Ask, seek, knock
Notes
Transcript
Doing good wrong
Doing good wrong
Lot of driving around this week. Jumpstarting battery. Unplugging fuses. All good for the car’s health.
Except the battery was stuffed.
You can do good wrong. Well intentioned, even sensible actions.
Stop some behaviours. Start some other ones. Embark on resolutions, moral equivalent of fitness plans and diets.
Or, you could also call this ‘Don’t do eye surgery without expert help’
This morning really matters - you could hear everything else in the sermon on the mount and end up doing good wrong. Please stick with me as we stick with Jesus.
RECAP:
We’re actually at the end of the sermon on the mount - the conclusion - here’s a recap:
Ch4: U-Turn for a flourishing life
Ch5: The Heart of the Law: Do good
Ch6: A heart-based religion: To God
Ch7: Be careful in responding
How do I know we’re at the end:
12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
We’ve come full circle.
12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
And we’re in the midst of 3 temptations: last week, the temptation to use the sermon on the mount for others;
this week, the temptation to ‘do to others’ by trying hard to be good people by ourselves (and forgetting God)
next week, the temptation to reject it and choose an easier way
The Golden Rule. But different.
The fence line versus playing in the pastures.
Not just - avoid the bad. Do for others. Not ‘do not x, do not y’, but ‘do’ - creatively, imaginatively, considerately do
Elsewhere in Matthew Jesus summarises the Law and Prophets:
37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Love God fully. Love your neighbour.
Easy to remember, hard to desire and impossible to do.
You can hear this summary, and end up doing good wrong. Or end up hearing Jesus as a harsh taskmaster
12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
In everything...
// depending on how you know someone, your will hear their tone differently..
Look at Jesus to listen properly
Look at Jesus to listen properly
Who is Jesus and what has he come to do...
1 This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:
God’s Chosen Ruler who will bring justice. He cares about what’s right. He knows it perfectly.
21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
A Saviour for Sin.
23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
God with us. God with us who is the ruler with justice and the saviour for sin.
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!
When he calls the hearers evil - remember the context. His diagnosis is correct. And spoken to encourage, not hurt.
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
He is the bringer of rest for the weary and burdened - not the bringer of more worse burdens. He is gentle and humble.
14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.
God not fickle, malicious, excluding - but protective of the little ones.
14 Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
Inviting.
28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Rescue of sinners by giving his life as a swap. The ruler of the universe, the rescuer - as a suffering servant who absorbs God’s justice that we deserve.
28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Dies - as a sacrifice - to bring forgiveness.
This is the Jesus who speaks here. For our good. For human flourishing and wholeness. Like a good doctor describing what is actually wrong. But also a servant sacrifice to make us right.
26 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
After the rich man walks away from Jesus and the disciples wonder about Jesus’ sanity - and their own belonging in God’s kingdom. Were they in because they will do enough good? No.
Like Thomas (not his real name) - wrongly turning to the sermon on the mount the guide for a good life - but miss a critical step:
it’s impossible without God. But with God it is possible.
It isn’t the surgery. The sermon on the mount is the rehab.
The cure - the surgery - is Jesus’ work - not us doing more good until we reach a high standard. The rescue is already done. You get in by coming to Jesus with nothing to offer (like a child). That is the cure.
28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
If it was as simple as just trying harder to be good - Jesus would not have given up his life. The cure is as radical as the diagnosis is terrible.
Imagine having a busted knee. Imagine you didn’t know the full extent of it, so you got scans, medical reports,
and then you decided to start doing the rehab prescribed by the physio - knee exercises, running, weight training, swimming.
But you never got the knee reconstruction surgery.
Foolish, right?
Misguided.
We can misread the sermon on the mount like this. A diagnosis of the problem, a prescription for a flourishing life.
Either we get busy doing it, or decide it’s impossible, or do it for a while and then decide it’s impossible, or do it for a while and feel clever about our progress...
But plank-in-eye removal is not a solo job.
But it doesn’t stop at the surgery.
Ask, Seek, Knock
Ask, Seek, Knock
The meat of our words from Jesus this morning throw us to the cure.
Don’t put rehab before the cure. Don’t try to ‘do’ the good without coming to God in need.
7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?
Redundant. Makes the point twice. (see what I did there?)
Ask God for help. Pursue and chase God for help. Keep doing it - again and again as Jesus’ diagnosis keeps sinking in.
The sermon on the mount is diagnosis and rehab - but the cure is Jesus: his death, access to God the Father, the Holy Spirit coming to live within you to recreate your heart and your mind and your values and your desires - bit by bit.
Don’t skip past the cure. Don’t make the mistake of turning the rehab into the cure.
It is God’s work to give you eyes and ears to accept the diagnosis.
And then it is God’s work to make you new (the cure is in the cross of Jesus).
And then finally, it will be God’s work to help you do the rehab of learning a new way of living.
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!
And don’t make the mistake of forgetting what God is like.
There’s a time when Jesus is speaking about how much we must love him, compared to any other good love.
He says we have to hate our mother and father. But we know this is strong hyperbole - because on the cross as he dies he takes care of his mother. And long before the cross he takes care of Peter’s mother in law. But he means our love for him must be so strong, every other love looks like hate in comparison. Nothing should compete with him.
Here again is a strong contrast. You, being evil. Given he is king of kings and holy one - his diagnosis is right. But that’s not mainly his point. His main point is that in all our selfishness, and fighting, and ungodliness, even we know that parents should give basic needs to their children. And that by comparison - God our Heavenly Father is not at all selfish or wicked, but rather, he will ‘much more’ than even our best parenting - give us what is good (not even just what we ask for).
So we should ask.
Ask for rescue. Ask for help to learn to walk again after our heart surgery and forgiveness. Chase God for the power to love him and others the right way.
3 times, 3 kinds of asking. God give me the power to love those who hurt me. Give me the help to stop worrying. Give me a love for my brother or sister who is sinning instead of a critical spirit.
Next week: this is not an easy way. But here and now it is guaranteed by God to be possible to turn the other cheek.
So, if you’re even a little convinced by Jesus’ diagnosis that our hearts need surgery.
And attracted to the new way of living he describes.
Get busy doing you chasing after God for help to do it.
Father, what we know not, teach us;
what we have not, give us;
what have are not, make us;
for the sake of your Son our Saviour. Amen.