Hello and good afternoon. Today we'll be carrying on with our series of messages upon the Sermon on the Mount. And currently we are looking at the Lord's Prayer, one of the most familiar passages in scripture. And today we come to the fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer, which reads, Give us this day our daily bread. As well as being the fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer, this petition concerning our daily bread also marks the second part of the prayer. This second part of the Lord's Prayer is all about our personal needs. True prayer is focused upon God and His will. Man's fundamental requirement is his need of God. If you have not yet began to sense your need of God, you have not yet learned to live. And if you have not yet learned to live, then you are what the Bible defines you as. You are dead in your sin. You are attempting to live without God, which for you is a personal tragedy. Therefore, the Lord's Prayer teaches us that we must primarily be focused upon our relationship with God. God's name needs to be hallowed or honoured. God's Kingdom must come to earth in our lives. His will needs to be done through us, as perfectly as that will is done in heaven. The focus is upon God, God, God, not upon us, us, us. But now having straightened our priorities and taught us about our need of God, this prayer brings us to the place which most people consider true prayer to be. For most people, prayer is simply about asking, asking, asking, me, me, me. This is part of prayer. We are to be concerned about our needs and we are to bring our needs to God. But that is not the sole focus of prayer. First of all we need to be concerned about what God's will is. But having been concerned about God's will and having sought to have that correct relationship with God, We are then able to pray about our individual needs. And therefore the Lord brings us to this petition. Give us this day our daily bread. What is significant here is this. There are three petitions that deal with our personal needs. Only one relates to the physical. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation. That's about our needs, but that is about our spiritual needs. But only one petition, this one solitary petition, deals with that which is physical, deals with that which is material. And in dealing with our material needs, the Lord teaches us to pray for our daily bread. I think that's most interesting. Most people are more concerned about their own needs than their need of God. And in being concerned about their own needs, most people are primarily concerned about their physical need, not upon their spiritual. But the Lord is teaching us over and over here that our spiritual needs are more important than our physical need and our need of God is more important than our personal needs. We need to think about all of this because we live in a material world. People are so concerned and preoccupied with time, with sense, with what they can feel, with what they can earn, with what they can wear. what they can look like. But God says, no, no, no. You need me. You need a beautiful heart. You need a life that's honouring. You need a life that's righteous. This is what you need. This is what we all need. These things are so important. But if we are to live properly in this world, we need to be fed. We need to be looked after. We need a certain amount of physical needs. and therefore the Lord teaches us here to give us this day our daily bread. Our daily bread is not as important as we make it to be but it is nevertheless important but we must put our daily bread in its correct place. So let us think about our daily bread as the Lord teaches us to pray for that here in the Lord's Prayer. The first thing we learn here is appreciation. We are taught here that God is our creator and that our provisions in the natural realm come from him. We should thank God who has given us everything that we need in order to live. Bread is mentioned but the implication here goes beyond bread. The air that we breathe, the water we drink, the clothes we wear. All that is related to natural life is covered within the scope of these words, our daily bread and what the Lord is teaching us here is that everything we have comes from God. Therefore we are to pause in our journey through life and thank God for his mercies. The most obvious act of acknowledgement that is the mark of a Christian man or woman is the desire to say grace before meals. The taking of the time to bow our heads and to appreciate the food that we are about to eat acknowledges God as the one who gives and sustains life. The scriptures teach that God is interested in the welfare of the animal kingdom. When a little sparrow falls to the ground he sees that little bird. He hears the young ravens when they cry. And if God takes care to look after the animal kingdom, he is going to take even more care to look after human life. Because mankind is the highest form of life. Only man is made in the image of God. Therefore God is going to be concerned about us as his creatures. And when we are Christian men, and when we are Christian women, when we know Jesus Christ as Saviour, God takes an even greater interest in us, because then we become His adopted children, and we are told that as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear Him. It is also true that Jesus Christ came into the world to save our souls, but He also came to save our bodies. The body of the Christian is the very temple of the Holy Ghost. And one day this body is going to be raised again in glory because Christ died for this body. Therefore the blood of Christ was shed for the bodies of His people. And if the Holy Ghost dwells within the bodies of Christians, therefore God is interested in the welfare of our bodies because He is our Lord. He is our Father. We are not drawn closer to God by punishing our bodies. Such a thing is not taught in the Scriptures. God wants us to value our health. He wants us to value our body because He has given this body to us for His glory that it might be used for His glory. Therefore as we travel through life let us contemplate what we have today. In terms of the food upon the table, in terms of the clothes upon our back, in terms of the air that we breathe, in terms of everything that we need in order to live. God has given us all of this. It has come from Him. He has opened His hand and He has replenished our supply. And therefore we should pause and say, thank you Lord. We don't just see appreciation here, but we also see acceptance. In praying for our daily bread, we must accept the restrictions that God places upon this provision. While He often does give us more than we need, He never promises to give us more than we need. And we are only commanded to pray for what he promises to give. We are to ask God to meet our needs and not our grades. These words daily bread, the word daily here, it literally means a ration. God rations us, gives us only what we need for the day. That is all we are to expect. Everything else is a bonus. And we are grateful for those bonuses. We are grateful for the abundance that we have. For the super abundance that we have. But we are only to expect and pray for what we need on a day by day basis. And there is much evidence in the scripture to support this. For example when the children of Israel were in the wilderness. The manna came on a daily basis. When Elijah was by the brook, the brook dried up. The ravens, they brought him bread and flesh in the morning and the evening. God just sustained him one day at a time. When the brook dried up, he took him to a widow woman. That widow woman only had a little handful of meal in a barrel and a little cruz of oil. and the little was always a little, but yet God provided through that little. There was only enough for one day at a time. And God promises to supply all of our needs according to His riches and glory. And therefore we are to be grateful when He supplies our needs. And if we are in a position where we seem to have less than we once had, or when we look at others who appear to have more than we have, we are not to be discontented. We are not to be filled with jealousy and with bitterness. We are to accept our lot in life. And we are to be grateful that we have what we need to get by. Because the Bible says that godliness with contentment is great gain. And when we pray, we must continue to pray just for our daily bread. You see, this petition, while it teaches us that God supplies, teaches us to be selfless. It teaches us to be content. And we live in a world of so much discontentment. And we are to pause and we are to reflect upon what we have. And we are to say, thank you Lord for giving us all these things. And remember this petition is not about me, it is about us. Give us this day our daily bread. Perhaps you know others that are less fortunate than you are. Perhaps you have an opportunity to give to others across the seas who are suffering through famine. We are to use the more that we need and we are to give it to others who are in need. Because there are those that are hungry, there are those that are in starvation, there are those that are hurting, there are those that we can help and we are to have something available for others. All we need to learn these lessons that Christ is giving to us today. Give us this dear daily bread. But perhaps you're not a Christian man or a Christian woman. Listen to the Saviour. I would love you to be part of His family. His blood-bought and redeemed family. Because ultimately the greatest bread that you can eat is not the physical bread but the spiritual. And Jesus said, I am the bread of life. And if you partake of Christ you'll never hunger. If you come to Christ you can have that spiritual satisfaction in your soul that will replenish you, sustain you through the course of a lifetime and eternity. I thank you so much for listening.