Sermon Audio
May
the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in Your
sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. AMEN.
When one
looks at the fields at this time of year, especially before we received this
wonderful moisture in the form of snow, you could see the wheat planted in the
fall that had germinated and started to grow.
One of the agriculture programs that I listened to recently talked how
the shoot of the wheat begins to grow and tiller and can remain dormant for the
winter. But how the crown can be broken
if not protected during the winter. But even
if damaged, the plant will yield a harvest.
Even the wheat plant knows how to develop and grow with the right
conditions and to come back from adversity.
And this morning as we consider the petition of ‘Give us this day our
daily bread’, it gives new meaning for me of not only the growth of wheat, but
how we are not unlike the winter wheat that we grow here in Western Kansas.
Let’s
pull out our bulletin insert for this morning and read responsively as a
congregation the “What does this mean?”
and “What is meant by daily bread?” sections. “The Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, Give
us this day our daily bread. What
does this mean? God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even
to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to
realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving. What is meant by daily bread? Daily
bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the
body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money,
goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and
faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace health, self-control,
good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like. Let’s go to God in prayer asking for our
daily bread.
Let
us pray, Gracious God giver of our daily bread, we come before You this morning
asking You help us receive our daily bread with thanksgiving. For not only are these the gifts given freely
to us without our asking, but they enable us to be faithful with the gifts
given daily by You that we return in our tithes and offerings. For we receive these gifts out of Your
gracious will because of what Your Son Jesus Christ did for all of mankind,
including all of us saints gathered here at Emmanuel this morning. AMEN.
Believe
it or not, I am spoiled. I say that not
to be glib, funny or shallow, but to let some of you who come week in and week
out to hear God’s Word to know how my wife Michele spoils me. There may be some that wonder what she does
that spoils me, or if I am just saying that because she is not here this
morning, but it is not a matter of what she does, but more her intent behind
what she does. You see, I have before us
a bread maker, which is one that Michele and I received as a wedding gift. Michele has become not just a proficient
bread maker, she is a master cook and baker and has even shared her talent
during our Lenten Soup Suppers. Michele
spoils me in this regard, just like my Mother would when I was younger, for
both my mother and Michele bake me homemade bread. Michele and I on many occasions have cut a
hot fresh loaf of freshly baked bread and smothered it with butter and made a
meal out of it. And this is exactly what
this petition in the Lord’s Prayer is about, our being spoiled by God with our ‘daily
bread’. As we heard earlier, God clearly
gives us so many things to be thankful for in our lives and spoils us in many
and various ways. I personally am
blessed and lucky enough to have a loving and devout wife and child who spoil
me, not only with bread, but with their unending love and forgiveness, which I
need on a hourly, daily and weekly basis.
But unlike
previous petitions we have studied, this petition of the Lord’s Prayer does not
ask for ‘spiritual things’ only for needs of the body, hence our praying for ‘our
daily bread’ forgets how God has already spoiled us. We forget that by giving His Son Jesus Christ
on the Cross of Calvary, God offered to each of us life, salvation and
blessings beyond measure. We have
received the greatest gifts of mankind and the promises of life and salvation
and spending eternity in the Kingdom of God.
This and these are the promises that God through His Son Jesus Christ
offers us and what we receive in our ‘daily bread’ is ‘gravy’ or ‘icing on the
cake’ or the ‘cherry that is on top of a sundae’. Our daily bread is given not only because of
His love for us, but because of His promise to care for us and our every need.
So no
matter if we buy bread from Wal-Mart that Stuart stacks and changes the
location of the freshest bread to keep people guessing, or if we make our own
bread in a bread maker. When we pray
this petition of the Lord’s Prayer, may we be reminded that we are spoiled by
God with salvation and what we receive ‘in addition’ is not just a gift, but a
sure fulfillment of the promise we have in our salvation through Jesus Christ.
For we
may look at bread and wheat and think of our daily meal or our lively hood on
the farm, but God provides us far more out of His mercy and great love for each
and every one of us. May we see these
gifts as not just for us, but that we can share with one another during our
journey here on earth. This is the
blessing of daily bread and what we can share with one another as we journey
during our life time.
If one
were to talk to the dying breed of veterans that served both in the World War
II, Korea and Vietnam that experienced the torture of being a prisoner of war,
whether by the Germans, Japanese, Koreans or Vietnamese, the stories they tell
are horrific. But what was very clear
was that when they were prisoners, they consistently would share food in order
to survive and their daily ration of daily bread took on new meaning. One such survivor I personally knew, Reginald
Pettus, survived a Japanese POW camp.
Though he never would talk about his experience, it deeply and
profoundly changed his life. One of the
clearest indications of how bad it was for him was a picture I saw at his house
while delivering papers. It showed him
right after his liberation, he stood over six feet tall and in the picture he
was nothing but skin and bones. I can
only imagine the impact his experience had upon him and countless others and
how today our understanding of daily bread as we pray this petition needs to be
a prayer of thanks and praise.
For
God clearly gives each of us what we do not deserve out of His great love for
each and every one of us. Thanks be to
God for the gift of eternal life and salvation through Jesus Christ and the
gift of our daily bread offered for all of mankind, but especially for each and
every one of us saints gathered here at Emmanuel this morning. AMEN.
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