Today's Bread

◆ Sunday Word

Beloved family and friends,

Be honest. What are you carrying into tomorrow right now? The bills. A phone call you're dreading. One of the kids. A number on a test result. You haven't finished today, and you're already hauling next week.

Jesus saw that coming. Open your Bible to Matthew 6.

Before we read it, I want to tell you where I'm standing when I preach this. Back in August I told you I was laid off from my full-time job, one that had nothing to do with this ministry. Overnight the steady paycheck was gone. I told you we had started looking at other places to live, considering a move because of the cost of living, looking at lower property taxes, hoping for a better life, maybe more land and more space for this ministry to flourish.

It's a lot. The questions come fast. What's next? Where do we go? How do we provide? Will this work out?

You probably have your own version of those questions. Picture your kitchen table at eleven tonight. Bills stacked by the salt shaker. Coffee gone cold. He sees that table. And here is what I keep coming back to: God knows the plan. He is not surprised by the layoff. He is not scrambling for a plan B.

Jesus answered those very questions, out loud, to people who were asking them. So let's walk through it together. And I want to give you one sentence to carry the whole way, because this passage hangs on it. Today's portion comes from your Father's hand. We'll keep coming back to that.

Let's start with where we are. Matthew 5, 6 and 7 are what we call the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew tells us Jesus went up on a mountain, sat down, and His disciples came to Him, with the crowds listening (Matthew 5:1; 7:28). Think about who was on that hillside. This was Galilee, under Roman rule, in a land where taxes went to Caesar. And many of the people listening were working people. Jesus told of laborers who agreed to work for “a denarius a day” (Matthew 20:2), men who knew what it is to wonder how tomorrow's supper will get on the table.

Just before our passage, Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and money.” (Matthew 6:24). Keep that in your ear, because our passage begins with "Therefore." It looks back.

Let's slow down on that word "anxious." It is not against planning, or working hard, or paying the bills on time. It is the same word Jesus uses with Martha: “you are anxious and troubled about many things” (Luke 10:41). Many things. That is the picture, a mind pulled in different directions, trying to live in tomorrow and next month and next year while your body sits right here in today. And He had just said no one can serve two masters. A divided mind is a mind trying to answer to both.

Is not life more than food? He is asking you to step back. The One who gave you the life has not lost track of what it takes to keep it going.

Now look at how He teaches.

Why birds? Because nobody in that crowd had to be told where to look. And listen to what He names: sowing, reaping, gathering into barns. That is the whole work of getting food on a table. The birds do none of it, and your heavenly Father feeds them. Not "the" Father. Your Father. He is not scolding when He asks if you are of more value. It is a question with an obvious answer.

And then verse 27. Think about the last time you lay awake at three in the morning, running the numbers. When the sun came up, had the worrying changed one of them?

Solomon was the king Israel remembered for his wealth, and Jesus says a wildflower is dressed better than he was. Then He picks the cheapest thing in the field, grass that is here today and in the oven tomorrow, and says God clothes even that.

Listen to the words "little faith." In the Greek it is one word, and it shows up only five times in the Gospels. Every time, Jesus is speaking to His own followers, people whose trust is real and still shaky when the pressure comes. So when He says it to you, He is not shutting a door. He is leaning in.

I know this one personally. The Lord rescued me, and I'll never get over it. So when I start asking whether He will provide, I go back to what He already did for my soul.

The Gentiles here are people who did not know the God of Israel. Of course they chased these things. Nobody had told them there was a Father. But you have been told. He knew before that envelope ever hit your mailbox.

He knows the retiree watching the savings account shrink. The mom checking the gas gauge before payday. The college kid staring at a loan notice with no plan. The husband who just heard layoffs are coming Monday. Different kitchens. Same Father.

A few verses earlier in this same chapter, Jesus taught these people how to pray. “Give us this day our daily bread,” (Matthew 6:11). This day. And the people on that hillside knew the story behind those words, because they had grown up on it.

Israel had been brought out of Egypt, and they were in the wilderness, and they were hungry. They told Moses and Aaron they would have been better off back in Egypt, by the meat pots, with bread to the full (Exodus 16:3). They weren't only hungry. They were afraid, and sure that the One who brought them out had done it to starve them.

And God did not answer with a lecture. He said, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day...” (Exodus 16:4). In the morning there was dew all around the camp, and when it lifted, something fine and flaky lay on the ground. They had never seen it. They said to one another, “What is it?” (Exodus 16:15). They called it manna.

Each household gathered what it could eat. Whoever gathered a lot had nothing left over, and whoever gathered a little did not run short. Some kept part of it until morning anyway, and it bred worms and stank (Exodus 16:18-20).

Was God being stingy? Picture that camp the next morning. Fresh bread on the ground again. Nobody has a month's supply in the pantry. Every morning they walk out and find that He did it again. He was not rationing them. He was bringing His people back to His hand, morning by morning, so they would learn whose hand it was. Today's portion comes from your Father's hand.

The kingdom of God is God's own rule. His righteousness is His way of being right, and being made right with Him. Put Him first, and "these things," the food and the drink and the clothes He just said the Father knows you need, get added in. David wrote in Psalm 37, “I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread.” (Psalm 37:25). Jesus says the Father is glad to give the kingdom (Luke 12:32).

Notice that He does not pretend today is easy. Today has its own trouble, and He says so. He just won't let you borrow tomorrow's on top of it. Tomorrow's portion comes tomorrow, from the same hand.

So what do we do with what we are carrying? Paul wrote this from prison: “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7). And Peter says to do it “casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). Because he cares for you.

Jesus keeps saying "your Father." Do you know Him that way? The gift that matters most isn't the paycheck. Salvation is a free gift. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9). You could never earn a seat at the Father's table. He paid for it. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

And that is how we stand. Not because we are strong. Because of Christ. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20). He loved you, and He gave Himself for you.

If you have never trusted Him, you can do that right where you are. Tell Him you need Him, and that you believe He died for you and rose again. And if you know Him but your faith has felt little lately, He is leaning in. Will you take today's portion from His hand? Will you leave tomorrow's with Him?

Let's pray together.

Jesus, You rescued me, and I'll never get over it. Thank You for the bread on my table this morning, for the breath in my lungs, for the people sleeping under my roof and for Your mercy that was waiting before I opened my eyes. Forgive me for the nights I stared at the ceiling and trusted my worry more than You. Forgive me for carrying what You never handed me. Lord, I lift up everyone listening right now with a stack of bills on the counter, a hard test result, an empty chair at the table, or a fear they can't say out loud. Be near them. Quiet their minds tonight. Teach us to come to You morning by morning and take what You give. We place tomorrow in Your hands. We seek Your kingdom first. Help us stand in the victory You already won on the cross. I trust You. I need You. I am Yours. In Jesus' name, amen.

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