This afternoon, having been given the freedom to take the sermon that I thought was fitting, I took the easy way and took the sermon that I preached last week in my own congregation that would be on Lord's Day 15, the fourth petition. And in connection with that, we read in the prophecies of Jeremiah, chapter 44, a portion beginning at verse 15. In the Word of God we enter the prophecies where the Lord is addressing his people on the idolatry, the worship of other gods. In that section we read, beginning at verse 15, then all the men who knew that their wives had made offerings to other gods, And all the women who stood by, a great assembly, all the people who lived in Pathros, in the land of Egypt, answered Jeremiah, As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to you. But we will do everything that we have vowed, making offerings to the Queen of Heaven and pour our drink offerings to her, as we did. Both we and our fathers, our kings and our officials in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, for then we had plenty of food and prospered and saw no disaster. But since we left off making offerings to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine. And the women said, when we made offerings to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, was it without our husband's approval that we made cakes for her, bearing her image, and poured out drink offerings to her? And Jeremiah said to all the people, men and women, all the people who had given him this answer, that's for the offerings that you offered in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your officials, and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them? did it not come into his mind? The Lord could no longer bear your evil deeds and the abominations that you committed. Therefore, your land has become a desolation and a waste and a curse without inhabitant as it is this day. It's because you made offerings and because you sinned against the Lord and did not obey the voice of the Lord or walk in his law and in his statutes and in his testimonies that this disaster happened to you as of this day. Jeremiah said, to all the people and all the women, hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah, who are in the land of Egypt. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, you and your wives have declared with your mouths and have fulfilled it with your hands, saying, we will surely perform our vows that we've made. So to make offerings to the queen of heaven and to pour our drink offerings to her. Well, then confirm your vows and perform your vows. Therefore, hear the word of the Lord, all of you of Judah, who dwell in the land of Egypt. Behold, I have sworn by my great name, says the Lord, that my name shall no more be invoked by the mouth of any man in Judah, in all the land of Egypt, saying, as the Lord God lives, behold, I am watching over them for disaster and not for good. All the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by famine until there is no end of them. And those who escaped the sword shall return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah, few in number. And all the remnant of Judah who came to the land of Egypt to live shall know whose word will stand, mine or theirs. This shall be the sign to you, declares the Lord, and that I will punish you in this place, in order that you may know that my words will surely stand against you for harm. Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will give Pharaoh Hothra, king of Egypt, into the hand of his enemies, into the hand of those who seek his life, as I gave Zedekiah, king of Judah, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who was his enemy and sought his life. So far the reading of the word. Congregation, let us then read the Lord's Day already referenced, which is Lord's Day 15, where we find the church's teaching about the Lord's Prayer, particularly the fourth petition. The question is, what does the fourth request mean? Congregation. Lord's Day 50. The beginning of the petitions that turn to us. Well, not really. Speaks about daily bread. And daily bread stands for all the needs we have to live. With a federal election in the making, and an economy that presents its own challenges regionally, provincially, federally, and worldwide, it will be a teachable moment, no doubt. Now, considering what we have read in Jeremiah 44, you see that not all God's people were always convinced that it was good to pray to God for those daily needs. Many prayed with a lot of preparation and a lot of activity. But few prayed to God in those days. Without getting into the details right now, it shows that there's always a tension in the hearts of all people. And it leads to the question that is put out there by our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 6, the question namely, what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? It's a question that everybody has on his mind. But then the Lord Jesus declares to worry about that question That's what the Gentiles do. The Gentiles seek after these things. That was the problem in his days. Well, it was, as we've read, the problem in the days of Jeremiah. But it's also the problem in our day. So what the Lord Jesus taught his disciples in that prayer for daily bread is ultimately a test of one's faith. It's a matter of faith. And to pray like that is a blessing of the faith. Now about that I may preach to you God's Word and the theme of the sermon then is the Lord Jesus teaches that daily food, daily faith go together. Daily food, daily faith, they go together. That's the teaching of the Lord Jesus in this petition. And so we consider that is a test of the faith, meaning you have to pray. We consider that it's a matter of faith. That means you can do it for Jesus' sake. It's also a blessing of the faith. You can trust it. So the Lord Jesus teaches that daily food and daily faith go together. That's a test of the faith, a matter of the faith, and it's a blessing of the faith. Irrigation, as we consider the fourth petition, it's helpful to keep in mind that it follows the third petition. Particularly, I draw your attention to the words that we find in the third petition about your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Those words on earth bring us to the content of the fourth petition. For it is about God's will being done, but it is about it being possible to be done on earth. We do God's will on earth in the way we are on earth, that is, in the body. That is, with all our physical needs, as the Confession states. It's with all the events that determine our lives. It's about the air we breathe. It's about the food we eat. It's about the clothing we wear. It's about the vehicles we drive. It's about the houses we live in. It's the money we spend. It's what we do to stay in shape, physically. And so the fourth petition connects with the third petition in this, that it speaks about all of that, about our functioning in this world, in accordance with the will of God. Now in order to function, we have needs. That's why we hear about all our physical needs. Catechism is very plain about that. You need to eat, you need to breathe, you need to drink, you need a house. So it includes the full range of food and drink, shelter and clothing, health and sickness, Or as we confess it in Lourdes Day 10, leave and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed all things. So the fourth petition really brings us in the realm of daily life, where we function. from the moment you get out of bed till you go back to bed. Now on that point, we are tested on how much we believe that the first, the second, and the third petition are connected to the fourth petition. It's a matter of how much we believe that everyday life is placed under the requirements of the faith. Now there was a clear problem in the days of Jeremiah. Mind you, not only in his days. Already in the days of Jacob and his sons, they were worried about their physical needs. When there's a famine in the land, they end up going to Egypt Eventually, they take up everything and move there permanently, at least for over 400 years. If you want to call it temporary, that's fine, but it's quite permanent. They went to Egypt for food, for their physical needs. And it must have been something in Egypt, because we read that when the Israelites are led out of Egypt by Moses, that they're getting worried quickly about their physical needs again. And what do they say? They don't say, let's go to the Lord who led us out of Egypt, but they say, Moses, you brought us into this wilderness, you led us out of the place of plenty. Exodus 16, the words are, would that we have died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger and of court. So then really there was a concern. How do you keep daily food and daily faith together? Now similar to those days of Jacob and later on the Israelites, we now hear a similar thing in the prophecies of Jeremiah. We read about men and women who lived in the land of Egypt. In fact, it says precisely that they lived in Mignol in Tapanas and Memphis in the land of Pathros. And here's an interesting thing. They did not do that for the first time. Obviously, they repeated Jacob's journey. But the conditions were totally different. In chapter 42, we find that they were the ones who were left in the land after the big exile. They were, as verse 2 in the chapter says, the remnant And they then, they ask Jeremiah to inquire of the Lord. This is what they say. Let our plea for mercy come before you and pray to the Lord, your God, for us, for all this remnant, for we are but left with a few, as your eyes see us, that the Lord God may show us the way we should go and the thing that we should do. So what are we to do? The land is empty, we're here all by ourselves. And then the word of the Lord is this, if you will remain in this land, then I will build you up and not pull you down. I will plant you and not block you up, for I relent of the disaster that I did to you. The Lord says, Do not fear the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid. Do not fear him, declares the Lord, for I am with you to save you and to deliver you from his hand. I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy on you and let you remain in your own land. That's verses 10 and 11 and 12. Now that's not the only thing that the Lord says to his people, to that remnant. Because the Lord says more. He knows the heart of man. And so he warns them. He says, if you say, we will not remain in this land, disobeying the voice of the Lord your God and saying, no, we will go to the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war or hear the sound of a trumpet or be hungry for bread. and we will dwell there, then hear the word of the Lord, O remnant of Judah, thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, if you set your faces to enter Egypt and go live there, then the sword that you fear shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine of which you are afraid shall follow close after you to Egypt, and there you shall die." See what's happening? The Lord understands that the people are hungry for bread. That they have a need for shelter, a need for safety. He says, do not do what Jacob did. Do not go to Egypt. He warns them not to go to Egypt. They're not supposed to go to the place where their forefather Israel found life. And where Israel then, as a people, almost died. No, they are to do something different. Now then, in the meantime, they decide that that's bad advice, they don't believe the Lord, they are tested in their faith and they fail. So they go to Egypt and what did they say? Jeremiah, you're a liar. And so we find in chapter 44 what we have read about the people not wanting to listen to what they have been told by the Lord. And the Lord tests them on their faith. They say, forget it. They say, we will do everything that we have vowed. And what's the vow? We make offerings to the Queen of Heaven, pour our drink offerings to her, as we did both, we and our fathers, our kings and our officials in the city of Judah, in the streets of Jerusalem. For then, we had plenty of food. We prospered. We saw no disaster. But since we left off, making offerings to the Queen of Heaven and pouring our drink offerings to her, then things went wrong. We lacked everything and we have been consumed by the sword and by famine. The women, in a similar way, quasi-independently say, when we made offerings to the Queen of Heaven and poured our drink offerings to her, was it without our husband's approval? That we made cakes of her for her bearing her image? and poured our drink offerings to her? What is the problem there, congregation? After all, the people of Israel could have said, Jacob went there and he was blessed by the Lord. He found food and they grew into a people. So it's not really about the food, is it? It's not about whether you have it or not. It's not where the food is produced. It is about what the Catechism calls that we give up our trust in all creatures and put it in God alone. We have to acknowledge that all things come from Him as the source of everything good and that neither our work and worry cannot do us any good without God's blessing. Now that is what we have to keep in mind. It's a test of the faith. Do we understand the connection between the food and the faith, between faith and the food? Now we would not be alone in thinking that our care and our labors make our life complete and functional. We wouldn't be the only ones that think, tomorrow morning it's our duty to provide food on the table. That's why we have to make our arrangements whatever way it's going to be. We wouldn't be the only ones. Many a Christian believes that God is there at the beginning of your life. marking you with His ownership. They believe that God will be there at the end to claim you as His own. But they also believe that between those bookends of His marking you at the beginning and His claiming you at the end, you've got to take care of your own life just like everybody else. It may look that way. For we eat the same food as the pagans do. We wear the same clothes as the pagans do. We live in the same homes as the pagans do. We have the same vehicles. Yes, our lives look like we have to take care of ourselves and that God is only there at the beginning and at the end to mark us as his own and to claim us as his own. But, congregation, that's not how it was from the beginning when God created man. God did not create a world and said, okay, I kickstart everything and then It's up to you. And good luck. I'll see you in the end. That's not what the Lord God said. No, He said, and here is the content of the test of the faith. He said, behold, I've given you every plant yielding seed that is on the faith of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. And you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breadth of life, I have given every green plant for food. So the Lord had spread the table for Adam and Eve. He made the air for them to breathe, He had the clothing for them, He had the food for them, the shelter for them, and they were in relationship with God. And God made a statement about the daily food, the daily bread. But He made a statement even before man had asked for it. And the Lord God never forgot that. Because what is he doing in the wilderness when Israel doesn't see what the Lord is doing when he leads them out of Egypt? What does he say? He really makes a statement that they're back in paradise. That they themselves cannot provide but he spreads the table for them. That's why water flows from the rock, meat flies in, food is there to be picked up. The Lord makes the same statement as he made in the beginning. that He provides for all things living. Israel had a paradise experience in the wilderness when God gave them, without asking for it, the manna, the meat, the water, the clothing. And you know how Moses refers to that when he says, God provided well. Your shoes didn't wear out and you had plenty of food. But then he also says something else in Deuteronomy 8. That God also could withhold that from you. And why would God withhold that? He said he let you hunger, he gave you food. It says it in Deuteronomy 8, and I'm quoting off the top of my head, but you recognize it. It is to find out what is in your heart. It's a test of the faith. And so the Lord God taught them You can trust me. I will provide for everyday needs. So when the Lord Jesus, having come from the Father to show the glory of the Father, teaches us to pray for our daily bread, He connects with paradise. He connects with the wilderness experience. He connects with the whole time that the people were wandering. Where does our daily food come from? And as Israel received every day daily food and drink, and had to learn to trust God, so he teaches all God's people of all times about the connection between daily food and daily faith. Every day food and drink comes from God alone. And in order to make it clear that they are dependent on God, the Lord Jesus teaches us not just to pray for daily bread, but for daily bread. So that every day again, you realize what Adam and Eve realized, what Israel realized. The beginning of the day was marked by God providing for our physical needs. So the first point of this fourth petition is that we realize that we are dependent on a good God for all things. It's not in the first place about food and drink, about shelter and clothing and all the other things. But it's about this, that we may acknowledge that God is the only source of everything good, all blessings. That was the problem with the Israelites that were left as a remnant. Because they had disconnected the God of their daily bread from their daily lives. And when the Lord says, do not go to Egypt, but stay put. It seems the most terrible advice from an economic point of view. The land was planted, everything was flattened. It's like living in a war zone. The Lord said, you stay put. Why? Because I want you to learn that what Israel learned in the wilderness and what Adam and Eve learned in the beginning, that when they stepped into this world, I was there already to provide for them. So it's a test of the faith. They were tested. But they failed. And that's why Jeremiah says, you sinned against the Lord, and he did not obey the voice of the Lord or walk in his law and in his statutes and his testimonies. That is why this disaster is happening to you as at this day. They did not understand that it is not about how much you have or how little you have or how happy you are with what you have, but this is about acknowledging the only source That all things come from God for the glory of God. It's not about having enough for the body. It's about having enough for the soul. It's about obedience to God. For the blessing that God gives, knowing God, it is that you know, that you have a relationship with God, and that from God's end, He will do everything to have you succeed in that relationship. Even as far as the air is concerned that you breathe in, food that you eat, it's even about the toothbrush that you use in the morning to brush your teeth. God makes sure that you can stay in relationship with Him. And the Israelites in Jeremiah's days, by their own doing, yeah, they had plenty of everything. They were in that land where it always had been abundant. But they did not have the blessing of the Lord, because they did not have a living relationship with God. Now, Egypt was not the problem. Just think of Jacob going there. But the problem with the Israelites in Jeremiah's days with that remnant was that their faith and their food were not connected. Food and drink, you can have plenty of it. But without God indeed, it won't do you any good. In fact, it will preserve you for the day of judgment. But food and drink under the blessing of God, that is in relationship with God, will preserve you in fellowship with God and makes you ready for the eternal joy that will be revealed to all those who await His coming. And so we come to the second point. The Lord Jesus teaches us also about food and drink as a matter of faith. We are tested. Do you see the connection? Do you live the connection? So we are tested in acknowledging God as the only source of all good. But the Lord teaches us to pray. He doesn't just test us that we acknowledge it. But the fact that we're taught to pray for daily bread shows that we are in different circumstances than Adam and Eve were in paradise. were even in different circumstances than the people of Israel in the wilderness. Because in paradise, you know, the Israelites, the daily bread, I mean, was available. Even before man asked for it, all was well. And nothing interfered with the relationship with God. In the wilderness, the people experienced the grace of God. He gave them a retaste of the paradise experience. He made the connection with his people and said, you're mine alone. There was nothing interfering with the covenant relationship God had with his people. And God did it for a reason. That's why they had to travel for so long in that land where there was no food and drink or water or anything. But Moses already had to warn the people in the wilderness as they are on the brink of entering the land of Canaan. He says, you could think that you're entering a land where it is like paradise, the land is filled up all the way. He says it actually in Deuteronomy 8 like this, he says, the Lord is bringing to a land that is good. a land of brooks of water, fountains and springs flowing out of the hills and valleys, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and victories, pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, and in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper." And he says, then you should eat, and you'll be full, But then you shall bless the Lord your God in the good land that He has given you, because you could think that you are the movers and shakers of the economy. He warns them not to fill themselves up, wipe their mouths and say, who is God? My hand gave me all this. It's a serious warning by God's servant for the people of God. God blesses them, but what did you do with it? Who do you acknowledge for it? We know what happened to the Israelites. It culminated in what we have read in the prophecies of Jeremiah. All the movers and shakers have been dragged off to Babylon, and the remnant who had, as it were, a second chance, they still disconnected food from faith. They were turning everywhere for food and drink, but not to the Lord. They were offering to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings for her. What does it tell us? Well, clearly the people of God are not capable by themselves to acknowledge that food and drink come from God. Here's the gospel. The Lord Jesus came to earth knowing us. And that's why he said, let me do something good for you. I'll teach you to pray for it. That's where it begins with that word give. That is an acknowledgement that you say I don't have anything of my own. You acknowledge that it's not a matter of the forces of nature or how the economy pans out. You're acknowledging in that word give That it's not a matter of having all the right agreements in place between banks and world leaders so that certain economies do not collapse and other economies are squeezed so that there is a benefit in the end of it all. When you say give, you're looking up. And you're acknowledging that God is the only giver of all good. The Lord Jesus teaching us to pray like this directs us to acknowledge that even in our acknowledgement of God, we need to be moved by God. To come to that acknowledgement, that is even a matter of His grace. In that way, the Lord Jesus teaches us that the fourth petition drives us to the grace of God, to the salvation established by Him. Now you learn to see your daily food and drink as gifts of grace. In the acknowledgement expressed in that word, give, we link with the grace of God that He has given us in the covenant relationship. In fact, the Lord Jesus in his own inimitable way, teaches us about himself as the one who re-established the connection between God and man in himself. He is the one who earned for us the daily bread. And in that relationship that he established, we receive everything we need That's why we have to say that the Lord Jesus Christ is not just a mediator who established the forgiveness of our sins and eternal life and all these great things, but He's also the mediator for your daily bread. What you put on your breakfast table this morning, what did you have? I had some waffles. I didn't pay for that with my hard-earned money, but it was paid for by the blood of Jesus. What you had for lunch? What you'll have for dinner was not paid for by money that came from your pocket, but it was paid for by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The house that you live in is not slowly becoming yours because you are making your monthly mortgage contributions, but your house is paid for by the precious blood of the one who did not have a place to rest his weary head. who had an earthly tent, and even that one was destroyed. He paid for the shelter that you have. He who walked from place to place paid for the vehicles we drive. If the Lord Jesus had not come to reconcile the world unto God, the fourth petition would not make any sense. But it does make sense, and that's why He taught us, you just go to your Father, because I will make sure that things are good. Without being right with God in Christ, you can have plenty of food and drink and everything else, but it will only keep you alive for judgment. But because of Jesus Christ, because of His work, Our food and our drink will keep us in relationship with God. So when you pray, as taught by the Savior, give us this day our daily bread. You see, that is a matter of the faith. Because you look at the fact that you can pray. The One who taught made it possible that we can say with confidence, Father, Give us this day our daily bread, because we are in relationship with Him. And as we pray that, we realize that the Lord Jesus Christ came to take care of our soul and our body, to take care of eternal life and this life. And so we come to the third point of the sermon, the blessing. Throughout the Bible we read that food and drink mean nothing if it is consumed without the blessing of God. Anything you have, if it is used outside of the relationship with God, what good will it do? The examples are plentiful. Egypt was the land of plenty for so many years. What did the abundance of Egypt do for them? Well, when the Lord said, it's time for my people to be led out, he made sure that they got their pay for all these years of working hard for nothing. The Israelites left loaded. They cleaned out Egypt by the Lord's command. The Lord made sure that the economy for the Israelites was positive. And Israel left filled. Egypt was empty. The abundance of another example of the people of Israel that they enjoyed when they were in the land of Canaan again didn't do them any good when they abandoned their relationship with God. Even those who were left after the exile still had a problem connecting food and drink with the God of their food and drink. Sure, they had abundance in Egypt for a while, but it didn't do them any good because the Lord says, after the enemy, I'll send you the famine. I'm still in control. The same still counts today. Entire people have perished and will perish if they eat their bread without having a life with God. But we realize that the word blessing does not mean the same as abundance. It's not a matter of abundance being a blessing and scarcity being a curse. It's not a matter of prosperity or adversity per se. It's not a matter of health or sickness per se. It's not about receiving all the things we want. And then saying, thanks God, now we have a good relationship with you because you proved yourself. Now it's all about having a good relationship with God. And then we receive what we need. That's why the Catechism speaks about physical needs. What you need is what you get. And a child of God We'll understand that the way God answers the fourth petition can be quite different. Because for the one, it may be that he needs abundance in order to rejoice in God. And so he may pray for daily bread and get abundance. Another one may pray for daily bread and it may need to be that he gets scarcity. to come to the acknowledgment that God is the only one who deserves all honor and glory. After all, our daily bread is the portion for each day. What is it that you need in that particular day? That's what you ask for, and that is what the Lord provides you with. So we understand that the Lord, as He answers this petition, mostly does that through the regular means. He doesn't throw a work or a house or the church and you thank him for these things. But let's not be too short in acknowledging that God is the fountain of all good. It's easy to forget that the Lord hears our prayer in many different ways. When he grants you much, do not forget that the Lord gave it. But He could answer it in a different way. And then you'd still be troubled by not acknowledging him as the giver of all things we need. In the past, he has done it so many times. He has withheld food and drink. He may give adversity. He might give sickness in an answer to the prayer for daily bread. He might give you disease to deal with, an economic downturn, disasters bigger than we can imagine or wish for. That does not mean that he didn't answer. Those things, those negative things, those bad things, we often say, well, the Lord didn't hear it. He did not answer the fourth petition when we prayed it. Then we would be like the people in Jeremiah's days. They said we obeyed God and then we ended up in trouble. But now we have nothing, why would we acknowledge God? We just said the right words. We've got nothing. But they didn't understand that they said the right words, but then they had to believe that God would answer in His way. They did not acknowledge that God gave them trouble for their good. They did not see that as a blessing. So the question for us today, August 16, 2015, is this. Would you see it as a blessing after you have prayed the fourth petition when the Lord answers your prayer for daily bread by giving you what you did not expect? Would you see it as God's answer for your blessing and benefit when he answers by giving you no work? Would you see it as an answer of God to bless you when you have to give up your house? Would you see it as a blessing when God gives you sickness? Would you see it as a blessing when God gives you scarcity and adversity? Congregation, it depends on the definition of good. Is good all that you think is good? Or is good defined by God? Let's be honest. Let's acknowledge that God always answers the fourth petition. But we do not always see his responses as such. Sometimes we even think he doesn't even respond. He just marks us as his own and claims us as his own and we're on our own in the middle. In Jeremiah's days the people prayed like crazy to the Queen of Heaven But never to God. They said to Jeremiah, it's your God that we're supposed to be interacting with, but why don't you take care of business? They had no relationship with God that meant anything. They complained that God did not answer their prayer for daily bread. And so they said, okay, fine, now it's time for us, we turn to other gods. Okay, so where would you, where would I turn? When we think that God hasn't answered our prayer. What would be your Queen of Heaven? What kind of cakes would you make? Bearing whose image? Of course, the Queen of Heaven would be something entirely different. But you get the essence of the problem. That's the same. Namely, that we do not acknowledge God as the only source of all good because of Jesus Christ. Are you having difficulty trusting that God hears your prayer for daily bread? Do you have difficulty seeing that God takes care of all our bodily needs either way? With good or bad, prosperity or adversity, health or sickness? Or do you acknowledge that God is the only fountain of all good? And have you learned? Because the Lord Jesus has taught us to withdraw our trust from all creatures and place it only in God. Now if you live like that, you are blessed. You know why? Because when you acknowledge God, you have found in your life and in your heart the response of God. to your petition. Trusting and acknowledging is God's response to this petition. So you pray, and God responds, and you discover that He responds by making you content in all circumstances as the Apostle Paul says. Well, he had to learn, he says that. But he has learned that. When you have learned that also, that will boost your confidence. And so your blessing will grow. So by teaching us this prayer, the Lord Jesus tests our faith in daily circumstances. By teaching us this prayer, the Lord Jesus directs us to Himself as the Savior. He says, you can have, you can do it because I know what you need. By teaching us this prayer, the Lord Jesus makes us expect God's blessing in all our needs. So in that way, He teaches us that faith and food go together every day. And so it should be. What we need for the body, what we need for the soul, food and faith always have and always should go together. every day and forever. Amen.