Matthew 6:9-13 (ESV) The Lord's Prayer

⁹ Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
¹⁰ Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹ Give us this day our daily bread,
¹² and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³ And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

This is Pastor Chris Chia. And we continue with great joy as I share from God's word with you. As you remember, we are doing a series on prayer. Let me begin by asking you: Did you pray last week? How was your experience of prayer? Were any prayers answered?

Prayer is a most talked about area in many religious circles and it's the same in Christian circles. It is perhaps the most talked about thing, but arguably the least practice of the spiritual truths and disciplines. Thus, we need every insight and empowerment to live a life of prayer that is really from God and about God, and for His purposes and Glory. So, here is Jesus our Lord and Saviour teaching us:

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

A simple way to understand this prayer that Jesus has taught us is that there are two parts to it. The first part is from verse 9 to 10, which is for us to be serious about God, serious about God’s name, God's Kingdom and God’s will, all of which have come in the person and work of Jesus. The second part of the prayer could be summarized and characterized as God being serious about us, God being serious about our needs, our provision and our protection.

Personal Story

I was with my family during my first sabbatical in America. I was applying to a place to do my doctorate in preaching. So I made an appointment with one of the lecturers through a phone call, and she gave me the train times to arrive at the train station of which the Bible College was, which was in a quiet suburb away from Boston. This was more than 20 years ago, and she said once we arrive, I was to give her a call from the train station and she would zip around to pick us up. So I was all excited I finished my lectures in Harvard and we went along, and got on the train. It was beautiful scenery. When we arrived there it was almost evening and it was beginning to get dark. And then I reached into my back pocket and realized I had forgotten to bring the telephone number of this lecturer. How was I going to call her? It was a time when there were no hand phones around it wasn’t invented then and it was beginning to snow as it got darker and colder.

And all the sudden, I heard a voice said to me, “You look lost! Do you need a ride? Do you need a lift?” I was totally overwhelmed by that. This was an American lady. I turn around and it was a total stranger. Of course I needed a ride! Of course I needed a lift! So we jumped into the car with our two children and told her the address. She knew where this Bible College was and as we were talking, she said to me “I don't often give strangers a lift.” Understandably! “But because your children look so cute and you look so helpless. I offered.” So the lesson for us is always bring cute children with you on your trips. If you ever get into a bind, they will always rescue you.

You know, there was as a pastor on a sabbatical, about to enrol for a course, and in the midst of my own forgetfulness and foolishness, I started to panic instead of pray. As I saw the snowfall and felt the cold, instead of knowing that God would provide for all my needs. This is a lesson that we need to learn again and again.

Give us today our daily bread! Some scholars would tell us that the daily bread that is on view here is actually salvation bread. That would be one valid interpretation of this. Even as we go down that line of interpretation, I think there is enough in Jesus’s teaching to know that there is no dichotomy between believing in Him and our needs being met by Him for He would says to us at the end of Matthew Chapter 6, that we are to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto us, all the things that we need for our salvation journey.

And so, if the first part of the prayer is we ought to be serious about God's name, God's kingdom, God’s will, the second part of the prayer is that God is serious about us, about our needs and our provisions. Our provisions from our spiritual needs, our deeper spiritual needs, to our daily needs here on earth. This is where as modern-day people, being radically dependent upon God is an experience totally foreign to us. Whenever we go hungry in our modern-day world, in our cities and countries like Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, America, or Australia… all we got to do is call for food, or go down to the supermarket. In fact, a lot of Generation XYZ, our generation, a lot of the Millennial thinks that food grows on the computer. You run out of the food, you just dial a number and in many countries, there is Ubereats, that delivery of food almost instantaneously. We have raised a whole generation of children who have no need to be dependent upon God. We are fast forgetting our creatureliness in an agricultural world where everybody had to farm for their food. And farming would mean you firstly have to prepare the ground, till the ground, then you put in the seeds and then you have to fertilize it, you have to water it, you have to wait upon God for the sun and the rain and you have to wait and you have to do your part to get rid of the insects and to watch out for infection… So total dependence upon God to give us our daily needs. Our man made secularize and atheistic world is increasingly proud and arrogant in this way. We really have no remembrance and no dependents upon God. We think food grows in our supermarket.  That is so wrong! Jesus teaches us that it is God who provides for us, from our deepest spiritual needs to our daily needs. May we learn to repent of our autonomy, our independence, and learn that only God can provide for us in every way. And this is only avail to us if we believe in Jesus as our Saviour and our Lord.

Prayers

Father, forgive us, when we are so tempted, so often in our life, to live it our own way, by our own power, by our own wisdom. That so much in our life is live with no recognition of You and no dependents upon You. We want to first acknowledge that we need you for truest spiritual needs, and thank You for giving us Jesus. And we need You for our daily needs and thank You for giving us all that we need, as we follow Jesus. In His Mighty name we pray, Amen!