Ask. Seek. Knock. Love. | The Book of Matthew: Sermon on The Mount | Matthew 7:7-12 | Pastor J. M. Lee

Good morning! If you have a Bible pease open it to Matthew 7. We are continuing our study of the Gospel according to Matthew and …today ….we find ourselves nearing the end of the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever lived.

In the Sermon on the Mount…….Jesus has called us to live as citizens of God’s Kingdom…and as Kingdom citizens we are called to pursue a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees……an overwhelming task…but as we have seen …. Kingdom righteousness only comes about as we are changed by God’s grace and power in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This theme continues in our text this morning…..and it provides us with a foundation for understanding confidence and persistence in prayer…. and for understanding how to live an authentic… Christ-centered life that loves God and loves others.

Now…if you are able to..please stand for the reading of God’s Word.

Matthew 7:7–12 (CSB)

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, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 Who among you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him. 12 Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

This is the Word of the Lord.

Let’s Pray

The time and space in which we live can be defined as fast-paced…busy…and chaotic. Our culture provides us with deeply rooted societal pressures. We spend our days running on a relentless treadmill chasing after success and validation….a pursuit that never satisfies and often leads us to compromise.

This treadmill is powered by social media….and….the pressure to perform and conform can be overwhelming….in fact….. the burden of fitting in and the striving to be accepted often leads to a constant sense of inadequacy…..a feeling that leads us to work harder and pursue more….more wealth..more stuff…more experiences….and the result is an anemic and diminished spiritual life…..a sense of emptiness and dissatisfaction…. and …ultimately….a heart that is far from God.

It’s in the midst of these turbulent cultural currents that our faith often stumbles….. laying bare a profound issue….which is an underlying lack of trust in our all-good… all-wise ….Heavenly Father. And….this faith deficiency naturally becomes a stumbling block….hindering our ability to persistently and confidently pray for the transformative character of the Kingdom of God in our lives.

This weakened faith plays out in our lives as a struggle…a wrestling match between our desire for self-preservation and the call to love God and love others. The truth is…. in the face of these challenges… our hearts become distant from God… and we find ourselves grappling with the tension of prioritizing personal comfort over the call to love Jesus, live like Jesus, and lead others to Jesus.

So….how can we…..in the face of these significant challenges….how can we nurture a resilient and steadfast faith that transcends our natural inclination to protect ourselves, accumulate possessions, and use others? How can we break free from the shackles of cultural norms and materialism, enabling us to genuinely pursue a life of righteousness and sincerely love our neighbors as ourselves?

Well…our text this morning is helpful…. for it points us to the truth that because God is a good and wise Father,….we can live our lives triumphantly, with peace and joy in our hearts. We can be ready to confidently face whatever life might throw at us. We can love our neighbors as ourselves. And we can do so by accepting Christ's invitation to seek, ask, and persistently knock at the door of our Heavenly Father. Friends…this morning ….we are being invited on a journey to discover prayer's transformative power, cultivate a more resilient faith, and pursue an authentic and Christ-centered life.

Now…I have entitled the prayer in our text …. “The Golden Prayer” …for this prayer provides us with one of the greatest promises found in all of the Bible! This promise is especially encouraging considering the fact that life provides us with a number of uncertainties and unknown possibilities. You see….when life is chaotic and tomorrow is unsure the Son of God has made us an absolute promise. Jesus says,

Matthew 7:7 (CSB)

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you.

And…in order to solidify these words in our heart and soul….Jesus repeats them…and as He does so ….He puts them in a much stronger form. He says,

Matthew 7:8 (CSB)

8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Now…with such a wonderful promise…it’s no wonder..…how….over the years…these words have been misused and taken out of context. For many…these gracious and triumphant words have been used to relieve the pain that comes with life lived in a broken world. These words have become a psychological catchphrase used in attempt to find temporary ease from the pain of life.

You see….over the years …there have been a plethora of unfaithful teachers who have proclaimed that God promises health and wealth……many have unfaithfully applied Christ’s words to the idea that God will give us whatever we desire…. like a spoiled two year old they ignorantly expect God to give them the very things that He has actually asked us to forsake…. and when God does not answer ….they say, “God doesn’t keep his promises” ..and they lose faith .

Other false teachers have proclaimed that Jesus’s invitation to ask, seek, and knock is a promise of freedom from disease, sickness, and pain….simply ask, seek, and knock…for it is God’s will for you to be free…to be healed. And while this false teaching may give a temporary relief….the truth is…God has never promised this…and as people eventually discover…. there are diseases that lead to death….there is pain in this life and God sometimes uses our pain for His glory and our good.

With these misinterpretations in mind…I don’t know about you ….but the first thing I want to do is help Jesus out little bit….I don’t know if He forgot ..but shouldn’t he have added some some qualifications to his invitation to Ask, Seek, and Knock?!?!

I mean…Jesus…you should have clarified your statement….you should have made sure that people knew that you aren’t some sort of Piñata that we hit with a prayer stick and that if we pray consistently ..you will give us whatever we want. It would have been helpful to have an asterisks…a clarification that sometimes you say, No!

But friends…Jesus isn’t like us….He leaves no asterisks…he does not clarify his statement…and I believe the reason for this is because He knows that our bigger problem is not that we believe too much, but that we believe too little. We are too slow to believe, not too quick. We are prone to believe too little of the Father, not too much.

And so…..with all of the fullness and authority of His Father….Jesus invites us…with the faith of a child…..to Ask…Seek…Knock.

But…what is Jesus saying? What are we being invited to ask? What are we seeking? What are we knocking on his door for? Well…we have to remind ourselves of the context of Christ’s words and how at the beginning of chapter 7 Jesus shifts into the theme of judgment…You see….Jesus began this part of His discourse with the question of judging others and the truth that …whether you like it or not….the eye of God is upon us and we ourselves are under the judgment of God.

Last Sunday …in verses 1–6…. Jesus warned us of the danger of condemning other people as if we were the judges…Jesus warned us of harboring bitterness and hatred in our hearts……In fact …in verse 5….Jesus called us Hypocrites and said….

Matthew 7:5 (CSB)

5 Hypocrite! First take the beam of wood out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye.

And the whole point was to show us the tremendously high standard by which we shall be judged and the truth that we desperately need God’s grace!

You see…and the end of verse 6 …we are left in despair…we are left wondering… “What hope do I have?!…..How can I possibly live up to God’s standard? How can I stand before the judgment of God? How can I ever fully love God as I should? Is it truly possible to live like Jesus? Will I ever be able to love my neighbor as myself?!”

You see….We should be left helpless and hopeless and uncomfortably aware of how sinful and unworthy we are. The truth is…we need help…we need God’s grace and mercy…and it is in this context and reality that Jesus says

Matthew 7:7 (CSB)

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you.

If you find yourself this morning helpless and hopeless…..perhaps you have been spinning your wheels searching for peace….perhaps you have been working your fingers to the bone trying to make up for the wrongs you have done….perhaps you feel worthless and you’re wondering if God cares…the truth is…you have made a mess of your life and you wonder if God could ever love you …or accept you.

Friend…if you are in need of a savior Jesus is inviting you to recognize your need this morning…He is inviting you to recognize that you are a sinner….you have rebelled against God…you have attempted to remove the crown off of God’s head and live as though you are king….and the consequence …the Bible says…is death….and not just physical death…but spiritual death….eternal separation from God.

And for those of you who have yet to trust Jesus as your savior and submit to Him as your King…. this morning you are invited to recognize your need….. admit that you are a sinner….realize the effects of your sin….and find salvation in the riches of grace that are in Christ Jesus. Friend….ask, seek, and knock at the door of God….and you will find forgiveness and deliverance from sin and death. In fact…..

Matthew 7:8 (CSB)

8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Now….underline these three words….Ask, Seek, and Knock….it’s important to understand that these three verbs are written in the original language in the present tense…meaning that Jesus is inviting you and I to keep on asking…

I love how the New Living Translation translates this verse:

Matthew 7:7 (NLT)

7 “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.

Now…this instruction to ….Keep on asking….Keep on seeking….Keep on knocking…..speaks to the truth that….well… if you are in Christ…you still have a need…and your need is not for salvation….no…your salvation is secure… in fact Jesus says in John 10:28.

John 10:28 (CSB)

28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.

Brothers and sisters….it was Jesus who saved you…you did nothing to earn or deserve His grace.... and because you did nothing to earn your salvation you can do nothing to lose it. But…if you were honest …there have been days…..extremely difficult days …when it feels like God is nowhere to be found. If you were describe your spiritual life it would be more like a desert than a fountain of living water. In fact…it has been a long time since you heard God speak to you …..you can’t remember the last time you felt God’s presence.

The truth is…you are doing everything you can to be obedient….you’re reading your Bible…you’re attending Church….and yet your prayers seem empty and powerless….obedience is hard…loving others has been impossible…and it seems like bitterness and restlessness has replaced the peace and joy that God has promised.

If God has promised that His door will be opened to us…and that everything we need is available…..then …..why are we what we are? ..why do we experience these spiritual droughts? Why is the quality of our Christian living so poor? Why are we not more perfectly living out the righteoussness Jesus calls us to live out in this Sermon on the Mount? Why are we not conforming more and more to the pattern of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself? If all that we need is offered to us……then….Why!?!? …Why are we not benefiting as we should?

Brothers and sisters….God’s door is not being opened to you because you are not asking God…you are not seeking God…you are not persistently knocking at God’s door as you should.

James 4:2 (CSB)

2 ….You do not have because you do not ask.

I am reminded of a story Jesus tells in Luke 11:5-8…right before He extends this invitation….He said..

Luke 11:5–8 (CSB)

5 …..“Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I don’t have anything to offer him.’ 7 Then he will answer from inside and say, ‘Don’t bother me! The door is already locked, and my children and I have gone to bed. I can’t get up to give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he won’t get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his friend’s shameless boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs.

Then comes our invitation…..Luke 11:9-10

Luke 11:9–10 (CSB)

9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Friends…Jesus is driving home the point that we are to passionately persist in our prayers.

Now….there are times when we will pray persistently… I remember when my Juniper fell down the stairs…perhaps the most terrifying moment of my life…as she laid at the bottom of the stairs lifeless….it was in that moment…of rushing her to the hospital to then following the ambulance to another hospital….it was in that moment of siting in the emergency room at UMC…that I felt helpless and hopeless as my daughter lied unresponsive on a hospital bed … ..I had never prayed more persistently in my life……I was not going to stop seeking….I was not going to stop asking…..and you better believe I was going to break down God’s door until He answered…..and by God’s grace He did.

I also remember the time when the church I pastored closed its doors and I went without work for 6 months. Lucy was just born…so we had a two year old and a newborn…and I had no idea how I was going to provide for my wife and kids….. I remember living on my knees as job after job passed over me for someone else…..I was scared…and so I was asking…I was seeking…and I was knocking….and I didn’t stop until God answered……but here’s the problem…I eventually stopped.

Think about it……when we are in danger…or …when someone we love is in danger….when we are in financial trouble…or if we have a frightening circumstance….we generally find it easy to pray.

But……tell me…do you persist in your prayers for Spiritual growth? Do you persist in your prayers to be filled with the Holy Spirit? Do you keep on knocking on God’s’s door when you are struggling to forgive? When you’re angry….when you’re struggling with bitterness….tell me are you pleading with God to give you a forgiving spirit? Are you persistently …and passionately seeking after God’s empowering Spirit to grow you and conform you into the likeness of Christ?!?

The truth is…we will give ourselves to passionate prayer for our spirtual growth only when we realize that we are in desperate need for God’s grace. Friends…just as salvation is the work of God in your life….so it is with your growth in godliness. Understand…..God’s Kingdom requires perfect righteoussness. In fact we are called to be holy just as God is holy….and Jesus says that it is only the pure of heart that will see God. And if you were to be honest….you would admit that although you do some good things …there is an evil that remains for we are still in a battle against sin.

Brothers and sisters…… God’s perfect standard and the reality of our sin should drives us to our knees and to God’s grace….understand….there is no hope for you apart form God’s grace….. there is no hope in your pursuit to live like Jesus apart from the continual work of the God’s love and mercy. And it’s only when you understand this that you will rejoice and respond to pray the Golden Prayer by praying for those things that make you more like Jesus.

Mission Church…we are to ask and keep on asking….we are to seek and keep on seeking and We are to knock and keep on knocking…and as we do…Jesus has promised that the doors of heaven will be opened to us.

Martin Luther says it like this

God knows we are timid and shy, that we feel unworthy … to present our needs to God.… We think that God is so great and we are so tiny that we do not dare to pray.… That is why Christ wants to … remove our doubts, and to have us go ahead confidently and boldly. - Martin Luther

Which leads us to our next thought……you see….we’re not only being invited to pray persistently….but we are to also pray with boldness and confidence…a confidence and a boldness that’s fueled by the knowledge that God is our Father. A confidence that often escapes us…because….well…one our greatest issues…if not the greatest issue we have in our Christian walk is that we often don't see God as our Father the way we should. We might say we know that God is our Father…. but we don’t live like we truly believe that God is our Father…and we most definitely do not pray like God is our Father…because if we did….not only would the contents and consistency of our prayers change but we would face anything and everything that comes our way with a confident smile.

Take a look back at verse 9…. Jesus wants to assure us that God is a good father who hears us and gives us good gifts. And He begins by asking a couple of rhetorical questions

Matthew 7:9–10 (CSB)

9 Who among you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?

Now…unfortunately there are some fathers who would do this…but Jesus is speaking about parents in general …tell me….parents in the room…if your child asks for bread to eat are you going to put a rock on their plate?? Of course not!!! That’s ridiculous!

And with your response of disgust…..Jesus draws his conclusion…look at verse 11

Matthew 7:11 (CSB)

11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him.

First…notice how Jesus calmly and not so subtly pints out that we are evil…..and I believe He does this to answer the question, “How does God become my Father?” Well consider John 1:11-12.

John 1:11–12 (CSB)

11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name,

You and I became children of God when we were born again….when God gave you the gift of faith and you believed in Him you were given a new life and a new nature.

My son Lincoln …for better or worse..shares in my nature…in both looks and disposition. In the same way…God is holy and you and I are not God’s children until we have received by grace through faith His holy nature. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says it like this…

2 Corinthians 5:17 (CSB)

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!

Simply put, we need to recognize our wrongdoing and understand that we deserve God's punishment. However, God, in His mercy, sent His Son to the cross for our sins. And…when God gives us the gift of faith to believe in Him, we receive a new life and become God's children.

Now….notice that God gives His children good things…He gives good gifts…..Notice….Jesus does not say that God gives us everything we ask for…as though prayer was like rubbing a magic lamp and like God is a genie who give us whatever we want.

If you are a good parent…you tell your kids, “NO!” and you say “NO!” often. Why?! Well…because you are wiser than your kids…you have a better perspective on reality…you know what is best for your kids and you know that saying NO can sometimes be a good thing. In the same way….you have a heavenly Father who is wiser than you…. He has a better perspective than you…and He knows what is best for you…and as a result…He will only give you good gifts.

Now…the question is begging to be asked….what are these good things? What are these good gifts that God gives? Well consider Luke’s parallel account of this conversation. Luke 11:13.

Luke 11:13 (CSB)

13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

At first sight…it seems like there is a contradiction between Matthew's and Luke’s account of this conversation but that could not be further from the truth……for it is the Holy Spirit who knows us better than we know ourselves and He is the one who gives us what is good. Consider Romans 8:26-27.

Romans 8:26–27 (CSB)

26 In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

And the result of the Spirit’s intercession is an overflow of good gifts.…but again…what are these good gifts? Well…the good gifts that God gives is …..Himself….His presence….He fills us with His Holy Spirit….and He grants us with everything we need to know Him more and to grow in holiness and Christlikeness.

Understand…God has not promised us a happy and carefree life. I have yet to help my kids understand this…every time we pray as a family…the first request is, “God, let us have a good day.” And while there is nothing wrong with praying that….our definition of a good day may be extremely different than God’s definition of a good day…and He will only give us His version of what is good…which is whatever will draw us closer to Him and produce in us a more holy and Christlike character.

The Apostle Paul says it like this in Ephesians 5:25-27.

Ephesians 5:25–27 (CSB)

25 … Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. 27 He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless.

Brothers and Sisters….our assurance is this…God will give us anything that is good for us spiritually if we keep on asking for it….for His desire is for us to be holy…and blameless.

Pastor Kent Hughes says it like this:

If you are a believer but are short on Christian graces, you need to keep praying. If you often find yourself lying, if you begin to “ask” and “seek” and “knock,” God will help you become a truth-teller. If you are not generous, make a habit of passionate prayer and he will give you a generous spirit. If you are not kind but persistently seek God for a kind spirit, he will give it to you.

Just think what would happen if we prayed for these things for ourselves and our brothers and sisters as intensely as we pray for our physical needs. The church would explode because a far greater proportion of its people would be living kingdom lives. - Kent Hughes

Now..this leads us to verse 12…a famous verse known as the Golden Rule…but this verse is simply an exclamation point and a proof that should lead us to pray with consistency and confidence for God to produce in us the characteristics of a citizen of the Kingdom of God. .look at verse 12

Matthew 7:12 (CSB)

12 Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Now…this verse has been adopted by people from all walks of life and belief…but stripped from its context this verse is powerless…for apart from being a child of God….apart from the Holy Spirit’s work in you …there is no ability in and of yourself to love others.

Once again Jesus is pointing us to see our inability to keep God’s Law and to see our sin and our need for God’s grace. The truth is…left to ourselves…we are judgmental…critical…bitter..and unforgiving.

You see….Jesus calls us to love others with a love that is only possible after you been given a new nature…..this type of love is only possible for those who recognize their depravity and the depths of God’s grace…this type of love is only possible for those who recognize that every good thing they have is a gift of God…this type of love is only possible for those in whom the Holy Spirit is working…for such a people are completely free from the overwhelming concern to protect themselves and using others to get ahead.

You see if we truly believe that we are God’s children…If we truly believe that God is a good Father who gives us good gifts…If we truly believed that God keeps His promises…If we truly believed that God gives us all that we need …..if we truly believed that God is a good Father who will provide, protect, and vindicate us….then we would be completely free to do for others what we would have them do for us…even if that means completely giving ourselves up for the sake of the gospel.

Friends…God is a good Father who will only ever give you good gifts…you can trust Him..and this morning you are being invited to seek after these good things…you are invited to ask Him and pound on the door of heaven until you receive them. All of the virtues and glories of Jesus …God will give them to you…. if you really want to love Him more…If you really want to live like Jesus…if you really want to be obedient to His call to make disciples…If you really want to be more like Him..if you really ask for these things ..you will receive….if you seek them ..you will find them…if you knock..the door will be open to you and you will enter.

Brothers and sisters if you ask for good things your heavenly father will give them to you.

Lets Pray