Matt 6:7–15 — The Lord’s Prayer, Part 5: Give Us Our Daily Bread

The fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer is “Give us this day our daily bread.” Having prayed for God’s name, kingdom, and will, we now look to our heavenly Father for the provision of our ordinary needs as pilgrims on the way to the heavenly city.

The Heidelberg Catechism explains this petition as a request that God provide for all our physical needs, teach us to recognize him as the only source of everything good, and withdraw our trust from creatures so that we place it in him alone. We will consider provision for pilgrims, the only source of that provision, and the character of the Father who provides it.

Provision for Pilgrims

Jesus says we are to pray, give us this day our daily bread. And that word bread is obviously not to be taken too literally as if the only thing we’re asking for is food. Biblical language, this is called the part for the whole, where you take a part of something and you use that as the highest example of a whole category of things that fit into that same basket of ideas. So you have bread here as the prime example of what we need to sustain our physical lives. But it also includes water. It also includes clothes. It also includes all the things that we need for our daily lives.

We’re not just asking the Lord for literal food. We’re asking him for the provision of all that we need to sustain our life in this world. But notice how Jesus adds this key word daily. Give us this day our daily bread. And that word daily is important because it implies this idea of whatever is necessary for each day, enough for each day. Give us the provision that we need to sustain us day by day.

Manna in the Wilderness

And this language of daily bread reminds us of something in the Old Testament. This is called biblical theology where you make connections between the Old and the New Testament, between all of the different passages of Scripture. Daily bread reminds us of an incident in the Old Testament when God said that he was going to provide the manna for his people.

Remember in Exodus chapter 16, the Lord said to the people of Israel, they’re not supposed to hoard it. They’re not supposed to gather a week’s portion. They’re not supposed to gather a month’s portion. They’re supposed to gather a day’s portion for every day. And Jesus is alluding to that idea of the manna being given to God’s people day by day by using this word daily, daily bread. And even the word bread itself is also used there in Exodus 16. I’m going to give you bread from heaven.

In biblical theology then we see that there’s a parallel between Israel in the wilderness and us as believers here. Just like Israel, we are pilgrims. We’re not yet in the land. We’re not yet in the heavenly city. We’re not yet in the New Jerusalem. We are pilgrims on the way to heaven. Just like Israel, we do have something behind us as well as something before us to look forward to. We’re looking forward to heaven. We’re looking forward to the second coming of Christ and the fulfillment of the kingdom of God.

But we also have something behind us that we can look to, which is when God brought Israel out of Egypt with a mighty hand and he redeemed them by his power. He judged Pharaoh and his armies. He split the waters of the Red Sea. He let them pass through on dry ground.

This was God’s mighty act of salvation and redemption. Just as we too look back upon the cross and the resurrection of Christ. It’s as if we pass through the waters of judgment on dry ground because we were in Christ. And so we too experienced the final judgment, but not a judgment that caused us to be destroyed, but a judgment that saved us in union with Christ. We died with Christ and were raised with him.

We’re in between these two key events. We look back upon our redemption in the past, and we’re looking forward to the consummation of our redemption at the last day. And in between, we’re in the wilderness. We are pilgrims on the way to the final fulfillment. And just as Israel knew God’s provision in redeeming them in the past and was looking forward to God’s provision in giving them the land in the future, yet in between they had to trust God to provide for their daily needs and to give them the manna from heaven to provide for them and to help them and to sustain them in their journey. So we too, are looking to the Lord to sustain us in our journey.

We too are between the already and the not yet. The already of the accomplishment of redemption that’s already happened in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Heaven itself has already been won and purchased by what Christ has done. Heaven is a guaranteed reality, even though we’re not there yet, even though we’re still pilgrims, yet that land has already been secured for us because of what Christ has done. And yet we’re in between. We’re in between the already and the not yet. The not yet is still awaiting the fulfillment of all of our hopes. The not yet has not yet come. The not yet is an anticipation.

We prayed for it in one of those petitions. Your kingdom come. We’re looking forward to that, but we know that it is guaranteed because of what Christ has done. And therefore, in between these two key elements, these two key events of redemptive history, between the cross behind us and heaven before us, we too are pilgrims on the way and the Lord will provide for our daily needs. And we too, just like Israel in the wilderness, will receive just what we need for each day, not too much and not too little.

Nehemiah looked back on Israel’s life in the wilderness and said, “Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell” (Nehemiah 9:21). They did not have everything they wanted. They longed for the leeks and onions of Egypt and wanted to be in the land already. They did not yet possess perfect happiness, joy, and glory. They experienced suffering and difficulty.

They had to wait for the Lord to provide for them, but they had enough. The Lord sustained them in the wilderness. Although they did not yet have the land—much less heaven—they lacked nothing because the Lord was with them and provided for them.

Jesus here in these words that he’s giving the disciples to pray in the words of the Lord’s Prayer is teaching the disciples, teaching us to view ourselves in the same way, to view ourselves as pilgrims between the already and the not yet, and to be trusting in the Lord to provide for our daily bread and our daily needs in this life. But notice that Jesus says to pray, give us this day our daily bread.

Recognizing the Only Source

The very verb “give” shows that God himself is the only source of every good provision. The Heidelberg Catechism says that we pray this petition so that we may recognize God as “the only source of everything good.”

It’s so easy to forget that this is true. It’s so easy to forget that everything that we need, all the provision that we desire, comes only from God. It’s so easy to slide into a false way of thinking. For example, we could say, it doesn’t come from God.

I earned it by my hard work. Or we could say, Maybe it’s just an impersonal process of nature. Nature causes things to grow. Nature provides us with these things. Or maybe we might say that this good thing that happened to me or this provision that I received is just a chance, just random luck. It’s so easy to fall into a secular way of thinking about nature and about processes that happen in this world.

Or to rely upon our own strength and to think that we’re the ones that did it. There’s a danger of trusting in creatures rather than in God. We can trust in our own hard work. We can trust in technology. We can think that technology is the solution to all of our problems. We can trust in, we can make the mistake of trusting in creatures such as other men, like the experts that are out there, the doctors, the scientists, or trusting in government or politicians.

And the truth is we cannot trust in those other things because they are not the true source. God may use some of those things. God can use your own hard work. God can use technology. God can use doctors and so on. But they are not the true source of these things that God provides for us.

We have a tendency to put our trust in man, to put our trust in politicians, our trust in earthly things, rather than trusting in the Lord. In the Old Testament, in Psalm 33, there’s a wonderful section where we read these words. It says, the king is not saved by his great army. A warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might, it cannot rescue.

You can see how this is a common problem in the life of Israel. So often when they were being attacked by foreign armies, they thought, oh, the thing we need to do is we need to just get more chariots, or we just need to go down to Egypt and get their military strength to back us up. We’ll make an alliance with Egypt. Maybe that’ll be the solution.

And again and again, God’s people had to learn that these earthly things that they were trying to trust in, earthly power, earthly governments, that it was all vain. It was all a vain hope, a false hope. And the Psalm goes on to say, Our soul waits for the Lord. He is our help and our shield. Don’t trust in man. Don’t trust in anything of this world. Trust only in the Lord. He is the true source. Besides, why do we look to creatures when every single good thing that we receive is a gracious gift of God?

Yes, God does use ordinary means. He does use your hard work. He does use processes of nature. He does use medicine and technology. But ultimately all of those things that he uses to provide for you and to bless you are God himself working through those means to provide for you. So why do we look to creatures when every good thing that we receive is a gracious gift of God? He is the only true source. He is the only hope. As the Heidelberg Catechism says, that we may recognize that you are the only source of everything good. And that’s why Jesus instructs his disciples to pray this prayer. He instructs them to pray, give us this day our daily bread. Yes, they should go out and try to work and provide for their families and so on, but ultimately they need to pray for their daily bread.

They need to ask God because prayer disciplines their affections to trust in him rather than themselves. When difficulties arise, even something as practical as a church seeking a place to meet, we often try to solve the problem before asking the Lord. We should use ordinary means, such as contacting a real-estate agent, but ultimately we must pray and look to God for provision. “Give us this day our daily bread” is not a mechanism for producing an answer. God calls us to pray because prayer itself strengthens our faith, trust, and dependence on him rather than on creatures or ourselves.

The Character of the Father

Finally, what does this petition teach us about the character of the Father?

The Lord’s Prayer itself is addressed to our Father in heaven. So each of the petitions has to be understood in light of the fatherhood of God. Pray then like this, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us, O Heavenly Father, this day our daily bread.

Our Heavenly Father is the one to whom we are praying. Our Heavenly Father is the one to whom we are looking. And so what does this tell us about the character of the Father? Think about all the things that this tells us about the character of the Father.

Adopted and Completely Known

First, the Father has adopted you as his child. When we pray “Our Father,” we experience and remind ourselves that we have been adopted into his family.

That we are adopted as the Father’s children. And we’re adopted not in our own strength. We’re not adopted because of our own righteousness. We’re adopted only because of what Christ has done. We’re adopted through Christ who is the Son. He is the Son of the Father. And so in union with the only begotten Son, we are adopted as sons as well. He is the Son of God by nature from eternity. We are sons and children of God by grace, adopted by grace into the family. The Father then has adopted you as His child.

That’s the first thing we see about the character of the Father. But the second thing is this. We see that the Father, if we’re praying to Him, and we’re praying, give us this day our daily bread, we see that the Father knows us individually and completely. Remember in the passage just before, the verses just in front of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus said, Pray then like this. So the second thing we know about the character of the Father is that He knows us individually and completely.

He knows all of our needs. Later on in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says that even the hairs of your head are all numbered. He knows you down to the very smallest detail of your life, every cell in your body. He knows everything about you. He knows you through and through. He knows your past. He knows all the experiences you’ve been through. He knows your deepest thoughts and emotions. He knows your deepest struggles and problems.

Remember Psalm 139, that wonderful psalm about how completely God knows us: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.” No creature knows you as perfectly and completely as God does.

Therefore, when you pray to him, he already knows what you are going to pray for and the longings of your heart. He knows you intimately and perfectly. He also knows what you truly need, even before you ask him. He knows both the things you think you need and the better things you actually need.

Therefore, when he answers your prayer in an unexpected way, perhaps through hardship or tribulation, he is giving what you truly need for your growth and sanctification. We learn that we are adopted as his children through Christ, that he knows us individually and completely, and that he knows what we truly need. Finally, the Father loves you and has your best interests at heart. As Paul says in Romans 8, we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

Can you imagine that? All things. Everything that happens to you in this life. Even the hard things. Even the things that seem tragic. Even the things that are, from the human point of view, disasters. Those things that happen to you, He brings them into your life because He is using them and working them out of His love for your good, for your sanctification, that you might be conformed to the image of Christ. We don’t always understand why God does what He does. There are many things in this world that are tragic and horrific.

But we can trust Him that He is a perfect, all-wise, all-powerful God, and that He does all things out of His perfect justice and goodness. And even though we don’t know the answer, even though we can’t pinpoint exactly what the good is that He’s doing in it, we can trust Him that He is doing good.

He has your best interests at heart. No creature can satisfy all of these criteria. All these things about how you’re adopted, how he knows you intimately and completely, how he knows what is best for you, how he has your best interests at heart. No creature on this world, no politician, no doctor, no expert, no romantic partner, nobody in this world has those qualifications that the Heavenly Father does, has this character of the Heavenly Father.

Why, then, do we put our trust in creatures and earthly things—in human beings who do not know us completely, do not perfectly pursue our good, and have not adopted us as their own?

Trusting the Father Alone

As the Heidelberg Catechism says, we must withdraw our trust from all creatures and place it in God alone. The Catechism does not merely tell us to trust God; it emphasizes withdrawing our trust from creatures. We are naturally prone to trust politicians, governments, doctors, other people, or ourselves. Repentance therefore includes the discipline of turning from creaturely confidence and placing our trust in God alone.

But notice how he does it. He does it in this loving, winsome way by giving us this prayer. The Lord’s Prayer itself instructs us to go to our Father in heaven and pray these petitions, including “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Since the Father is the only one who completely knows you as his adopted child, since he’s the only one who knows what is really best for you and what you truly need, since he’s the only one who has your best interests at heart, He alone is the one to whom you should go in trust and in prayer. He is the one to whom you should call out.

He is the one to whom you should look. Going back again to that Psalm, Psalm 33, behold, the eye of the Lord is not on those that are going to the great army and trusting in the war horse, but it’s to those who fear him, to those who hope in his steadfast love. The humble person who has no other hope, no other trust, no army, nothing, but is simply looking to the Lord and trusting in him. That is the one to whom he looks.

I think that to wrap things up here, I think that it’s very interesting how the Lord Jesus is giving his disciples and giving us this prayer to pray. He’s giving us these words to pray in order to be a means of grace for us, to help us to be weaned from these earthly trusts, these created things, to withdraw our trust from these creatures so that we might grow in placing our trust in Him alone. It is as if the very act of praying this prayer and specifically this petition, give us this day our daily bread, is how we do it. That’s how we place our trust in God alone. That’s how we withdraw our trust from earthly things.

And in addition, it’s as if praying the prayer itself, Lord, I’m trusting in you. Give me what I need. I’m trusting in your fatherly care and your provision. It’s that very act I think that is part of the answer to the prayer. In other words, that is the bread from heaven. That’s the very manna from heaven is that as we are praying, we are receiving this gift of greater trust in the Lord.

We’re going to sing a concluding hymn in just a minute. It’s hymn number 403, which makes this point in a beautiful way. For hymn 403, the very last, no, I’m sorry, the third stanza says, round each habitation hovering, see the cloud and fire appear.” So the author is John Newton, the same guy who wrote Amazing Grace. He was the former slave trader who became converted and became an abolitionist and became an evangelical pastor. He is saying, he’s making this same analogy that Jesus is making between Israel and the wilderness and us as pilgrims.

The hymn’s last phrase is especially significant: they feed upon the manna, the bread from heaven, which God gives them when they pray. It does not say that he gives the manna after they pray or because they prayed, as though prayer earned the gift. He feeds them when they pray.

They feed upon the manna when they pray, as they pray. Prayer itself is the manna. As they’re praying, they are being disciplined to withdraw their trust from worldly and earthly creatures, and they are feeding upon the manna in prayer itself. It’s as if prayer itself is the manna. It’s not that he gives them the manna only after they pray, it’s that he gives them the manna when and as they pray.

And this ties in directly with this whole language of our Father. Because remember, our Father, calling God our Father is a way that we express and experience our adoption. So as we pray to the Father, what are we doing? We are going to God the Father as his adopted children, as his sons. And we are praying Abba Father. Just like Paul says in Romans chapter eight, the spirit of adoption that is within us is what causes us to pray Abba Father. And the spirit of adoption within us that causes us to be disposed to go to God as a father and to call upon him as father and to trust in him as father, that itself is the spirit of adoption within us, is a down payment, is a foretaste of heaven.

That is the bread from heaven, the manna from heaven that we receive through prayer. We often regard prayer chiefly as a difficult duty. Stories of saints praying for hours can leave ordinary believers discouraged, as though prayer were a work by which we prove our devotion or earn God’s favor. Martin Luther experienced that burden as a monk, laboring to fulfill prescribed quotas of prayer.

The Lord’s Prayer teaches something different. It is brief enough to pray in moments, yet it is a profound means of grace. Christ gives it to his disciples so that through prayer we may experience our adoption and learn to depend on our Father. Even as we ask for daily bread, he feeds us with the grace of greater trust.

The wilderness remains difficult. We face sin, conflict, illness, unemployment, and many other trials before reaching the promised inheritance. Yet the Spirit of adoption teaches us to cry, “Abba! Father!” Through that prayer God sustains us with bread from heaven, just as he sustained Israel for forty years so that they lacked nothing.