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Matthew 6:9-11

Verses 9-11

Matthew 6:9-11

Note:

I. The force of this petition. (1) This prayer constrains us to forego all bread but that which God gives. We can get bread from one or other of two deities: the god of this world will give it us, or our Father in heaven. When we say, "Our Father in heaven, give us daily bread," we turn our back on the other giver of bread, on all evil ways of making a living or augmenting our fortune, and ask only such comforts of God's providence as can come to us in an honourable way. (2) This petition requires us, next, to put away all greed, ambition, and anxiety. For it asks only "bread" nay, only today's bread. Enough to sustain, not enough to pamper us. Enough for comfort, not enough for display. Enough to free us from needless care, not enough to free us from wholesome dependence upon God. (3) Let us remember in our prayers and in our actions the needs of others besides ourselves. In all this prayer the plural number is prescribed. We have to come always thinking of others, and naming their wants with our own. (4) The prayer requires us to recognize that God is a great Giver of all good. The great Father lays up for the children. He opens His hands, and all things are full of good. Just below the surface and behind the appearance of things God is at work, and all good that comes to us comes from Him.

II. Some reasons for offering this petition. (1) The adoption of this prayer will give us peace. Not, indeed, all peace; but peace from worldly anxiety and from innumerable disturbances of the heart. (2) The adoption of this petition will hallow all our life. For the largest part of the work of all men is directed to the getting of the means of living; and if in the pursuit of our trade this gracious prayer moderates all selfishness, destroys all greed, and brightens with the smile of God all our activities, it will be found that the whole of life is somehow graciously affected by the one petition. (3) The use of this prayer will vastly enlarge our knowledge of God.

R. Glover, Lectures on the Lord's Prayer, p. 60.

Sermon Bible Commentary

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William Nicoll
Sermon Bible Commentary

Sir William Robertson Nicoll CH (October 10, 1851 - May 4, 1923) was a Scottish Free Church minister, journalist, editor, and man of letters.Nicoll was born in Lumsden, Aberdeenshire, the son of a Free Church minister. He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and graduated MA at the University of Aberdeen in 1870, and studied for the ministry at the Free Church Divinity Hall there until 1874, when he was ordained minister of the Free Church at Dufftown, Banffshire. Three years later he moved to Kelso, and in 1884 became editor of The Expositor for Hodder & Stoughton, a position he held until his death.In 1885 Nicoll was forced to retire from pastoral ministry after an attack of typhoid had badly damaged his lung. In 1886 he moved south to London, which became the base for the rest of his life. With the support of Hodder and Stoughton he founded the British Weekly, a Nonconformist newspaper, which also gained great influence over opinion in the churches in Scotland.Nicoll secured many writers of exceptional talent for his paper (including Marcus Dods, J. M. Barrie, Ian Maclaren, Alexander Whyte, Alexander Maclaren, and James Denney), to which he added his own considerable talents as a contributor. He began a highly popular feature, "Correspondence of Claudius Clear", which enabled him to share his interests and his reading with his readers. He was also the founding editor of The Bookman from 1891, and acted as chief literary adviser to the publishing firm of Hodder & Stoughton.Among his other enterprises were The Expositor's Bible and The Theological Educator. He edited The Expositor's Greek Testament (from 1897), and a series of Contemporary Writers (from 1894), and of Literary Lives (from 1904).He projected but never wrote a history of The Victorian Era in English Literature, and edited, with T. J. Wise, two volumes of Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century. He was knighted in 1909, ostensibly for his literrary work, but in reality probably more for his long-term support for the Liberal Party. He was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in the 1921 Birthday Honours.... Show more

This was a 12 volume, chapter by chapter commentary of 4,800 sermon outlines and 24,000 homiletic references that the editor compiled from authors he liked. The Sermon Bible was compiled/edited by William Robertson Nicoll who also edited the Expositor's Bible Commentary.... Show more
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