PYHO: Pray Today About Today

Before we jump into what we're going to talk about this morning, I want to ask a really simple question.

What is the most important day of your week?

What's the most important day of your week?

Like we all have we all have different schedules, we all have different jobs or flows throughout our week.

We all kind of live different lives, and there's probably certain days in your week that feel like they carry more weight than others.

I'll use my week as an example.

Okay, so Sunday would be a really obvious pick for me as far as the most important day of my week, right?

I'm a pastor, and so Sunday is kind of a big deal.

Everything in my work week tends to move towards Sunday.

This is sort of the finish line, I guess, in my week.

Um so Sunday, that's an obvious choice, but Monday is my day off.

And I have learned that Sunday, Justin, is only as good as Monday, Justin.

And so as my day off, that's kind of my rest day.

If I don't do the right things on Monday, if I don't use Monday wisely and rest and say yes to the right things, say no to the right things, and I start my whole week off in a bad way, and that greatly impacts Sunday.

So in some ways you could say that Monday is the most important day of my week because I've got to get that day right if I want to start on the right foot.

Tuesday, that's my first day in the office.

And Tuesday is meeting day.

One of the aspects of my role here is to lead the staff.

And so we have a staff meeting and we have individual staff meetings, and we we work and we talk about everything that's going on and all the things that need to happen.

And if I don't do a good job leading the staff and making sure they know what to do and giving them direction and input and leadership and guidance and whatnot, if I don't do that, then things don't go well here.

So you could say that Tuesday is the most important day of my week because that's the day I get the staff lined up with what's going on.

Wednesday, that would be my sleeper pick.

You know, you gotta have a sleeper pick.

There's always the the the dark horse, right?

That would be Wednesday, because Wednesday, if I do Tuesday right, which doesn't always happen, Wednesday is the day that I have blocked out to study, to just spend a lot of time in God's Word and reading and really starting to prepare for the message.

And so if I don't, if I don't spend that time right, if I don't really spend that time with God and really dive deep into what he says about whatever I'm gonna teach on in the coming week, then Thursday doesn't go well, and and the message is a big part of my role here.

So you could say that Wednesday is the most important day in my week.

Thursday is the day that I actually write the message.

Some of you are shocked to hear that yes, this has actually been written down at some point in time.

I write 10 to 12 pages every single week.

I have literally thousands and thousands of pages that I've written.

It's just that where authors get to write them and publish them and people buy them and read them, I write them and then never use them again.

That's how this works.

But like if I that's a time-consuming process.

It's a step that I don't skip.

And so Thursday, that's a super important day of my week because that's when it all actually kind of goes from my head and my heart down into something that's that's actually useful and practical.

Thursday could be the most important day of my week.

Friday, that's that's the last day of my work week in the office, and that's when I tie up all the loose ends.

That's when I actually practice the message.

Shockingly, yes, this has been practiced, right?

It's not a performance, but it has been practiced because you know I value your time.

So if I don't do that right, then everything, you know, isn't it's not all done.

And that bleeds into Saturday.

That means I have to use time on Saturday to finish what I didn't finish on Friday.

So you could say that Friday is the most important day of my week because that's what sets up, you know, the weekend.

Saturday, that's my family day.

And look, here's the reality.

I believe with all my heart I am called to be the pastor of this church.

I love you guys.

But I don't have to wonder whether or not I'm called to be a husband and father.

I don't have to wonder whether or not God wants me to be present for my family.

And sometimes that's a struggle because this is time consuming, this is busy, but on Saturday, I want to be there for my family.

And if this goes well, but my family life is a wreck, what does it matter, right?

So you could say that Saturday is the most important day of my week.

And it's like that for all of us.

If you really think about every day that you have, there's probably something significant on that day.

And so I want to take a second.

I want to give you time to actually think, not too long, five seconds, that's what you've got.

Um, what is the most important day of your week?

And I want to suggest this morning that regardless of what you do for a living, regardless of what season of life that you're in, that the answer is actually the same for all of us.

That the most important day of your week is today.

And I'm not saying Sunday, right?

That's like the obvious answer in church.

It's Sunday, right?

If we were having this conversation tomorrow, I would say the exact same phrase.

The most important day of your week is today.

Whether it's Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I can name the rest of the days of the week.

I know them all.

No matter what day of the week it is, today is the most important day of your week.

In fact, I'll take it a step further.

Today is the most important day of your life.

Because today is the only day you're living in.

It's just today.

Now, for some context, kind of how this lines up with what we've been talking about, we're in a series right now called Pai Ho, P-Y-H-O.

It stands for pray your heart out.

And so what we're doing is we're really studying how to pray.

How to pray like Jesus, how to pray with all of our heart, how to really engage with God in prayer, because prayer is meant to be powerful and productive.

James 5.16 says this very clearly: the earnest prayer of a righteous person, righteous means being made right with God, and Jesus has made us right with God if we put our faith in him.

Right?

So you are a righteous person if you believe in Jesus.

The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

So prayer is meant to be powerful and productive.

Doesn't always feel that way, and feelings aren't everything, but the truth is we don't always experience powerful and productive prayer, but we're obviously meant to.

Someone who did experience powerful and productive prayer is Jesus.

And so the beautiful thing about our relationship with God is we have a God who understands us because we have a God who left heaven, set all of his divine privileges aside, came to earth to live as one of us.

He understands life, he understands our struggles, he understands our issues.

And so Jesus knows what it's like to pray, and he knows what it's like to depend on prayer.

Jesus knows what it's like to need to pray.

He understands us.

And so we have this model that we can follow.

We have an example that's been set for us, and Jesus actually took the time to teach us how to pray.

In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus says, Pray like this.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Those are three very powerful words.

Pray like this.

And he follows that up with this very simple prayer.

He says, Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.

May your kingdom come soon.

May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today the food we need and forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who sin against us, and don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.

That's it.

He says, Pray like this, and then you don't have to read seven pages until he says, Amen.

Right?

It's not this long, it's not like there's a wind-up to the prayer.

He doesn't give God like 12 names.

You ever know someone that prays like that?

Like there's 14 adjectives before they get to God, oh, gracious, powerful, merciful, heavenly, all like I've prayed like that before.

He just gives us this simple prayer, and it's it's it's so like Jesus, because if you study Jesus, if you read Jesus' teachings, you'll find that he is succinct.

He is succinct.

That's why it's so interesting when people say that the Holy Spirit has moved, and then church always goes longer when the Holy Spirit moves, because Jesus is short, you know, and you'd think the Holy Spirit and Jesus would like be on the same page, but apparently not, because if the Holy Spirit moves, it goes longer, you know, whatever.

But like, I thought that would get at least one laugh, like one.

Ha ha.

Alright, whatever.

Um so no, Jesus he's he's like succinct, but he's so he's so deep.

And almost everything Jesus says, it's it's like a sentence, but there's there's so much there.

And in this very short, powerful prayer, this prayer he gives us as an example to teach us how to pray, he's showing us so much about life, he's showing us so much about what it really looks like to go to God.

And so we've been going through this prayer piece by piece, and today we're on verse 10, where he says, really simply, give us today the food we need.

Give us today the food we need.

Now, the New American Standard Version, which is a little closer to the original language, puts it this way.

This might be more familiar sounding to you if you've studied this before.

He says, Give us this day our daily bread.

Which sounds kind of funny, right?

Like, give us this day our daily bread.

It's redundant.

But in the original language, there there are there are two words for day.

Jesus actually used a word that meant like this day, today, and then he used this other word for daily.

And so that redundancy, it's it's original to what Jesus said.

Give us this day our daily bread.

We see this huge emphasis on today.

What Jesus is essentially saying through this prayer is, hey, if you want to know what it's like to pray your heart out, if you really want to pray like me, pray today about today.

Pray today about today.

That we should pray every single day about the day that we're actually in.

Now, I don't know if you're someone who values efficiency, but that is not a very efficient way to pray.

It'd be so much more efficient if Jesus said, hey, pray weekly about your week.

Pray monthly about your month.

And look, you can totally pray about your month, your year, your decade, your life, you can pray about your week, you can pray about any amount of time you want, but Jesus says, pray today about today.

And I like things to be efficient.

I don't know about you, I like things to be efficient.

I don't like to waste time.

And we live in a world that's all about convenience, and sometimes the convenience we experience makes us less tolerant of inefficiency.

Like you ever get mad at inefficient things in your life?

Sometimes it really bothers me, and I I I have to I have to ask forgiveness for my wife so often from this stage.

And some of the times it's because I can be kind of cranky and a jerk on Sunday mornings.

Not that that happened this morning.

Could have.

I don't know.

That's up the, you know, we'll just have to.

I'm sorry, Megan.

Um, but also, number two, uh, I get I get stuck.

Like there's certain things that they just get in my brain, and and it's like all it takes is one thing to trigger this huge conversation.

Like, I just I have these things that I get really passionate about and they don't matter at all, but a few times a year something will happen and it jogs my memory, and I'm like, you know, that's why I'm always saying that they should just do it this way.

For example, getting your picture taken with Santa, this has to change, people.

Like, it's ridiculous.

Now I'm sure we can, I'm sure we can all relate.

Who here has has ever had your picture taken with Santa?

You have some picture of your family at some point, okay?

Who here has ever taken your child to get their picture taken with Santa?

Or you handed your child to a perfect stranger, told that child to sit on his lap and smile, which is a horrible way to train your children, right?

Like you did that.

How many of us have been Santa?

Anyone ever been Santa?

What?

I did not expect any hands to go up.

Well, I have a whole new view of you, man.

That's so interesting.

You lost a lot of weight.

That's amazing.

Santa.

Wow.

Okay.

So I guess it could all, it's a it's the suit, isn't it?

It's all in the suit.

I never even thought that.

See, I thought they had to be really committed to that role.

Like, I gotta put on you know a lot of weight for this, but whatever.

Okay, so we all get the whole Santa thing.

If you haven't taken your child or any child to the mall to be had to have their picture taken with Santa in like the last 30 years, it hasn't changed at all.

It's the same, and it's horribly inefficient.

Number one, you start in a line.

You know what children love?

They love long lines.

Like if you want your kids to smile and be happy, have them stand in a line for 35 to 40 minutes before they do that thing.

Because they get in the line excited, they're like, Santa! And then 35 minutes later, they're bawling.

Like, can we please go?

I want to go.

And lines are not a new thing.

And lots of whole industries have come up with creative ways to hide the fact that you're in a line.

Like when you go to a restaurant and there's a wait, that's just the line.

But that restaurant doesn't say, please stand here and wait in line.

They give you a little buzzer, and about five minutes before your table is ready, it buzzes and you feel like you've won a prize.

You know?

You're like, whoa, whoa, wow, wow, that's like we won the lottery.

Woo, it's our turn.

And you go and you're excited, and it's like you don't even mind that you had to wait because you're the winner.

They they could do that.

They could say, hey, here's your little buzzer when when you're two people away, we'll buzz you, and you come, and and you could go take your kid to the food court, because Santa's always by the food court, right?

You could take your kid to the food court and wait for that buzzer and then you win the prize, but no.

No, that would be efficient.

What they do is they just have you stand in this line.

And and it's awful.

And then you go and you have your picture taken with Santa, this happened the last time with us, and Megan was like, Justin, please, please stop.

Just stop.

Because after the picture, we got another line, a second line.

And in this line, they handed us all the information for all the picture packages we could choose.

It's this packet, and we have to look through all this stuff, and and and I'm like, you know, I just stood in line for 30 minutes.

You could have handed me this packet at the very beginning.

I could have looked at all my options.

I could have, I could have looked at everything that I could do.

I could have actually filled all this out because I have to fill things out.

I have to write, you know, those forms where every letter has to be in a box, like those things?

I could have done all this in the first line.

Why am I in a second line?

And Megan's like, Justin, you just just this is just how it is.

Just stop.

And then because I'm already kind of worked up because I'm I'm annoyed at the inefficiency, um, I start looking at the picture packages and I'm like, these don't make any sense.

Number one, like wallet photos.

Is that still a thing?

I'm not judging you if you have a wallet with like photos in it, but I'm pretty sure at the very least, since the invention of smartphones, that the market for wallet photos has taken a huge dive.

Because if I want to show you a picture of my child, I'm just like, here, this is my kid.

I'm not like, hold on, let me thumb through the last Santa pictures for the last wallet photos?

Why is that even a thing anymore?

You know?

And I I was talking to the lady working at the desk and I said, hey, I really just want a digital version of this.

And there was no option for just a digital.

I don't want to print out.

You know, I'm gonna post these on my Facebook page or something like that.

I'm not, I'm really not gonna print it out and put it in a frame.

Can I just get a digital version?

She said, Oh, for$30, in addition to the printouts, because you have to choose those.

Um, it's like they already bought the paper and they have to sell you the the printouts.

I don't know how it works, but for$30, we can give you a C D.

And I was like, Well, I don't even have a computer that has a CD drive.

I don't.

Like if you go buy a new like laptop, they don't have CD drives anymore.

We live in a time when CDs are old.

That's crazy to think about, right?

And I'm like, I don't I don't have a computer with a CD drive.

Could you just email me a link?

And they're like, no, we can't do that.

Well, you have you have my email, you know.

You haven't like and she's like, no, and I'm like, fine.

And Megan's going, Justin, please, you know, just get the CD.

And I'm like, well, hold on, hold on, hold on.

And I'm telling Megan, just I got this.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I got this.

I have a flash drive on my keys.

And I said, hey, I don't have a computer with a CD drive at home.

I mean, I could take it to work and then drag that off the CD and like email it to myself and all that stuff.

That's just way more inefficient than it needs to be.

Can you just put this in the computer?

Put my flash drive in your computer, take the picture that you're gonna drag to the CD, and instead just drag it to this.

And I save you the cost of the CD.

I'm saving you money.

You know?

And she says, no, it has to be a CD.

And I start getting really frustrated at this point, but I'm in a lose-lose situation because the person that I'm starting to argue with is 17 years old and is dressed like an elf.

And so, like, you can't, what do you do?

If you were at the mall and you walked by, just in like a walk by, and this guy is giving it to this 17-year-old girl dressed like an elf, you were like, what a jerk.

Come on, man.

And so I realized I can't.

I've said, fine, give me this CD.

And I promise you, in a bin somewhere in our house, there's like three CDs that have pictures of our children with Santa, and we've never even, we they're just we just have the CDs, and we're hoping that 30 years from now there will be CD drives somewhere that we can use.

It's just so inefficient.

And I don't like inefficiency.

I like things to go smooth and fast.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm a hypocrite.

I don't care about my efficiency, it's just everyone else's efficiency that really bothers me.

And so when Jesus says, pray today about today, that's just not very efficient.

But the truth is, efficient and effective are not the same thing.

And we should be far more concerned with what's effective than with what's efficient.

And there is something really powerfully effective about praying one day at a time.

About praying today, about today.

And we see this emphasis on the day at hand come up a lot in scripture.

For example, James in the New Testament.

James was a leader in the early church.

And if you've ever read the letter that James wrote, James is a straight shooter.

He does not mince words, he is a direct individual.

He says, Look here.

You know anyone that says, look here.

Like, he's snapping his fingers, you know, look here, you who say, today or tomorrow we're gonna go to a certain town and we'll stay there for a year, we'll do business, we'll make a profit.

How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow?

Your life is like the morning fog.

It's here a little while, then it's gone.

James is a super upbeat dude.

So he says that, and it's interesting, even though that's kind of a direct way to put it, he's echoing something that his brother said.

His brother was a man named Jesus, and he said, So don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries.

Today's trouble is enough for today.

Both James and Jesus are definitely like hinting back to one of the Proverbs, a very famous proverb, Proverbs 27:1, which says, Don't brag about tomorrow, since you don't know what the day will bring.

Proverbs 27:1

We see this emphasis often in Scripture on today.

Don't forget what day it is.

You know, today is an important day, and I'm telling you, today is the most important day of your week.

In fact, today is the most important day of your life because today is the only day you're living in.

Just today.

You are not living in yesterday and you are not living in tomorrow.

When tomorrow becomes today, it will become the most important day of your life because it will be the only day you're living in.

And Scripture is practically begging us to take today seriously, to give today the importance that it deserves.

And so Jesus says, pray today about today.

And if we would just listen to Jesus and do that, it's so simple.

If we would make it a practice daily, to pray today about today, I'm telling you, we would experience some major change in our lives.

This is so helpful, this is so practical, this is so useful.

I I love it when Jesus just gives us something where you can grab a hold of it and go, yes, I can do this.

When you pray today about today, some some really powerful things happen.

In fact, I want to focus quickly on three things that praying today about today helps you remember.

Three things that are very easy to forget.

Number one, when you pray today about today, you remember what day it is.

And that should be easy, right?

That should be easy.

It should be easy to remember what day it is, but it's actually kind of hard.

At the very least, it's hard for us to remember that the day at hand is actually important, and we should give it our focus because it's so easy for us instead to be fixated on either the past or the future.

Example, um, two months ago, I had a really serious argument with a gentleman, really intense.

He had said something to me that was rude.

Um, and so I'm gonna be honest with you guys, I'd let him have it.

Like I gave it to him.

I did not hold back.

I you ever hear the word zinger?

You know, like you give someone a zinger, put them in their place, it was like zinger, zinger, zinger, zinger, zinger.

And I was like, you know what, dude?

And I'm like this and this and this.

And it was, I mean, it's like super intense.

Now, did that conversation actually happen?

No, not physically, but in my mind, it did.

Okay, the dude wasn't even anywhere near me.

What happened was this I'm driving in my car, and I know I'm not the only one who's had this experience.

I'm driving in my car, and all of a sudden I have this memory of this thing that this guy said to me two and a half years ago, and it was incredibly rude.

And so, in the moment, two and a half years ago, when he said that, my reaction was like, Come on, man, seriously, come on, like, what in the world?

That's what I did.

But since that time, probably two or three times a year, out of nowhere, I'll just be driving, you know, and I'm like, you should pay attention to the road when you're driving, but that's what I really like to think.

So I'm driving, and uh, and it just comes back, and my brain starts going, you know what I should have said?

Oh man, had I said that, and I'm like, and I'm starting to, I'm playing that out in my head, and so I'm reliving that whole thing.

And he says the same thing that he said, but this time, instead of me going, like, come on, man, what's up?

Like, don't do that.

Instead, I'm like, oh, you know what?

You think that?

Well, how about this?

And then I'm just giving it to him and I'm reaming him, and in my mind, he's like, Oh, I'm so sorry, I've offended you, and I'm wrong.

Clearly, Justin, I am wrong.

I have this massive argument in my head with a person who said something to me two and a half years ago that bothered me.

I'm I know you've done that.

And in that moment, what I'm doing is I'm completely and totally living in the past.

And actually, if you want to be really honest about it, I'm I'm inviting a pain from my past into my present, and I'm allowing it to affect my present.

Because even like brain chemistry wise, adrenaline, the same chemicals of stress that that flood your brain when you're actually in an argument, those still come into your brain when you're imagining an argument that isn't even happening.

But I'm so fixated on the past, something that happened years ago, that I'm letting it affect my day.

It's very easy to forget what day it is because you're so fixated on the past.

It's really easy to forget what day it is because you're so focused on the future.

And look, it's it's good to plan.

I have a meeting today after the second gathering to talk about something happening in 2020, and it's not even 2019.

You know, but sometimes you have to have meetings like that.

You have to be ahead of the game.

That's that's good, right?

To a degree.

But sometimes we can become so focused on the future that we forget what day it is.

I know I've shared this story before, but in 2013 I forgot my wife's my wife's birthday.

Just forgot it.

She had to talk to me at six o'clock that night.

She said, Do you know what day it is?

And I started thinking, okay, it's September.

It's like, oh my goodness.

And she's right there.

It wasn't even like on the phone.

I couldn't hang up and pretend like I lost coverage or anything.

You know?

I could have faked like narcolepsy or something and just fallen over.

But now I was, I mean, I was stuck.

I forgot her birthday.

Now, at that time in our lives, she was pregnant, and so I had all these dates in my mind.

She was pregnant, so we had a due date.

We were in the process of moving uh out of our house, so and it had actually been sold, so there was a closing date and a moving date, and then there was another house that we were under contract for, so there was another closing date and another moving date, and my mind is just so flooded at that time with dates that I forgot what day it actually was.

I mean, she could have asked me, hey, when's our closing date?

Boom.

When's the second closing date?

Boom.

What's moving date?

This, what's that date?

What's the due date here?

What day is it today?

I have no idea.

You know?

Sometimes we're so focused on the future that we forget what day it is, but but when we pray today about today, it brings us back into today.

And so if you've been focused on your past, allowing some hurt, some wound, some situation from maybe even years ago or months ago affect your day.

If you're so focused on the future, you've got plans, you've got dreams, and by the way, good for you, that's that's good.

But if you're so focused on that that you're not experiencing the most out of today, the solution to that is just to pray today about today.

When you do that, it reminds you what day you're actually living in, and that's today.

When you pray today about today, it also reminds you, helps you remember that we depend on God every day.

Whether we realize it or not, we live in daily dependence on God.

And that's something that God has taught us all throughout Scripture.

That's something God has been reminding us as people for centuries.

For centuries.

In fact, in Exodus, if you've never read the book of Exodus, really interesting story, second book of the Bible.

It's a story of the people of Israel leaving slavery in Egypt, and they're kind of in this limbo state where they don't have a land yet, and they spend 40 years in this desert, and it's it's crazy the things that happen, because there's like a million of them, and there's not enough food in a desert for a million people.

So God has to miraculously do some things just to keep them alive, and one of those things has to do with this thing called manna.

You've probably heard of manna.

When we say something is manna from heaven, we mean it's like a blessing just drops in your lap, just out of nowhere.

Here it is.

And the original manna was food that just showed up every day.

The people of Israel would wake up in the morning and covering the ground would be manna, would be food.

It was almost, I guess, like bread is probably the best way we could describe it, but not that exact thing.

And it was, it was manna, it was their food for the day.

And what's really cool about that is that God made sure they had just enough for the day, but but he didn't give them enough for the week.

Now, the day before the Sabbath, because they were supposed to take the Sabbath off and not do anything, he would give them enough for two days.

But every other day of the week they got enough for the day at hand.

And we actually see this in Exodus.

It's a really cool story.

Exodus 16, 4.

It says, Then the Lord said to Moses, Look, I'm gonna rain down food from heaven for you.

And each day the people can go out and they can pick up as much food as they need for what?

That day.

I will test them in this way to see whether or not they will follow my instructions.

And guess what?

They don't.

Verse 17.

So the people of Israel did as they were told.

Some gathered a lot, some only a little.

But when they measured it out, everyone had just enough.

Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over, those who gathered only a little had enough.

Each family had just what it needed.

Then Moses said, Do not keep any of it until morning.

But some of them didn't listen, and they kept some of it until morning, but by then it was full of maggots and had a terrible smell.

Moses was very angry with them.

And if you've ever read the book of Exodus, Moses being mad is a theme.

It happens a lot.

But it's just amazing.

Like God wouldn't even let it last more than a day.

And it's human nature for us, even when we get a blessing.

Even when we get a blessing, it's human nature for us to be like, well, what if I don't get any more?

It's one of those amazing things about us as people that even when we're blessed, we're still worried that maybe this is it.

You know, maybe maybe I gotta make this last because maybe this is the best it's gonna be.

But no, God blesses us every day.

The Bible says his mercies are new every morning.

And whether we realize it or not, we live in daily dependence on God.

Every single day we depend on him.

The reason I'm alive this morning is because God let me wake up.

It's just true.

Scripture says that Jesus holds all things together.

So we depend on God every day.

And so if you go back to James, the scripture I talked about earlier, where he was like, hey, you who brag about what you're gonna do tomorrow and all this stuff, he wasn't he wasn't chastising people for having plans or dreams.

But what he's saying is don't be so confident about your plans for the future that you forget to depend on God.

And that's why in the very next verse in James 4, verse 15, he says, What you ought to say is, if the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.

James 4:15

He's saying, hey, depend on God.

Depend on God.

Proverbs 16, 9 says that a man, right, makes his plans.

That we can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.

God is in control.

Now, if you know him and you know his nature, that should be a very comforting fact.

But sometimes it's scary because we like control.

But God is in control and we depend on him every day.

And when we pray today about today, we remember, oh yeah, I depend on God.

And this morning, today, for the rest of the hours I have left, in this day, I'm gonna depend on him for what I need.

I'm not gonna depend on that other person.

I'm not gonna put my needs and cares and wants on someone else or some other thing and say, hey, I'm depending on you today.

No, no, I depend on God.

When you pray today about today, it reminds you that you depend on God daily.

Number three, final thing, in worship team, you guys can make your way up.

When we pray today about today, it reminds us that God actually cares about our day.

And this is like the most refreshing, sweet thing to me because Jesus prays for what daily bread.

Daily bread.

And there's actually been a lot of discussion and debate for centuries about what he really meant by that, because sometimes in scripture bread is a metaphor.

And so Jesus actually called himself the bread of life.

Right?

And Jesus said to Satan, when Satan tempted him to turn rocks into bread, he said, Man does not live by bread alone, but by the very word of God.

So sometimes we might look at something like this and say, okay, clearly Jesus is talking about something deeply spiritual here.

And there was a lot of debate for centuries about what he actually meant here, and some actually said, no, he's not talking about bread, he's not talking about food, he's talking about something more important than that.

And part of the reason that this debate existed was because there's a word in the Greek that we translate daily, and it's the word epiosis.

And no one could find that Greek word anywhere else in all of ancient Greek literature.

When we take the Bible and in the original languages it was written in, the New Testament was in Greek, we cross-reference that with contemporary writings in Greek from the same era so we know what the context of those words meant because words change in their meaning as time goes on.

And so they do that with all kinds of words, and the cool thing about the Greek language is that we have all kinds of writings from ancient Greek cultures.

And in all those writings, we can never find this word epiosis.

And so a lot of theologians for years actually postulated that Jesus made this word up, that this was like a newly coined word.

And so here we have this mysterious word, epiosis, daily.

Daily bread, epiosis bread.

Jesus must have been making some really cool play on words and talking about something very powerful, very deep.

But but then, not that long ago in history, they found an ancient Greek document that had this word, Epiosis.

And it wasn't, it wasn't a philosophical writing from like Socrates or anyone like that.

It wasn't a political writing, it wasn't a poem, it was a shopping list.

They unearthed an ancient Greek shopping list.

And on this ancient Greek shopping list, somehow preserved for centuries and centuries and centuries, is this word epiosis.

The person was supposed to go to the market and get the epiosis, the daily supplies.

And so Jesus is actually praying about like bread to eat that day.

And I love that because it reminds us that God cares about that.

God cares about your day.

He cares about all the small things in your day.

Jesus echoes this so many times when he teaches Matthew chapter 6, verse 25.

Matthew 6:25

That's why I tell you not to worry about everyday life, whether you have enough food and drink or enough clothes to wear, isn't life more than food and your body more than clothing?

Look at the birds, they don't plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly father feeds them, and aren't you far more valuable to him than they are?

Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

And why worry about your clothing?

Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow.

They don't work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are.

And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you.

Why do you have such little faith?

Jesus is saying, God cares about your day.

He cares about your daily bread, whatever that is.

You know, in that time, in that culture, food was actually something that people had to worry about on a daily basis.

They didn't wake up with the assurance that they had something to eat that day.

That's just not how life was really for almost anyone.

That's a pretty new phenomenon in history.

But what Jesus is saying here is that whatever your daily bread is, whatever need you have today, no matter how small it is, God actually cares about it.

So pray about it.

So what do you have going on today?

Maybe you have some huge need, maybe you have a pressing issue in your life, and it is eating you up.

And I'm telling you, if that's the case, pray today about that very thing because God cares about it.

Or maybe today's your day off.

And maybe today for you just means like grabbing some food, resting, watching football.

Is there football on today?

I don't even know if there is.

Is there?

Yes?

Jimmy says yes.

Thank you, Jimmy.

That's why he sits in the front row.

So maybe that's your day, and you're like, I don't really have anything big.

I have, you know, I'm gonna have a meal, I'm gonna, I'm gonna sit, and I'm gonna watch a game.

Okay, pray about that.

And that may sound like no, you can't pray about that.

Jesus did, he prayed about daily bread.

So pray about your day.

Maybe tomorrow is gonna be busy and you know it.

And so today needs to be restful.

You need to rest today.

So pray about rest.

Say, God, actually, help me rest.

Help me relax today.

Don't, don't, don't let me think so much about what's coming up this week that I I miss out on a chance to relax today.

Maybe you have to go to work today.

Maybe after here you're going to your job and and maybe maybe what you do is something that you you're very familiar with.

It's not like some epic huge thing and you're you're worried about it.

It's just a normal day.

Pray about it.

Because God cares about your day.

Tomorrow when you wake up, as you start your work week, if you work Monday through Friday, maybe your Mondays have been the same for the last several years.

And you already know what Monday is gonna be like.

It's not it's not gonna be big or huge or epic, it's just your Monday.

Pray about your Monday.

Pray about those meetings that you have, those conversations that you have.

Even if they're monotonous, even if they're routine, say, God, be with me as I as I talk to this person, be with me as I make these plans, be with me as I make these decisions, be with me as I drive.

God cares about your day, so pray today about today.

I'm so grateful for Jesus.

I'm so grateful for the reminder that today is important because I'll be honest with you guys, I think we we can all agree with this.

Sometimes I live as if today doesn't matter at all.

Sometimes I live as if yesterday was really important, sometimes I live as if tomorrow is really important, but it's actually more rare than I'd like it to be that I live like today matters.

And Jesus tells us to pray today about today because today is the most important day we have.

It's the only day we're living in.

And so we're gonna pray, we're gonna worship.

And I want us to leave this place today.

My prayer for you, for all of us, is that we would leave this place just saying, Hey God, here's my day.

Be with me.

It's that simple, but but it's powerful.

So, Lord, we love you, and we thank you for this day.

You say in your word that this is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.

Lord, help us rejoice and be glad that we have today.

Help us make the most out of our day, Lord.

Help us help us bring our day to you.

Help us lay our day at your feet and ask you to bless it.

Lord, whatever the daily bread is for the people in this room, for myself, for everyone that's here, I just pray that you you provide it.

That you give us what we need today.

That you would help us to remember what day it is, God, that you would teach us to depend on you every single day, that you would remind us that you care greatly about what's happening right now.

Be with us today.

And tomorrow, be with us today, and the next day, be with us today.

We love you, Jesus, and it's in your name we pray.

Amen.

Love you guys.