Thy Will Be Done...Give Us Our Daily Bread

[00:00:06] So in this Lenten season, here we have an appropriately serious reading from Matthew 26 of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, looking ahead to his impending arrest and beating and road to the cross. Finally his gruesome death, where he loses his life and health and comfort and honor. [00:00:39] He loses everything on the cross, but not everything. [00:00:46] There he is on the cross, still looking to his heavenly Father. He dies praying into your hands I commit my spirit. [00:00:56] He dies praying, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. [00:01:01] He dies looking to his heavenly Father and fulfilling the words that he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane. But not my will, but your will be done. [00:01:15] So he doesn't lose everything. Actually he loses everything from a worldly perspective, but he doesn't lose faith, you could call it. [00:01:28] He's still looking to his heavenly Father. And we know that that's everything. [00:01:34] And that's what Jesus teaches us, you know, seek first the kingdom of God, then all these things will be added to you. And it's the most important thing my mom always taught me. [00:01:50] And it's true. Jesus demonstrated it there on the cross. So then he rose from the dead. You know, I think that's what Philippians 2 is saying, have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, didn't count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but humbled himself to the point of death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him. See, in his emptying himself and losing everything, becoming nothing for us. [00:02:20] He gained everything. Not because he earned it, let's say not. Like that's why Jesus has it all. He had it all anyway. But that's the pattern as a human being. [00:02:36] Well, God raised him up, exalted him to the highest place, gave him the name that's above every name for our sake we're lifted up in him. But so you see Jesus going to the cross and losing everything, physically losing everything. Outwardly some non physical things like honor he loses, but outward sort of worldly things he loses it all, but spiritually he gains it all. That's the pattern for us who are in Christ, looking to him and being conformed to his image. That's what God is working in us. [00:03:13] Well, he's strengthening our faith, especially maybe through the loss of all things. That's the pattern of Christ. But you see the pattern also in the saints of old, like in Joseph for example. [00:03:26] Joseph, well, starts out a little twerp with a many colored coat and he's the favorite of his dad, right? And he's like, hey, check out my coat. [00:03:38] Dad loves me. But then he gets sold to a caravan of traders and taken to Egypt. [00:03:49] But God strengthens his faith through it, through this trouble. Well, then he's the servant of Potiphar, an official of the king. And that's going well until he's framed for something he didn't do and thrown in prison. But God strengthens his faith through it. And all this time, God's preparing him for something he doesn't even know about. But what's it like for Joseph? Well, he's just hanging on to God's word, you could say he's just looking in faith to God and facing the loss of all things and, well, looking to God to work it for good somehow. And then in the end, he actually says it to his brothers, you meant this for evil, but God meant it for good. [00:04:45] So that's the pattern. Like, you can lose all earthly things, but hang on to God. Look to God in faith, and you're not going to go astray. [00:04:57] You're not actually going to lose it all. You're going to gain it all. [00:05:02] All of that for us through Jesus Christ, through faith in him as we're united to him in his death and resurrection. [00:05:10] We can stand to lose it all and gain it all. [00:05:15] So now the loss of all things, well, it's hard for the body. It goes against our physical nature and physical desires. Like, just think of Jesus going to the cross and like, literally, he's dying, you know. Or think of him out there in the wilderness. He's hungry. [00:05:36] He has bodily needs that are unfulfilled. [00:05:42] Or you can think of Eve in the garden. Remember what she thinks when the devil is tempting her to eat the fruit, when she's about to make her choice. It says that when she saw that the fruit was good for eating, she was hungry. There was a bodily desire drawing her, and she followed that desire. That was one of them. And then it was. It was also pleasing to the eye. There's another sort of outward bodily thing. Right. And then it was also desirable for gaining wisdom. Well, there's an inward. Like, there's an inner thing, a spiritual desire. [00:06:26] So we have this bodily nature and a spiritual nature. And in the two phrases that we're taking on in. In the Lord's Prayer, we see both. [00:06:38] And I think the reason that it works to pair them together is that both of them are a kind of food that might seem kind of surprising, but so thy will be done is that Food. [00:06:52] Jesus actually calls it food in the Gospel of John, I think twice. He says, my food is to do the will of my Father. [00:07:04] So at least one of those times is in John 4, the woman at the well. There's a little sort of break in the scene where the woman goes away to the town and the disciples come to him and they say, we brought food. [00:07:19] We went to the village, we came back. We've got food for you. And he says, I've got food you don't know about. And they're like, you do? You know? And then he explains to them, my food is to do the will of my Father. And, well, so those are kind. It's almost like you could see him fasting for a moment there Now. Does he stop and eat with them? I don't know that it says he does, but it's like, for a moment, it's like a little plug for fasting. It's like, look, we don't have to be too quick to fulfill the body's needs here. I'm focused on something else. And that's the point of fasting really, as a spiritual discipline. It's setting aside the needs of the body because they easily creep up. [00:08:10] And you can come to believe that they're all important. [00:08:14] Have you ever been that hungry where you got cranky or said things you shouldn't have or like things like that because you were hungry? [00:08:25] I certainly have. You know, it's something to watch out for, right? You're hungry. You gotta recognize that, well, you don't want to be driven by the sort of the frantic feeling of needing food. [00:08:46] And one thing that can help with that, I think, is just recognizing that, you know, you can be hungry and not react, especially if you plan to be hungry. And for the sake of attention to God. I think it's faith that can make the difference in that situation. But it ends up meaning like, well, I'm hungry, but that's okay. I can be hungry. [00:09:09] I'm going to pay attention to God right now. [00:09:12] That's what fasting as a spiritual discipline is for. That's what Jesus is doing out in the wilderness, fasting and praying. He's telling his body, like, look, yeah, I know you got needs. But right now we're focusing. We body and soul together, we're focusing on God. [00:09:30] And then that hunger as a drive can actually kind of end up funneling more attention to God, more energy toward God. We're driven by our bodily desires. They can be sort of harnessed toward spiritual ends. So anyway, that's fasting. So the desires of the body and the desires of the soul, the needs of the body, the needs of the soul, they're kind of different. But it all has to work together because we're body and soul together. Right? We're not just body, we're not just soul. [00:10:06] So one way to describe sin is a capitulation to the desires and needs of the body. [00:10:17] So like, let's say lust or just like. Wrong. Desire. Right. Whether it's for food or sexual desire or those kinds of things, if the needs of the body and desires of the body kind of take over and become the desires of the soul, then, well, that's how we become merely earthly. That's built into our sinful nature, our will that's turned against God. [00:10:55] And so that's why Paul says in Romans 8, for example, if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live, he's saying. He's saying that. [00:11:10] Well, that faith in Christ, through faith in Christ, the proper order of body and soul is reestablished so that we're no longer driven about by the desires of the body, but are now led by the spirit of. Of Christ. [00:11:31] Right. And so that, let's say, our spiritual nature, our soul is led by Christ and then leads the body in righteousness. [00:11:42] Is this making sense? Yeah. Okay. Okay, So a little bit. [00:11:48] Okay, so thy will be done. I think we should think of this as a kind of food again. Here's another example. Jesus in the Beatitudes toward the beginning of Matthew, Matthew 5, he says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Well, there you go. What is it to say? Thy will be done, like in me. Thy will be done in me, except to hunger and thirst for righteousness. [00:12:21] Like, I'm hungry, I'm empty and ready to be filled. Like, fill me with righteousness. That is to say, thy will be done. [00:12:32] Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. [00:12:37] That's the satisfaction of the soul. [00:12:40] As opposed to believing that if I just have food right now because I'm hungry now, that's kind of the baseline example, right? That's the. The image. Give us this day our daily bread. [00:12:53] But also represented in daily bread is lots of other things. Luther says all the basic needs of life are encompassed in daily bread. [00:13:06] So what happens, though, is that if we come to believe that our greatest fulfillment is going to be in the accumulation of not just enough food, but lots of really good food or the ability to go out and eat luxurious dinners all the time and be living like a king. Or to have not just shelter, but a palace. Or you could just kind of expand that. Not just a car to get around, but a, you know, really nice car. [00:13:40] You see what I mean? It's like when we get kind of pulled spiritually into our outward needs, then it doesn't just stop with the need. [00:13:54] It can develop a voracious appetite for more and more and more. That's the nature of lust or greed or other kinds of sin. [00:14:09] So when we pray thy will be done, we're praying, thy will be done in me. It's a hungry posture toward God's work in us. [00:14:20] Because righteousness isn't something that we just develop here from below. Like, you know, thy will be done in me is a prayer to God. It's not like a statement like, I'm gonna do it. You know, it's not like a rallying cry for ourselves or something like that. It's a prayer. [00:14:41] You can give this to me. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven in me. [00:14:51] Give me your righteousness, and I will be satisfied. And then give us this day our daily bread. [00:15:02] I think this is kind of the other part of that. Help us. It's a pretty simple way of asking. You know, it's not like, give me luxury. That's not the prayer. Give us this day our daily bread. Bread's pretty simple. And in the ancient world, that's what you lived on. Like, that was the simple thing to live on. You just need some wheat, and you spend all day making the bread, which we don't have to do anymore. [00:15:28] Like, if you can just make the bread or receive the bread, if somebody's got some extra bread for you, then you're good. [00:15:36] So give us this day our daily bread, I think, sets us in the pattern of contentedness with just fulfilling the needs of the body. Because the needs of the body are real. [00:15:48] They actually do need to be fulfilled. And the problem comes when we look to do more than that, when we get invested in more and more and more or think that we'll be satisfied by more and more. And more. [00:16:05] So thy will be done in me, and that's our food. [00:16:12] Then we're satisfied and continue to provide for the body what it needs. You see those together? [00:16:21] So we pray in this Lenten season that God would give us a contentedness, that he would conform us to Christ, who was content even not to have a home. [00:16:34] He went around. He didn't have much, but he had what he needed. And then he went to the cross and he gave up even what he needed outwardly in order to hang on inwardly to God in faith and to fulfill God's will. And, boy, he was satisfied, right? He was satisfied. The verse, no, the gradual for the season of Lent is from Hebrews 12. And it's also our school's theme this year, if you remember. [00:17:11] But it says, therefore, since we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, we're talking about Joseph and all those who have gone before us in faith. Let us also set aside every weight and sin which clings so closely or which trips us up, and let us run with endurance the race that's set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy set before him, there's the fulfillment. It's like maybe you could even say desire, drawing him forward to do his Father's will, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. [00:18:01] That's our path here in Lent, with Jesus in the wilderness, and in kind of a backward sort of way, from a worldly perspective, it's the. Well, it's the path to true joy and peace and everything that we actually need. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied, thanks be to God, in Jesus, in his name. Amen. [00:18:31] And we continue with Te Deum Lav Damus. We praise you, O God, on page 223. [00:18:38] Let's stand if you're able.