Gateway Church's Podcast
My Daily Bread
All right, turn to Matthew chapter 6 and we're going to continue this sermon series that Pastor Robert has started a few weeks ago. I've been following that on the web and I'm going to talk about this one of my best friend of the son, but I'm going to talk about the bread. Jesus calls himself the bread and I'm going to dive into this topic a little bit because I think right now if I could really predict what most of you are going through, what most of you are thinking is, there's a lot of uncertainty among us about what the future holds. Everything that can be shaken is being shaken right now. I mean the economy is being shaken, our political structure is being shaken, our whole ideology about the country and about the church and about business. Everything is being shaken right now and I believe that God is a part of this. I want to say I don't think God calls his harm on people, but I think God is in this thing that's happening right now. I'm not so sure, I would probably stop short of saying that we're going through a second reformation of the church because I don't know if we're going to have that kind of cataclysmic change happen in the local church as they did during the reformation, but I can tell you this. We are in a season of transition and we need to be alert, our eyes need to be wide open, but especially, we need to tune in. Our spiritual ears need to be sharp right now to hear what God is saying because he's saying something, and I believe as I speak this morning, many of you who in your quiet time, this is going to be more just confirmation that what you're hearing and your quiet time is yes and amen, that it is God, that he's calling us to a radical life that maybe you've never lived before. The radical will survive. The lukewarm will not. And I'm telling you, God's calling us to a radical life right now, and listen, I'm going to sum up the whole Bible for you. Let me tell you the two things that God wants. We're going to save you a lot of reading, all right? The two things, the two things that God wants from every person sitting in this crowd. If you choose the day to be a Christ follower, maybe some of you are just seekers, some of you are trying to kick the tires of Christianity. Maybe you've been out of church for a long time, but a lot of you sitting in this room today are Christ followers and you know you are. Let me tell you the two things that he wants now more than ever. He wants our worship and he wants our obedience. Now, if we give him our worship and we give him our obedience, most of the time everything else falls into place. I mean, your marriage falls into place, your business falls into place, everything falls into place. If you're radical about your worship and radical in your obedience, just about everything else falls into place in Scripture in your life. And this is what God's doing. He is saying, listen, church, rise up. This is our finest hour. This is our finest hour because everything else, just as Jesus predicted, he said, listen, if you build your house on the rock, one day the storms are going to come. The rain is going to beat against that house. The winds are going to come, but the house will stand. Now, for those of you who build your house on the sand, the same storm, the same rain, the same winds are going to beat against your house, and great will be the fall of that house, and that's what's happening right now. Everything that was built on the world system of Mammon is just coming to pieces all over the world right now. You can read about it. You can listen to it in the headlines of every newscast. Everything that was built on the sands going away, but everything that's built on the rock stands strong. This is why I'm telling you, listen, take heart today. He's overcome the world. Take heart, Gateway Church. Take heart, North Richton Hills. Take heart, he's overcome the world. And listen, by the way, the rock's about to get very crowded. [laughter] Have you noticed that people are just scrambling, "Oh my gosh, the sand didn't hold up my house. Where's the rock?" And we need to make some room on the rock because it's about to get very, very crowded. And listen, let me just tell you one quick story. Last week, in Guess Central, you don't think church happens in Guess Central, it does. Good things happen. Last week at New Life, a young East LA gang member who was just happened to be driving through town. Our church is very visible from the interstate. He saw a cross on top of our church, pulls in, sits through the service, all tatted up, got his stuff on. He's a gang member, just came, he's trying to escape the East LA gang scene, comes to Guess Central. One of our pastors says, "Hey, how you doing? Glad to have you in New Life?" And they get to talking, and in the conversation, one of our pastors says, "You ever given your life to Christ?" He goes, "You know, there's people who come down to East LA all the time trying to tell us about Jesus, and most time we'd shoot at them and run them off." And he goes, "You know, but something's different today." He goes, "You all kind of think I want to ask Jesus into my heart." And so we prayed for him right there in Guess Central, the guy was broken, trying to get out of that lifestyle. Then we hand him a Bible, one of those little NIB New Testament Bibles that we give believers. We hand it to him, he goes, "I can't read." You have a children's Bible with a lot of pictures because I really want to know about the Bible. And listen, the rock is about to get really crowded. Because people are seeking, they're desperate for answers right now. We're seeing Satanists get saved, occult leaders get to come into our church. We're not in the Bible Belt, by the way. College Springs is not the Bible Belt. They call it the Vatican of the Evangelicals, but listen, it is not the Bible Belt. And I'm telling you, we're seeing the light and darkness collide, and we're seeing light win, light win, light is winning. And I just want to encourage you today, okay? It's going to happen. Alright, so Matthew chapter 6, Jesus is a sermon on the Mount. He's the most famous message that he ever preached. He's got a crowd of people out in the countryside. And now Jesus is responding to a question that his disciples had asked. You can find us in Luke chapter 11 where the Lord's Prayer is also found. But the disciples came to Jesus and said, "Teach us how to pray, teach us to pray." And what they were doing is that prayer was not new to them, because in the Old Testament there was an idea of prayer coming before God with sacrifices. Mostly it was the priest who prayed too far the people and the temple. In the New Testament, suddenly they realized that because of Jesus, there was a personal relationship that they could have with God and they could personally approach God. And they watched Jesus model this. Jesus would often withdraw to lonely places and pray. And then out of that prayer time would be this powerful supernatural encounter that he would have with those who were demon-possessed and he would raise the dead and people would get saved. And so the disciples said, "Listen, there's something to this prayer." So Jesus, would you tell us how to pray, teach us to pray? So in Matthew chapter 6 he does just that. And it's a very short little explanation, but let's read it together. Verse 9, "This then is how you should pray. Let's pray it out loud together. Our Father in heaven, how it would be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." Now Jesus said that listen, it's okay to quote this. Totally okay for you to quote this out loud, but this Jesus did not intend this to be our prayer time. Jesus was intending to show us some big ideas about prayer that must be incorporated into our prayer time. And I want to focus today on verse 11, to give us today our daily bread. Now I've always thought that this is a bit redundant. Give us today our daily bread. But these are two big ideas that the people of Gateway Church must capture today in order to be victorious during these times. These are two big ideas. When he says today he's referring to win. Today means I need things now. God knows when we need things. Give us today. Right now Lord, here's the types of timing issue. And then he says daily bread which refers to an amount of bread. So I want you to repeat this after me. He knows when. He knows how much. And listen, this is going to guide you through your prayer time in these days ahead. He knows when. And he knows how much. Now when Jesus was talking he was talking to a group of people who mostly most of the people in the crowd were daily wage earners. Here's what that meant. They'd wake up in the morning and they would go out and find any work that they could find. And they would work maybe in a vineyard or a or sewing or harvesting or whatever they would do, tending livestock. And at the end of the day the person that hired them would give them some coins usually less than a dollar and they would pay them at the end of the day. That then they would take that money, go to the market place and buy grain or maybe some meat, something, and they would eat dinner that night and hope to have enough left over for breakfast the next day. And then the next day but I'll start over again. Daily wage earners. So when these people were out following Jesus around listening to the sermon on the Mount, they weren't working. And so guess what? They were not going to eat. And that's why Jesus on two different occasions had to break the loaves and the fishes and give everybody long John Silvers because they were not going to eat. It was reality to these people give us today our daily bread meant something far different to them than it does to most of us. Far different. Most of your kids do not wake up this morning wondering if there was going to be food on the table. My little ten-year-old and eight-year-old woke up this morning convinced knowing for sure that Dad was in the house. Even though I wasn't, Mom was there. But there was going to be breakfast on the table. We have hardly any reality among us about give us today our daily bread. But this is both literal and spiritual. This is something that has a physical idea to it and a spiritual idea to it. We're going to look at both today. So there were daily wage earners and they lived under the most oppressive tax system maybe in human history. The Roman Empire came into Israel and took over the country. They set up a 90 percent tax rate. Caesar got 50 percent of everything you earned right off the bat and it was sent back to Rome. The local governor got another portion usually 15 to 20 percent. Then the man or the woman who mostly the man who collected the taxes the tax collectors and those tax collecting booths. They took another 15 to 20 percent leaving the average employee the average worker in Israel with a not with 10 percent over. In other words you made a dollar you kept a dime at the end of the day. And so it's an oppressive tax rate. They live under a brutal military dictatorship who controls their lives, threatens them with terror any time they mess up. And they worked every day for just enough money to feed their families. So when Jesus said give us today our daily bread he was trying to convince them listen I know when you need bread. And I know how much bread you need. So for the Hebrew Jewish listeners they immediately thought of a story that they had been taught for thousands of years. And this was a common story taught to children from the moment they could understand the language. And so let's go to Exodus 16 and I'll tell you the story. It's a story of the children wandering in the desert. It's a story of God providing manna to the children of Israel as they wandered through the desert. Now you know some of you know this story. When the children of Israel left Egypt really the only thing that they had to feed themselves with was the livestock, the sheep and the cattle that were following along beside them. Because when they got out into the wilderness there was hardly any grass. And any grass they did find was immediately eaten by the sheep in the cattle. So there was no food. And the only food they had was the food they could get from their livestock the milk and the meat from the livestock that were following them. So for 2 million people that was not enough food. And by the way there was no water, hardly any water out there. So it's almost like God forgot to plan one little logistical detail. How am I going to feed these people out in the wilderness? Well God took them through the wilderness because he was testing their heart. From the moment they left Egypt to the moment they crossed into their promise land. It was 40 years of testing their heart to see if they would trust the living God for their daily bread. So here's what God did. He said I'm going to send manna every morning. I'm going to send manna. The manna is simply cornflakes on steroids. That's all it is. I mean it was literally little wafers, little grains like things. And they would go out and gather it up, scoop it up and they would make food out of it, bread and other things out of this manna. Alright so let's pick up the story here next to the 16. I want you to pay attention to the details because again this is the test of the human heart. God was trying to get them to the promise land. But he couldn't trust them with the promise land. Now please before we get into this story let me ask you a question. Can God trust you with the promise land if he sent you there? Because we're all praying for that right? Most of us have these prayer life. Lord I need something. I need the promise land. Can God trust you with the promise land if he were to send you there? And this is the question that God was asking the children of Israel. Verse 16. This is what the Lord has commanded. Each one is to gather as much as he needs. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent. The Israelites did as they were told some gathered much and some little. And when they measured it out by the omer, which by the way an omer is about two courts. So about two courts, a little jar of two courts and that was enough for one person for one day. Alright so they measured it out by the omer. He who gathered much did not have too much. He who gathered little did not have too little. Each one gathered as much as he needed. Then Moses said to them, "No one is to keep any of it until morning." However, some of them paid no attention to Moses. That makes me feel so much better as a pastor because I'm not the only one getting ignored. And some of you have already checked out because I'm not Robert. Listen, I'm a guest speaker. And I'm praying right now for new life. Half my crowd checked out when I didn't stand up there. So stop that okay. Pay attention up here. I'm not coming back for a while. Robert will be back next week. Alright? Listen, pay attention to what Moses is saying. Moses gave them commands and they totally ignored it. Totally ignored it. And he says they kept part of it until morning but it was full of maggots and began to smell. By the way, bad smells and maggots always go together. You'll never find good smells and maggots hanging out. They always hang out like this together. So so maggots, bad smell and Moses was angry with them. Let me tell you what was happening. Let me tell you, real life. This is because you think we read these stories and we forget these are real husbands and wives and kids and these tents. Here's what was happening. I don't think it was going to be a man of tomorrow. I just don't know. You know, I just, gosh, it's been there for two years, every morning, you know, every six days out of the week and but I, yeah, I think we're going to put a little bit to the side tonight because I'm not sure that God is going to give us our bread tomorrow. And so they would go out and gather it, put it all over in the corner, not really trusting if God would have the manna there the next morning. Sure enough, they'd open up the tent flap. There's plenty of manna. And the stuff they hid in the corner is nasty and rotten and full of maggots. Oh, you see, they had a slave mentality. They had been slaves. They were sons and daughters of slaves. They were the grandsons and granddaughters of slaves. And God was trying to tell him, before I can take you into the Promised Land, you've got to become sons and daughters. You've got to trust me like a child. You've got to come to me like Dad, quit acting like slaves. You see, slaves never knew if Dad would provide for them. Slaves were convinced that they could be sold at any moment. Slaves are convinced that everything they have, they have to hold on too tightly. They can't trust anyone, especially God, because he represents Father. He represents authority. He says, "I can't take slaves into the Promised Land. I'm taking sons and daughters into the Promised Land." And my son and my daughter woke up this morning knowing that Dad had provided for them. And I don't care how tough it gets in our economy. Abram and Cali will be convinced because I've made them feel secure at my home. In the physical, they feel secure knowing that Dad, no matter what it takes, if I have to work three jobs, will provide for them. So that when they grow up, they know they're not slaves. They are sons and daughters, and they'll trust God the same way they trust me right now. You understand, this is the heart issue that God was trying to get to with these hard-hearted people. They had a slave mentality. And God was saying, "No, no, no. You're not slaves anymore. I'm going to take care of your needs, quit acting like slaves. Your sons, your daughters." And the cry of God's heart right now to all of us is, "Can I have some sons?" Would somebody believe me like a daughter? When you lay down your slave mentality and trust me to give you your daily bread. And this is what was happening. And so it took 40 years. An entire generation of people had to die off before the sons and daughters finally came to life. And the sons and daughters are the ones that marched across the Jordan River, took Jericho. They were radically obedient. They were radical worshipers. Joshua, when he went across there, they gave him a radical. You know, this is amazing. The first test of Jericho would, would they march around the city six times, one time a day for six days. And then on the seventh day, they'd have to go around seven times. And at the end of the seventh time, they'd have to blow a trumpet and a shout. You see, understand something that God was testing them, "Will you obey me?" Remember, all God wants is our worship and our obedience. And sure enough, Joshua, because he was not a slave, he wasn't born a slave. He was a young man in Egypt, but he had become a son somewhere in the wilderness. And here he is. His first test is obedience. And they passed the test, and they got the promised land. Listen, I'm telling you, God wants every one of you to have a promised land. He's got it already mapped out for you, it's a land flowing with milk and honey. He needs your worship. All he wants is for us to worship him and obey him. Now, the children of Israel, have you noticed that the children of Israel wandered in the desert for 40 years and ended up in the only place in the Middle East where there was no oil? Have you? I mean, I was just thinking of that this week. There's oil in Israel, but it's very expensive to drill, very difficult to find. Meanwhile, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, everyone around them, you can throw a rock and hit the sand oil pops up. Why is it that God led the children of Israel to a place in the Middle East where they would have to cry out to him for rain and there would be no natural resources like their neighbors had? Israel has been designated by God as a place where God is going to prove to us the world today that he will protect us. He will provide for us. He is our all-sustaining force. He is our father. We are not slaves. We are sons. He will take care of our needs. That's what is happening in Israel right now. They have to pray for them. If it doesn't rain in Israel, they can't grow anything in Israel. And they have no natural resources the way their neighbors do. They are completely surrounded by their enemies. And God says, "In this little tiny place, I'm going to prove to the world that I am your provider, that you can pray every day, give me today my daily bread and I will provide for you." Listen, if he'll do it for Israel, he'll do it for you. And I know some of you don't have natural resources. And you look around and other people have more natural resources than you do. And you're in a perfect place then. You're the very person that God wants to use to prove to the world that he will give all of us our daily bread. And he was trying to prove this time and time and time again. He was trying to get this truth deep into the heart of his disciples. And let me show you one more attempt that he had made in Matthew chapter 17. Now, as I told you, a 90% tax rate, everything was taxed there. So in Matthew chapter 17, verse 24, he says, "After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the coactors," I mean, this is really bad when you call them coactors. That's kind of a slang term. The coactors of the two Drawtma tax came to Peter and asked, "Doesn't your teacher pay the temple tax?" I don't think Peter really knew one way or the other. He goes, "Yeah, of course he does." "Yes, he does," he replied. And when Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty in taxes? From their own sons or from others? Now, by the way, when Romans took any country, Romans didn't pay taxes. They were the occupier's, not the occupier's. Occupier's paid all the taxes. Occupier's enjoyed the fruit of the land with no taxes. So the burden of the entire tax system fell upon the people who were occupied. So Peter knew the answer to this. He said, "From others." Peter answered, "The sons are exempt." Jesus said to him, "So that we may not offend them. Go to the lake. Throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch. Open its mouth and you'll find a four, drop my coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours." Okay. That makes perfect sense. (Laughter) Now look, Peter had a boat. Peter had it. He was a commercial fisherman. He had a boat. He had a crew. Why didn't Jesus say, "Hey, do what you want me to do? You know, while you're out fishing this morning, have your crew pull up an ed." Kind of sort of thrill me. He'll be one with four, drop my tax. No, I want you to do something really crazy. I want you to go out there. I don't think Peter ever went to the fish for one fish. He wasn't like the rest of us with our little fly rod or reels. He had a boat. So he had to throw his line in the water and he's sitting there. People would come by and say, "What are you doing, Peter?" I think it's fairly obvious what I'm doing. It's April 15th. The four, drop my taxes do. I'm fishing. (Laughter) Then he gets it. He gets one on the line. He gets one on the line. And by the way, this is another reminder that God wants our first and our best. Take the first fish, you catch. Open its mouth. And there's the four, drop my coin. You want to hear something fairly fascinating? I was just in the Sea of Galilee. I was just there. Most likely the fish he caught, we don't notice for sure. But the Sea of Galilee is full of tilapia. It's the fish of the region. Most people eat tilapia there. Female tilapia, when they want to get rid of their young, when they want to wean themselves of their young that are following them, sometimes we'll scoop up something shiny in their mouth in order to scare away their young. So it's very common to pull tilapia out of the Sea of Galilee and have like a rock or something shiny in its mouth. And it was usually a female trying to scare away their young. So the fact is, he opens a mouth. There's a four, drop my coin. Now can you imagine how crowded that spot was the next day on there? (Laughter) I mean, people from all over the region were saying, "Hey, this place here is fish giving money." I mean, there's a thousand people out there fishing, and nobody else is getting money. Now listen, this is a prophetic word. This is a prophetic word. It may be for one person sitting here today. I felt so strong this morning when I was praying for this. It may be for one person in our age, maybe for one person listening somewhere in Uganda from the web. I don't know. But I believe that God is using this economic crisis that we're in to lead some of you to unusual streams of revenue. And all God wants is your radical obedience. You've put God in a box. You've said, "God, I want you to provide. I know exactly how you're going to do it." And God says, "No, you don't. I want you to take a fishing pole." And I know Lake Grapevine is going to get crowded today. The God is directing some of you to restructure, to reorganize, to say yes to a radical business idea that you would never have said yes to in times of prosperity. You would have never said yes to this when things were good. But now, in this season, God's got you right where he wants you. Because he's trying to find out, will you march around the city six times and on the seventh day go seven times? Will you go down to the lake and throw a line in and wonder if the fish you're going to catch is going to have the four drop in the coin? There's all kinds of stories like this that God does for people. And some of you right now are you've been questioning it. You've been wrestling with it. You've been pulling yourself back and forth trying to figure out, should I do this radical new thing? And the answer is yes, if it's God. Get counsel, go to people who are mature, but I'm telling you, I'm here to confirm, in some of your hearts today, you've said, "I think God's leading me to a radical new stream of revenue, and I'm telling you, it's probably the Lord." God is looking for people right now on the earth who will radically worship him, who will radically obey him. That army of people is rising up right now. They're rising up at New Life. They're rising up at Gateway. And it's a fresh new wave of people who says, "I'm going to do what God says when he says to do it, how he says to do it. I have faith for today. Lord, give me today my daily bread. That's all I need from you." Now fast forward to John chapter six. Now you know Matthew, Mark, and Luke were synoptic gospel, so they were written, you know, the whole three years were basically covered in their writing. The book of John, while it does cover some of the early parts of Jesus, most of the book of John was written in about the third and final year of Jesus' ministry. It focused primarily on the final year. So in John chapter six, Jesus is very close to the cross, very close to his crucifixion. And in John chapter six is probably one of the most epic encounters, one of the most difficult questions that Jesus asked of his disciples and those who are following him. You see in verse 31, the people came to him and said, "Hey Jesus, we need one more miracle. Can you show us one more miracle? Hey, we have an idea because we haven't worked all day and we're hungry. Why don't you have some man up here like Moses did for us?" Verse 32, Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth. It is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven." That's my father who gives you the true bread from heaven. "For the bread of God is one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." "Sir," they said, "from now on, give us this bread." They were talking only about physical bread. They still had not gotten it. And Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." Okay, let me ask you a question. This is very practical. Let me ask you a very practical question. Are you spending more time praying about your finances? Are you spending more time praying to Jesus? Lord Jesus, reveal yourself to me. Lord Jesus, make me more like you. Lord Jesus, I want to think more like you. I want to talk more like you. I want to act more like you. I want to be more like you. Lord God, I pray today I want to gratify the desires of my flesh, but I choose today to live by the Spirit so that I won't gratify the desires of my flesh. Lord, fill me with the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace. Let that consume me. Father, I thank you so much that I'm becoming more like you. Lord, show me my assignment today. My life belongs to you. I lost my life when I became saved. Oh God, raise me up now to do your work and your will. Or is it, "Oh God, don't you know my mortgages do?" That's just bread, guys. That's just stuff. Just stuff. And Jesus said, "Listen, from this point on, I want the majority of your prayer time to be about being consumed with Jesus, understanding the mysteries of God, letting more of your life and your heart belong to me. Don't worry about bread. I am the bread of heaven." And I'm telling you, a lot of us are distracted right now. Listen, I know the burdens and the challenges are real. I have the same ones. The burdens and the challenges are real, but Jesus has not changed. There's not a recession in heaven. What there is is a lack of people who will radically obey Him and radically worship Him. Can I tell you how the economy in Dallas Fort Worth can turn like that? If an army of believers will say, "I'll worship you with radical abandon. I will obey you with radical abandon. I will not live for mammon and everything you give to me. I'll give back." I'm telling you the economy, just looking for people to cooperate. He has plenty, plenty of resources. He just doesn't have anybody that can trust. He's looking for somebody to cooperate. And so this economic crisis that we're in has shaken us to our core. What have we allowed in? What worldview have we allowed to creep into our lives? Are we getting back to the simple theology that Jesus is enough? Because if you read all of John 6, and I want you to read it at some point on yourself, because he gets into a confrontation with him and he says, "You must drink in my flesh or eat in my flesh, drink in my blood." He tells you must lose your life. All these things, he begins to tell him. I mean, Jesus was telling him from the very beginning, "I want you to say yes, and I'm trying to tell you what you're saying yes to, but they couldn't get it." He would say, "Take up your cross and follow me. They're going to despise you. Hate you. I didn't come here for your comfort. I came here for your contribution." And they would say, "Oh, that means you're going to make me the governor." No. Let me say it again. People are going to hate you, despise you, reject you. All manner of evil is going to be said about you. Oh, that means I'm going to be in charge of the country in a minute. No. I didn't come here for your comfort. I came here for your contribution. I came here for your life to be laid down for me. So, fast forward, verse 67 of John 6. Finally, when he says these kind of things, it says in the Bible that many of his disciples turned and left him, no longer followed him. And in verse 67, he looks at his disciples, the 12th man that he invested his life in for three years. And it's the question that God's asking me, and he's asking you today. Do you also want to go away? Is this too hard? Is this too much? Is the commitment that I'm asking for? Is it too much? Do you want to go away too? And I think you could have heard a pin drop as quiet as it is right now in this room. It's a compelling question. It's a question that needs to be asked. It's a question that needs to be answered. Peter stood there, and for the first time, probably said the right thing. Finally said the right thing. There was hope for this guy. Verse 68 says, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of life. You alone, but there's nowhere else to go. To whom shall we go? You're the bread of heaven, and you're all I need. I don't need anything else." Now, a few weeks ago, I'm going to close with the story because I think it summarizes what I've been trying to say for 30 minutes here. Several weeks ago, I don't know how many of you follow a new life, and I'm okay if you don't. It seems like we're finally pulling out of the shooting, the scandal that just marred our church for two years. And a couple months ago, back in late January, some new allegations surfaced about something, some unfortunate things that happened in our past with our former pastor, and it came into the news, and the national media picked up on it. The local media was all over it, and it was scandalous. It was new details about the scandal that had not been public in the past. It finally came public, and it was horrible. It was a bad day, a bad week for us to have to explain it all over again. And that morning, not knowing what was about to happen, about 10-30 in the morning, opened this book that I've been reading. And there was this quote by a guy named George McDonald. He's a Scottish poet, writer. And George McDonald, in 1848 or somewhere a long time ago, said, "The burdens of today is not what causes any of us to crumble and fall. It's when we add the worries of tomorrow to the burdens of today when we fall, when we crater, when we can't make it." And that was profound to me. So I prayed, you know, and I took it to our staff meeting at 11 o'clock. I told the staff, "Listen, God's given us the strength for the burdens of today. Let's not add to those the worries of tomorrow. We're going to be okay." All right, that's at 11 o'clock. At 3 p.m. is when I got the call from the media that this thing was about to break. And I don't mean to be all hell broke loose for about four or five days. I mean, I was on the phone with every media person trying to explain, trying to just trying to pass through the church to get another little nasty thing, you know. Just looking in the eyes of those people and my people and having to pass them. It was a hard time. And the Lord kept reminding me, "Brady, whispering to me, "Brady, you said yes to me a year and a half ago, and you didn't know what you were saying yes to." But you said, "Yes." And you're okay. You're going to make it. The burdens of today are not going to kill you, Brady. I've given you all you need for life and godliness. For Brady, don't you dare add the worries of tomorrow to the burdens of today. And it doesn't mean we're not supposed to plan and strategize and plan. All those things are biblical and godly. Just don't worry. Now listen, you want to sleep better tonight? You want to have a good afternoon? The burdens you're carrying. I know you've got burdens. I can see it in your eyes. Look, I'm a pastor. I can read people really well. I know. I can see the burdens on some of you. They're real. But you're going to make it today. You're going to make it. Just don't you dare add the worries of tomorrow to your burdens that you're carrying today. And you're going to be just fine. If you're going to wake up in the morning, the burden will be real. The challenges will be real. But you can make it. That's why Jesus said, "Who you by worrying can add one single measure to your life." In fact, worry causes stress and stress causes most diseases likely take away from your life. And then Jesus said, "Don't worry about tomorrow because it has enough evil of its own." Now that doesn't sound real comforting to me, but it's the truth. You ever thought about that? It's not really comforting. But it's the truth, right? Yesterday was evil. Today is evil. Tomorrow there's evil. But we're okay. We've been called to walk in this world. And you'll make it today if you don't worry about tomorrow. But if you walk out of here today and you choose to worry about tomorrow, it's between you and God. I'm trying to give you some help right now. So here's the prayer. I want you to pray. It's almost going to sound like a Sunday school class in here. Give us today our daily bread. Just give us today, Lord, our daily bread. It's enough. Tomorrow, when you get up, I want you to thank Him for who He is, our Father in Heaven, how it would be your name. But Lord, give us today our daily bread. Tuesday, when you get up, oh God in heaven, you're great, you're awesome. Thank you for your goodness. Lord, give me today my daily bread. You understand God, God has designed you to walk this out. There's rain in this storm. Good rain in this storm. Storming. There's good rain falling too. It's falling on our hearts right now. Do you feel it? We're becoming somebody that God's always wanted us to become, and it took a crisis for us to get there. But God is putting rain. Rain's here. And there's wind and lightning. The storm's real. But there's some beneficial rain falling on some dry and thirsty hearts in here. And I'm loving the rain. I don't like the storm, but I love the rain. Can I pray for you this morning?