Series: God’s Call, God’s Ways
Speaker: Steve Little (Pastor)
Date: March 1, 2026
Today’s Scripture Reading
Matthew 6:11-12
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
Jesus said ‘Follow Me’. In our series God’s Call, God’s Ways we’ve currently been looking at the characteristics of God through the lens of the Lord’s prayer, with the understanding that scripture bears out that we are to be conformed to His image. In other words, we are live life out ‘Similar in Character’. Some have named this internal change ‘spiritual formation’, or the intentional, lifelong process of being transformed into the likeness of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Let’s read the Lord’s prayer:
Matthew 6:10-13:
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
Last weeks message
Observable Matthew 6:10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
When we view all the scripture we see when God has a plan that it is always shared with people and it is always observable.
In the following verses that Paul taught the Thessalonians we can see what Jesus did in what Paul teaches us to do.
1 Thessalonians 5:14-22
· Warn those who are unruly
· Comfort the fainthearted
· Be patient with all
· Do not render evil for evil
· Pursue what is good for yourselves and all
· Do not quench the Holy Spirit
· Abstain from every form of evil
“…for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you…”
Jesus, observable in us and our lives changed to be observable by the world we live in.
Today’s Message
The Bread and The Cup
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
First: The Bread: “Give us this day our daily bread”
Physical Bread
Spiritual Bread
Broken Bread
Physical Bread:
Right before the prayer Jesus said this to His audience: “And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.
“Therefore, do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.
This is what a Roman prayer from around the time of Christ would sound like (there are actual surviving example):
“O Zeus Olympios, greatest and best,
Lord of the sky and thunder,
Guardian of our city and protector of Rome,
If ever I have honored you with sacrifice,
If ever I have burned incense at your altar,
Grant now my request:
Give success to my business and favor before men.”
Notice some elements of this prayer:
Long string of divine titles (to avoid offending the god because they were unpredictable)
Reminder of past offerings (“If ever I have…”)
Transactional request
These were often repeated multiple times
We are not to pray this way because our Father in heaven knows us and knows what we need. Have the conversation with Him. If it is a need in our home, work, food, health, wisdom in a situation. Ask Him.
Spiritual Bread: John 6:26-27 Jesus answered them and said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”
Vs. 35 And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger…
There is a longing in us, a soulish need, a deep need to be satisfied. We try to satisfy that deep need with stuff and people. Jesus said He is the only one that can satisfy us deep inside.
Broken Bread – Will talk about this characteristic during Communion.
Second: The Cup: “Forgive us our debts; As we forgive others”
Most likely this morning, as followers of Christ, when we see ‘The Cup’ we’re immediately drawn to the act of communion, the shedding of Christ’s blood and the act forgiveness. Mostly because we read scriptures like this:
Matthew 26:27-28 Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
This part of Jesus’ teaching about how we interact in our relationship with the Father is doubly important. Why you might ask, because after the prayer lesson Jesus doubles down on this part of His character, One who forgives.
Matthew 6:14-15 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
This week in our men’s Bible Study Jeremy made a statement went something like this, I have added a bit more: ‘In Hebrew thought, sin is primarily considered what a person does (it is an action) not the permanent state of a person’s life. This action is rooted in the term chet (missing the mark), sin has the ability to be temporary in a person’s life, it is a reversible failure with God, not a permanent state of your whole life.
You can see this in the following scripture:
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 bears this out: ‘Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, practicing homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.’
Remission: Complete sending away or cancellation of debt/penalty.
(Remember we all have transgressed against God and we all have fallen short of His ways of His life)
Start communion:
Take up the bread:
Broken (given to you) – 1 Corinthians 11:24 “… when He had given thanks, He broke it (the bread) and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken (better translation of the Greek word: given) for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
This points to a characteristic of Christ that is truly amazing. He gave His physical self to be mocked, be beaten and then crucified for us.
Characteristic of Jesus life - Love that gives itself, a surrendered life! That is what He asks of us, a love that surrenders our life and gives.
Take up the cup: The blood for the remission of sin. Characteristic of Jesus – He forgave and we get to enter in to this characteristic by forgiving.
