bread?”

Probably not.  But to properly understand what Jesus is talking about here we must understand the history and meaning of “daily bread.”

2.         Read Exodus 7:1-5 and then skim through chapters 7 through 15.

Looking through these chapters, it is easy to see how God used Carleton Heston, oops, I mean Moses and Aaron to mightily provide and deliver His people from bondage.  After witnessing all this, culminating in the incredible crossing of the Red Sea, what would you think the people thought about God’s care for them?

Read Exodus 15:23, 24 and 16:1-3.  What were the people doing?  What did that say about what they thought about God?

3.         What was God’s answer to the people’s grumbling about God’s providing and caring for them?  Read Exodus 16:4-36.

So God provided them with manna (manna in Hebrew means, “What is it?”).  What was manna?  They weren’t sure what it was, but they knew they needed it and WOW, did God provide it.  An omer is about two quarts.  Let’s do the math.  2 quarts x 14,600 (40 years of days) = 29,200 quarts each.  Multiply that times 2 million (the approximate number of people in the wilderness) and you have God providing 58.4 billion quarts of manna.  That’s a lot of manna burgers, manna sandwiches, and manna splits!

How often could they collect it?  What happened if they took too much?

Why do you think God only gave them enough for one day at a time?  Wouldn’t it have been easier to collect and store a whole bunch?

For how long did God daily provide for them in this way?

Check out verses 33 and 34 again.  What did they do with one special omer of manna?  Why did they do it?

4.         So the disciples would have heard Jesus say, “give us today our daily bread” and their thoughts would have gone to God’s abundant and daily provision for His people.  Everything they needed to exist, all the daily necessities would be what they would ask for in this prayer.  How might this understanding change your praying of this petition?

#1      Prayer should begin with gratitude not grumbling.

Isn’t it astounding how quickly the Israelites forgot the many, many ways God had provided for them in the past and grumbled about their present situation?  It’s a good thing we never fall prey to that sin of ingratitude!  (That was sarcasm, in case you missed it!)  Here’s a test:  in your prayers do you spend more time thanking God for your daily bread (all He has given you) or asking for better health, better job to earn better money, better friends, better spouse or kids, more of this or more of that???

A model for prayer you might be familiar with is ACTS:  Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication.  In this model, what comes before we ask for anything (the supplication part)?

Respond to the following statement, “The basis of prayer should be gratitude, it should permeate all our prayers.

#2      Pray first for our needs, not our greeds.

What would you need to sustain your life?  In other words, just what exactly are our “needs?”  How much food do you really need?  How many rooms in your house?  How many pair of shoes?  How many cars, luxury or Yugo?  How many TV’s, big-screen, HDTV, sound-surround, DVD, monster sub-woofer, 50, 100 or 200 channels? 

If you think of life in the above terms, anything more than the needs is an expression of God’s bountiful provision!  Here in America, it is so easy to begin to seriously believe that these extras are entitlements, that if we do not have these things we cannot be as happy.  What does Philippians 4:10-13 have to say about this?

Why then, does God give us more than we need?  Check out 2 Corinthians 9:10-15.

So, is it wrong to have more than our “needs?”  Check out Psalm 37:4 and 2 Corinthians 9:8.

There is an awesome teaching in Scripture that helps us manage the tension between needs and greeds, it’s from Proverbs 30:8,9:

            Give me neither poverty nor riches,

                  but give me only my daily bread.

            Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you

                  and say, “Who is the Lord?”

            Or I may become poor and steal,

                  and so dishonor the name of my God.

Take a moment to reflect on this great prayer as it relates to “give us today our daily bread.”

#3      Pray, “Not my will but Your will be done.”

What is usually the difference between our will and God’s will?

If we claim to be followers of Jesus, what question will we ask ourselves before every decision we make?

Do our prayers reflect this attitude?

#4      Pray in an attitude of trust, not worry about the future.

Like the Israelites who tried to gather more manna than they needed we also sometimes worry about the future thinking, “I know God has been there for me in the past, but I’m not so sure He’ll be there in the future.”  So we worry about the future.  The problem is, every time we worry about the future we are not trusting God for daily bread.

How is worry the enemy of trust?

How does worry show a loss of trust in God’s care and God’s leadership?

Dallas Willard said, “Today I have God and He has the provisions.  Tomorrow it will be the same.”  How does this apply to how we live our lives?

Isn’t it interesting that in the very same chapter that Jesus gives the Lord’s Prayer and the teaching of daily bread that He also includes a teaching on worry!?  Read Matthew 6:25-34.  What’s the lesson here?

So, if you are struggling with worry (for some of us “worrywart” is our middle name!) try this:  Ask God for what you need in that day you are facing (your daily bread) and anything that’s out there in the future that you don’t know about, ask Him for the faith to trust Him in that too.

“Church ABC’s” is a year-long journey dedicated to understanding God’s calling upon His holy people—what it means to be a vibrant, mission-driven body of faith. We believe that God has called us to know Him and to make Him known to others in the world by living a life of service for the benefit of our neighbors.  

Our second sermon series is called, “A Sojourner’s Life,” which will be an exploration of God’s unique call upon our lives. In John 17:14, Jesus stated that we are “in the world” but not “of the world”. We live in this present age but recognize that our true citizenship is in God’s kingdom. Similarly, a sojourner is not a permanent resident, but someone who temporarily resides in a location foreign to them where they feel very much out of place. The apostle Peter implores: “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:11-12). 

“Church ABC’s” is a year-long journey dedicated to understanding God’s calling upon His holy people—what it means to be a vibrant, mission-driven body of faith. We believe that God has called us to know Him and to make Him known to others in the world by living a life of service for the benefit of our neighbors.  

Our second sermon series is called, “A Sojourner’s Life,” which will be an exploration of God’s unique call upon our lives. In John 17:14, Jesus stated that we are “in the world” but not “of the world”. We live in this present age but recognize that our true citizenship is in God’s kingdom. Similarly, a sojourner is not a permanent resident, but someone who temporarily resides in a location foreign to them where they feel very much out of place. The apostle Peter implores: “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:11-12). 

“Church ABC’s” is a year-long journey dedicated to understanding God’s calling upon His holy people—what it means to be a vibrant, mission-driven body of faith. We believe that God has called us to know Him and to make Him known to others in the world by living a life of service for the benefit of our neighbors.  

Our second sermon series is called, “A Sojourner’s Life,” which will be an exploration of God’s unique call upon our lives. In John 17:14, Jesus stated that we are “in the world” but not “of the world”. We live in this present age but recognize that our true citizenship is in God’s kingdom. Similarly, a sojourner is not a permanent resident, but someone who temporarily resides in a location foreign to them where they feel very much out of place. The apostle Peter implores: “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:11-12). 

This session of this continuing study of Proverbs takes you through Proverbs 5 - "Superiority of Wisdom". 

“Church ABC’s” is a year-long journey dedicated to understanding God’s calling upon His holy people—what it means to be a vibrant, mission-driven body of faith. We believe that God has called us to know Him and to make Him known to others in the world by living a life of service for the benefit of our neighbors.  

Today we begin our second series called, “A Sojourner’s Life,” which will be an exploration of God’s unique call upon our lives. As Jesus expressed in John 17: we are “in the world” but not “of the world.” We live in this present age but recognize that our true citizenship is in God’s kingdom. 

A sojourner is not a permanent resident, but someone who temporarily resides in a location foreign to them where they feel very much out of place. The apostle Peter implores: “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:11-12). 

Today we will explore “our true nature”. Our life as a Christian sojourner is richly enhanced when we prayerfully perceive and genuinely grasp just how very special we are as God’s “chosen people, his royal priesthood, holy nation and special possession” (1 Peter 2:9).    

“Church ABC’s” is a year-long journey dedicated to understanding God’s calling upon His holy people—what it means to be a vibrant, mission-driven body of faith. We believe that God has called us to know Him and to make Him known to others in the world by living a life of service for the benefit of our neighbors.  

Today we begin our second series called, “A Sojourner’s Life,” which will be an exploration of God’s unique call upon our lives. As Jesus expressed in John 17: we are “in the world” but not “of the world.” We live in this present age but recognize that our true citizenship is in God’s kingdom. 

A sojourner is not a permanent resident, but someone who temporarily resides in a location foreign to them where they feel very much out of place. The apostle Peter implores: “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:11-12). 

Today we will explore “our true nature”. Our life as a Christian sojourner is richly enhanced when we prayerfully perceive and genuinely grasp just how very special we are as God’s “chosen people, his royal priesthood, holy nation and special possession” (1 Peter 2:9).    

“Church ABC’s” is a year-long journey dedicated to understanding God’s calling upon His holy people—what it means to be a vibrant, mission-driven body of faith. We believe that God has called us to know Him and to make Him known to others in the world by living a life of service for the benefit of our neighbors.  

Today we begin our second series called, “A Sojourner’s Life,” which will be an exploration of God’s unique call upon our lives. As Jesus expressed in John 17: we are “in the world” but not “of the world.” We live in this present age but recognize that our true citizenship is in God’s kingdom. 

A sojourner is not a permanent resident, but someone who temporarily resides in a location foreign to them where they feel very much out of place. The apostle Peter implores: “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:11-12). 

Today we will explore “our true nature”. Our life as a Christian sojourner is richly enhanced when we prayerfully perceive and genuinely grasp just how very special we are as God’s “chosen people, his royal priesthood, holy nation and special possession” (1 Peter 2:9).