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| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) Songs: Trinity Psalter Hymnal: #520 What a Friend we Have in Jesus Psalm 5 (1, 3, 5) #255 Day by Day
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Beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, the first recorded instance (in the Bible) of men praying is found in Genesis 4: 25-26. It says, At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.
It’s no coincidence that we read of this after Paradise was lost, after man fell into sin, and after God’s Gospel promise to save and redeem fallen man through the seed of the woman – God’s son Jesus Christ. as one commentator said: it is the awareness of our sin and misery, coupled with our faith and hope in the promises of the Gospel that spurs on our prayers – as we ask God to help us, to strengthen us, to give us grace to persevere until he comes again or calls us home.
And all throughout the Bible we hear the call to prayer, and we see the example of prayer (as prophets, priests and kings called upon God in prayer, as Daniel prayed faithfully in Babylon, and as Jesus prayed throughout His ministry – and as he was troubled in spirit in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying three times that the Father would take this cup of suffering from him.
This evening we’re going to consider how Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 7 – where he calls us to ask, to seek, and to knock. This evening, in preparation for the prayers that we are about to offer, let us listen and learn from our Savior how and why we are to pray to God.
1. How are we to pray? Asking, Seeking and Knocking
2. Why are We to Pray? Because we have a Loving and Faithful Father
1. How are we to pray? Asking, Seeking and Knocking
In our passage Jesus employs three different words – three verbs that all are in the present imperative mood, which means they these are commands. Jesus commands us to ask, and to seek, and to knock.
There is a lot of discussion and debate over whether these three verbs are merely synonyms for prayer (a way of saying the thing with different words), or if there is in fact a progression intended, an increased urgency and intensity as we go from asking to seeking to knocking. While I am not convinced that there is a clear progression intended here – I do believe that with each word Jesus used, he was teaching us something important about the nature and character of our prayer life.
First, Jesus calls us to ask. Asking is what poor beggars do. Boys and girls, a beggar (at least in the days of Jesus) is someone who had no money, often no home, and they were usually sick or lame so that they could not work, and each day they had to stand or lie by the city gate and beg; they had to rely upon the generosity and charity of others in order to survive.
Back in the opening verses of Matthew 5, in the Beatitudes, Jesus said blessed are they who are poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. It’s significant that this is the first beatitude, the foundational beatitude, because being poor in spirit means that we acknowledge our sin and misery. We know that we are spiritually poor, bankrupt before God. We know that we deserve nothing from God except his just wrath and condemnation.
Yet, that is the prerequisite, this is the first step that helpless sinners must take as we come before God. In that same way, prayer -- at its very essence and core, is a poor beggar standing empty handed before God, asking God for that which we do not deserve: his grace, his love, his mercy; his help, his kindness and his blessing.
But perhaps an important distinction to make here is that we are no ordinary beggars. No. We are children of God adopted by grace. We are not strangers to God, rather we are known by God, loved by God and saved by God. So then as children of God, as joint heirs with Christ to every spiritual blessing, we beggars can have every confidence that God will open wide for us the vast storehouses of blessings of the kingdom of God.
The second command of Jesus is to seek. Seek and you shall find. to seek means to “desire to have or experience something; to try to obtain something from someone.” As one person put it: “Seeking is asking plus acting. When you seek after something, you are now actively engaged in the pursuit of that item – your heart and your soul are yearning after it -- you seek after that which you desire until you find it.
Then thirdly, Jesus says knock. Knock and the door shall be opened unto you. Boys and girls, when we knock on a door, what is our hope, or our intention? (Next week, for example, we will be going into the neighborhoods near church and we will be going door to door, knocking on doors – ringing doorbells). What do we hope to accomplish? We want to have a conversation with the people on the other side of that door.
Now it’s true that when we knock on those doors, we don’t always get a response (I’d say it’s less than 50% of the time). Sometimes it’s because no one is home. But many other times it’s because the people inside the home would rather not come to the door. We knock, and then they wait inside, hoping that we’ll only knock once, and that we will quickly give up and walk away. Because of that, I make a habit of knocking (or ringing) twice, of not giving up too quickly.
There’s an interesting parable that we find in Luke’s account of the Sermon on the Mount. He records it, but Matthew does not. I want to share that with you because I think it helps us understand what Jesus is getting at here when he calls us to knock. Go to Luke 11: 5-11
“And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”
What’s the lesson here? Isn’t it this: “Don’t stop knocking.” Don’t give up. Why did the man inside, who was asleep with his family, why did he finally get up and give this man what he needed? Was it because the man was his friend? No. It was because of the man’s persistence. He kept knocking and would not go away.
(Again, this is a parable that Jesus tells int order to teach us what it means to be persistent in prayer – but this parable is not about the Father. We would never say that the reason the Father eventually answers our prayers is to shut us up and make us go away. No. We must remember that every parable has its own purpose and intention and point of application.).
So this is what it means to pray: to ask as beggars, to seek after God’s favor and blessings with a strong desire, and to knock persistently, even confidently and expectantly knowing who is on the other side of our prayers – knowing that the God to whom we pray is always listening, and that He is willing and able to answer our prayers, and knowing that God never grows weary of our asking, nor does he wish that we would just go away. No, his will, his desire, his command is that we knock, and that we keep on knocking, as we wait in patient expectation.
Let’s also take a moment to consider the corresponding promises to each of these verbs: ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened unto you. What exactly does that mean? How are we to understand this in connection with our prayers?
We’re going to talk about what this means positively in just a moment when we talk about the loving character and generous nature of our Heavenly Father. But to explain this negatively – to tell you what it does NOT mean, it does not mean that whatever we pray for is granted. Prayer is not some blanket guarantee or some magical way to coerce God into giving us whatever we want.
We know that because Jesus also taught us to pray “Thy will be done.” Every prayer, every petition of the child of God is subject to the divine, perfect will of God. And we also do well to remember that the God to whom we pray is an all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, all-hearing God.
Our prayers do not make God more aware of our situation. Our prayers do not inform God – as if God does not know. Our prayers do not help God to better understand what we are feeling, or to convey to Him how much we are suffering. No. God cannot be manipulated. And God is not blind, or deaf, or ignorant or impotent.
No. God knows us and He knows our situation better than we do. You may ask – but then why do we bother to pray if God knows all this? Remember, we don’t pray for God’s sake, we pray for our sake – because God wants us to humble our hearts, to look away from our own pride and self-sufficiency, and God wants us to come to him, to run to him like little children who find in HIM all our sufficiency, all our needs fulfilled.
And in God’s infinite wisdom and divine foresight, God knows best what’s best for us. And while there are many times that God does grant what we pray for, there are other times when God does not grant what we pray for, when God withholds that which we pray for. And why is that?
Because God knows what is best for us and our loved ones in every situation. God may have other designs, other purposes in mind that are far greater, that are more grand-and-glorious than we can see or imagine at that moment. We may think that the greatest thing God could do in the moment of our need is to heal our loved one, or cure our cancer, or stop the pain, or remove that thorn in our flesh, or help us get a new job, or find a Godly spouse.
Again, God may grant that. But God may also choose to test us, to sanctify us, to deepen our sense of trust and dependency on him, or to help us to learn patience, true humility, and to build Godly character and hope – as God might be telling us that there will be no cure for our illness, and so now we must look with eyes of faith on the life to come.
So, people of God, we ought to be comforted and encouraged by this. Jesus our Savior taught us to pray like this because He not only knows us, and how much we need the Father’s grace and help and strength, but Jesus also knows the Father. Jesus knows the heart of the Father – His great love, His tender mercies, and His great faithfulness. Jesus knows that the Father will not turn a deaf ear to the cries of his dearly loved children.
2. Why are We to Pray? Because we have a Loving and Faithful Father
And that brings us to the second point: Why are we to pray? Because we have a loving and Faithful Heavenly Father. Jesus highlights the Father’s love in Matthew 7:9-11.
Which of you (earthly fathers), if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
Jesus often employed this method of teaching or argumentation -- which was a form of comparison. It is called an argument from “the lesser to the greater.”
Back in Matthew 6:25ff, when Jesus was urging the people not to be worried or anxious about life, or about what they will eat or drink or wear, Jesus said: Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? (it’s a rhetorical question – an obvious answer! Of course! It’s an argument from the lesser to the greater).
Then verse 28: And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? (again – the lesser to the greater. God will take care of all the needs of His people).
Here in Matthew 7, the lesser point of comparison is the love and care of earthly fathers. Let me clarify this as well: the fact that some children are abused by their earthly fathers and treated with hatred and cruelty does not diminish the truth of what Jesus is saying.
Just as Jesus does elsewhere, he draws upon a basic principle, a universal truth, something that is known and understood: the strong relationship between an earthly father and his children -- one that is marked by love, and care, and protection and provision.
Jesus is saying earthly fathers would never be so cruel, so heartless as to trick or tease their children by giving them a stone instead of bread, or if he asks for a fish, to give him a snake instead. That’s absurd. That’s unthinkable. No earthly father would ever do that!
So then, how much more can we trust that our Heavenly Father (the greater point of comparison) will give good gifts to those who ask him! And beloved, the greatest example, the strongest evidence, the indisputable proof of this statement of Jesus is witnessed in the Father sending His Son Jesus into the world!! Jesus knew this full well!
As John 3:16 says: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
How much does God love you? Sure, it’s easy for us to complain in the moment, to grumble against God, as Logan Pitsenberger preached about a few weeks ago. I was struck by that sermon because I too, like those ungrateful Israelites, I too quickly lose sight of the goodness of God, his daily mercies and kindness and provisions – and when I suffer a set-back, a trial, a test, I grumble. I complain, l question why God is bringing this particular inconvenience into my life at this moment – and why can’t he just remove it?
But that is when we must like Job, repent in dust and ashes, and ask ourselves who are we to talk back to God? Who are we to darken God’s counsel with such foolish thoughts?
Instead, we ought to remember what Paul writes in Romans 8: 31-32 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 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?
There’s another interesting comparison for us. Paul wants to impress upon what is at one and the same time a very simple truth, and yet what it an utterly and indescribably profound and unthinkable truth: God the Father willingly gave up His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who gave up the glory He had with the Father in heaven, and who came into this world, and who suffered and died in great shame and humiliation and agony on the cross—who became sin for us, taking upon himself all our sin and guilt and unrighteousness – all so that we undeserving sinners could be set free, all so that we could be counted as righteous in God’s sight and receive the gift of Sonship – that we might now be the adopted children of God, adopted by grace, through faith in Jesus.
God did all that for us – the greatest gift God could ever give; the greatest provision God could ever make for fallen mankind. So, Paul writes how much more then won’t God graciously give us all things. Now that Christ’s work of salvation is finished, and God has adopted us as His dearly loved sons and daughters, the rest is a very easy thing for God to do.
God opens up to us, his beloved children, the storehouses of heavenly blessings above, and he pours out upon us grace upon grace, all that we need for body and for soul, for this life and the next. And while it does not mean that our every wish will be granted, and while it does not mean that we will never go through periods of want and even poverty, it DOES mean that God and his grace will always be sufficient no matter what trial we encounter, no matter if we live a long life in this world, or if we are called home early in life.
God is our loving Father who knows our every need. Therefore, let us come to him in prayer – asking, seeking and knocking. Knowing, trusting and believing that he who asks receives, he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, the door shall be open. Amen.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Pastor Keith Davis, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
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